On The Ground Interview With Ray McGovern (03/30/2017)

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

On The Ground Media, hosted by Esther Iverem. Broadcast date: March 30, 2017. Full transcript of segment.

File link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3NXHUDecUg7MGhsQjEyTVFmSzQ/view?ts=58de7213

ESTHER IVEREM
This is "On The Ground", On The Ground Show dot org [onthegroundshow.org], voices of resistance from the nation's capitol, I'm Esther Iverem. And most of you who've been following the news from D.C. know that there's a war of investigations going on, related to last year's presidential election. On one side, Democrats continue to press for an investigation into what they call collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to hack the election. On the other side, Republicans want to investigate whether the Obama administration illegally surveilled Donald Trump. The latest development in the story remains the call by Democrats for Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to recuse himself from the Committee's investigation into whether collusion occurred between the Trump campaign and Russia. And, as my father would have said, Nunes made his business bad, by meeting with Trump, and not his own committee members to reveal information given to him about Trump and his team may have been surveilled. After that breach of protocol, it was revealed that Nunes was actually on the grounds of the White House, where he received the information later revealed to Trump. And then he made a statement to the press.

So, this is all quite morass, which has been given weight to calls for a special committee, or independent commission to investigate these charges, or these allegations. But outside the perspective of these two camps, is a third one, offered by my guest for this segment. Ray McGovern is a veteran CIA officer turned political activist, who founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity in 2003. Welcome back to the show, Ray.

RAY MCGOVERN
Thank you.

IVEREM
Well, this week, you and Bill Binney, the NSA whistleblower, offered the article in Consortium News dot com, "The Surveillance State Behind Russia Gate", in which you have a whole different take on what's happening. So, I want to give you time to kindof unwind that, and tell us why these competing investigations we keep hearing about, aren't the real story.

MCGOVERN
Well, thanks Esther, I'm glad to be on your show here. What I'd like to explain is, there are basically two main investigations going on here. One is, whether the Russians, very simply put, are responsible for putting Donald Trump in office. That is, whether they hacked, whether they leaked, whether they did all kinds of nefarious things, to make sure that Hillary Clinton lost. It may come as a surprise to your listeners, but I can tell you out of fifty five years of experience here, half of it as an analyst for the CIA, there is not one inch, there is not one scintilla, of plausible evidence, that the Russians did that.

IVEREM
Yeah, you actually mentioned that when we spoke in December, I think.

MCGOVERN
That's right. What's clear now...what we have are leaks, to Wikileaks, and Wikileaks is quite capable of getting leaks all by itself. Thank you. [chuckles] And re-playing it, into U.S. media. Now, the thing that I didn't know...last time we spoke, was that President Obama himself, admitted two days before he left office, he said, and I quote, "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to how, when, and where, the Russian hacking got to Wikileaks, are inconclusive." Wowwww. End quote. Now, [chuckles] if you can't prove, and you can't know - the U.S. government doesn't know - how it was this assumed Russian hacking got to Wikileaks, you have no case at all. That's a gaping gap. And the reason it's a gaping gap, is because it wasn't the Russians, it was a leaker, within the Democratic National Committee, who put a little thumb drive into his computer, and got that somehow to Wikileaks. So, let's that one rest.

The other one, the one that's come to the fore now, was when Donald Trump accused Obama, actually, of wiretapping him. That really sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? On its face it is, because Obama wouldn't be the person who would order that...but what the media has done, it's seized upon the word "wiretapping", now, why is that significant? Well, it's significant because wiretapping went out with the Edsel Ford. Wiretapping is old, it's quaint, it's obsolete, nobody does that, nobody has done that for decades. Okay? So, what was Trump really referring to? I assume he was referring to surveillance. Now: did the U.S. government under president Obama, do surveillance on Trump and his team? Before the election, and after the election. The answer to that, is yes. Yes they did. Now, when did Trump make that charge? He made it on the fourth of March, and about a month earlier-

IVEREM
Before you go to that, you know that "yes, they did". How do you know that?

MCGOVERN
Well, that's what I'm just about to tell you. In an interview, with MSNBC's "Morning Joe", on the 2nd of March, 2017, a Obama official named Evelyn Farkas...that's F-A-R-K-A-S, happily admits that there was sensitive information about spying on president elect Trump, at his Trump Tower. Fox News ran the story. This is what Farkas expressed concern about. She was very concerned "Trump folks, if they found out, how we knew, what we knew about their staff's dealing with Russians, that would be a major problem." Okay? WOAH! I'll say it again: "That Trump folks, if they knew about how we, the Obama administration, how we knew about, what we knew, about their dealings with the Russians...woah, that would be a problem." Now. What does that have to do with- That has to do with intercepted communications, surveillance, that includes everyone. Everyone, Esther, you, me, Trump, the president, everyone. That's how far out of control our surveillance, our intelligence agencies are. So when I say that after this, a month after she admitted it - not a month, that's March 2nd. K? "Morning Joe", it wasn't very long after that, that Trump said he was wiretapped.

Now, it was a poor choice of words. He wasn't wiretapped. But what we have, is James Comey, indulging in what lawyers call "pettyfoggery". He swears up and down on a stack of bibles that the FBI has looked everywhere, and the Department of Justice too, they've looked everywhere, but they can find no evidence of quote "wiretapping".

IVEREM
You know, I want to make sure that we make it clear to people, and explain this incidental collection. Because it may not be clear that the spying or surveillance was direct, or was it related to another type of investigation going on, and then maybe Trump and some of his other people were caught up in what they call incidental collection. And then explain to us how this is related to what Edward Snowden revealed to us.

MCGOVERN
Okay, well, again, another very good question. What Americans need to know is this: that this intercepted material is available to the heads of CIA, the FBI, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and, of course, the NSA, which collects it. In true name, okay? Unencrypted. Not minimized. And not masked. True names, okay? And so, they're able to share that with The New York Times and The Washington Post, and that is precisely what happened. So all this masking stuff, that comes later. When a lowly analyst wants to pursue a certain person or event. These people had the true names, and they released them. Now that's the crime, okay? That's the cr- Everybody's agreed about that. [no, they aren't] That you can't leak these things. And when you leak them, for political purposes, which was obviously the case in October, November, and December, then you have somebody doing illegal activity, you have a crime. And that's what the focus is. Now, when John Brennan comes and testifies, together with James Clapper, they know exactly what they did.

And what Nunes is doing now, the head of the House Intelligence Committee, is getting all his ducks in the row, showing his ranking member, and ranking member and chair of the Senate side, committee, what the evidence is. So, they know the right questions to ask John Brennan. John Brennan and James Clapper, are both self-admitted prevaricators. James Clapper lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was exactly four years ago, and he was allowed to stay in place. What happened is this: when you talk about James Clapper, who was the National Intelligence Director, and John Brennan, who is the head of the CIA, coming to testify before the House Intelligence Committee...if I were Devin Nunes, the chair of that committee, I would take every precaution to know exactly all I could before I would question them. Why? Well, it's very easy. James Clapper lied under oath. To the Senate Intelligence Committee, exactly four years ago. Obama thought, well, we'll just let him stay in office. He's only got three and a half more years. He did. What'd he say? He denied NSA was doing any of this, any of this snooping, surveillance, against American citizens...two months later, Ed Snowden showed Clapper to be a liar, Clapper wrote a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee saying, what I said was obviously incorrect, I'm really sorry. He was let to stay.

Now, how about Brennan? Brennan, during the investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, of CIA torture, hacked, had his people hack, into the Senate Intelligence Committee computers, to see what kind of information they were preparing, in their investigation. He intitally denied that anyone did that, then he had to admit, yes, I didn't know about it, but of course, they did. So, what you have is two people with very dubious reputations, for veracity, and what Representative Nunes is doing, and I applaud him for this, is making sure that he gets his ducks in a row. That he has the evidence that he needs, asks them genuine questions, lest they prevaricate, less they lie again. Under oath.

IVEREM
One of the points...you make in the article...is that president Obama, cowered before the intelligence community, and I wanted to ask you, how so? And: how did that impact what's happening now?

MCGOVERN
Well, what happened was, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had completed a four year report, investigating CIA torture, using CIA documents. This was a deal that CIA director Panetta made, with the Senate Intelligence Committee. They had the documents, they came to the conclusion that incredibly gruesome, incredibly unconscionable techniques were used to no good effect, there was no good intelligence coming from it, and so, John Brennan, and everyone else who claimed these things were effective, were lying through their teeth, sometimes under oath. Now, Brennan did all he could to block the appearance of that executive summary of that report, until such time as the Republicans came in and took over the Senate. The person that blocked that, or two people, it was Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the Senate Minority Leader, a fellow from Nevada [Harry Reid]. Okay? Now. Who are they fighting against? They wanted this report released. Before they lost the chair. They were fighting not only against John Brennan, they were fighting against Barack Obama. Now, why was Barack Obama protecting John Brennan and trying to prevent us from learning about the terrible techniques used by the CIA? You tell me. But it's a matter of record. The chief examiner, the chief investigator, of Dianne Feinstein's Senate Intelligence Committee, has told a reporter, in many interviews, a reporter for the Guardian, that this is exactly what happened. This is just one instance where Barack Obama bowed to the intelligence community, he never followed up on any of the torturers, he never closed Guantanamo, he was afraid. He was afraid...of what might happen to him were he to cross the intelligence community.

A recent- An incredible revelation occured just about a month ago, when the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, from New York, told whatsername, Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC, he said this, and this is a direct quote: "You know, Rachel, I thought that Donald Trump was a pretty smart guy, but he's done a very, very foolish thing." And she said, "What's that?" And he said, "Well, he's crossing the CIA. That's a very foolish thing to do, because they have six ways to Sunday to get back at you." You know, I thought he was a clever fellow, says Chuck Schumer, "But I really question his wisdom now, because you don't cross the CIA." Now, I submit to you, that that's the head of the Democrats in the Senate...he's saying this in the open, to Rachel Maddow. But Rachel is too smart to ask the follow-up question, which should have been, of course, "Are you saying, the the president of the United States should be afraid of the CIA, is that what you're saying, Senator Schumer?" And he would have had to answer that. But no, she says, "Oh, we're going to break now," in traditional fashion. So, people are afraid of the CIA, and what's happened now, is that evidence has been produced to show...that Obama's people were spying on Trump's people, and that evidence has been given to the head of the House Intelligence Committee, he's seen it, and now the last thing, the White House has invited the ranking member and the chair, of each committee, house and senate intelligence committee, to come to the White House, and view these documents. Which show, in my view, that intercepted messages are quite clear, that Obama and his people, were monitoring Trump's people, and that true names were used...and here's where the crime comes in: the crime comes in, when those names, names like Michael Flynn, who lost his job because of this, are released to The New York Times and the Washington Post. Now, I have a good guess that whoever did that, I'll give you his initials: John Brennan, head of the CIA.

IVEREM
So...you article is titled "The Surveillance State Behind Russia-Gate" [link: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/28/the-surveillance-state-behind-russia-gate/]. That's what you're talking about? The fact that, underneath all of this, is the issue that there is a surveillance state...and not only were people surveilled, but these people that aren't supposed to be released, were released?

MCGOVERN
That's correct. And it was done for political reasons. First off, to make sure that Trump didn't win. And then, after he did win, to make sure the electoral college didn't vote for him to win. And when that failed, to blacken him in such a way, for two major reasons: one, to explain how Hillary Clinton lost. Now, nobody expected her to lose. And there is the equivalent of PTSD here in this town. In Washington and elsewhere. How do you explain, it couldn't possibly be, that Hillary Clinton was a fatally flawed candidate? It couldn't possibly be that nobody trusted her. It must've been...oh, let's blame it on the Russians. Okay? Now, that's number one. Russians are a convenient scapegoat, even as I said at the beginning of this interview, there is not a scintilla of evidence that it was the Russians that were responsible for either leak, the DNC or the Podesta emails. And number two, Trump...I hold no brief with Trump. I think his domestic policies are terrible. Okay? But even a broken clock, even a broken clock is right two times a day. Now, Trump happens to be quite right on an issue of transcendent importance. And that issue is forming a decent relationship with the Russians. There is no reason why the tensions that have been stoked under the Obama regime, need to persist. So...what is happening now, is that the people who profiteer on these tensions, the people that Pope Francis when he was here, remember he talked to Congress, and he said, "The main problem is the blood soaked arms traders." Well, that's what you've got in spades here. If there's peace, if Trump works out a decent relationship by talking to the Russians...well, peace is not good for business, Esther. War, tensions with Russia, are very, very convenient for the arms makers, the arms sellers, who make huge profits, who give a share of those profits to congressmen and senators, they stick that in their back pockets, they use it to win their next campaign, they appropriate more money from the arms trade, man, is this a country or what? That's the way it works.

IVEREM
Well, I'm kinda running out of time, but I want to get your sense of what's going to happen now. You feel that the ball's kindof in Trump's court to play, in terms of whether he's also going to cower before the intelligence community.

MCGOVERN
That's exactly right. That's a very good question, Esther. And, you know, I won't even hazard a guess. All I want to highlight here, is that he's been given a very unwelcome choice here. He's been confronted...matter of fact, the head of the House Intelligence Committee invited the head of the FBI to come and talk with him, one on one, on Tuesday. And the head of the FBI refused. Now, that's really important. Who's running this country? Is it the Congress that has these powers of oversight? Which, really, they haven't used very much, lately. Or is it the FBI? So, what's going to happen now, is, both of the intelligence committees are going to be given access to this very sensitive material, that only representative Nunes, of the House Intelligence Committee, has seen so far. Now, that's going to be really interesting, because when they see that, there's going to be no way they can avoid forcing the issue. Either they admit that Trump has been spied upon, or they continue to resist, and then the ball is really in Trump's court. Will he face into the deep state, or will he acquiesce, and have them as a shadow over his tenure, whether it's four years or eight years? For Obama, sadly, it was eight years.

IVEREM
Alright, well, we will definitely keep following this story. I've been speaking with Ray McGovern, a veteran CIA officer turned political activist, who founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity in 2003.