Ray McGovern on Loud and Clear (04/26/2017)

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

Ray McGovern on "Loud and Clear". Broadcast date: April 26, 2017.

Transcript runs from 17:23 to 34:44 in the file.

File link: https://sputniknews.com/radio_loud_and_clear/201704261053001509-playing-with-fire/

BRIAN BECKER
Now we turn to the new struggle, the confrontation between the House Oversight Committee, Republican and Democrat, and the Trump White House, over Mike Flynn. We are joined from Washington by Ray McGovern, he is an activist and former CIA analyst, whose writings can be found at Ray McGovern dot com. Welcome back, Ray.

RAY MCGOVERN
Thank you.

BECKER
Ray, the story has several different pieces to it. You had, I'm looking at the New York Times, "Mike Flynn May Have Broken Law By Not Disclosing Russian Dealings, Lawmakers Say", and the lawmakers are Republicans _and_ Democrats in the House Oversight Committee. They've also sent a letter or maybe they'll follow it with a subpoena to the White House asking for documents related to Mike Flynn. Now, the Trump White House is saying, no, they're not going to release any of the documents to the House Oversight Committee, because they're either not pertinent to when Flynn was in the White House, or about events that happened before he became National Security Adviser. Or if the documents related to times Flynn was in the White House, and having dealings with many national, foreign national governments, they may contain classified, confidential information. Help the audience understand what's going on here. Is this, as some are saying, the beginning of the end of the Trump administration? [MCGOVERN laughs] I mean, talk about it.

MCGOVERN
Well, talk about hyperbole. No, it's not the beginning of the end of the Trump administration. However much people might wish that to happen. This is a witch hunt. Flynn is a very...very interesting and very complicated person. He has some integrity. But he also is pretty dumb about some things that he should have attended to. What is he dumb about? [chuckles] Well, he's dumb about taking all that money. Now, when I say all that money, we're talking about fraction, a fraction, of what Hillary Clinton, or Bill Clinton, take for their speeches. Or now, Barack Obama. I mean, when you think about it, it was forty thousand or something like that, he took in Russia, for that one trip? I forget what the figures are, but I do remember that Bill Clinton took four hundred thousand for speaking before a Russian oil group just three years ago. So, this is blown way out of proportion. Now, should he have registered as an agent of Turkey, if he was working for them? Of course he should have! Why he didn't, well, I said, he's dumb about some things. Now, let me tell you, Brian, what he had integrity about; because this has to do with why hate him so much.

Back in the summer of 2013, when Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA], he warned, he warned everyone that would listen, and this is clear in some leaked cables...that the DIA put out. He was director of DIA. That ISIS is going form their own little caliphate. That they're gonna really really succeed here, unless we change our policies. This is really stupid, do we not realize what we're doing, with our policy? Now. His bosses at CENTCOM, in Tampa, and in the White House, they didn't much care for that. General Dempsey, that's a different story. General Dempsey was a man full of integrity. So, let me just take this through quickly, what happened in August. Of 2013. There was an event. A chemical event. With the use of sarin gas. It's a nerve gas. Outside Damascus. In a town called Ghouta. Immediately, John Kerry got up, and when I say immediately, I exaggerate, it was the 21st of [inaudible], so nine days later. He gets up at the State Department, on the 30th of August, 2013, he says, BasharAlAssadBasharAlAssadBasharAlAssad, he said it thirty five times, Brian. Now, you know, Kerry may have gone to a pretty fancy school, but apparently they didn't teach Shakespeare there, because, well, let me just say, me thought at the time that he doth protest too much. And indeed, he was lying. Okay? Now: how do I know that? [laughs] Well, lots of reasons I know that. One of which, is that I have a really good source named Barack Obama. Now what'd he say? Well, a year ago, he told Jeffrey Goldberg, his sort of unofficial biographer [MCGOVERN may be mixing up Goldberg and David Remnick], that during this critical period, at the end, the last week of August, when the neo-cons were trying to mousetrap Obama into doing an overt war, an overt attack on Syria, he was visited by his National Intelligence Director, James Clapper. And Clapper came in, and this according to Obama now, okay? And he says, "Now, Mr. President, I don't know quite how to say this, you know, I have great admiration for John Kerry, I mean, he's, you know, um, but you know, um, driving boats up the Mekong doesn't make you a strategic thinker, and, well, let me just put it this way, Mr. President: this business about Bashar Assad being responsible for those sarin attacks: well, let me say, yeah, I'll say it this way - it's not a slam dunk, Mr. President. You get my drift? It's not a slam dunk." Now, the allusion there, of course, was to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, when Bush and Cheney were briefed on the 21st of December, 2002. The evidence suggests there were WMDs in Iraq was so weak, that Bush was all "That all you got?" [laughs] And his patron [sic], Tenet, got off the couch and was "Nonono, it's a slam dunk, we can make it better!" Now, how do we know that? Pretty good source: Condoleezza Rice. Where was she? She was there. So they made it better. And you know the rest of the story. Colin Powell manufacturing- using all that manufactured evidence. So what Clapper's saying to the president, the last week of August, is, look it's the same with Tenet. There's nothing there, okay?

Now, what happens next? Well, who's head of DIA? Well, it's a fellow named Michael Flynn. And he asks his people, "Who did the sarin attack?" And they say, "It's a little embarrassing, but it wasn't Bashar Assad, as John Kerry is saying. It was our guys."

BECKER
The moderate rebels.

MCGOVERN
Yeah. The moderate rebels, so to speak.

BECKER
So-called moderate.

MCGOVERN
And who are they run by? John Brennan. So, we have an honest Lieutenant General, telling his boss, General Dempsey, that this is a crock. Blaming it on Bashar Assad, is a crock. So you might want to tell the president...that. And so, what happens? Dempsey also receives some good word from his opposite number in London. The head of their military apparatus. Who says we got a sample of this sarin, it's not the sarin that we know to be in Syrian army stocks, it's homemade. Okay? It's homemade. So: what did Dempsey do? [laughs] He goes to the president, right after John Kerry has said "It was sarin, it was BasharElAssadBasharElAssad," thirty five times. That evening, Dempsey goes to the president, he says, "Look, Mr. President, I have from two sources, my own intelligence people, Flynn, and from my counterpart in London, it's not the sarin that we know to be in Syrian army stocks, rather it's homemade, looks to be the rebels'. Now, Mr. President, you can go ahead and push the button, I know you're ready to do that, I know the French firebombers are on the tarmac, I know the Israelis have put up their defenses as high as they can go, so you can push the button...but, Mr. President, how do I say this? When the U.N. inspectors come back, from Damascus, three days from now, I mean, the press is going to be all over me, and what they're going to say is, "General Dempsey! Why could you not have waited three days to see what the U.N. inspector said?" [laughs] So, I'm going to have to say, "Beats the hell out of me, go ask the president." [laughs]" Now, I wasn't a fly on the wall there, but that's what went down. What did Obama do? Obama resisted all the pressure, from all his national security advisors, and he says so, with Jeffrey Goldberg, he's very proud of the fact that he resisted this, and the president himself said, "Look, I'm being mousetrapped." Now, does this offend people? You bet [laughs] your patootie! Who, in the first instance? John Brennan! Oh, what- He's running these moderate rebels! How can- Oh god, they had it all set up, so they'd have a war, because- you know, most people don't realize, Bashar Assad was winning. In early 2013. He was driving the moderate rebels, and other rebels, out of their emplacements. Okay? So, a deus ex machina, a special intervention was needed, and that's why they tried to mousetrap Obama. He's quite aware that he was almost mousetrapped, and he's very proud of it.

Now, how do we take that forward? Well, you know, Flynn was only a Lieutenant General. And John Brennan's running the CIA. So, how does he get back at Flynn? Well, he monitors his conversations. The ones that NSA, or the CIA intercepts, and he finds them talking to whom? The Russian ambassador, for god's sakes! Oooh, what a terrible thing, alright? Why? Well- Flynn was going to be the National Security Adviser, and, so they get the goods on him, right? And then they get Mike Pence and the others to say, "Look, this guy just can't be trusted because he didn't mention the word 'sanctions'..." You know, it's all a witch hunt here, and what they wanted to do, the Brennans of this world, and the press, and the neo-conservatives, was to put this guy in his place. And if we could persuade Pence, if we could persuade Trump, to get rid of this guy, that would be our first significant win, not so much intramural football here, a big significant win in the battle to prevent Trump from reaching out to have a decent relationship with Russia, and guess what? Guess what, Brian. It worked like a charm. Next thing you know, Trump is so baffled by all this, and so much told by "Mad Dog" Mattis, and the other four stars, that people think you're reaching out to Russia, you're a Russian stooge. Hey! There's this chemical event in Syria! Hey, here's a good chance for you to get your popularity ratings up, and what does he do, he shoots sixteen Tomahawk missiles, one of them which lands in the water. And what happens to his popularity ratings? My god, they zoom. So, you know, if you wrote a book about this, Brian, people would find it hard to believe, that Flynn could be so, on the one hand, full of integrity enough to tell it like it was, on this sarin attack, on the 21st of August, 2013, and then the same Flynn could be so dumb, to make himself vulnerable, even though he was being considered for a high position, by not doing the rudimentary things, to need to do, that people need to do, so they can be holier, or purer than Caesar's wife. So, like most of us, he's kindof a complicated guy, and it's not about Flynn; it's about Russia. And they got him. And I think Trump as well.

BECKER
We're talking with Ray McGovern, he's a former CIA analyst, you can see his writings at Ray McGovern dot com. We're talking about the struggle that's heating up between the House Oversight Committee, both the Republicans, Jason Chaffetz, and the Democrat, Elijah Cummings, demanding that the White House provide documents about Michael Flynn, the White House saying no, and of course, the allegation that Michael Flynn broke the law by not filling out documents indicating that he had received money from the government of Turkey, or intermediaries connected to Turkey, or for taking money from Russia. Now, the Russia thing really became a big deal in the campaign, Ray, because, as you said, Mike Flynn spoke and received money for speaking, I believe, at an RT, Russia Today, television anniversary event. Flynn's lawyer responded: "As has been previously reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, that's the DIA you referred to, a component agency of the Department of Defense, extensively regarding the RT speaking event trip, both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by the DIA concerning the trip, during those briefings." So, this was not exactly a secret trip. And just for our audience, I'm no fan of Mike Flynn at all, I hear what you're saying about Syria, his position towards Iran is maniacal, I think he's an Islamaphobe, but to me, that's not the issue at the moment, I agree with you, Ray McGovern, that this is all about Trump saying, or Flynn saying, "Hey, we don't have to be absolute enemies with Russia. We could perhaps have better relations with Russia," and that was treated now, even though Obama said the same thing when he came in, and Bush said the same thing when he came in...in this day and age, in 2017, it's considered to be downright treasonous or something...

MCGOVERN
Yeah, you've got the McCarthy aspect right.

BECKER
We have two minutes, Ray, so I want to ask you about the RT speaking event trip. Flynn never hid it, it wasn't like a secret speech, it wasn't the four hundred thousand dollars behind closed doors. And you were there, right?

MCGOVERN
Yeah. [laughs]

BECKER
_You were there_.

MCGOVERN
I was invited by RT, and anybody wants to pay my way to Moscow, and let me speak freely about what I think, I'll do it. Now, it's a bum rap. You know, Flynn gave this...it wasn't really a speech, it was an interview with Sophie Shevardnadze, who is the granddaughter of Edvard Shevardnadze, the Foreign Minister under Gorbachev. It was a nice gala affair, the 10th anniversary of RT. And guess who shows up? Vladimir Putin. Did it go [does "Hail to the Chief"] No! [laughs] It wasn't any pomp or circumstance! He came in with two bodyguards, sat at the head table, if you're a Lieutenant General, you get to sit at the head table. They took photos, ooooooh, wait a second! Flynn has been subverted by this Russians! [sic] It's ridiculous on its face, I was there, I saw it happen. Putin left without Flynn, and Jill Stein was at the same table. McGovern would have been at the same table, if he was higher ranked. No, it was just a measure of extending out, looking to the Russians here, at a time when Trump himself was saying, "You know, there's no reason we can't have a more decent relationship with the Russians." I'm sure Flynn talked to the Trump people about it, "Yeah! Go ahead! Talk to them! Tell them that we're serious about this!" Woooah. That is sortof beyond the pale, as far as the neo-cons are concerned. Because they don't want, well, let's face it, they don't want a decent relationship with Russia. And the reason they don't want it has to do with, not only ideology, but it has to do with the money that you make from what Pope Francis called, "the blood soaked arms traders."

BECKER
Yeah. And you have- the Clintons, I can't remember how much they have made in speaking fees, I think it's, [MCGOVERN laughs] for some reason I'm having the number a hundred million since 2000 float around in my brain, but I don't know if that's actually accurate. Whatever it was, it's a lot. It's in the many many many millions. President Obama signing up now to speak for four hundred thousand dollars a shot, the fact that Flynn got forty thousand as a former Pentagon Defense Intelligence- I mean, none of that- That is the swamp. I mean, people get lots of speaking fee money after they leave government, that part- And it wasn't, it wasn't hidden. Nothing, none of it was undercover. And as you said, at the RT gala event, the tenth anniversary, he gave an interview, or maybe he made a speech, I didn't know about it, but you're saying it wasn't even a speech, it was an interview with one of the show hosts of- for RT.

MCGOVERN
Yeah, it was an interview. It was not very impressive, I asked him a question, which he kindof parried, even though he knew the answer. And, you know, it was an affair that we didn't know was going to happen until that afternoon, and then we saw all the security around, once we went into this building, that it would be kinda interesting, and it was! Putin sat down at the table, he laughed at all the entertainment for twenty, twenty five minutes, made a little speech, and left. So-

BECKER
Ray, sadly, I mean this sincerely, sadly, we are completely out of time. We are going to keep coming back though to this story as it unfolds, we've been talking to Ray McGovern, he is a former CIA analyst, his writings can be found at Ray McGovern dot com. You are listening to "Loud and Clear".