Randy Credico Interviews Craig Murray (05/30/2017)

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

Craig Murray on "Live on the Fly", hosted by Randy Credico. Broadcast date: May 30, 2017

Transcript excerpt runs from 20:37 to 51:03.

File link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/apwlcduc0b5gcui/wbai_170530_170002randyCrelof.mp3

Transcript starts in the midst of a discussion about the upcoming British election.

RANDY CREDICO
Well, let me- Here's- I gotta get to this, because this is our "Countdown to Freedom for Julian Assange". And one question, unless I fell asleep during that debate, or that forum, the one I watched today, and that's very possible, um, they did not bring up Wikileaks. Now Wikileaks came up throughout our elections here, he's right there in the center of London, he's a big story around the world, why didn't Wikileaks come up? And why isn't anyone really talking about it, uh, during this campaign? And Julian Assange.

CRAIG MURRAY
Well, unfortunately, uh, Wikileaks and the position of Julian Assange haven't really been mainstream political issues in the UK And there are a number of reasons for that. The right wing in the UK, of course, pictures Julian Assange as a threat to state secrecy, and a threat to national security. And that's them. You know, our right wing...we don't really have much by the way of a libertarian right wing, like you have in the United States.

CREDICO
Right, Ron Paul.

MURRAY
The right wing here tends to be purely authoritarian and statist. So, they absolutely don't like Julian Assange. Whereas on the left of politics, the establishment, they're very heavily influenced by feminist groups, and unfortunately, they've bought into all this complete bullshit about sexual allegations about Julian Assange in Sweden. And for that reason, people on the left are scared to touch the issue of Wikileaks at all, from a freedom of the press, or freedom of information, or anti-security state point of view, the people who _ought_ to align with Wikileaks, don't do so because they're scared they'll come under attack from their own powerful feminist wing.

CREDICO
Right.

MURRAY
And that, of course-

CREDICO
But you talked about this before.

MURRAY
-the efficacy, the brilliance, if you like, of security services in attacking people [inaudible, MURRAY is speaking from Scotland, and line cuts out here] sexual allegations. Actually a very, very effective tool in splitting off support.

CREDICO
Well, you talk about this before. Last time you were on the show, that they use this, this rubbish, as you called it, not even allegations...there are no charges, they just threw out there. And so there's a knee jerk reaction, that's taken seven years of _his life_.  All because of that, because you said feminists would shy away, and it gave others cover, who are part of your deep state, and the press as well. BBC...he wasn't getting support from the Guardian...but now that that has been lifted, you would think they would be apologizing, and they'd come out there and support him. I mean, the guy gave up seven years of his _life_, based on these bogus- not even charges - allegations.

MURRAY
Yeah, that's- that's very true. What we have to wait for, of course, is the time when there's more openness about the desire of the United States to...I was going to say, persecute. Maybe that's not the right word, prosecute. But the desire [inaudible, line cuts out] United States to attack him on espionage charges, once that becomes public, then the left in the UK is going to be forced to take a stand on these issues. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, state secrecy, and the fact that what Wikileaks often revealed crimes, you know, and wrongdoing by those in power and those in authority. Um, and, so, these um, sexual allegations, rumors, stuff from Sweden being out of the way, once it becomes [line cuts out] simple question of do you want Julian Assange to go to the States and be tried for espionage? At that stage, the left are going to have to show where they stand.

CREDICO
Right.

MURRAY
We haven't quite yet got ourselves into that position, and it's a position where they are trying very hard to avoid. But because um, Jeremy Corbyn has an awful lot of reactionary people in his party, he hasn't felt able, I think, to move the Labour party in the direction of supporting Wikileaks. So it hasn't become an issue in the election, unfortunately, on the basis that no one is championing Wikileaks. There's nobody seeming in UK politics prepared to make a stand for freedom of speech. Or freedom of information.

CREDICO
None of the- None of the parties that are involved, not the UK Independence Party, not he SNP, not the Conservatives, the Labour party, nobody has come out there and made this, at- particularly right now would be a propitious time to do it, now- this...this curtain has been unveiled. Or has been pulled, on these bogus allegations from the Swedish prosecutor, the ambitious Marianne Ney.

MURRAY
Yeah, it would be, it would be excellent, but unfortunately, no. And part of [inaudible] that, is the unanimity of propaganda, in the UK, has been such there's- no politician sees any votes in it- there's nothing for politicians to gain by supporting Wikileaks at the moment. And that's a deeply depressing situation. I should say, the- you know, the UK media has been absolutely appalling. The facts of the case, and just how shallow and weak the allegations in Sweden were, have never been truly reported. The position of the UN working group, how it reached that position, and to the extent that the UK is in breach of its international obligations, that has never been fully reported either. When the UN working group um, produced its report saying that Julian Assange was being held illegally, illegally detained, and should be released, the British Foreign Secretary [inaudible] in Parliament, and stated that the UN working group were just laymen, they weren't lawyers...

CREDICO
Wh- HEY. CRAIG.

MURRAY
A complete lie. Absolutely untrue.

CREDICO
[said way too loud] WE'RE GONNA PLAY A CLIP...of that, from that working group. It's thirty seconds long, we're gonna get right back, play a clip, let's do it right now, and then, uh, you can continue on the other side of this clip. Can you just wait one second, this is from the working group on arbitrary detention.

[plays wrong clip, of CIA head Mike Pompeo alleging that Wikileaks is a hostile intelligence service]

CREDICO
Alright, obviously that wasn't the right one, I had them transposed there, I believe. Let's- uh, let's...we can comment on that. Let him comment on that, uh, Craig, you there?

MURRAY
Yeah, yeah-

CREDICO
You heard the CIA Director Pompeo, we'll get to that in a second. I'll play this working group comment. Do we have that set up? Huh? From the UN? Yes. This is- Let me play this. And then we'll get back to both of those. Alright.

[working group clip]

CREDICO
There you go, Craig, it's all yours.

MURRAY
Yeah. After that determination by the UN, the British Foreign Secretary stood up in Parliament and stated the UN working group, um, were not lawyers. And that's just a complete and utter lie. [laughs] They are extremely experienced uh, and highly qualified international lawyers in different countries. Um, and yet that law, that lie was repeated in the British media and has never been corrected. Has never been corrected at all. It's quite astonishing, um, the way the British mainstream media has treated this. Really is astonishing. It's been so unanimous, it has had an effect, and British people just don't know the truth about any of it. Um, to come on to the uh, the CIA Director, former CIA Director's remarks...

CREDICO
He's the current, actually.

MURRAY
Plainly, simply, ludicrous. You know, the idea [line cuts out] Wikileaks is an intelligence agency, is a nonsense [sic]. Wikileaks is a publisher. Wikileaks doesn't have agents. It doesn't intercept communications, it doesn't do any of the things that intelligence agencies do. What it does is it- It receives material, and it publishes it. It's a publisher. That's all it is. Pure and simple. And this continued, nonsensical, evidence free, totally evidence free attempt to link Wikileaks with Russia, which we heard in that clip, um, again, it to me is truly remarkable, no evidence at all. People can keep repeating and repeating this, this crazy calumny. It's simply, um, beyond comprehension to me that they don't get carried out- Where is this evidence?

CREDICO
They haven't presented any evidence!

MURRAY
-Russia, or Wikileaks colludes with Russia. Because there is none.

CREDICO
I mean, for the last six months, that's all they say, Russia Russia Russia. It reminds me of this movie, "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!" It's nothing but Russia! So...I gotta find, what's the motivation for saying Russia, as you said, there's no evidence. You have fourteen people...heads of various security agencies, intelligence agencies, coming out and saying that we believe, but they haven't presented an iota of evidence! That there's any link, whatsoever! I don't- Nobody believes it! But the press- Why is the press echoing this notion, that the Russians had something to do with it?

MURRAY
It's extraordinary. It's a phenomenon which is so strange that it's hard to analyze. Firstly, of course, there is the- the meme was invented in the first place, to distract from the contents of the leaked uh DNC emails. And later the Podesta emails. But the- They didn't want people to look at what was in them, so they wanted to distract from that, by claiming that the source was a hostile power. And I suppose Russia was the traditional hostile power. Uh, and why- how it actually originated, were the very first mention of Russia in this context, I'm not quite sure, came up with the idea, um, but, that was the- that was the original...source, I think. The idea to come up with something, to distract people from looking at the content of the DNC emails. But then, of course, it grew and grew, in the States, you have a massive armaments industry, and a massive defense lobby, and security lobbying industry which needs an enemy. And of course, they can persuade politicians, or buy politicians, and persuade, and buy media, and those in the public, into believing there's a massive Russian threat out there, and then there are big contracts coming up, big contracts in cyber defenses, big contracts in armaments, there's a lot of money to be made. Out of this Russia Russia [line cuts out]

CREDICO
It is...it seems to be-

MURRAY
-so you've got something originated as a kind of knee jerk reaction from the Democrats to try to explain away their leaked emails, which all sorts of people saw advantage in leaping onto. And now, of course, it's being used as a- as a stick to beat Donald Trump, and anyone associated with Donald Trump. And we've had, uh, months and months of allegations, and instigations, inquiries, and not one [line cuts out] single piece of evidence has actually come out of it. Nobody seems to be querying the fact that this is all entirely evidence free.

CREDICO
They're just making it up as they go along. I saw Clapper was on CNN today, getting thrown softballs by this guy [Chris] Cuomo. We have, look, I know how bad the BBC is, it's ten times worse here, alright? CNN and MSNBC...everybody's going for the Russia [sic]. Everything is Russia. On both of those networks there. And...Clapper's saying, "Well, we believe now it was Russia once again that tried to hack-" Do you think that Russia had any effect at all on our elections, Craig Murray?

MURRAY
Um, no, negligible effect.

CREDICO
I mean, they're blaming Wikileaks for-

MURRAY
I mean, there's a certain amount of pot kettle here, because the United States has been interfering in other people's elections in a big way for generations. Um, and countries do, in a small way, try to influence each other's elections. There's no doubt about that. Countries do have an idea who it's more in their interest to win, and they may give a little nudge here, and a little nudge there when they can. There's nothing unusual about it. And there's nothing- And, of course, they will try to forge good relationships with anybody who might be coming into power, because that's part of the job of diplomacy, there's nothing unusual in that either. But there's absolutely no evidence at all that Russians did anything, at all, which was illegal, or unusual, or actually effective, in having any effect whatsoever on the result of the election. And, it really is a complete load of nonsense, is [inaudible]

CREDICO
Well, we've certainly been involved in elections round the world, including Russia. Russia's last election. We- Hillary Clinton is totally involved, and this indignation, this feigned indignation about democracy, having our elections undermined, by all these Democrats...the problem is that both sides, Democrats and Republicans, are playing this Russia game. Everybody. So it seems to me they're all tied into this defense industry, or the intelligence community. One way or the other. Even the most liberal Democrats- Although Bernie Sanders doesn't say anything about it, we don't have anybody saying anything that's in Congress! Saying, wait a second! Let's look at this! This is a complete lie!

MURRAY
The other interesting thing, of course, is the fact that the latest Wikileaks revelations, the Vault 7 revelations, show that the CIA has hacking tools and- and has leaked direct information, that the CIA has hacking tools which deliberately leave behind false clues to point to the Russians.

CREDICO
Right.

MURRAY
That's-

CREDICO
Yes!

MURRAY
It- uh- And that material pre-dates this Russia scare. So uh- all we have ever been given, as so-called evidence, is something from a private security firm [CrowdStrike] saying that they looked at some phishing attacks, or some other thing from the inter- And they found some bits of Cyrillic code. Well yes, but- [line cuts out] where that originated, that really is where it originated from, or whether that's a blind, and whether that's a CIA blind. We don't know. But on top of which, they haven't done, is found an actual hack. And as you know, Bill Binney has said again and again, the former technical director of the NSA, if there really was a hack, they would know the exact second it happened.

CREDICO
Right, he's been on the show.

MURRAY
-exact second it happened, and be able to tell you [inaudible] how it happened. And it isn't. They have no such information, because there was no hack.

CREDICO
There was no hack.

MURRAY
We're going back onto old material now, but but uh but but early- nothing new has come. Ever since Bill said that, nothing has come to contradict it, nothing has come to give any new information, not one shred of new evidence has come that implicates the Russians in anything. And yet we have this massive political scare, and this massive political brouhaha in the United States, based on absolutely nothing.

CREDICO
I have, uh, McCarthyism at its worst, uh, going on right now.

MURRAY
Yeah, I think that's true. I think you do have to look back to that kind of thing for this mass hysteria, not just McCarthyism, the Salem witch hunts come to mind.

CREDICO
Yes. So uh uh I just wanted to- what was I going to say on top of that? I'm sorry, I got distracted, a little bit here. Um...as far as this McCarthyism go- goes, it's really becoming very profound here, and you've got people saying to _me_, even, that Wikileaks, you're responsible for Donald Trump winning the election. That's what you get right now. That from _liberal_ Democrats. What do you say to that?

MURRAY
Yeah, I am...I get it myself sometimes, people come up to me and say, "You know, you're involved in Wikileaks, it thanks to you that Donald Trump got in there." It's not thanks to me, it's not thanks to Wikileaks. The truth is, that if Hillary Clinton hadn't tried to fix the primaries against Bernie Sanders, or succeeded in fixing the primaries against Bernie Sanders, using the DNC's tool, for example, setting the order of primaries in such a way as to handicap Bernie Sanders, setting the tone of debate, you know, debate questions leaked in advance, all this kind of underhand scurrilous stuff that was going on. Nobody forced Hillary Clinton to do any of that. Or her supporters. If they hadn't done that, then it couldn't have been leaked. It's their own bad behavior which is at fault. And if Hillary Clinton hadn't been the candidate, almost any other candidate would have beaten Donald Trump. I mean, for some, the reason which history will puzzle about a great deal, the Democrats put up the one candidate Donald Trump could beat. Uuuuh...and it's extraordinary. We're very- obviously- stupid thing to do. And that's nobody else's fault. They- It's not Wikileaks' fault. It's nobody's fault.

CREDICO
Well, they exposed, Craig Murray-

MURRAY
-Clintons and the senior people in the Democratic party.

CREDICO
Well, they exposed what happened. If they had not played these games, the shenanigans by the DNC, the Podesta emails, all of it. If...you know...it exposed what they did...Bernie Sanders would have been the candidate, Bernie Sanders would have won that election, but it was just too important for those people that were tied into Hillary Clinton for _her_ to win. They didn't care about the idealism, they just wanted to win. And have their connections, their connections to the deep state, their connections to the military industrial complex, that's what I believe uh, was responsible for all of that, and the DNC leaks, and the Podesta leaks, I'm glad that they came out! I got informed! If they didn't come out, we wouldn't have known what happened!

MURRAY
I think that's true. And I think, you know the important thing about Wikileaks is, they can only leak what they are given. I've often been asked, uh, why did Wikileaks not leak stuff on Donald Trump? Well, nobody gave them any.

CREDICO
Right.

MURRAY
I- I- I- One thing I can assure you I'm quite certain of, was that Wikileaks are not sitting on a load of incriminating stuff about Donald Trump that they were given, and sat on, and didn't release. They...put out, and obviously they spent time [inaudible] stuff, make sure it's genuine, make sure it's interesting, then...they put it out. If they'd been given stuff on Trump, they would have put it out. They put out what they get.

CREDICO
There was plenty of stuff on Trump that came out.

MURRAY
They don't have an agenda, in that sense.

CREDICO
There was plenty of stuff on Trump that came out. There was that Billy Bush uh video, there were women that came forward, I mean, it didn't matter, he was, he had teflon. You know? Trump-flon. Whatever you want to call it. But there was nothing that could stick on him. So. They just had a very weak candidate. I didn't support her. I supported Jill Stein. She was on a show with you. Here, back in October. I want to get away from that for a minute here, because we only have a few, four or five minutes left, I want to talk about the bail. The bail. Three hundred forty thousand dollars. Twenty million dollars, by the way, has been spent by, I guess, the....Metropolitan Police there, to keep an eye on Julian. And the bail. What do you say about why...is he still, you know, why is there a warrant for him on this bail deal? For jumping bail?

MURRAY
Well, he's wanted for this, for jumping bail, but he jumped bail in order to claim political asylum. So he was entering an alternative and recognised legal process. It wasn't that he was um, running away and disappearing off to rob banks or something, like, run from his bail. He couldn't meet his bail appearance, because he'd entered the jurisdiction of another country in order to claim political asylum on the grounds that he had a legitimate fear of persecution. And the United Nations has come out and said, that his initial arrest was wrongful, he did have a legitimate fear of persecution. So, for the UK to _persist_ with that bail charge, is really crazy. On top of which, you know, jumping bail is not a terrifically serious offense.

CREDICO
I've done it before.

MURRAY
[laughs] Well done. The Metropolitan Police themselves have said it's a minor offense. He's now wanted-

CREDICO
[has no idea how to pitch voice on radio] IS HE THE ONLY PERSON OUT ON BAIL THEN?

MURRAY
-tens of thousands of people who've jumped bail, who are out and about in the UK. And the British government does not have policemen standing there at great expense, working to catch them.

CREDICO
Tens of thousands?!

MURRAY
You know the idea that for such a minor offense [line cuts out]

CREDICO
That's it. Tens of thousands of people have jumped bail, but there are no guards outside-

MURRAY
-they want to get him, in order to extradite him to the United States.

CREDICO
So, but, you know, you've been, you've visited him several times. I don't know, five or six times, um uh, what kind of surveillance do they have on him? On Julian? And the people that go in there.

MURRAY
Really...it's fairly light. For a long time, there was a large and expensive and intimidating, you know, uniformed presence all over the place. Uh but uh, recently, there are plain clothes people around...keeping an eye on the place, there's a lot of electronic surveillance going on. But it's not so...it's not so open, as it used to be. Because the public got very, very angry about the cost.

CREDICO
I see. So, people are getting angry about the cost. Um, so, the reason why they're keeping him there, is at the behest of the United States government. Obviously. Why else would they do it?

MURRAY
Exactly. As I say, it's completely over the top, for somebody that's not wanted for anything at all except for jumping bail. Uh, it [line cuts out] at all, to have that level of surveillance, and level of interest on him anymore. The only thing that makes sense, is that they want to get in because there's an extradition request from the United States that they are keeping secret.

CREDICO
Well, what do you think, Craig Murray, that people can do to help out? What do we do right now? What is his options [sic], at this point? What's a strategy, an exit strategy outta there?

MURRAY
Well, I think the most important thing, is for the United States to drop the idea that they are going to...um [line cuts out] publisher for publishing. You know, it's obviously [line cuts out] a violation of the First Amendment, uh, to try to put Julian Assange on charge for espionage for having published materials he was given by a source. In fact, that endangers the livelihood of all editors and journalists in the United States. So, what's needed now, concerted effort, in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of media, and it needs to be the United States media that leads that effort, to get the administration and Attorney General to back away from any desire to charge, uh, Julian Assange for publishing the stuff from Snowden and Manning.

CREDICO
Right. So what is he do when he gets outta there? Let's say they drop- I mean, obviously, they're going to uh- they want to stop him from pub- I mean, right now, Vault #7, only three or four percent of its contents have been publicized [sic], uuuuh, so there's a lot there. Obviously they are fearful of him leaking out, or putting out, dumping out, what's left in Vault 7, do you think that's what they're fearful of?

MURRAY
Well, they can't stop that anyway, because, you know, if you- if you were to arrest or imprison Julian and cut him off from the outside world, the work of Wikileaks would continue. Julian, of course, is the founder and inspiration of Wikileaks, but it's by no means a one man band. Um, so, getting a hold of Julian wouldn't stop the Vault 7 leaks from continuing, or any further leaks from continuing-

CREDICO
Right. It's a big-

MURRAY
-it's about making someone an example and stamping the authority of the state. And a kindof macho behavior by the security services, because the security services have made to look fools. And of course [line cuts out] so many inequities exposed. Vault 7 showed that the CIA is hacking material and trying to blame it artificially on the Russians and those war crimes and murder exposed, in the Manning- There's so much that-

CREDICO
Oh, it's amazing. Amazing.

MURRAY
Showing wrongdoing by the state. So the state wants to get back. The state wants revenge.

CREDICO
[again, with being unable to pitch voice] WHY DOESN'T THE STATE JUST APOLOGIZE and say we won't do this again? You know, we've been busted here, we've committed crimes, international crimes, human rights crimes, I mean, and then send some of these guys to the Hague, and then to Spandau.

MURRAY
Well, that would be great, wouldn't it? I never forget the fact that the only CIA person who went to jail over CIA torture and waterboarding, was John Kiriakou, and he went to jail for blowing the whistle on torture and waterboarding.

CREDICO
A fellow-

MURRAY
-did it-

CREDICO
Yes.

MURRAY
-got promoted. So, uh, sadly that's not the way the state works.

CREDICO
Right.

MURRAY
We don't live in that kind of world. And it's because we don't live in that kind of world that we need freedom fighters like Julian Assange.

CREDICO
Right.

MURRAY
We need to support them.

CREDICO
He's a great man, and he's done a great service, I appreciate it. I appreciate all the work that you've done, Craig Murray is the former ambassador from UK to Uzbekistan, he's the author of book, uh, _Murder in Samarkand_ and _	_, two great books. I read _Burnes_ twice, and it's a masterpiece.