Judging Freedom - Ukraine Russia War - What_s Putin & Gen Petraeus saying_ Ray McGovern fmr CIA

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 19th, 2023. It's 10 o'clock in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. Ray McGovern will be with us in just a minute on the latest involving Secretary of State Blinken in China and the nonsense the CIA expects us to believe about the Nord Stream pipeline explosion. But first 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. 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. Ray McGovern joins us now. Ray, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming back to our cameras. As we speak, I believe Secretary of State Blinken is being read the Riot Act in Beijing. Now, you watched some of this earlier this morning. What did you see and what did you learn? Actually, Judge, he's still conducting this press conference. The Q&A is going on. I was lucky enough to be tipped off to this. I watched the whole little account that he gave of his talks with top Chinese leaders. The only positive thing that can be said

is that Xi Jinping deigned to meet with Blinken very briefly. The readout that the Chinese gave of the previous talks with Blinken's opposite numbers was really harsh, really harsh. Wise up, America. You've got a problem here, and we're not going to help you unless you can help yourself. Some of the reported so far has been what the French call maquillage, porquin maquillage, which translates in our vernacular, putting lipstick on a pig. The only other good thing is that decoupling was completely rejected by both sides. So economically, we should be on a fairly straightforward course on Ukraine and on great power relations and on things like the UN Charter vis-à-vis

the rules-based international order. There's a great divide that cannot be breached unless the U.S. trims its sails. What is Secretary of State Blinken attempting to accomplish? We know that relationships between China and the U.S. are icy cold, and we keep having these near misses of whether it's planes near Taiwan or ships in the South China Sea between theirs and ours. Sometimes I think that stuff is staged, but I don't know. You would know better than I.

But what is his goal? I mean, he works for a guy who says we're going to fight a war against China if they decide that Taiwan is not a separate country, which under the law it is not. Well, Judge, the Chinese take a long view here and were ready to receive Blinken at U.S. insistence, pretty much. This was the U.S.'s idea to send Blinken. Biden himself has made some remarks saying, you know, we'd really like to improve relations with China.

You know, I'd really like to meet with Xi Jinping later this year. None of that in the readout here. No scheduling of any visit. Not even a visit of Blinken's opposite number, although they made noise about, well, expecting one. Maybe we'll schedule it. Yeah, okay. So what we have here, I think, from the U.S. side is, uh-oh, we got a two-front war. The Chinese are not only continuing to buzz our aircraft and our warships, but they're not even apologizing for it. They're saying, hey, you say, as John Kirby said just this

week, we have great concerns about Chinese involvement in our hemisphere, in the Western Hemisphere. We've been watching it from day one. Our concerns grow. Now, I imagine that Xi Jinping or his lieutenant said, we have grave concerns, Tony, about U.S. activities in our hemisphere. Hello. So bottom line, actions speak louder than words, particularly with respect to the Chinese. When when the U.S. considers this forward approach and talks about eventual war with China, that ain't the way. That ain't the best way to improve relations. Chinese know it. And they gave a seven-long lecture to Tony Blinken about that.

So it's up to the U.S. to trim its sails, the more so, what that balloon was that half the country was staring at for a weekend a couple of months ago? I didn't. That's probably by design. They're probably still investigating the technology embedded in that balloon. Now, I imagine it was both a weather balloon and a spy balloon, but that's par for the course. How many do we have going over that area? So it was a mountain, it was a storm in Wasserglas, as the Germans say, a storm, a tempest in a teapot, right? And it postponed this visit by Blinken. And the Chinese were not happy about that.

So we have a situation where the Chinese are asserting their role as at least an equal of the U.S. and saying, look, with respect to Russia and Ukraine, look, count us in on Russia's side. First question that Blinken was asked just five minutes ago was, how about China providing arms to Russia to help in Ukraine? And Blinken says, no, no, we have assurances from China that they won't do that. Well, they don't need to do that. I mean, why would they do that if they don't need to do that? If push came to shove, my guess is that they would do it.

But sure, give the U.S. assurances that we're not going to sell weapons or give weapons to Russia. So to vote Xi. They don't need it. They're winning. Right. I can't imagine that Tony Blinken would ask Xi Jinping to convene peace talks between Russia and Ukraine because the American government,

the Biden administration, doesn't want peace talks. Well, they don't want them today, Judge. Check back in two or three weeks when the Russians are at the Dnieper River when Putin and his lieutenants will say, in effect,

now? Is now a better time for talks? Or do you want us to go all the way to Poland? I mean, this is big, okay? So, yeah. Now, Blinken referred to that in his remarks. What did he say?

He said, oh, yeah, we welcome the involvement of China, as well as other states, in trying to foster a solution to the Ukrainian crisis. But that means nothing. The Chinese do have a specific initiative out there, in my view. The U.S. should look into that very, very carefully because the Chinese are serious about that, and they have quite a following in the rest of the world. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, excuse me, the New York Times and the Washington Post,

forgive me, the New York Times and the Washington Post, forgive me, both reported this morning that the CIA has announced that Ukraine rejected CIA's warnings, not, I can't even say this with a straight face, not to tamper with the Nord Stream pipeline, and that it is more likely than not that Ukrainian operatives destroyed the pipeline. Does the CIA actually expect people to believe that nonsense in light of the 22-page, single-spaced, documented report that Cy Hersh produced showing that the CIA and the Navy, U.S., destroyed the pipeline? The question is whether the U.S. public have access to this information. They do not know about Cy Hersh's report from reading the New York Times or the Washington Post, okay? They sort of

know from alternative media or for those who are tuning into these kinds of programs, okay? They sort of know from alternative media or for those who are tuning into these kinds of programs, okay? But they're sort of at a loss for real information. And so if that's the case, then the New York Times and Washington Post offer this alternative facts, right, from Trump, the alternative explanation. Ukraine did it. Now, that's frivolous, that's strange on its face, but consider the implications of that, Judge. As soon as they started talking about any Ukrainian involvement, including non-official

involvement, I said they're preparing to throw Zelensky under the bus. That was about four weeks ago. Now they're saying it was the Ukrainian government. It was Zelensky, okay, the fellow who has disappeared from view, commander-in-chief of all their forces who orchestrated this thing. The Ukrainian government is to blame now. You don't believe that? I don't believe it.

Nobody in Europe who is informed about Cy Hersh's thing believes it. But so few are informed that, oh, here's the explanation we get from the Washington Post and the New York Times. Let's go with it. It doesn't have to be true. All it has to be is out there. And Chancellor Scholz of Germany has dispatched a team of investigators to get to the bottom of this. They're basically chasing their own tails.

I am sure those investigators who are savvy guys know exactly what happened. But just like your former friends in the CIA telling the American president what he wants to hear, I would imagine these people will tell Chancellor Scholz what they think he wants to hear. Well, as you'll recall, Judge, Chancellor Scholz was with Biden on the 7th of February 2022 when Biden said, you know, the Nord Stream pipeline will be no more if Russia invades Ukraine. And when he was asked, how could he do that? He said, trust me, we can stop it. Now, the question really for the German people is, what did Schultz know about the plans to blow up the pipeline?

And when did he know it? Did he ask Biden, what do you mean, Biden? What do you mean? Or did he know it? Did he ask Biden, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? Or did he not? Either way, it's pretty damning to the relationship between the U.S. and Germany. And that's a pretty important relationship. Right. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, more from Ray McGovern on Daniel Ellsberg, on General Petraeeus and on, you're ready for this, Hillary Clinton 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. Tell us, you were good friends with Daniel Ellsberg. You and he and I and most people watching now share the same view about the obligation of governments, at least governments in the West, to be transparent.

What did he do and what is his legacy? Well, Dan risked life in prison to expose the fact that we were being lied into the war in Vietnam. Now, the short answer to your question is that he got off because of overextension by the Nixon administration, raiding his psychiatrist's office and that kind of thing. But he was prepared to spend the rest of his life in prison. And when he was asked spontaneously by some reporter during this time, are you willing to do that? Are you willing to spend your whole life in captivity? And Dan spontaneously said, wouldn't you do that to stop a god-awful war and the slaughter of thousands of people. Wouldn't you do that? Well, now, Dan is such a humble guy that his main message to folks now and in his message that I have on my website, the one that talks about his receiving of the Sam Adams Award

for Integrity, he says, look, don't do what I did. Don't wait. If you have information, release it before the bombs start falling, before people start getting killed. That's his message to all these people. It was pretty much his last such conversation. You could see him summoning up the balance of his strength. He just recently died of cancer, as you know, to say, look, this is my message to you all, guys. Look, I wish I had done in 1964, when I knew that we were being lied into war in Vietnam, what I eventually did in 1971. Now, just a codicil here, he actually did leak information in 1968 that prevented a widening of the war as General Westmoreland wanted to do, up to and including the border with China. But then he kind of forgoes that, even though he wrote about it in one of his books called Secrets.

He said, no, no, the big message here is to tell people in government, look, if you have information that can stop, for example, carnage in Ukraine, let it out. At whatever risk, there's great risk, but wouldn't you do that to stop a war? And as I say, Dan can speak from experience he's the only guy I know who could say that had said from the beginning when it was very clear he would spend the rest of his life in prison wouldn't you do that to stop a war and of course we all know the um outcome with respect to freedom of speech not always followed uh by the executive branch of the government, but consistently followed by the judicial branch. And that's the famous Pentagon Papers case, which says, this is the effort by the Nixon administration to prevent the New York Times and the Washington

Post from publishing what Dan stole. The Supreme Court ruled six to three that if the publisher has in his hands matters of material interest to the public, particularly about the government, it doesn't matter how the publisher got them. The publisher is immune from civil and criminal liability for publishing them. That did not stop the government, as you pointed out, Ray, from prosecuting him. He was prosecuted. He was indicted. He was in the middle of the trial when the Nixon crew broke into his didn't even have the chutzpah to seek an appeal, and Dan walked free. Just to raise your blood pressure a little bit, and I appreciate very much what you said about Dan. Let me just interrupt, if I can, just for a second. Sure. Before we raise your blood pressure, go ahead. Well, I'm still reasonably calm.

That was then. The lawyer for the New York Times brought it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court decided correctly. That was then. Now the government, our executive branch, our judicial branch, are out for Julian Assange's body and blood to put into prison forever, forgetting all about this decision. apparently is headed to the United States. He'll face trial. He faces trial in a district, District of Virginia, which has never, which in one time out of a hundred, exonerated somebody. So, you know, I was ecstatic when the Supreme Court made the right decision. I don't know whether to make this decision now, but they seem to be irrelevant

in this case. It's going forward against my friend Julian Assange. Yes, I could not agree with you more. To raise your blood pressure, here is General Petraeus, one of your least favorite historical and contemporary figures, and we will hear from you on him in a minute, predicting that Ukraine will do well in its spring, now by the end of this week, summertime offensive. I think that the Ukrainians are very much ready for this. They'll be very distinctive because they will be using, employing Western tanks, Western infantry fighting vehicles in large measure for the first time in this war, certainly in this number. I think the Russians will prove to be more brittle than the expectation

is. Keep in mind, these units have been in combat for over a year, many of them. They have not been pulled offline to reconstitute by having forces replaced, equipment replaced and repaired, and then doing training before they go back. They just get individual replacements to fill the gap. They're not well-trained. They're not well-equipped. They're not well-led. And I think that these Ukrainian forces, which are well-trained, are well-equipped, are going to break through. And then you might see a real dynamism to the battlefield that could give real opportunities to the Ukrainians to exploit. Is he still work for the CIA? Is he just mouthing

the administration line? Where does he get this from? Well, you know, if you do a little research and you go back to his famous dissertation at Princeton, 1987, I'll read just a sentence from it. What policymakers believe in any particular case is what matters. What they believe more than what actually occurred or occurs. Perception to the people in power matters more than victories or defeats on the battlefield." Perception. He's fostering the perception that Ukraine is going to win, right? Now, that's what the current administration wants to project, but that's not going to last very long. What will Petraeus do when it turns out that the perception he's fostering now is 180 degrees wrong? Well, he'll pick up a new perception, and people will interview him and say, well, this is what I believe now, this is what I perceive now,

and it will have to do with General Petraeus. It won't have to do with the United States foreign policy. I just want to cite one thing that probably you don't remember, Judge, but in the heat of the Afghanistan thing, there was a strike on a village where several children, 17, I think, were killed, wounded, okay? And Petraeus is described in the Washington Post as sitting outside Karzai's office. He goes in there with his associates, and he says, you know, I don't think those children, well, I think those children were killed as a false flag attack to demean the United States.

I don't think it was U.S. And his associates were aghast. Karzai threw him right out. He said, no, this is unacceptable. So that's the kind of guy he is in trying to foster perceptions, even when it's a really uphill battle. And it's the kind of guy I wanted to challenge one time and got thrown out and spent a night in prison simply for wanting to ask him a question, namely, what happened to those crack Iraqi troops that you train, General Petraeus? Why'd they run away and throw down all their equipment and their arms when ISIS showed up over the hill? I was at the 92nd Street Armory in New York. I didn't get to stay there very long because I was arrested and put in prison. Wow.

Ray, you're a diamond in the rough. God bless you. Thank you very much for joining us. We have the feeling of you being arrested, but I know we'll get spanked by the people that carry this if we run that tape. Judge, a diamond in the rough is a compliment, I hope. Absolutely. Absolutely, my man. I love these Monday mornings with you, and I can

tell you the fans, the viewers do as well. You're a great man, Ray. Thank you very much. What a pleasure. Thank you, Judge. Later on today, Colonel Dan Davis and Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano, more as we get it, as always, for judging freedom. You want to feel safe in your vehicle.

With access to your firearm, that's both secure and convenient. The Headrest Safe keeps your firearm where you can access it and no one else can. It starts at theheadrestSafe.com.