Ray McGovern on Loud and Clear (12/13/2016)

Supplemental document for: "Theory that Roger Stone's back channel to Wikileaks was Randy Credico", link: https://wakelet.com/wake/2d352ae9-febe-44a1-a7bb-51674a2e4bf5

Ray McGovern on "Loud and Clear", hosted by Brian Becker, broadcast by Radio Sputnik on December 13, 2016.

File link: https://sputniknews.com/radio_loud_and_clear/201612131048480131-ray-mcgovern-russia-election-interference-allegations-dont-add-up/

Segment goes from 1:33 to 19:01 in the file.

BRIAN BECKER
But first we turn to the anti-Russia hysteria, and allegations of direct interference in the U.S. presidential election, we are joined, in studio, by Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst turned political activist and journalist. Ray is also a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or VIPS. Welcome back, Ray McGovern.

RAY MCGOVERN
Thanks.

BECKER
Ray, the New York Times ran an article on Sunday called "The CIA Judgement on Russia Built on a Swell of Evidence" [link: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/politics/cia-judgment-intelligence-russia-hacking-evidence.html]. But then the article actually says the CIA's conclusion does not appear to be the product of specific new intelligence obtained after the election, but rather, based on circumstantial evidence. The VIPS, your organization, has issued a statement. How do you react to the Times story, and of course, the calls now both by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the House for an inquiry into the question of whether Russia directly interfered in the U.S. election, to tilt or favor the election of Donald Trump?

MCGOVERN
Well Brian, I think you mis-read "swell of evidence", it's a "swill", S-W-I-L-L of evidence, and it's incredibly suspect. What's really painful is the way the intelligence community has been out and out politicized. Now, take the CIA for example, who are sitting on this swill of evidence. Well today they did it again. They're talking about over-, "overwhelming circumstantial evidence." Now, we have overwhelming technical evidence. We have the former technical director of the National Security Agency, who tells us, that this really is just drivel. This is really just an operation to blacken the Russians. And to blame the defeat of Hillary Clinton on the Russians. Why do we say that? Well, NSA has the capability, and uses it all the time, to find out who's sending what emails, to whom. Can they do that? In all cases? The answer is: yes. K? So, everything is collected, it's like a dragnet, everything on this planet, is collected. And if it's not within this country, we have our allies, the five eyes, seven or eight co-operative intelligence services, that pick up where we leave off. And so, if there's evidence that the Democratic National Committee or the Clintons or any other emails, had been hacked, NSA has that. And you don't have to rely on McGovern for that. Rely on the former technical director of the NSA, his name is Bill Binney. We don't play games, we're not anonymous sources, we put it right out there. We tell it like it is. And so, this whole thing, is artificially contrived, for a whole set of reasons. To explain why Hillary lost, and to put a poison pill in Trump's attempts to create a more decent relationship with Russia. You know, peace after all, is very very bad for business. And, you know, tension is pretty good for business. So is war. These people stand to lose a lot. A lot of people are going to get canned in this city, and this is their last gasp. To make their presence known, to try and excuse their behavior, and to pin all these kinds of things on the Russians.

It was a leak. It was not a hack. Now, what's the difference? Well, we spell that out in this memo, for people, like me, who are not really technically adept [title: "US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims" link: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/12/us-intel-vets-dispute-russia-hacking-claims/ ]. A leak is when somebody physically takes data, out of an organization, and gives it to some other person, or organization. Like Ed Snowden did. Like Chelsea Manning did. That's really hard to detect. Because there's no electronic signature. Now, a hack, and this is where NSA can collect everything and knows everything about all these emails, that's when somebody in a remote location, electronically penetrates systems, firewalls, cyber protection systems. And then extracts the data. Now, all the signs that we have, and these are technical experts with hundreds of years of experience, indicate that it was leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, NSA would know about it. And so, they would also know the sender, and the recipient. Now, there's no reason in god's world, why they wouldn't reveal that, if they had it, because this is rudimentary stuff. This is not highly sophisticated methodology. Indeed, you can buy it commercially, they're called traceroutes, they trace the origins, and the destination, of everything on the internet.

BECKER
So, what your statement is saying, and what Bill Binney, William Binney, is saying, he works with you, in the veterans group, the veteran intelligence professionals group, VIPS...and he's been on this show, Ray, Bill Binney has been on this show, and he has said, he's been maintaining for some time, that there's another Snowden, or another leaker from within the NSA. What Bill Binney and what you are saying, is that the CIA story is really based, and would have to be based on intelligence the CIA had gotten, if there was hard intelligence from the NSA. But there is no hard evidence, and that the NSA is able to identify both the sender and the recipient, when hacking is involved. And so it would be quite easy then, for the NSA to trace, where the hack came from, and how it was delivered, and the fact that they're not doing it, the fact that they aren't doing it or can't do it, because certainly if they could, they would right now, to make the case...that's further evidence, circumstantial evidence but nonetheless, compelling evidence, that there is in fact a leaker releasing this data. Now we know Russia has been, I would say, I don't know, afraid, is the right word, but certainly concerned, alarmed perhaps, that the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Leadership orientation towards Russia has been highly confrontational, and that in the last few years, the policy of the Obama administration, especially in regards to Ukraine, but also in Syria, and elsewhere, has been of a confrontational character with Russia, so it's obvious, one might think, why Russia would consider somebody like Trump, who's saying let's press the reset button again, even though he didn't use that language, in other words, to have a normal relations with Russia [sic], instead of confrontational relations. It might make sense that Russia would prefer Trump under these circumstances, but the point that you're making, is that there's no evidence whatsoever that Russia actually did anything like directly interfering in U.S. elections, although the New York Times says, this is really tit for tat because Putin knows that the United States in fact tried to interfere in electoral processes and other political processes in Georgia, in Ukraine, in Russia. Go ahead.

MCGOVERN
Well, you know, if I were Vladimir Putin, and I was looking at the campaign we just finished...the Germans have an expression, it was a choice between "pest und cholera", pest is plague, cholera is cholera. I can't conceive of Vladimir Putin wishing to have a person with his finger on the nuclear button, who makes a big braggadocio about being unpredictable. Who reacts violently to any slight, real or perceived. That's the kind of person you want as your opposite number, with his finger on the nuclear button? I don't think so. I don't think Putin had a really clear preference here. Of course, you know, Hillary Clinton did call him Hitler, which is just about the worst thing you can call anybody in Russia, which people understand. So, the whole thing is, well, let's go back to basics. When did this all come out? This all came out when Julian Assange released very very prejudicial emails from the Democratic National Committee, and from Hillary Clinton's server, showing - now, this is the important thing - showing that Hillary Clinton and the DNC stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders. As clear as a bell. The problem is, Brian, nobody reads the content of those emails. It was a magnificent distraction when Hillary and her minions said, "Hey, let's blame this on the Russians! We'll say the Russians are hacking! They're trying to prevent the right person from winning here!"

And they succeeded in marshaling the entire resources of what's called "the mainstream media", and for a whole week, when the media should have been looking at the content of the emails, they distracted people into thinking, it was the Russians, it was the Russians. So that's how it all started. There was never any convincing proof adduced. And when you talk about the CIA people talking, of course you'd never know their names, and they never talk officially, [though] they talk a lot to the New York Times. CIA is not in this mix. The CIA is totally dependent on the National Security Agency, the NSA, who are ground truth in any communications arena. So: it's a mystery to me why my friends, who, as I say, have decades of experience in this area, retired professionals, one of them, the technical director of NSA, when he left a decade ago, why they would tell me, that NSA would certainly have this if it was really hacking, and why the CIA spokesman, who depends on other NSA folks, would say, "Well, nono, we just-" Actually, they don't say anything, they let the CIA say things. So: it's patently obvious, that the CIA, and others, have this mission to accomplish, fully co-operated in with the mainstream media, to make it appear that the Russians not only are really bad people, not only have threatened us all over the world, but actually had a preference in our election, and determined the outcome. Namely, Donald Trump. That is really pretty ridiculous.

BECKER
Ray McGovern, there's- when you think about it, there's only one reason- of course, that's never true, there's always more than one reason for everything. But the point that I'm making is, there's one real reason why Hillary Clinton is not going to be taking the oath of office on January 20th. And it doesn't have to do with Russia. It has to do with the fact that the U.S. uses the electoral college as the system for selecting the president...because she won the election! She's ahead by two and a half million votes! It's been a hundred and fifty years since there's been this kind of disparity between the popular vote, and the electoral college. She didn't win the votes in the right places, she lost by ten thousand in Wisconsin, another twelve thousand in Michigan, a little bit more in Pennsylvania, in other words, she lost in some battleground states, but the national polls predicted that she would win by around this margin, and she has in fact won by this margin, so...why not- doesn't it just seem obvious to you that Hillary Clinton would be president except for the electoral college? In fact, how did Russia actually change the outcome? Is the idea that Russia reached into battleground states? Into Wisconsin, into Michigan, into Pennsylvania, into the industrial heartland, which had been- cities and communities that had been hollowed out, and that may of them voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but this time voted for Trump because they bought his message that he'd bring jobs, etc etc. I mean, that's the real reason Hillary Clinton's not becoming president. In fact, this gets lost in the ani-Russian hysteria right now.

MCGOVERN
Well, the statement issued by James Clapper, the National Intelligence Director. And by the head of Homeland Security...indicated that it was, in their words, "highly unlikely" that any hacking, especially Russian hacking, would affect the machines or the outcome in local or state elections. So, you can rule that out. Even people who are now saying, well, they may have hacked into other things, do not claim that where the boot hits the ground, the Russians were able, or even capable of doing that. So: it's a charade here, and it's a last gasp by an establishment, that - what are we, we're a month after the election now - they still haven't been able to come to grips with the fact that a lot of them are going to lose their jobs, a lot of them are going to be canned, and some of them are fearful that Trump might hold them accountable, unlike Barack Obama, for some of the crimes they committed. So, this is their last gasp, they're trying to do Trump in, and the way they do that, is say "Woah! he's going to play footsie with the Russians, look! He says he likes Putin!" It's really a canard, but that's all they have at this point.

BECKER
Ray, what's happening now in the aftermath of the CIA report, or the New York Times report about the CIA report, is that Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, in the Republican party, in Trump's party, said on Monday, that he supported congressional investigations of possible Russian cyber-attacks to influence the American election, that, of course, sets up a potential conflict between McConnell and Trump, but he's also joined by Richard Burr, the senator from North Carolina, the chairman of the intelligence committee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, this is going to be a bipartisan effort now, at the same time that all the media repor- not all the media reports, but primary media reports are demanding further investigations into Russia, like Russia is taking over the United States, I mean, it's really amazing, it seems to me, I mean, you have a lot of experience with the Cold War...we're hitting a stride here that is almost unprecedented in terms of hostility and also, something of a throwback to the House of Unamerican Activities Committee. If you say anything, even like, "let's be friends with Russia", that makes you a suspect. That makes you a possible Russian agent.

MCGOVERN
Well, that shows the depth to which the mainstream media has sunk. You mentioned some senators, but the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, from California, has said, "I haven't seen anything yet, I haven't seen _anything_ that's persuasive, that the Russians hacked into anything." So: we're selling a lot of airtime, we're selling a lot of advertisements, we're making it possible for a lot of people like McCain and Lindsay Graham and others to make big noise, but, as I said before, this is their last gasp. When Trump comes in, and there are some people who suggest they are trying to prevent Trump from coming in-

BECKER
Yes.

MCGOVERN
That's very serious. That's very, very serious. So, what I would look to, is, what are our armed forces doing? What are our organs of security, as we used to call them in the Soviet Union, doing? In other words, is it at all possible that these pundits, these radio/TV people, and these congresspeople actually think that they could mount some sort of a putsch? Or some sort of a coup, to prevent Trump from taking office? You know, I- That's so beyond the pale for me, that I don't even want to think about it, but some very serious people _are_ thinking about it, and if that were their intention, this could be the prelude to that kind of action.

BECKER
Okay, we're going to have to leave it there. We've been talking with Ray McGovern. Ray is a frequent guest here at "Loud and Clear," as well as many, many other media outlets. He's a journalist, you can read his writings at Ray McGovern dot com. He is also, in addition to being a former CIA analyst, and political activist, and journalist, he is a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, who have just issued their own statement, partly authored by NSA whistleblower and technical expert, William Binney, who says, and they say, that this documentation, so called, by the CIA, in fact, is not documentation at all. It is a canard.