Judging Freedom - Ukraine Offensive & Russian Pressure - Jack Devine fmr CIA

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 14th, 2023. It's about 445 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Jack Devine, CIA agent extraordinaire, joins us right after this.

When it comes to carrying valuables or even firearms in your vehicle, most people feel they have to choose between safety and convenience. A vehicle break-in occurs every 36 seconds in America. Give Dad the perfect Father's Day gift this year, the Headrest Safe. The Headrest Safe gives you the power to store cash, jewelry, medication, and yes, even your concealed carry firearm. You'll never have to worry about taking your valuables with you again. Keep them safe with the Headrest Safe. Use promo code JUDGENAP and enjoy $50 off for a limited time at theheadrestsafe.com. Jack, welcome to the show, my dear friend. So if I were the president of the United States and you were briefing me tomorrow on the status of military events in Ukraine, what would you be telling me? Well, I think I would be saying I don't see surprises here on your previous briefing. Basically, you know, the Russians had a big offensive.

It petered out, as I thought it would, and I mentioned it on here. We hyped the counteroffensive. I don't know why we felt we needed to do that. When I say that our allies, we did, the media, that there was going to be a big counteroffensive. I don't know whether they thought we were going to drive the Russians to Moscow. But I think what's happening is I think you're starting to look at a smart maneuvering counteroffensive. But I, as I said on this show several issues ago, several events ago, that, you know that I think they will make some progress, and I think they'll show some weaknesses.

But I'm not expecting a decisive development on the battlefield, either, I mean, decisive in the sense of war ending or getting to the table. I didn't expect it when the Russians did the offensive, and I don't expect it now. So my opinion, if I were the president, is I'm sticking with it, and that this is going to be drawn out. And the real action will start after these two offenses when people reevaluate what the next move is. All right. In this mock Q&A we just did, where I said, if I were the president and you were briefing me, I think you spoke honestly

and candidly from your knowledge from open sources and from your own sources. But doesn't the CIA, when they brief the president, tell him what they think he wants to hear? I hope not. I hope not. There's a long tradition in the CIA. It's really worth, you know, those that are interested going back and reading about Sherman Kent. Sherman Kent, when they first created the analytical group, and they really looked at it philosophically, strategic intelligence, current intelligence, what went to the president, what was our job? Our job is to put the facts on the table. One of the most desirable documents in Washington is the president's daily brief. Every day, a hand-carried briefing is brought to him.

And that, I was going to use some profanity, that better well be nothing but the truth, okay? And firstly, as a professional, you never want to bring junk to the president and have to face it. I mean, first of all, there's a responsibility to do what you were hired to do. Why join CIA if you're going to be a propagandist? All right. What is your view on the offensive? Has it started? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. No, I think it started. I mean, they've got some rain issues and mud. And I think, again, I'm not a war planner in the sense that I'm a logistic guy. I can get things to places, but I leave to the great war students of the West Point and so on to figure out how you run wars tactically on the ground.

But it looks to me like they're making probes. And what they're looking for is where is the place where you can actually make a significant penetration. But as I said, they're not going to penetrate and get to the Russian border. I mean, it would be quite amazing if they did. I think there's going to be a lot of focus around Crimea and the land bridge. But not to be corny, it might be a bridge too far. But it certainly is a worthwhile objective and it would be a psychological blow if any ground was taken in that area. The dam, the bursting of the dam, it denied Crimea a significant portion of its fresh water, relieved the Russians of some land they didn't have to defend because nobody could go there because of the water.

Most of the people in the West say Ukraine blew up its own dam. Was it Ukraine? Was it the Russians? Was it your former colleagues? Was it MI6? What do your sources tell you? Who have you concluded blew up this dam? I think the prevailing official estimates all right are that the russians did it okay um i i don't see how that's really advantageous to the ukrainians um to do that but uh there's also some discussion about just how strong the dam was, but I understand there was an explosion not too long before that. I'm betting on the Russians. You said recently that Russia is facing mounting pressures on multiple fronts. What do you mean? Well, they have pressures inside and out. I mean, one of the ones that I've been tracking with you for

a long time is the fight between the Wagner Group in Prigozhin and the military. I mean, I'm stunned by it. I mean, I can't remember ever seeing that in a major state in conflict. It's getting by. You usually think one party or the other disappears in the middle of the night, right? So I find that extraordinarily telling, and I'm not sure that I can answer the question, why does it continue? Internally, I think what you're beginning to see, or Russians are seeing some of the consequences of it

in terms of real deaths, I think there's economic pressures now as well. So I think there's also raising their level of having trouble getting people into the armed forces and retaining them. So I think their best day maybe was the first day they invaded, right? But I think it's been a slight sense. Now, I was saying and I have been saying for a long time, that it'll be a while, and I'm thinking we're several months out, before you begin to see the ramifications inside Russia. When that starts, then we can really talk about maybe there is some agreement that can be cut, or something will happen internally. And we should not foment that. I want to keep saying this. Before we get to the CIA to be covert.

Before we get to the conditions for an agreement, which I want to pick your brain about, I want to play a clip for you, the latest from Mr. Pergosian, rather measured for him, somewhat uh critical uh of his own people but uh watch this there are subtitles i will do my best to read the subtitles aloud for the benefit of our uh friends who have the show on audio only and then uh you and I can talk about it. In a few words, what's happening, the following is happening. Ukrainian began an offensive. I'm saying all as it is with the offensive.

They do everything competently. They're cutting off certain areas in the Zaborizhia direction. They're moving carefully, calmly. They lost a couple of Leopards and Bradleys. These are normal combat losses. I'm not saying this to promote them, but to judge sensibly. For now, in my view, and according to the valuation of the military on the ground, not enough is being done to counter the enemy.

Are you surprised to hear that? Oh, I've been stunned by his statements. I don't know how you do it. I'll tell you, Stalin would never have permitted it. This would never have been a second statement. So I'm perplexed why it goes on this way. I'm not sure what the game is. All I can say is if you're in the official military, it's got to be, you know, stuck in your crawl, right? I mean, he has to be disliked more than the Ukrainians in my opinion. But he almost sounded like Jack Devine. Well, I was going to make a pun.

The problem with that pun is too many people in the office, in the audience are going to believe me that he's one of ours, right? I'm not going to deny any knowledge or ability to that. Nothing would surprise me. And I have a very smart audience that's very skeptical of the intelligence community. If he was my agent, I would say, no, don't talk that way, for God's sake. You're going to think you're one of us. So that alleviates any suspicion I have. But I find this, but it's serious.

I mean, the fact that that goes on, it's public. He's developing public dissent within the institutions that keep Putin alive. I mean, keep him. I don't get the move here. OK, is the CIA aware of the relationship between Pergozhin and Putin? Do they monitor the communications between the two? And do they have an explanation for this kind of a statement? I have no idea about those questions and I would never, never ask.

It's perfectly okay for you. Yeah, but Jack, you used to do this when you were on their payroll. How could you have no idea? I hope, I hope. But look, you know, Putin's been around the horn. I mean, he was in the FSB and the KGB.

Now, I do know people in CIA, even though they've been trained, that they get on the damn phone and call people and tell them what they're doing. So I don't think their relationship is like that. But there was a very close, you know, they called him Putin's chef. If he's Putin's chef, he better watch the pumpkin soup that he's not trying to poison him, you know. So my point is they had a really tight relationship,

and I think what I've been reading over the years is that some of the funding is coming out of the government. But, you know, it defies my way, my understanding, of how you run a smooth army. I'm sure as hell I would have fired him. There would not have been a second comment from Prokhorov. I mean, a bigger mindset here that I'm missing the grand strategy, it sure as hell evades me. If the Russians take Odessa, is that it? Is it over for the Ukrainians? There's no single place. People have to realize this. There's no single town. There's no single place, people have to realize this, there's no single town, there's no single

border. They're going to keep fighting what we thought, what I thought. Let me stick to what I thought. I don't know, the Russians can't be as bad as I think they are. They're not going to be like what they did in Afghanistan. But they rolled, when they rolled across the border they had, you know, they really looked pretty ragged around the edges in terms of equipment. I thought originally, remember they were offering a ticket to Zelensky to get out of there, because I think why we estimated very properly that Putin was going to invade, I think more people thought they were going to prevail quickly. And I think the estimate was they were going to have guerrilla warfare. There would be fighting. The fighting would go on. They would not, the Russians would not be able to subjugate.

And I would say this today, no matter what combination, even if they took Khakiv, I don't think it's over. I don't think, I think he got into an unwinnable war. And I don't know how he gets himself out of it. In fact, you know, my op-ed says he's going to go. He so deceives his own demise. So I don't know how he gets out of this and all right so little so little all right with that phrase in our ears even if he took kiev the war won't be over we're going to take a break when we come back we'll pick up the

conversation president putin uh yesterday had a three and a half hour press conference with Russian journalists. We'll play a couple of clips from it and hear Jack's reactions right after this. You want to feel safe in your vehicle. And for you, that means easy, rapid access to your firearm. But safety also means your items don't fall into the wrong hands. You don't have to choose between safety and convenience. The Headrest Safe keeps your firearm where you can access it, and no one else can. Just order your Headrest Safe, install it yourself when it arrives, and enjoy peace of mind. It starts at theheadrestsafe.com.

So we're going to run this first clip. It's a little more than a minute. There are subtitles. Again, I'll do my best to pick up on them. I think you're going to be, if you haven't seen this, Jack, it's just me knowing you. I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised at President Putin's candor here. He's talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the Ukraine military to about 30 Russian journalists. During this time, they lost over 100 tanks and over 300, 460 armored vehicles of various types. This is just what we see. There are still losses that we do not see that are inflicted. The Russian Federation has also been using high precision weapons, attack large concentrations, so there are

actually more of these losses on the Ukrainian side. And so by my calculations it's about 25 maybe 30 percent of the volume of equipment that was supplied from abroad. Here is about. It seems to me that if they count objectively, they'll go along with it. But as far as I've seen from open sources, from Western sources, that's about what they seem to be saying here. So the offensive is on. These are the results to date of what I've just said.

As I read it, he's saying that he and the West agree that about 25 to 30 percent of the military equipment supplied by the West and used by the Ukrainians has been destroyed. What do you say?

I don't have any answer to that. Let's say there is 20%. What he doesn't say, which is telling, Judge, is he doesn't tell you what's happening then. He's not talking about the losses they're suffering, right? They're not talking about that. And then he talks about the precision weapons and all this. That means he can't fight. He can't use his air force, right? What do you mean he can't use his Air Force? Pardon? Why can't he use his Air Force? Well, because he's going to be shot down by singers and other anti-air platforms.

So he's not flying in and bombing them. He's using rockets on the side of the mountain, right? He's firing. It's like firing a cruise missile out in the middle of the desert, which I always got upset about. That was going to be a big deal. He's destroyed a lot of houses. He's destroyed a lot of buildings.

He's killed a lot of civilians. But those weapons, they're not precision weapons. If you start looking at the place, he hit a dormitory of students. I mean, come on. So I think what you're're looking at now they've had a number of defectors from the prisoners taken with the russians and the morale is extraordinarily low because they're scared to death of these weapons that are being provided to the ukrainians so in combat when you're busy fighting yeah you lose you lose equipment they did lose some luck in combat, when you're busy fighting, yeah, you lose equipment. They did lose some luck for sure. But again, you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of weapons and

platforms going in there. So if he's trying to suggest for a minute that he's had some sort of pushback, show us where. I don't think there's any map by any Western outlet that has any respectability that shows the Russians are making any progress against the counteroffensive. It just does be here. Here's President Putin talking about what happened in 2014. He does not mention the name of your former employer by name. He does not mention Victoria Nuland by name. But I think you'll know exactly who and what he's talking about again i will read the subtitles

but listen this was not the first coup and how did yushchenko come to power in ukraine what as a result of legitimate actions you want me to show you how he came to power we know that they came up with a third round of voting. What bloody third round? It is not provided by the Constitution. This was a coup. But at least it was passed in a relatively peaceful way, and we

communicated with them. I went there. They came to us. No, it came to a bloody coup d'etat. It became obvious that we are not given any chance to build normal relations with our neighbors and the fraternal Ukrainian people. It's all nonsense. Nonsense. What are you talking about? They had a fraudulent election. I mean, you had a number of independent advisors looking at it. They tried to skip the election. I mean, you had, you know, a number of independent advisors looking at it. They tried to skip the election. Let me know when you know of a Russian in an election

that's fair and square in the history of mankind. So this is all nonsense. He had a puppet in there and that they, he got annoyed because he fell down and knocked down and that the people in the streets, you know, took over. I mean, he's a CIA. Are you telling us that American intelligence had nothing to do with throwing out the popularly elected president of 2014, Jack? Have you seen anything in official domain on this? I haven't. What do you mean anything official?

Your guys are not going to admit to what they did. No, you have to appear before Congress. The President of the United States has to say something. Is there anything out there that suggested that we provided anything to them? Are you saying the CIA had nothing to do with the 2014 coup? I would say I haven't seen anything that supports that. All right. I mean,

one wants to speculate. Let me just, for your audience, let me, for your audience that we love. The CIA is not behind everything. I wish we were so omnipotent. I wish I was really that good. There are so many things that happen in the world because of the indigenous circumstances.

And the CIA, you know, has a role in life with the President of the United States and Congress approving it. They just can't go out there willy-nilly. And the limitations of COVID, I thought my books are in support of it, but it talks about the limitations. So we are suspected of everything, you know, being behind COVID. I mean, who knows what else we were behind. So there was a, you have to remember the spirit of that time. I mean, there was, democracy was flowing and getting rid of the Soviet system. And it was one country after another eventually reached Ukraine. And Ukraine of all of them is the most critically important one to Russia. It's small potatoes on the international

screen without Ukraine. He needs it. Now, there isn't a Ukrainian today that doesn't despise Russia. If he thinks there would be a vote or an election there, those'd vote. Those that were Russian sympathizers have moved down. They're in Russian-controlled areas. Well, right. There are Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbass. In fact, there's more Russian speakers. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You have to be in a controlled Russian area.

Okay. Okay. Right. Two days ago, the White House made some noises, and Chancellor Scholz made some noises. I say make some noises. They weren't very specific. And Prime Minister Sunak of Great Britain made similar hints that they want Ukraine to join NATO.

A wise move or not, Jack? Now, I don't know if it'll happen. Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary, is adamantly against it, and it's got to be a unanimous vote. But what does Jack Devine think? What does the CIA think? I started out in a more measured way, in the sense that I was concerned how hard we pushed Russia, what was going to happen, right? And then after I started to look at what they tried to do and their shortcomings and the atrocity, I mean, what they did to that country is just shameful. So when I began to look at it,

what if we buy jets? What if we do whatever? I do not want American troops on the ground, but yeah, I'd put them in NATO. What is Putin going to do? Answer that NATO. What is Putin going to do? Answer that question. What is he going to do? Now, there's rules of regulation in NATO. I don't want to be that glib. They will not be given during a war, an active war, brought into NATO with the understanding that NATO will defend them because they're now a member of NATO. There would have to be a revision in the NATO agreement.

So in the concept of Ukraine and NATO, sure, why not? But that's not going to happen during a fighting season. I think the rules prohibit that without a modification. Things can be modified. I would not support NATO getting in now as a force in Ukraine. As a member of some status and when the fighting stops, that you're a full member of NATO, sure. Why not? How do you see this ending and when do you see it ending?

Are American troops going to be on the ground, Jack? I don't see American troops ever be on the ground. I certainly hope they're not going to be on the ground. I see no reason to believe that. The Ukrainians seem to be doing a hell of a job without us in that regard. They need our support in supplies, training, all those things they need. But they don't need us fighting on the ground. They seem to be doing quite well.

I'm probably a little more optimistic than many of my friends in the sense that I don't think he can go on indefinitely at this level. And that's why the offensive and counteroffensive are important, because after that, does Putin go back and say, now I'm going to build a new army, a better army, and I'm going to come back again, or the Ukrainian? So I think the trouble really starts in the fall of this year, and it all surrounds Putin's stability. Will he stay or will he go, and how will he go? Otherwise, the war could drop down to a lower level of intensity and go on forever, and we're still at war with North Korea. Jack Devine, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you, Judge. Always a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us. More as we get it. If you like what you just saw, whether you agree with Jack or not, like, subscribe, tell your friends. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. The Headrest Safe is quick and easy to use. Some may even call it a game changer. Correct. inbound. That's what the Headrest Safe provides for me. Game. Set. Match. We'll be right back. seven and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu.