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Sept. 5, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:59
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Briefing Wrap Up
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, September 6, 2024.
It's the end of the day, the end of the week.
It's time for our Intelligence Community Roundtable with my colleagues and friends, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson.
Guys, welcome back to the show.
Much appreciated.
I want to spend some time with the three of us.
discussing the attacks on free speech by the Justice Department aimed at people we know and respect.
And I want to spend some time on a piece that Ray wrote about, is the federal government conditioning Americans for war with Russia?
But before we get there, just to address the hot-button points since each of you was last on with me.
Larry, what is the state of affairs in Kursk?
Are the invaders surrounded?
Are they being depleted?
Are they being supplied and reinforced?
I thought the best illustration was given the other day.
I think it was with Doug McGregor talking to you about the Pine Barrens in New Jersey.
That basically means they can have it.
You've got some Ukrainian troops wandering around, not holding anything strategic, and they're being hunted down by Russian brigades.
And Russia's in no hurry.
They're in no panic.
It's really a it has become a meaningless, meaningless attack in terms of the outcome of the war for Russia, but certainly meaningful for Ukraine in terms of losing significant numbers of equipment and personnel that they just can't replace.
Ray, also this week, since we were last together, A hundred cadets and instructors were killed.
More than 200 people were injured.
At the same time, and some of the instructors were Polish and Swedish.
At the same time that this happened, the American military, the Defense Department, reports that an American lieutenant colonel dropped dead under mysterious circumstances in Poland at the very same time that these missiles hit the school.
Is this some sort of a subterfuge, stated differently?
Were American instructors teaching at this school, and are they dead?
Do we know?
Well, we don't know, Judge.
It is an interesting coincidence in timing.
We know Swedish, for sure, because Swedish relatives have already gone onto the Internet to talk about it.
Whether U.S. instructors were involved in that particular installation is not really known.
I would not be surprised if they were.
I don't know how to interpret this sudden heart attack.
But, you know, it could be that this fellow was also there in Poltava.
Poltava, you know, has a long history.
It was the final victory of Peter the Great.
Over the Swedes, and ironically, it was the Swedish instructors that were trying to get the Ukrainian troops up to running, or at least being able to work the AWACS aircraft, the sob that the Swedes had promised Ukraine.
So, yeah, there's lots of irony there, whether this lieutenant colonel was a victim of that is interesting.
I would like the two of you to listen to the clip that Chris is going to run.
This is Secretary Austin earlier today in Germany.
Cut number two.
Ukraine continues to seize the initiative on the battlefield.
Ukraine's troops are now conducting an operation in Russia's Kursk region.
The Kremlin's army of aggression is now on the defensive on its own turf.
But we know that Putin's malice runs deep.
Moscow continues its offensive in the east of Ukraine, especially around Pokrosk.
Putin is repositioning his troops in Kursk.
And the Kremlin continues to bombard Ukraine's cities and to target Ukraine's civilians.
That is an outrage.
Spoken like a good war criminal, forgetting what he's...
Yeah, yeah.
It's just, well, you've got to remember, those Palestinians aren't real human beings, okay?
They're considered subhuman as far as people like Austin are concerned.
Yeah, no, look, this kind of hypocrisy has become so blatant and so apparent that most of the world, at least the global South, It's just completely rejecting the United States anymore.
We have zero credibility.
You know, there was a time when the United States did have some credibility and its word meant something, but no longer.
People like Austin have disgraced it, and particularly when he just says certain lies about Russia's on the defensive, Ukraine is on the march.
And why does Austin care?
His stock holdings in Raytheon, man, going up, making money off of this, even though he's got it in a truss for right now.
Like I said, it's awful.
Ray, you are not surprised.
Are you to hear this man, given his history, condemning what he's doing?
Condemning somebody else for doing what he's doing?
Condemning Putin for killing civilians when he is financing, funding, and providing all the equipment with which to slaughter women and children in Gaza?
No, I'm not, Judge.
Putin's malice runs deep, right?
Here's the fellow, Austin, who two years ago said, you know, our objective really is to weaken Russia, to give it a strategic defeat.
And others have said, we want to chop up Russia into various, we want to make it so that it's not a major country anymore.
So, you know, if that evokes malice on the part of Putin, well, my goodness, Putin would have to be very, very peaceful not to feel a little bit angry about that.
Here's President Zelensky, who was next to Secretary Austin at the same gathering in Germany earlier today.
It really boggles my mind, Larry and Ray.
I can't remember a time in modern history where the head of state of another country is begging us for aid, not on the phone to the National Security Advisor, but in front of cameras for the whole world to hear.
Cut number one.
We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory.
Yes, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.
Now, this, of course, is dangerous.
Who knows what Larry Joe Biden might do if he thinks it will help his chosen successor succeed him in the White House?
Well, the only good news is that Joe Biden is not making any decision other than perhaps what flavor of ice cream he wants for the day.
The decision-making has defaulted completely to Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin.
Now, that's not exactly a stellar group of intellectual firepower right there.
It's a frightening trio of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
It sounds like the United States is not going to fall into that trap because they recognize if they go that route, if they do equip Ukraine with the JSAMs, that joined airstrike missile that could perhaps reach 500 kilometers into Russia, then the Russians have made it very clear they'll strike in the United States.
They're not going to let us get away with that and not pay a price.
500 kilometers would let them reach Moscow, would it not?
Moscow, St. Petersburg.
Right.
Yeah, I looked at the radius.
I think it's almost Moscow.
Yeah, and they have an enhanced version that goes even farther, which would include Moscow.
I have to sort of say, I don't think they'd retaliate on the United States right away.
Putin's in the catbird seat.
he's going to prevail in Ukraine.
This would be more in the nation of a The trajectory of the war is irreversible right now.
The question is, what else the US or the NATO could do?
It boggles the mind to think they might think of employing tactical nuclear weapons, but I would not rule it out.
not with these folks, and neither can His general is interested in a military intelligence kind of view, in capabilities, not intentions.
They have to be ready for the worst.
And so that's why they're raising the nuclear thing.
I think the Russians are trying to put fear into the Europeans lest the Russians retaliate in Europe.
I think we're quite some steps away from the Russians retaliating against us in the United States.
Here's what President Putin said about all of this yesterday.
Cut number 20. Their aim was to make a stress, fuss, move troops from one zone to another, and to stop our advance on key targets, most importantly in Donbass, which is our primary target.
Did they succeed?
They didn't succeed in anything.
Our forces have stabilised the situation.
And have started squeezing them out from the border territories.
And most importantly, our advance has not been held back.
Quite the contrary, having moved their fairly large and quite well-prepared subdivisions to our border territories.
They have weakened themselves while our troops accelerated their advances.
Ray, do you think that the destruction of the Ukrainian version of West Point was a slamming of the fist of Putin because of what happened in Kortsk, or do you think it was part of the slow, methodical, inexorable, patient movement westward of history?
Yeah.
It's hard to know.
You know, maybe they got lucky.
Maybe they got a tip-off from, actually, from their reconnaissance that these guys were all congregating there, they're all being instructed, and they got a missile right on target.
It's hard to know.
But, you know, what else Putin said in that clip, you know, at the danger, at the danger of being considered to be an And Putin's pocket, I mean, that's exactly the situation.
What the Ukrainians did made no military sense.
They put their best troops into Kursk in this fool's errand, and now the Russians are moving at twice the speed toward the Nieper River, which they can easily reach now within the next couple of weeks.
Larry, Ray raises a very intriguing point to me.
Swedish officers and Polish officers and British officers and American officers were in that academy in Poltava instructing the Ukrainian cadets.
Would Russian intel know that?
Oh, yes.
In fact, I think that's one of the reasons in the past that there are certain targets that you could think on paper should be hit.
But I think one of the reasons in the past Russia has avoided hitting certain targets in Ukraine is because they actually have human intel assets penetrated there.
So they're not going to kill somebody that's there on scene, can report and pass intelligence to Russia about what the real U.S. plans are, NATO plans are.
But in this case, the reports that are coming out of Sweden indicate It was more likely Swedish defense contractors who were specialists with electronic warfare and these AWACS-type airplanes that Sweden was going to supply to Ukraine.
And the casualty figure is significant, upwards of 400 and growing.
And they were reporting multiple flights heading out both into Sweden and to other parts of Europe, carrying people to hospital.
So this was, you know, the Russians, this follows a decision that Clinton, that Putin made three weeks ago on a Saturday where he met with the generals.
And they decided the decisions were taken then on a Saturday night that there was going to be a decided shift in the war in response to what had happened in Kursk, in response to what they saw as increased reckless behavior by NATO.
And so what you've seen as a consequence of that is Batava is just one that they've hit.
They've hit multiple sites like that over the last five days now.
And they're pressing the attack.
Aggressively across the front and throughout Donbass.
And it's not just concentrated in one area.
But the key thing is the casualty figure for Ukraine has soared.
It's gone from, you know, a year ago it would be 700 a day.
Now it's over 22, 2300 a day.
And that has been going on now for about a month.
So it's significant losses on their part.
Ray, how can Putin and Sullivan and Blinken and Biden, to the extent he knows what's going on, overlook those kind of numbers?
They're overlooking them in Gaza, as you pointed out already.
I compliment Larry about being concerned with Ukrainian casualties.
Most people say 500,000, the flower of Ukrainian youth, dead?
All because the US and the UK told their Ukrainian satraps, do not accept them.
The conditions agreed in Istanbul in April of 2022.
Do not accept them.
The Russians agreed not to go any farther in return for a guarantee that Ukraine would not try to become part of NATO.
That was the deal.
The US came in.
That is the U.K. on behalf of the U.S., Boris Johnson.
And people forget, John Brennan was there in April.
You know, this was the enforcer.
We're going to give you everything.
Not only military, we're going to give you all kinds of intelligence support.
And we've got lots of intelligence.
So, you know, this is how we put the kibosh on a sensible deal.
And since then, as I say, 500,000.
Ukrainian men dead?
I mean, what's that for?
We're going to switch topics.
I'm not even going to tell you who this is.
You'll know who they are.
You'll know what their motivation is.
A dangerous assault on the Constitution.
Chris, I want you to run consecutively without breaks.
Cut number 9. Cut number 10. Cut number 18. The subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company are often consistent with Russia's interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine.
The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government.
Instead, the defendants and the company claimed that the company was sponsored by a private investor.
But that private investor was a fictitious persona.
The charges unsealed this morning do not represent the end of the investigation.
It remains active and ongoing.
Our investigation revealed that since at least last year, RT has used people living and working inside the U.S. to facilitate contracts with American media figures to create and disseminate Russian propaganda here.
The content was pitched as legitimate independent news when, in fact, much of it was created in Russia by RT employees who worked for the Russian government.
For those in the audience who are not watching this but are listening to it, the first voice was, of course, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States.
The second voice was Chris Wray, the Director of the FBI.
Wray McGovern, you think this is more nefarious than it even appears on its face.
You think this is part of the conditioning of the American public for a war with Russia?
I do.
I think that most Americans believe this claptrap, that as much as we try to set the record straight, they still believe Rachel Maddow and, I dare say, the Attorney General and the head of the FBI.
Bear in mind that the head of the Justice Department, the head of the FBI, and the head of the CIA were implicated in Russiagate number one.
Okay, now they're resuscitating it.
Do not resuscitate.
Label on it.
If only that were true.
I was right on the end of the bed there, but no, no.
You know, it's shameful to have the Attorney General repeating these things.
Glenn Greenwald talks about it today in legal terms, but it's shameful in just human terms to have this kind of drivel going on.
And you know what?
When Merrick Cortland was asked at the end, you know, who would they favor?
Who do they favor in this election?
He says, wow, look at those internal Kremlin documents.
I'd like to see them.
The Kremlin documents.
And the director of national intelligence has testified that their preferences, the Russian preferences, are the same as they were for the preceding election.
Now, who's the director of national intelligence?
Averill Haynes.
What's her record for credibility?
Wow.
A couple of months into the war in Ukraine, she said the Russians are running out of ammunition.
They have no indigenous capability to replace the weapons.
Hello.
She's not really a very dependable source.
So she says the Russians favor Trump.
And Putin said yesterday, no, no, no, we favor Biden, and now we favor Kamala.
I mean, Putin can, for the first time, be accused of trying to sow Larry,
before you weigh in, and everybody knows this, they've heard me say it before, and if you've taken a basic course in social studies or American civics or anything in law school or anything about the Constitution, the whole purpose of the First Amendment.
The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the government out of the business of evaluating the content of speech.
We're not talking about a bullhorn in a residential neighborhood at 3 in the morning.
Obviously, that's time, place, and manner the government can regulate.
but the content of speech is none of the government's business and these indictments Where is this leading us to, Larry?
To the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, under Communist China, under Mao in terms of the United States used to sit back smugly, very sanctimonious, talking about the revolution.
And rightly so.
They were oppressive.
They did punish political opponents.
But now these clueless people, these fascist sycophants that are peppered throughout the Biden administration, where they can sit down without one shred of embarrassment.
To push this crap that Russia's meddling in our election, when the only ones that we actually have established concretely with evidence that meddled in the presidential elections is the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
We know that.
And it was false charges.
Brought up against Donald Trump and against General Michael Flynn and against Carter Page and against George Papadopoulos.
You know, so it's not misinformation.
It's not conspiracy theory.
It's absolute fact.
And the reason that they're going back to this now is they recognize what a terrible candidate Kamala Harris is and that they've got to try to resurrect the ghost of Russia.
As the excuse for why the Democrats are going to lose.
And anything that they can do to now punish political opponents of Joe Biden is exactly what they're doing.
They're behaving in the same way that the secret police did in Nazi Germany.
I mean, I hate to draw that kind of parallel, but that's exactly the road we're on now.
Is Baghdad Bob jumping in on all of this?
Also known as Admiral Kirby, number 11. Actors like Iran and Russia are at it again and continue to believe that So we're here because of what they've been doing and that we're trying to hold them accountable and to make it harder for them to do this.
And that's exactly what the actions today, and I'm sure actions to come, as appropriate, will do.
We'll make it harder for them.
Will it make it completely impossible?
Probably not, because they'll find workarounds.
I mean, these are actors, in this case driven by the Kremlin itself, that are bound and determined to try to change and influence the way Americans vote when they go in that ballot box.
And that's why I said at the end of my opening Everybody, not just the federal government, but everybody needs to be concerned about this and everybody needs to bear a hand in pushing back on the influence attempts by Russia.
Ray?
Well, I think it's a very good question.
Well, Larry mentioned Nazi Germany.
Let me quote from a young lawyer who was training to be a judge in early 1933 when the Nazis came, well, they got 44% of the vote in the parliament.
Quote, there was not a single example of energetic defense, of courage, or of principle.
There was only panic.
In March 1933, millions were ready to fight the Nazis overnight.
They found themselves without leaders.
At the moment of truth, when other nations ride spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed.
They yielded, capitulated, and suffered a nervous breakdown.
The result is today the nightmare of the rest of the world.
There are no people in Congress, no people other than you, Judge, and a couple of others that are able to stand up and say, that is Baghdad, Bob.
What they're trying to do is deceive us, and the result, the consequential result of all this, is to prepare.
I say brainwash.
My editors say no to educate them, instruct them, prepare them for a war with Russia.
Now, what could be worse than that, to prepare people thinking that Putin is the devil incarnate and that the Russians are interfering again in our election process?
Guys, thank you very much.
I appreciate your accommodating my schedule.
It's a grand slam bang.
Home run over the fence at the end of every week and at the end of every Friday.
All the best.
We'll see you both on Monday.
Have a great weekend.
You too, Judge.
Thank you.
A great conversation with two courageous people.
For those of you watching live, Scott Ritter will be here in three minutes, but it's at 4 o 'clock Eastern, Scott Ritter.
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