The President's Daily Brief - January 26th, 2023. Good News From Europe! Also, JFK's Assassination.

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

It’s January 26th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got four briefs for you this morning that are shaping America — and the world. First, we’ve got some US economic data coming out today. I’ll explain what it is, and how it’s connected to our second brief on… Europe. They’ve also got some economic news, good news, that you should know about. Third, we head to the North African country of Libya where we’ve got an update involving oil and spies. Fourth, it’s another brief about spies and intrigue in Africa, this time about the Russians, gold, and a city named Ougagadogu.  Later, we close out the podcast with a listener question about the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. There’s been some reporting on that recently and a listener wondered, “Bryan, you sure have been quiet about that. I wonder why?” Well, today I’ll discuss it. ----- Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's January 26th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I've got four briefs for you this morning that are shaping America and the world. First, we've got some U.S. economic data coming out today. I'll explain what it is and how it is connected to our second brief on Europe. They've also got some economic news, good news that you should know about. Third, we head to the North African country of Libya, where we've got an update involving oil and spies. Fourth, it's another brief about spies and intrigue in Africa.

This time, it's about the Russians, gold, and a city named Uwagadougu. Later, we close out the podcast with a listener question about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There's been some reporting on that recently. And a listener wondered, Brian, you sure have been quiet about that. I wonder why. Hmm, well, today I will discuss it. But before we get to that, we got to get started with this. The U.S. Commerce Department is set to release this morning fourth quarter data on America's gross domestic product or GDP. Of course, the GDP is the total market value of all goods and services

in America's economy. It's a barometer of the economy's overall health. Economists are predicting a seasonally adjusted annual growth rate of 2.8%. Now, depending on where the actual numbers land. Maybe it's a bit stronger or a little weaker. We'll see the stock market and companies react accordingly. So as this data gets parsed later on this morning and today, we have one piece of news now that gives us a hint of things to come, especially where the U.S. is heading in terms of our trade partners abroad. Port authorities in New York and New Jersey said yesterday that their growth rate is usually around 3.5% a year in any normal year. But since 2019, that growth rate was up to 27% in total. That's far higher than normal. In other words,

East Coast ports are seeing that increasing trade with Europe as they process more containers, both coming from or going to Europe. Now, that's not to say that our West Coast ports or our trade with Asia is somehow collapsing. It's not. In fact, the very critical port in Los Angeles is shaking off some old labor troubles and they're bouncing back in terms of volume. Much of that, by the way, is coming from Vietnam, plus Bangladesh, India, and decreasingly, China. Still, this news of East Coast ports, it's important as our economy is now shifting closer to Europe's. And of course, that is very important if you say work at these East Coast ports, or let's say you live in a city or a state where these ports operate, or certainly if you work

at a company or a factory that has ties to Europe. So overall, then, things are shifting in America towards Europe, and the ports show it. Which takes us to our second brief this morning. Europe's largest economy and our greatest trade partner in Europe, we're talking about Germany, of course. They are set to expand their economy this year by 0.2%. That's according to an announcement made yesterday by the German economy ministry. Now, that might not seem like much, just a 0.2% growth. But as PDB listeners know, it's a lot better than forecast just a couple of months ago following

the natural gas wars with Russia. In fact, there were some estimates of a 12% contraction in Germany. So to have an economy there that is up, even it's just by a whisker of a percent, that says that something pretty dramatic has happened over the past six months. And that's something dramatic? Well, it's you. Okay, it's partly you that gets credit for this big turnaround. And here's what I mean. So Europe was going to be in the absolute toilet unless it got new supplies of natural gas and coal. Those two commodities used to be provided by Russia, but their invasion of Ukraine changed the calculus. So in order to power Europe's industries and electricity plants, they went on a mad dash globally to find new supplies. They got it from places like Norway,

lots of oil and natural gas there. They got it from Algeria, lots of natural gas from that Arab nation in northern Africa. They also got things like coal from far away locations like South Africa, and Colombia. But Europe also got a substantial percentage of its oil and liquefied natural gas from American oil and gas companies. But in doing so, that created a supply crunch here at home. And that's why your utility bills in part have shot up over the past six months or so. You, my friends, are paying the price to keep Europe afloat with all that extra gas and oil. And it appears you have prevented their economy from going into a depression. So what is your reward for that? Well, most

charitably, we can say that our major trade partners in Europe, especially Germany, will now be able to buy our goods and services, which we'll see reflected at those East Coast ports. And that will benefit East Coast cities and workers who trade with Europe. But

otherwise, you probably aren't going to get much of a reward or thank. So I'm just going to do that on their behalf. Thank you on behalf of Europe. Now, I should be a little bit fair here. It's not just these other nations. or you all that have saved Europe's backside. The people of Europe have managed to conserve quite a bit of energy.

Overall, gas demand is down 20% over the past quarter. In France, it's just one example. Electricity consumption over just the past month was down 10% after adjusting for temperatures. Same is true for Germany. And speaking of temperatures, Mother Nature also gets some thanks here for saving Europe's economy. It's been very warm so far this winter, meaning the people don't need as much of that. precious natural gas to heat their homes. So maybe we should say thanks to climate change. All right, now I'm just asking for trouble. Getting sassy. Let's move on to our third related

brief, and this one involves spies and oil. Well, probably anyway. So as Europe has been scrambling for these new sources of oil and gas, there's one country that has been on their radar to find more of this stuff, and that is the country of Libya. But as PDB listeners know that country has been racked with the civil war for years. But about 12 months ago, there was an uneasy peace established, yet it's still a nation effectively split in two, with one government in Tripoli and the other in Benghazi. On January 13th, I briefed you that the CIA director made a surprise visit to Tripoli in Benghazi. This came two months after the equally surprising arrest of a Libyan intelligence officer, a man named Abu Aguil al-Aguila

Massoud. He was a suspect in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. That terror attack killed 270 people on the plane and on the ground. Well, Mr. Massoud was snatched from his home in Libya back in November by the Libyan government in Tripoli. And then, shockingly, he showed up in the United States, arrested for his role in the Lockerbie bombing. And I say it's shocking because he's been protected for over 30 years in Libya. So why now? Why was he arrested now? Hmm. I offered you all that my analysis is that it probably had to do in part with Libya's oil and gas fields. Those things are just 1,000 miles from Italy. The idea here is that, as I suggested, if the West could get these Libyan terrorists, well, in exchange,

maybe the CIA and others could help strike a deal with these warring factions all to get Libya's oil and gas to Europe. All right, so that takes us to today's update. Yesterday, Bloomberg News reported that Libya's national oil company had just signed a deal with Italy. The Italian oil company, ENI, signed an $8 billion deal to tap into two natural gas fields off the coast of Libya. When at full capacity, that will provide around 850 million cubic feet of gas a day. That rivals the now defunct Nord Stream pipeline from Russia. By the way, Libya already sends a modest amount of natural gas to Italy and the rest of Europe, but that pipeline has been far less than full due to the civil war and government corruption.

So the bottom line is that I suspect that the CIA directors visit had something to do with this Libya-Italy deal, probably some sort of agreement amongst the warring groups, with each side getting something quite lucrative. I'll keep a watch out for what those dirty details might be. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I've got three more critical pieces of news for you, so hang tight, and we will be right back. Welcome back to the PDB.

I've got three more critical pieces of news for you this morning. Just before the break, we were in Libya, and now we are going to jet south to the region of North Central Africa. Now, you might want to grab your maps for this one, and also maybe a pen and paper to write down the dates of a few key briefs if you want to go back and listen to those. All right. So over the past few weeks, we've talked a lot about this area of North Central Africa. First, back on December 19th, we discussed the country of the Central African Republic or Carr. To refresh our memories on this one, the Russians are growing their presence there, pushing out the French and winning influence with the local government.

and it's led to so much tension between the Russians and the French that, as you probably recall, a Russian official was injured after he opened what turned out to be a package bomb. And that takes us to our first update. The media outlet Politico is reporting that it has a cable from the U.S. State Department confirming that the Russian paramilitary organization called the Wagner Group is in full control of a large gold mine in car. In fact, it's now guarded by anti-aircraft weapon. and the State Department says they now believe that the profits from all of this gold will probably bring in the Russians about a billion dollars. All right. Keep that update in mind as we go north and west from the Central African Republic to the country of Mali.

Although we might know it best from that famous town that we talked about, 10 buck two. Well, on January 20th, we talked about that great city, plus the fact that the Russians were increasing their delivery of weapons to that military-run government. which takes us to an update. The United Nations says that its peacekeeping operations in that country are going to have to be drawn down because they can't get nations to contribute more soldiers. Now, the shortage is being driven in part by previous countries like the French who are being kicked out by the Russian-backed government.

In other words, here too, the Russians are growing stronger in influence, which takes us to our final stop in Central Africa. It's a new country that we haven't talked about. and that is the country of Burkina Faso, and it's incredibly named capital city of Uwagadugu. All right, this country, at least geographically speaking, is absolutely blessed. It's got tropical savannas that are or could be quite productive for agriculture, although it is also home to all sorts of lions and elephants and leopards, just all sorts of great animals. It's also got three just beautiful rivers, the white volta, the red volta, volta, and the blurtta, and the blanche.

Black Volta. If you want, you should go take an internet safari when we're done today. It's a pretty neat country. Although that's probably not what the French are thinking this morning. They are not happy with the government in Uwagodugu. That's because the military leaders who run Burkina Faso are kicking the French out there too and bringing in the Russians. Last Saturday, officials in Uwagodugoo notified the French government that they had one month to withdraw their forces, which number around 400 special French operators. And in their place, the African leaders of this nation

confirmed that the Russians and their Wagner group will be stepping into the void. Said the local authorities, quote, Russia is a reasonable choice in this dynamic, end quote, by which they mean, Russia won't criticize us for being a

military-run government, whereas those pesky French and Americans do. Regardless, the Wagner group will be taking on an Islamic insurgency, in the north of Burkina Faso, mostly fueled by al-Qaeda and Islamic State radicals. Those folks have taken over wide swaths of territory up north and displaced millions of people. If you're wondering what the Russians and the Wagner Group might get out of this deal with Burkina Faso, the country has sizable deposits of gold.

We have reports from December saying that the Wagner Group got mining rights in exchange for providing fighters against those Islamic radicals, but authorities, in Uwagadougu say, no, no, that is not true. For the record, I suspect that they are lying. All right, let's put this all together. We've got Russians on the advance in the Central African Republic, Mali, and Burkina Faso. And that's because Russia doesn't care about democracy or human rights in those places. While the French and the West, we do. So we're losing out. Meanwhile, Russia gets a whole bunch of money from things like gold mines, and they also get important votes in the United Nations when the world tries to condemn them for, you know, invading Ukraine.

Well, now, Beijing and, uh, well, Oogadougou say, no, we're going to support Moscow. For what it's worth, I predict we'll see more of this happen in other places into Africa. But what I'm really watching for is as this Wagner group takes on Islamic radicals, will they try to push these guys into other countries in, say, Western or Northern Africa that are allies of America or the West, especially the country of Algeria, which as PDB listeners know is providing a critical amount of natural gas to Europe

following the war in Ukraine. So perhaps that's part of the grand plan, push that Islamic insurgency into countries where the French or the U.S. have strength or equities. And that's why I'll also be watching, not just Algeria, but one other country in Africa. It's called Niger. And that's because as the French are retreating,

from Mali and Burkino Faso, they're going to this country of Niger. Meanwhile, the U.S. military has two air bases in Niger, both of which are focusing on killing Islamic radicals with drone operations. So lots of intrigue in Africa this morning. Plus, we could say words like Uwagadugu. Say that three times fast. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we conclude your morning brief. But I've got one more thing before I let you go. We'll be right back. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.

Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Welcome back to the PDB folks. I've got one more thing before I let you go.

Yesterday was a notable date in history. January 25th of 1961, President Jack Kennedy hosted the very first live televised press conference. He had been in office for only five days. He was asked about the Civil War in the Congo, relations with the Soviets, and the release of two Air Force officers who had been held captive by the Soviet Union for six months. Sadly, as we all know, President Kennedy would be dead two years later, assassinated in Dallas, Texas. But who killed him? Well, there's been a lot of talk about that over the past few weeks. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been discussing it using the recent release of some documents

that suggested that it may have been the CIA. Tucker also apparently has a source, some say former President Donald Trump is the source, who have said or claimed that they have seen other classified documents confirming that the CIA was involved. A number of you have written in asking me about this, and the most recent was Scott in Nacomis, Florida. He found my silence about this issue to be, well, interesting. So here's what he said. Quote, as a former CIA case officer,

you have been conspicuously mute about the revelations of potential CIA involvement in the JFK assassination. I understand that this was long before our time, perhaps outside of your need to know, and even something that you are forbidden to talk about. Nevertheless, I'm curious if there is any, inside baseball that you might be able to offer us on this subject. Well, Scott, thank you so much for the question. The short answer is no. I do not know a thing about this because the material has been

very closely held by the CIA and you have to have a very real need to know to access it. And I just didn't. But I will say this. The current occupant at the White House, Joe Biden, released a number of documents back in December about this case. But not all of the classified documents. He left some of them close hold. So here's what he said at the time, justifying his decision to keep these JFK documents classified. Some documents will remain classified to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of U.S. foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure. Okay. President Kennedy was killed in November of

of 1963. That was 59 years ago. The question then is, what exactly is so sensitive from nearly 60 years ago that we can't discuss it today? In other words, how exactly would that information from 1963 harm intelligence operations today? Or our foreign relations or military defense or law enforcement? Candidly, I don't know. And that's why I haven't spoken about this. I don't like to spread rumor or gossip. I don't mind, you know, good conspiracy theory, but I want to believe that I have some degree of evidence and confidence to share that with you all. But I will say this. I am very suspicious of Biden's response, or frankly, that of any politicians hiding anything at this point. In my experience, politicians and the intelligence community are guilty of sometimes

keeping things classified because the information is either embarrassing or shameful. And that's both unethical and unlawful. But you know what? It does happen. Now, is that the case here with Jack Kennedy? I mean, what if the CIA were involved? How would you all respond? Would you want the CIA, say, torn down to the foundation, start over with it or get rid of it altogether? And if so, would that demand to sort of gain steam and make us tear down other parts of the American government? Hmm. All I can say is this. If I were president, God forbid, I would personally go through that remaining classified intel on President Kennedy's assassination and do so with a strong desire to release all of it, good, bad, and ugly.

It is true, though, that maybe this material would be so persuasive in its sensitivity that I would say, you know what, now I understand. But I'll tell you, in the past five years or so, it's completely changed my mind on how much I trust the government, including the CIA and FBI. In short, I don't trust him at all. Just one example here. James Comey, the former FBI director, leaked classified sensitive material to the New York Times to force the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump for secret connections to Russia. Now, James Comey knew then, and we know now, that there was no secret connections between Trump and Russia.

In fact, a report by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice found that James Coney, Comey leaked information to the press to fuel an atmosphere of panic and hysteria, to get that special counsel and damage Trump, all because James Comey had a personal vendetta, his own personal politics. And that's not a conspiracy. That is an established fact put out by the Department of Justice. And you don't have to like Trump to accept that. And so I think that if we are to reestablish trust in the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of this country, the whole work need some very serious reforms. Thousands of people ought to be fired.

Agencies stripped of surveillance powers. We just need a whole bunch of sunshine to disinfect the halls of these organizations. And I think that releasing these documents on JFK would be a very helpful part of that process. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show,

reminding each other of why we are here. talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. Good day.