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Jan. 10, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:34
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, January 10th, 2025.
It's the end of the day and the end of the week.
It's time for our Intelligence Community Roundtable with my dear friends and longtime collaborators, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern.
Guys, welcome here.
Thank you again for everything you have done in 2024.
It's been an absolute joy working with you, and I hope we can continue our collaboration on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons and in between when we need you in 2025.
I want to start with something a little unusual that I didn't know about until Ray brought it to our attention, you, Larry, and me, as well as to my team.
consistent with rumors, was engaged in serious and aggressive mind control.
These reports go all the way back to the 50s.
Ray, what was released?
Who released it?
What do we now know?
Well, Judge, you're not the only one that hadn't heard about this.
Nobody heard about it until I heard about it at 10 o'clock today via an email.
From RT International in Moscow.
And they said, Mr. McGovern, we'd really like you to talk about all these reports here by the National Security Archive of George Washington University.
1,200 pages detailing in great detail how the CIA, since 1950 on, experimented with drugs like LSD.
And chapter and verse on who did it?
Why they did it, and it's all documented in a several-year study produced and now issued by the National Security Archive, a very reputable research agency which got these documents through a Freedom of Information request.
So I said, well, yeah, they didn't tell me all that.
I clicked on the link, and I saw it was indeed the National Security Archive, and then I read it.
Now, this is the front page.
This is just one.
When did this come out?
It's now the second week in January of 2025.
Did this come out around Christmas time?
Well, actually, Judge, it came out on the 23rd of December, which if Christmas was on the 25th, then my math is right, that's about two days before Christmas.
It was suppressed.
It has not been carried by any newspaper or any other outlet.
So when I read this thing, I read it very carefully, and I said, my God, this is a revelation that is being suppressed, and how long can they do this?
It's an indictment, chapter and verse and verse and verse, another verse on the people involved, some of whom I knew, some of whom I worked with.
I entered the agency in April of 1973.
I knew some of these guys.
What did they do?
Did they get drugged on people wittingly or unwittingly?
Meaning, were these human experiments?
Were they torture?
What did they do?
Well, most of the witting ones, Judge, were from prisons in Atlanta.
Witting, okay?
A lot of them were unwitting by these revelations.
There were hospitals.
There was a wing at the Georgetown University Hospital that was built precisely so that a portion of it could be used for people who were recovering or not recovering from the administration of LSD and other.
They're drugs.
It's more than that.
It's a total corruption of the medical workers who worked with them.
And then, if this were necessary, the NSA, the National Security Archive, not the other NSA, included mug shots.
They should be mug shots.
They're photos of all the main perps, okay?
And it's replete with detailed information.
Let me just give you an example here.
Today, the National Security Archive.
Celebrate the publication of a scholarly document that's a result of a collection for many years of the shocking history of the CIA and its mind control research program.
They named the acronyms that were used to describe this.
They varied by director by director so that the incoming director said, I want to see everything on this.
He saw everything from the time he was director.
Today's announcement occurs 50 years after an investigative reporter called Seymour Hersh revealed all these programs.
What resulted was the commission headed by Frank Church, and there were intelligence oversight committees in the House and the Senate set up as a result of that.
They haven't been worth a damn.
Here's just one thing.
A director of central intelligence approved plan for the establishment of, quote, interrogation teams that would use not only the polygraph, but drugs to attain the results that they want in interrogation techniques.
Does that sound familiar?
Does that sound familiar?
Well, when you're not held accountable for this kind of thing, you can easily adopt the Gestapo methods for integration.
Which is precisely what Bush and Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, bless their heart, did when they wanted to get evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iran.
So you have to call these people accountable.
The missing link here is the congressional oversight committees that have given a new meaning to the word oversight.
Larry, does any of this surprise you?
Did you know of any of it from your years in the Central Intelligence Agency or from your colleagues who were there?
No, I didn't know about it when I was there.
And let's be clear, the people that you'd hold accountable for, you'd probably have to go grab a shovel and dig them up in the graveyard because this was done in 1953 and prior to that.
You know, I'm turning 70 this month, and that'd make them 72. Figure the average age of them is 25, so just do the math.
They're a minimum 97, 98, 99 years old.
What this really highlights, I mean, I don't disagree with the thing Ray said, but it's a record of CIA failure.
Notice that if this whole, the MKUltra, Bluebird, if any of these programs, Had actually worked.
Because, again, why were they doing it?
They were trying to, the Soviets were going to, you know, communism was going to take over the world, so we had to find a way to get the truth out of these, you know, these crafty Ruskans, you know, Russians.
And what happened?
Well, they used the LSD, and, you know, people took some trips, and some killed themselves.
And it turned out the mind control, Not only was it no mind control, hell, the CIA couldn't even control itself.
That's the lesson out of this, because jump ahead to what happened in the war on terrorism when they started using torture, physical torture, is because none of this other stuff had worked before.
None of it was useful.
And, guess what?
The torture wasn't useful either.
You and I spoke earlier today about the problems of torture.
At Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was scheduled to give a public confession pursuant to his guilty plea.
And that was interfered with by a federal court around lunchtime today.
So the confession didn't come about.
The guilty plea did not come about.
The federal court will decide whether or not...
There should actually be a trial.
What happens when there is a trial and the government torture or human experimentation, Larry, is made known?
I don't know.
I mean, clearly the case can't go forward.
But then you get to, what do we do with this guy?
Do we just keep...
You know, hanging on to him?
Well, this is because of Bush and Cheney.
If they had followed standard investigative techniques, Ray McGovern, instead of torture, they would have developed evidence by lawful means and could have presented that evidence to a jury.
Judge, they knew there was no evidence.
They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
What you need to do to get the correct answer is to torture somebody so that they can tell you what you want to hear, and that's precisely what happened.
Talk to Larry Wilkerson about this.
He was with Colin Powell when George Tenet and his subordinates deliberately deceived them into thinking that al-Qaeda was involved in support of Saddam Hussein.
They had links together.
Colin Powell called him a sinister...
Why is it that no media outlet, either legacy or like we are, has covered this?
Why is it that none of us, you, Larry, or I even knew about this revelation?
Well, that's because nobody wanted it to get out.
I don't know how long they thought they could prevent it from being exposed.
Maybe we'll be the only ones to do it.
God knows.
But, you know, they were very successful in suppressing...
The incontrovertible evidence that the Russians did not hack into the DNC computers, Adam Schiff suppressed that for two and a half years.
And when they were finally released in May, May 7th of 2000, well, they were not played in the New York Times or the Washington Post.
And if my math is right, this is 2025.
They were released in 2020, okay?
So you've got five years more of non-release of already released documentation.
The media is the bad message here.
They're totally corrupted.
They do whatever the government says, and they don't do what the government tells them not to do.
Larry, I want to play a clip.
I'm switching gears to General Keith Kellogg.
Who yesterday was on Fox News boasting about President Trump's prowess to end the war in Ukraine.
Tell me what you think of this.
Chris, cut number 14. I think the biggest mistake that President Biden made is the fact that he's never engaged in any conversations.
With Putin.
I mean, he hasn't talked to him in over two years.
He needs to talk to him.
That's one great thing the president does, is the president does talk to adversaries and allies alike.
And he knows it's a tough one, but he actually knows you need to talk to people to get to an end state, and that's what he's going to do.
So what we're going to do, we'll set the conditions for the president, and then he'll eventually get to a position where he'll be talking to President Putin and also Prime Minister Zelensky as well.
And I think they're going to come to a solvable solution.
I think he's right in criticizing Biden for refusing to talk to Putin, but I don't know how they're going to resolve this in 100 days, Larry.
Well, at least they've adjusted the reality from 24 hours.
Right. They did a nice pirouette on that.
You know, 100 days may be more realistic.
The good news, and I noted this in the piece I wrote last night, is Trump at least is predisposed to talk to Putin and to anybody.
But it's not just Trump.
Marco Rubio better be talking to Sergei Lavrov.
We need to have diplomatic contacts across the board.
The Russian ambassador in Washington, D.C., needs to be a regular visitor at the State Department with conversations with Secretary Blinken, with the Deputy Secretary, whoever that may be.
I mean, with the Secretary Rubio and the Deputy Secretary, whoever that may be.
But we've had zero contact.
And that's what I heard, you know, a year ago in December from Sergei Rubikov, the Deputy Foreign Minister.
He wasn't propagandizing.
He was saying, literally, who do we talk to?
Nobody will talk to us.
Will, Larry, will Lavrov take Rubio, Hegseth, Sebastian, Gorka seriously?
Or will he just view them as...
I don't know how he'll view them.
He'll probably be quite critical of Gorka and...
Hegseth as television people, but will he take Senator Rubio as Secretary of State seriously?
Clearly, Rubio's not the heavyweight that Lavrov is.
Nobody is.
Lavrov's a professional, so he'll accord them professional respect if they demonstrate the same kind of courtesies.
But if they start acting like clowns or buffoons or ideologues...
You know, he'll not have the time of day for them.
But, you know, I think Rubio is smart enough to understand that he's going to be outclassed, outmatched.
If nothing else, Lavrov towers over it, much taller, much bigger.
But, you know, Lavrov is, he is the premier foreign minister in the world today.
You know, if you're going to design what a foreign minister or secretary of state should be like.
Sergey Lavrov is the model.
Right. I would just say...
Can I add to that?
I would just say it's compared to what?
I mean, here I'm Sergey Lavrov, right?
And I look at...
Oh, compared to Blinken?
Pompeo? I mean, come on, Marco!
Come on in here!
Let's... Well, they must laugh uproariously.
Over Blinken, behind Blinken's back because he's such a fool.
What Rubio's going to do is whatever Trump tells him to do.
The same with Kellogg.
The same with all these other subordinates.
So, number one, talking is really good.
It's not just two years.
It's two and a half years since presidents have talked to each other.
But there are three other very hopeful signs.
Trump himself, two days ago, said, you know...
I can understand why Russia doesn't want Ukraine and NATO.
I mean, for God's sake, such a big country and all that army right on its border.
I can understand that.
And by the way, I don't understand why the US and the UK vitiated.
The agreement which reached Istanbul in April of 2022, that could have prevented the whole war.
And why does the U.S. insist on shooting these really long-range missiles into Russia proper?
That's foolish.
That doesn't make any sense.
What's going on here?
I'm going to change all this.
I'm going to talk to these guys, and I'll admit beforehand that I sympathize.
I can sympathize with their problems.
I'm saying, hey, tell me that again?
Trump said this?
This is a big deal.
So there's a willingness to negotiate on both parts.
There's a mutual interest in settling this damn thing.
Neither country wants it to be prolonged.
In my view, it's going to take more than 100 days.
I'd say 200 will have a deal because both sides have the flexibility to deal with Trump.
Larry, here's Trump making some of those very comments.
We'll play the clip and then solicit your comments on it.
Chris, cut number 13. A big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine.
Now, they've said that.
That's been, like, written in stone.
And somewhere along the line, Biden said, no, they should be able to join NATO.
Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that.
But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation.
I think he's listening to people that are making more sense.
I mean, even Kellogg is no longer threatening.
Putin with massive amounts of artillery shells.
Yeah, well, I think maybe the CIA briefers are telling some truth.
Clearly, they're misleading him on the casualties.
Right. Kellogg is way off on the casualties.
You're right.
Go ahead.
Well, what the Trump team needs to understand is that Russia is not looking for a deal isolated to Ukraine.
They're not interested in ceasefire.
Or a freeze in place.
No, that's not going to happen.
When they say demilitarize, they mean an end to the Ukrainian army, an end to NATO supplying weapons to the Ukrainian military, an end to NATO and the United States conducting annual and multi exercises in one year with Ukraine.
That's all going to stop.
Those are non-negotiable points for Russia.
Those are not points in which Russia's going, oh, okay, yeah, we can live with that.
No, they're not going to live with that because they know if they don't put an end to that, they'll be back out on the battlefield in, what, five years, ten years.
They're going to ensure that Ukraine is, if you will, emasculated, that it is unable to continue with any kind of military whatsoever, and that it could have a national police force.
Border police.
But it's not going to have a military unit capable of attacking Russia.
And so, once the Trump folks come to understand that, they'll be able to work towards a deal.
And that's going to be a tough deal for the West to swallow, but that's the deal I think Russia's going to demand, and Russia's in a position to demand it.
Ray, Trump almost sounded like us.
Criticizing Biden.
He did mention Boris Johnson by name for disrupting the peace agreement that had been agreed to in Istanbul in March of 22. Trump's criticism of Biden is well taken and a happy surprise.
Did you not know, Judge, that...
That Trump is one of your new subscribers?
Well, it's very interesting you should say that.
It's a segue to the next topic because one of your colleagues on this show, the great Professor Jeff Sachs, gave a speech at the Cambridge Union.
The speech is about 60 minutes long, but there's about two and a half minutes of it in there in which he rips into Prime Minister Netanyahu, Donald Trump called to the attention of everybody on Truth Social what Jeff Sachs said about Bibi Netanyahu,
and within two days, Netanyahu canceled his plans to attend Trump's inauguration.
Is something happening here, Ray McGovern?
Well, unless it was Melania who snuck in and did that little tweet.
Yeah, you know, Trump is a smart guy, whatever else you might think about him.
But, you know, he knows that Iran, for example, doesn't really pose any real threat to the United States, and neither does Ukraine.
Trump is talking about Greenland and Panama and Mexico and Canada now.
That means something.
I don't know exactly what, but those aren't European or Middle Eastern countries.
So what I'm saying here is that if he is a realpolitik guy and he sees what the Israelis are trying to get him into, that is a war to defend them against Iran, Iran being capable of bombing the hell or rocketing.
Missiling the hell out of Israel for the first time.
I think he might.
It's conceivable he might put the brakes on Netanyahu in a subliminal way, in a sotto voce, off-the-record way.
That's a hope.
I can't prove that, but this indicates that it might be.
Larry, Donald Trump has a $100 million debt to Mrs. Adelson, publicly proclaimed himself as Israel's best friend.
Said if the hostages, the Israeli hostages, are not returned by Inauguration Day, they'll be hell to pay.
Are we being a little simple-minded, thinking that suddenly he's going to restrain Netanyahu?
Well, throughout Trump's career, in particular in New York City, he's not just tied to the Zionists.
You know, he's also got good ties with the Haredi, with the ultra-Orthodox, who actually believe that Israel shouldn't exist.
So he's been able to sort of navigate across, you know, the wide gulf that separates Jews from Jews.
You know, Judaism is not one monolithic thing.
And I think Trump understands that what Netanyahu is doing...
It's going to endanger Jews, lead to the destruction of Israel, not its preservation.
And so if Trump is really looking to try to preserve Israel in a way that it can continue to live with its neighbors, because remember, Trump also wants to be liked by the Saudis, and by the Egyptians, and the Jordanians, and the Turks.
And I think he's been getting some clear messages from them that...
You know, the Zionists under Netanyahu are out of control.
You've got to get them under control.
Right. Then we can talk and we can make a deal.
But until then, no deal.
Trump wants to make a deal.
Trump wants to be liked.
You know, Kivork Almasy and Max Blumenthal both tell us that Syria is a disaster.
And is rife with the government now in the hands of terrorists and public torture and public executions.
I don't know if Trump knows this, but of course the United States and MI6 and the Turks are, and the Israelis are all behind this.
Is it pretty clear that the so-called ceasefire with Hezbollah was engineered so that the Israelis could march in and capture?
40%, 40% of the Syrian landmass and now proclaim it as part of Israel?
Well, it is, Judge.
The temporal coincidence there is quite striking.
But one has to remember that that's Israel's preferred outcome.
Way back when, when the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief asked prominent Israelis, what's your...
Preferred outcome in Syria.
They said, well, you know, this doesn't sound really good, but we'd like them to hemorrhage.
We'd like Sunni-Shia to fight against each other because when they do, Israel has nothing to fear from Syria.
Now, that pretty much took place, and now Israel is sitting much prettier, let's face it, than they were before.
Will they be able to stop so that they don't antagonize the Turks?
That's another question.
How much Syria will they have to take?
Well, bedlam in Syria is not so bad for Israel because it prevents, of course, the supply of weaponry through Syria.
So Israel is filling its oats right now.
Where it will stop and when is another question.
And that's just for the present.
That's for the nuns.
Look about...
A couple of months in the future, and you'll see these terrorists are not all moderate terrorists, and they might start slitting Israeli as well as other throats.
Jeff, could I jump in?
I have a slightly different take than my good friend Ray, that I think Syria is really a problem for Israel on a number of fronts.
Number one.
When you had Assad in place, you had a Syrian military and a Syrian intelligence service.
Israel had penetrated that.
They had Mossad assets inside.
So they knew everything that Iran was doing with Syria through both the Syrian intelligence and Syrian military.
Number one, Assad goes away.
Those contacts go away.
Now, actually...
I believe Iran is moving through other networks.
Some of these are 2,000 year old networks that have been in place where it's not going through official government.
It's going through unofficial channels.
That's where drug traffickers and others have thrived for years.
Secondly, Israel does not have the manpower within its army to extend and try to control territory in Syria.
When it can't even defeat Hamas in Gaza.
I mean, they're still getting soldiers killed in Gaza.
They're still trying to do things in West Bank.
They're trying to do some interventions in southern Lebanon and having trouble.
I'd actually say, hey, Israel, go for it.
Because they're going to extend themselves to a point where they will not be able to sustain it.
And that's where I think, you know, instead of this actually weakening Iran, Iran no longer has to go through the government of Syria.
Because one of the things they did before, they respected the diplomatic, the law, if you will.
And they weren't going to circumvent Assad.
Now, they can happily circumvent him, and those smuggling routes exist, I guarantee it.
Larry, Professor Mearsheimer agrees with you 100% that Israel is grossly overextended.
Larry, were you surprised that in the midst of all this, And he must have known, maybe he didn't make the decision, about CIA and MI6 involvement in the deposing of Assad.
Were you surprised that the Biden administration refused to remove the terrorist tag from HTS?
And is there any significance to that, or does the CIA still tell them what to do?
Yeah, well, you're assuming that there's a coordinated effort within the government.
Well, you used to work in counterterrorism.
Exactly. I tell you, there is no coordination.
I worked in the office of the coordinator for counterterrorism.
My God, it was more like trying to herd cats.
Wow. Ray, does any of this resonate with you?
Well, it does.
And I don't think Larry and I are very far apart.
I kept talking about for the nonce for the next few months.
I think that cannot be denied.
Israel has pretty much moved farther into Syria than anyone thought.
Over the long term, will that become a liability?
I suspect it will.
And I suspect it will come within a year that Israel will be so overextended.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
It's been a long week for the three of us, but we're all back in the saddle.
I'm happily starting my Monday mornings with the two of you right after Alistair and happily ending Friday afternoons.
With the three of us here.
Thanks for all your time.
Thanks for everything.
Have a great weekend.
We'll see you on Monday.
All right, Judge.
Thank you.
Okay, all the best.
And Monday's as usual with Alistair Crook at 8 o'clock and Ray at 10 and Larry at 11.30 and more coming your way.
Have a great weekend, my dear friends.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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