William Binney and Ray McGovern on Russia Today (11/13/2017)

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

Bill Binney and Ray McGovern on Russia Today, with host Ashlee Banks. Broadcast date: November 13, 2017.

File link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1BZD6UX3wU

ASHLEE BANKS
We begin today at the APEC International Summit in Vietnam, where President Trump met briefly with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend. Putin assured Trump that Russia did not interfere with the 2016 election, Trump responded by saying he believes Putin meant it, but shortly thereafter, Trump changed his comments, to "I'm with our agencies, I believe in our intelligence agencies." He was referring to the accusations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered with the U.S. election. To discuss this further, we are now joined by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and NSA veteran whistleblower Bill Binney. Thank you gentlemen for joining me. I'm going to start with you, Ray. In your recent essay, "Mocking Trump Doesn't Prove Russia's Guilty" [link: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/13/mocking-trump-doesnt-prove-russias-guilt/ ], you describe how the U.S. political establishment, and media, was outraged that President Trump would actually believe Putin over his own intelligence agencies. But if our own agencies have not produced concrete evidence of Russian hacking, Ray, why should Trump believe them?

RAY MCGOVERN
Well, it was one of those *hahaha* moments, how could you believe Trump? How could you believe Putin? How could you believe Trump believed Putin? The headline said, this is unconscionable that you could believe either of them on anything. I'd like to finish your little quote from what Trump said later, he didn't say he has trust in the U.S. intelligence agencies. He finished that clause by saying, as presently constituted. That's a big difference. What he did was, he accused former leaders of our intelligence agencies - Brennan, and others, including Comey, as being political _hacks_. So, that's the hack story for you. What Trump called these people were political hacks, and he knows that. Because of my colleague Bill Binney, I had a chance to brief the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and tell him about the forensic, I repeat, forensic evidence, the investigation that for some reason, FBI Director Comey forgot to do, or didn't want to do, of the DNC computers which shows there wasn't a hack by Russia, or by anybody else, it was a copy onto an external storage device, that's why there's this big furor going on...the press is again advancing this notion that the Russians hacked, and of course you can't believe the Russians, and if you believe the Russians, how can anyone else be believed? All this without any tangible evidence, that Russia hacked.

BANKS
Bill, let's turn to you now. You've said with great confidence numerous times that the alleged hack of the DNC was actually a leak, most likely from a disgruntled insider. Now, have you seen any concrete proof of a hack provided by U.S. intelligence agencies?

BILL BINNEY
No, I have not, nobody's ever presented evidence to me, I would be willing to look at any evidence, but no one's come up with anything. Certainly nothing to look at. All I hear from them is "the Russians did it, the Russians did it, the Russians did it," that's all they're saying, and expecting people to believe something without having any fundamental base for it, simply by repeating it over and over again. That's an old sophistic technique convincing people that something is true.

BANKS
Ray, you pointed out that even the New York Times correspondent Scott Shane wrote "what is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agency's claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack instead". The message from the agencies essentially amounts to "trust us". So, what does this tell us about the agenda of these intelligence agencies?

MCGOVERN
Well, Ashlee you sortof have to be a researcher, you have to go back at least six months to figure out what's going to happen. Now, Scott Shane said that, on the 7th of January, on the 6th, came out this magnificent memorandum prepared not by seventeen intelligence agencies, not by three intelligence agencies, by _handpicked analysts_ from three intelligence agencies. And there was no evidence in it. So what Scott Shane is saying [inaudible] "We all hoped for was some evidence that the Russians hacked" - and there ain't none! And so, for people to go back to that now, and say, "But Trump is contradicting the opinion of his intelligence officers!", well, he's pouring some doubt on that...why? As any conscionable person would do [McGovern somehow includes DJT in this category], they're looking for evidence to support these charges, and I have to say, that 6th January memorandum from the FBI, NSA, and CIA, was an embarrassment to any intelligence professional, particularly those engaged in non-partisan analysis.

BANKS
Bill, why isn't improving relations with Russia, why does it appear to be such a big threat to the U.S. political establishment, when normalizing relations would actually be in the interests of both the American people and the Russian people?

BINNEY
Well, I think it's basically because they want to create another Cold War, have another continuing conflict, Cold-type conflict, so they can invest more trillions of dollars into the military industrial intelligence governmental complex. So they can basically fleece us and swindle us for more money.

BANKS
Bill, let's stay with you.

BINNEY
I think that's what's driving them. I think that's what they're after.

BANKS
I want to stay with you. You spoke with CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week, I'm interested to know how did Pompeo react to your conclusion that the available evidence does not conform to the current CIA narrative that Russia hacked the election?

BINNEY
Well, he asked what facts I had, and I basically gave him everything I could tell him, the factual evidence we did have, and about the trying- we were also trying to transfer data at very high rate across the Atlantic, people here would set up the databasee, and had people in Europe attempt to draw the data across, we also had people try to push the data from one data center in New Jersey to another data center here in the UK, and they got the maximum, roughly one fourth of what would be necessary to transfer the dataset, just the data, not counting the housekeeping. So, it really was somewhere between one fourth and one eighth the capacity necessary to transfer the data at the rate that it was downloaded from the so-called DNC servers. Now, if the- what that simply meant was, was that the network could not manage that kind of transfer, and so the download was local. And also we pointed out that the download rate was compatible with a USB thumb drive. But it was not capable of going across the internet.

BANKS
Ray, you compare the faulty intelligence used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq with the questionable intelligence now being used to justify aggression against Russia, and even RT itself. So, what is the big lesson here, for the American people?

BINNEY
You can't trust your government is really the key. [laughs] Yeah. Go ahead, Ray.

MCGOVERN
Yep, that's what I was going to say, Bill! [laughs] The question really here [laughs], what I would say is, that when you have people like John Brennan and James Clapper, who played a distinctive role in disguising the evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then participated in the torture and the surveillance and all this other stuff, when you have them on the mainstream channels saying, "Ooooooh...watch out, the Russians are after us again," and Clapper's saying the Russians are almost genetically determined to be really bad actors...well, you know, that's the level of intelligence - in that sense, intelligence in the intelligence agencies. Unless you clean out that strata of nincompoops and also careerists, then the poor people who are trying to do an honest job, in the bowels of these agencies, will never see light.

BANKS
Ray and Bill, I want to address this next question to you both. RT America, it's been forced to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, called FARA...so, why do you feel RT is being singled out for this state censorship and what does this mean for the First Amendment? Bill, you can go first.

BINNEY
Well, I think it's just a slap at the First Amendment, I mean, we here in America were always proud of having free speech. Meaning that we weren't- we weren't going to suppress any kind of comments by anybody, even if we didn't like them. That was all the fundamental principle of the First Amendment. Well, now this is pretty much a slap in the face. If we're going to have TV stations like RT, who are funded by the Russians, why aren't we going to force BBC, or other countries, TV stations that are funded by countries to register also? I mean, we have no consistency in this, except selectively suppressing any kind of speech. And that to me is a direct violation of our First Amendment in the Constitution.

BANKS
Ray, we have about a minute left. You can go ahead and get the final word.

MCGOVERN
Well thanks. No, I just cite this program here. Bill, if you say things like that, you will never be let on what's called the "mainstream media". Nor will I. Do Americans deserve to hear what we have to say? Well, our combined experience in the intelligence world is something like fifty years, or more. Now, one thing I'd just point out: is distinctive about RT. I have to admit this, okay, and that is this: RT has never asked me for a pre-interview interview. Now, CBS, ABC, NBC, Al-Jazeera, they all say, "Uh, can we figure out what you're going to say, Mr. McGovern? Would you tell us what you're going to say?" In other words- And sometimes BBC said, "We don't need to hear that, we have somebody else." K? RT has never asked me, what's your gloss on this? What would you say about this? All they do is say, "Here's the link Mr. McGovern, we know you might know something about it, please come on." It's distinctive, and that's why I rejoice at being asked to at least talk to the people who are smart enough to watch RT. [note: it bears repeating that there is not a single moment I have come across where McGovern's position in foreign policy is not entirely in line with Putin, falling headlong into sycophancy, blatant propaganda, and mendacity.]