Judging Freedom - Ukraine War - Fighting is Fierce, But No Movement w/Ray McGovern fmr CIA

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Ukraine War - Fighting is Fierce, But No Movement w/Ray McGovern fmr CIASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, August 14th, 2023. Ray McGovern joins us now. Ray, it's a pleasure. Thanks very much for coming to the cameras. I very much enjoyed the segment we did last week, the roundtable with Larry Johnson on a lot of intelligence questions. You guys were happy to answer for me, and the fans loved it as well. Where do you think Joe Biden's head is? That's a tough question, Ray. Well, I know. In terms of Ukraine, I mean, the spring offensive has gone nowhere. The Ukrainian forces haven't even reached the outermost of the three Russian defensive perimeters. And everybody seems to recognize that thanks to American introduction of arms, Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world. And we're making it worse by adding cluster bombs.

Where do you think this is going? Does the president see this? I don't think, well, I was going to say some of my colleagues could say that his head is where the sun never shines. But it's not funny, really. One has to kind of figure out, well, is he delusional? I think that's true. He is. Is he dependable to do sane things? No, he's not. That, as you know, is one thing that I agree with Mr. Putin about. Putin having said he's crazy, and the evidence he had used for that was the fact that he takes on China the same time he takes on Russia. This is delusional. This is definition of crazy.

So what are we to think? I don't know what to think, but neither does Pooching, and that's the problem. He's got to prepare for the worst, and the additional element over the last couple of weeks, of course, Judge, is that these guys have a personal stake in this now. Joe and Hunter and Blinken and Sullivan, they're all guilty as charged with documentary evidence of fooling around with elections, of concocting the myth of Russiagate, specifically Russian hacking of the GNC. And so I don't know. All I can say is that if I were a Russian planner, I would not be confident that I'm dealing with compass-mentis people. Did Putin actually say, and if he did, does he really believe that Biden is crazy?

This came in answer to a question from the audience at the Valdai Discussion Club. The fellow said, how do you explain this, Mr. Putin? You know, how do you explain the fact that the Americans are taking on China now, just as they're engaged with us in Ukraine. And Putin thought for a second and he said, and this is a literal translation into English, okay? At first I thought there was some subtle logic to this approach, but I no longer think so. I think they're crazy.

I think one must attribute it to arrogance and a feeling of impunity, period, end quote. That's what he said. I think that's the only conclusion that he can reliably depend on. So he's got his military looking over his shoulder. Okay, so what do we do with these guys? How trigger happy are they? And how much in danger of a political defeat do they encounter as the weeks go by and more and more scandals arise? How effective is Russian intelligence on the highest levels of American government? Does Putin know what Biden's going to do before Biden announces it? Because Russian intel is, I don't know, you tell me, surveilled the Oval Office, surveilled the

residents, surveilled the West Wing, surveilled the State Department, surveilled the Joint Chiefs of Staff. How effective is it? Well, I think one has to assume it's as good as ours. And that means it collects everything. Now, I'm not saying that U.S. countermeasures, that is, you know, counter cyber warfare is not effective. But it hasn't shown itself to be very effective in the past. And sure, I don't think that Putin can count on knowing what goes on in the Oval Office, but it's easy enough to read the mainstream press, for God's sake, and then to pay a little bit of attention to people like Doug McGregor and see how the twain never meet. And it's not so hard for the Russians, just as it is for me to read a media interpretation into what's going on. So they know as much as what's going on as

they need to. And as I say, it's very destabilizing. Here's somebody who's even crazier than Joe Biden, John Bolton. It's hard for me to believe that Donald Trump was advised by both John Bolton and Doug McGregor. I mean, these two are polar opposites, if ever there were. Bolton fashions himself an expert on the use of force. Colonel McGregor, of course, is truly an expert who's spent his career and his academic work on all of it. But here's, I'm going to read this because it's a full screen excerpted from John Bolton's piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal. The administration's timid, haphazard approach to aid has fractured U.S. public support. Mr. Biden has compounded this problem with his insistence that the war is about Wilsonian abstractions of democracy versus authoritarianism. Theories about price caps on

Russian oil have failed and Western sanctions generally remain piecemeal and seriously under-enforced. So if we're up to John, I have a strange relationship with him. We worked together for years at Fox. We rarely agreed on anything. But if we're up to John, we would be sending the 101st Airborne in on the ground. I'm not saying he has actually said that, but the way he's asking for more force seems to be what he's arguing for. If it was up to John, we'd be in the middle of World War III. That's correct.

And if you want the definition of crazy, that's John Bolton. He, after all, is responsible for us getting out of the cornerstone of strategic stability for 30 years, three decades, count them, the ABM, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. When Bush came in, Bolton said, I ought to get out of there. And so Bush Jr. said, oh, okay, we'll get out of there. Now, what I have to say about that is that's where it started going down. Trump left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, that treaty that destroyed a whole class of weaponry

that was already in place in Europe, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. So, again, the Russians looking on at this, they kept asking the U.S. administration, why are you doing this? And the answer they got, if they're to believe this, none of your damn business. We're going to do what we want. And as you can see, we have been doing what we want. The problem is that our production of sophisticated weaponry has lagged far behind what the Russians have. Tell me about, tell us about the ABM Treaty and why John Bolton talked George Bush into

abrogating it. By the way, if you could just pull out of a treaty, what's the value of it? Well, they did have a clause that giving a year's notice you could duck out of the treaty. Well, suffice it to say, I was in Moscow in May of 1972 when that treaty was concluded. It was an incredible achievement. was to make sure that neither side could expect to make a first strike on the other side without fully expecting massive retaliation and being destroyed, okay? That's what it was, a balance of terror, but it was a balance, for God's sake, you know? And for those years, well, it boiled down to saying, okay, we're building offensive missiles, we're building defensive missiles, let's stop with the defensive missiles. Let's only allow two, and then became one, in each country,

and so there could be no defense against these things. Did the Russians cheat? Yeah, they cheated. They built this great big radar out there in Siberia, a place called Krasnoyarsk. Reagan, we told Reagan, he said, show him the photos. We did. It took six years. But when Gorbachev finally came into office, he said, all right, it's an ABM treaty. We're going to tear it down. And they tore it down. So treaties work for God's sake.

Did the U.S. cheat? On the ABM treaty? Yes. I'm not going to give an A-plus to the U.S. There was a lot of research that went on that could be interpreted as a violation of the treaty. But by and large, I mean, it's really clear. If you only have one or two ABM sites, you can't really cheat without the other side finding out about it. So the treaty work, George W., the younger Bush, comes into office. He's got John Bolton as his ambassador to the U.N. Bolton can't get confirmed by the Senate, so they name him the acting ambassador, and he calls himself the ambassador, and he does whatever ambassadors do there. Why did Bush pull us out of a treaty that helped keep the world safe?

Well, one reason is that Bolton was not alone here. He had Don Rumsfeld. He had other people who were really interested in showing that we were the big guys here. And not incidentally, we could spend these guys to hell. We could finance our defense industries to a fairly well and make a lot of money doing it. So then we know who else was involved, and that was Dick Cheney. Of course, yeah. a lot of money doing it. So then we know who else was involved, and that was Dick Cheney, because he had just left the chair and CEO of Raytheon

before he became vice president. All right, we're going to take a little break for a sponsor announcement. When we come back, we're going to play a clip on Vladimir Zelensky pretending he's shocked, shocked at corruption in Ukraine right after this.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Lear Capital. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital because it's the right thing to do because the government is regulating too much and printing too much money and reducing the value of everything you earn and everything you own. And the best hedge against this is gold and silver. That's what I've done. I know the folks at Lear. I trust the folks at Lear. I've worked with the folks at Lear. And I use their advice when it comes to my investing in gold and silver, you should do the same. Call them at 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. You'll have a very nice conversation with a very knowledgeable person who will send you literature to read, which you can review with your spouse and your financial

advisor, and then you can call them back and decide what you want to do. Why Lear? Lear has 25 years experience and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour risk-free guarantee. And when you have this conversation with the Lear representative, you'll find out if you can qualify for a $15,000 gold bonus. So call Lear now, 800-511-4620 or learjudgenap.com. Is it true that Ukraine is the most corrupt major government and society in Europe? Yes. If further proof were needed, we find out recently that people have been able to buy their way out of military service for 10,000 bucks. Zelensky himself has dismissed all the people in charge of recruiting.

I mean, hello. It's only the poor slobs from the farms and the inner cities that they get sent to war just as the case is in our country. Here's Zelensky again pretending to be shocked at the corruption and announcing the dismissal, as you just said, Ray, of all of the people. I don't know if it's all, but certainly the leadership in charge of recruitment. Watch this. There are 112 criminal proceedings against officials of the territorial recruitment centers, 33 suspects, regional city and district military commissars, employees of the military medical commissions, abuses in different regions. Some took cash, some took cryptocurrency. That's the only difference. The cynicism is the same everywhere. Illicit enrichment, legalization of illegally obtained funds, illegal benefit, illegal transportation of persons liable for military service across the border. Our decisions are the following. We are dismissing all regional military commissars.

Wow. Surprised at this? Shocked. of eligibility for the draft. And now you have recruitment centers that are taking this kind of cash. I wonder if they still got to keep the cash. They must know that they're losing. And so he's got to blame this on somebody. Well, that's right. No one talks about Zelensky and his three estates abroad or his bank accounts that have been salted by one of my former friends. The place is corrupt and we're just using it. And Judge, I'll just go back and say hundreds and hundreds of young, not so young, old people like me, Ukrainians being killed for no reason really other than for us to show up and weaken Russia. It's unconscionable and it's delirious because we're not going to show up Russia. We're going to show that Russia is the more powerful entity here, as Obama himself declared when he said, look, the Russians have escalatory dominance.

He knew a lot of big words there. Obama did. Escalatory dominance in this area. Well, hell, that means a lot. Does the CIA pay Vladimir Zelensky or put money into a bank account in his name? Usually it's the CIA, but could be done in all kinds of ways through Treasury and all. The idea is that he does have it. That's pretty much proven.

And, of course, it's neglected in the mainstream media for obvious reasons. Why does, I mean, we know the government is bleeding money. The Congress, back when the Democrats controlled the House, gave Joe Biden a blank check for $113 billion. We don't know how much he's spent. He just asked late last week for another $28 or $30 billion. So we know the U.S. is funding so much over there, including Intel. But why would American Intel, whether it's CIA or NSA or DEA or whoever it is, be putting money into Zelensky's account? Is this just to have more control over him than the Americans already have? That may be the illusion.

Suffice it to say, the CIA does what the president or people like Sullivan and Blinken tell it to do. They don't have any options. They don't really reclama. Look, the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, has said Russia has lost. The weakness of the Soviet military has been exposed from all to see. That was just a month ago. Now, these people are advising Biden. And again, Biden is taking on China at the same time. He's talking about their economy. He's talking about the really bad guys. You know, it's cartoonish for God's sake, but these guys are

running it. Here's President Putin last weekend, not the weekend that just ended, but the previous weekend, talking about the reacquisition of Crimea by the Ukrainians as if it's a foregone conclusion. Today, I held a meeting on the content of our return policy, specifically regarding Crimea and its reintegration. It is obvious that after the liberation of Crimea from occupation, economic opportunities, personal security for people, and a sense of real freedom, which has not been there since 2014, will return there. But all of this should not be just abstract. Every detail of the de-occupation of Crimea should have a specific meaning. How exactly normal life returns, what exactly this means for Crimea and for all our people, this should be clear to everyone. Step by step, we are making the deoccupation of Crimea more and more achievable and well thought out.

Step by step, we are making the deoccupation of Crimea more achievable and well thought out. Sounds like it was written by Victoria Nuland and approved by Bill Burns or Averill Haynes or somebody in the American intelligence community before they put it on President Zelensky's prompter. Well, that's probably the case. The British do most of the speech writing for Zelensky, but they're just tools of us as well. And they do the Secret Service protection too. So I expect that may be lifted sometime soon. The point here- American Secret Service protects President Zelensky? British, British. British MI6, yeah, yeah. That's pretty well known. The point here is that the Russians are retaliating for each escalatory step that the U.S. and the West takes.

And most recently, they've started bombing the railway tunnels under the Carpathian Mountains that connect Poland to Ukraine, that connect Romania to Ukraine. They've avoided that so far because it's a civilian infrastructure as well. But they're playing for keeps here. So all this new weaponry that's supposed to go into Ukraine is not going to get there because they can't get under the mountains onto the rail tracks in Ukraine. That's life. Now, Biden, as I say, I don't know what he's going to do, but that worries me greatly because neither does Putin and his generals know what he's going to do, but that worries me greatly because neither does Poochie and his generals know what he's going to do. He has buttons that if he presses them could change the world and the way we live.

Ray McGovern, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thanks for your candor and all your time with us today. Most welcome, Judge. Thank you. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Tony Schaefer coming up at 11 o'clock Eastern today. We're looking out for your liberties. Thank you.