Scott talks to Ray McGovern about the June 8th anniversary of the USS Liberty attack, a U.S. ship that was fired on by Israeli forces during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Israelis claimed the attack had been an accident, but evidence at the time—not to mention a more recent investigation—showed that it was really an intentional attack. More than 30 sailors were killed and over 100 injured, yet all the survivors were ordered to keep silent under pain of court martial, and such orders went all the way up to President Johnson. More than anything, says McGovern, this proves just how much influence Israel has always had over our own government. Little has changed to this day. Scott and McGovern also return to the dying “Russiagate” story, which continues to fall apart thanks to recently publicized evidence undermining many of the narrative’s central claims from almost the very beginning. Sadly none of the recent revelations are getting covered with anything close to the fervor that the original story was covered.
Discussed on the show:
- United Nations Resolution 242
- “NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans’ data with Israel” (The Guardian)
- “RAY McGOVERN: Turn Out the Lights, Russiagate is Over” (Consortium News)
- “VIPS: Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings” (Consortium News)
- “Russia Hoax: Nearly Three Dozen Subpoenas Approved for Obama Administration Officials” (Gregg Jarrett)
- “Inside the fight to reveal the CIA’s torture secrets” (The Guardian)
Ray McGovern is the co-creator of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and the former chief of the CIA’s Soviet analysts division. Read all of his work at his website: raymcgovern.com.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.
Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.
The following is an automatically generated transcript.
All right, y’all welcome it’s Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I’ve recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow.
All right, so you guys introducing the great Ray McGovern, you know, former CIA co founder veteran intelligence professionals for sanity, regular contributor at consortium news.com and anti war calm and keeps his own website Ray McGovern comm Welcome back, Ray. How are you?
Ray McGovern 0:56
Thanks, guys. Well, how are you?
Scott Horton 0:58
I’m doing great. Listen, writer. On this time every year, I like to interview you and or other people about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. And I know the only thing you like talking about more than that is Russiagate. And even though we just talked about that a couple weeks ago, there are some new developments. But I thought, first of all, you could tell people about the USS Liberty, presumed they’ve never heard of it.
Ray McGovern 1:23
Okay. Exactly. Let’s see, it was 67. So what is that 53 years ago, on this date, June 8, there was a spaceship run by NSA and the Navy off of Israel. And they were collecting communications what was going on because the the war had begun and was about to end. The Israeli said already destroyed. The Air Forces and most of the armies of Syria Jordan And in Egypt, and the question was what else they intended to do. Now on the morning around noon time of June 8 1967. Israeli planes kind of recognize the USS Liberty, which was 19 or 13, I guess, nautical miles off off the Israeli coast near Gaza. And then they came back an hour later and shut it up. No, there’s no question about how whether this was authorized. They know is an American ship was flying a great big American flag and more important we have better ships. were one of the pilots that but this American ship, follow your orders. Now, it’s very clear that they intended to sink the ship which would have meant killing almost 300 people They had torpedo boats there that shot a big big hole in the middle of the USS Liberty. And there was a young Texan named Terry hardbody ga who was one of the sailors and after the Israeli plane said to drop napalm and all kinds of other charges on the deck of the Liberty. Jerry says to Captain mechanical he says captain, I think I’d like to go and try to connect that one antenna that we couldn’t get worked on and remember last week, we couldn’t get it working. This is really just shadow off all the all the other antenna we can’t use them. So request permission to go try to hook up that antenna and mechanical says what do they do? We’re going to swim across that napalm and help helberg jaysus request permission sir permission Granted, he went out with some baling wire and one end of a big electric circuit connected the radar that had not been working and got an SOS out. That SOS was the only reason why 300 crew didn’t perish that day. The Israelis intercepted the SOS and immediately broke off the attack torpedoes. torpedo boats went back to their base and the planes went away. Now Meanwhile, and this is the really sad part of the story. The US naval commander of the air forces there in the Mediterranean, had scrambled his his fighter bombers, and we’re going to the relief of this ship was under attack. Long story short, the commander got a phone call from Secretary Mattis Mr. Who was Secretary of Defense at the time? He said no polos, polos, planes back polos playing back. Now, Admiral was a pretty gutsy guy and he said, Sir, one of my ships under attack, I want to speak to your boss. That would have been Lyndon Johnson. Johnson, he gets on the phone and he says, I want you to pull those, pull those planes back, pull them back immediately. We don’t want this this blemish to go on our on our good friends, our allies. That’s not a direct quote. I don’t have it in my mind anymore. But that was exactly the essence of it. Everyone was scandalized. 34 us Sailors and Marines were killed. 174 were wounded. Even when they try To put lifeboats over the side, the Israeli shut those light boats up. And we’re still when the remainder of them, the survivors got to got to port in Malta and then will flow in half to Athens where there were us hospitals. They were told look, you are not to mention this to anyone. You’re not to mention it to your wife or your child under pain of court martial. You can’t even speak to it to this incident with one another. Whoa. Now, Scott, you want to see PTSD? today talk to one of the survivors of that attack from the US socially I have I I went out for Well, there was one gutsy Congressman, this is worth mentioning. There was a congressman out in the Central Valley of California. His name was Devin newness. I didn’t know him from Adam, but Hurry How to Buy z. The young sailor 23 years old who saved the Liberty by getting it SOS out work from now Devin Nunez learned about this and said well have you been appropriately awarded, rewarded? And now sir, I just glad to be you know, just glad to be alive. So nowness petitioned the Navy, the Navy having done zero, nothing nada Nietzsche or nothing at all to help the Liberty survivors because they were under orders not to so known as it gets this silver Silver Star, I guess it is that is the second highest award that can be given to a hero like carbide, G. And he says, I’m going to give this to him out into bisaya, my my headquarters in the Central Valley, and I live in Tibet. I was on the next plane out there because I know these guys really well, and I got there just in time for the next day. About noontime ceremony where there was a little bit of press there and and nowness personally gave the gave the award. The press was typically Hey, can we can you Terry Can you show us your your flat though? The ones you got front of flack is I can I can show you the flag itself man. shirt, stomach. Well, I won’t even describe it. Anyhow, I learned by having lunch with the those guys have to ceremony, what it meant first to have this happen. Second, they have to fish out their comrades from from where the torpedo struck, and then to be told you are not to mention this to anyone under pain of court martial. Well, they come out from that PTSD, some of them and we’re able to talk about it then we’ve been able to talk about it now. And perhaps Bestival Admiral Moorer. Thomas Moorer, who is actually a pretty big guy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Ambassador London, he did a separate investigation and came to the findings, of course, that it was deliberate on the Israeli’s part, and that there’s no no excuse for the timidity on the part of the United States Navy, to follow orders for all these years. To keep this off the radar screen. I used to go to Arlington Cemetery on this day, where those who survived would gather usually about 1012, the actual survivors and their wives. And it was a very sad occasion because many are varied in a sort of a collective grave there. Nobody knows about them. It’s not even well marked. But we go there every year we did at least until well, this year, we’re not we’re not observing this speak well. reserving it, but we’re not going anywhere. So it’s one of those tragedies. And, of course, what’s the lesson there? I mean, the lesson is, well, I mean, let’s, let’s just speak it out. Hmm. The Israelis learned 53 years ago that they could get away with murder. They could get away with murdering deliberately. We had those intercepts. I saw them get deliberately killing USS us sailors and so forth. And of course, this is something that is not allowed to be said these days. But I will, I’ll just say two more things. One is that general Brent Scowcroft, who was the national security adviser to George HW Bush, and for a while Reagan when he saw How George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in subservience to Israel launched an attack on Iraq that had no justification. And the full expectation that the Rockies would meet us with cut flowers and, and welcome is in there. And then what would happen? Well, Chalabi would be in there he’d recognize Israel, Israel, they have nothing to fear from Saddam Hussein anymore. That was not the whole motivation, but it was one third of it. The other third was the oil and the other third was oil, logistics the business about having permanent military bases in Iraq. So what I’m saying here is that Scowcroft in the middle of all this, went to the Financial Times, and he said, Look, you ought to know that area Your own Prime Minister of Israel at the time, quote, he has your prison your president wrapped around his little finger and quote now, Scowcroft was a real stable kind of member of the of the establishment, you know, he would never say anything that he didn’t well plan. And this of course was well planned. What What do you say that? Well, because he was really really ticked off that Bush and Cheney would do this on false pretenses because he knew chapter and verse about you know, being that there be being no Wi Fi or that kind of thing. So, so there you go. You have a very high level person said, Look, this has really gone too far. I’m going to blow the whistle on this. He does have the president wrapped around his little finger. Now, the second and last thing I’ll say is that that was reflecting on My days in Washington I left a year ago. I go live in the boondocks now. But while I was there, I made a made a practice of going not only to lectures where I could ask embarrassing questions, but also, you know, cultural events where every now and then I’d meet some some, my Irish grandmother called muckety muck, okay, a high level guy. So here I am at the Arlington Symphony, and it’s intermission. And I’m walking and my wife says, Ray, that’s that’s Senator Warner. senator john Warner will come out there and, and he was all alone. So I say that Hi. So right out the door there. And I said in order. Yes. You know, you descended into the great big white mane and he was head of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate for about 150 years and he was the guy that let the Defense Department look into Gray ball by itself and come up with him. So, so this is the guy. Okay? So I said he’s my son at the Virginia Beach, Virginia said Okay, so, Sarah Warner. You owe me one. It looks to me. I shouldn’t say it that way. It’s terrible wonder but do you remember when you came to Moscow and 1972 to conclude the incidents at sea agreement together with salt and other things, and you came late to the Bolshoi when we hit Swan Lake there with the Kasabian and Nixon right there. “I Remember that?” Well, nobody had a seat for you. So I even when she first row balcony. “Oh, you’re Norma gurdon and McGovern”, oh, yeah, I have something I really want to let you know is Israel is trying to get us in a war with Iran. I don’t know if you’re aware of that because it’s not in the print. I will show you how to here. Israel is trying to get us into war with Iran. Now, here’s the point of my story. Okay?
Scott Horton 15:05
That’s a great icebreaker remember me from that one time? Let’s talk about Israel. All right.
Ray McGovern 15:10
So, so he’s got his, you know, he’s got his arm, or what’s on my, my biceps, you know, and all of a sudden, I could not get blood going from into into the rest of my body. His hand closed like a vise. It was, it was painful. As soon as I mentioned the word Israel, and he finally he broke it. So somebody he thought he knows Oh, john, y’all come on over here. And you know, was that Well, that was it for me. Now, what’s my point? My point is here, when I was about 80 years old at the time, he achieved all these wonderful things, so to speak, by being part of a system and it nothing to beat Afraid of and yet the mention of the word Israel prompted him probably in voluntarily to kinda freeze up. And and I felt the physical results of that by the fact that blood no longer flowed through my biceps or it was even a holy night and so all I’m saying is that it’s not not possible to relate these stories in in polite polite circles so to speak. I did get a chance to recount some of them at one of those conferences that the what’s that wonderful magazine on the Middle East? The Washington Washington report in the Middle East you were there I think Scott you spoke. So, here we are. Here we are today with Israel, saying is annexing the west bank loan portions of it are in direct contravention to international law on I think was the 23rd of November 119 67. So a couple of months after the Liberty disaster. There was a un resolute Security Council resolution, which said Israel must or must return or give up the territory said it seized in 1967 war. You know that the whole war was a was a hoax. I mean, we know Miko pellets. Mikko pellets father was one of the generals. We go as far as recently written articles. Just confirming what others have said including Prime Minister former prime minister. men often begun, begun said in the New York Times Look, during the speech it was quoted New York Times look at let’s not pretend that we were threatened by the by the Egyptians or me. We weren’t. We chose that time to do what we did know we’re smart people to do that. Now that’s that’s the fact I mean he was deployment is there and being Mikko that his father and confirm that so what we’ve got now is a territory that has been annexed and sort of ruled by by Israel are not quite yet next are not quite yet brought into Israel proper. I’ve been there. I’ve been there a couple of times I see how those people live. And the notion that they will not be given citizenship. Well, he will, we will have an apart we already have an apartheid state. The only problem is since it’s Israel, on which try to apply the same mechanisms like boycott Divestment and Sanctions PDS, we’re trying to do that which we did in South Africa. And that was a miracle. I mean, I never, I don’t know anyone that thought there would be a peaceful, relatively peaceful transition of power in that country. Nobody, and it happened. So now we try to do that with respect to Israel, and my God, all hell breaks loose people are prohibited from speaking at universities that people are called anti semitic. We know what’s going on there. Is apartheid, pure and simple. And some of the folks that were really close to Nelson Mandela have been have been in the West Bank. And you know what they say? They say it’s worse. It’s worse. And apartheid was in South Africa. I mean, that’s saying something. And what do we do? Well, because of this strange hold, that Israeli lobby has on us manifested physically by Senator Warner, my biceps, we, we support them in those outrageous apartheid, racism pure and simple.
Scott Horton 20:11
Alright, well, so let me ask you. And you know, you’ve been around the block a few times worked at the CIA as very high level analysts for 27 years briefing, the President, Vice President and this kind of thing in the 1980s, and all of that. So what is it that they have on Senator Warner? Or what is it that they’re holding over the USA, they promise that they don’t give a damn they’d be happy to drop an H bomb on DC. If we don’t do whatever they say or they’ll prove that our entire Senate is all pedophiles or what?
Ray McGovern 20:43
Well, I think it’s mostly money. Kind of the root of all evil. You know, we have a situation in the US Congress where if is really don’t like you, feels very out. Cynthia McKinney One example of that.
Scott Horton 21:01
Well, no question about that. I mean, we’ve talked a lot about the power of the Israel lobby, but you seem to be hinting that there’s something more to it. I mean, I’m reminded of the Edward Snowden documents. This one was only in The Guardian and never was printed in the New York Times, about how the NSA essentially gives their entire Hall over to the Israelis every day. So the NSA that’s scooping up, everything is handing over everything to the Israelis. So in other words, it could be 435 different things for 435 different congressmen that they’ve got, you know, but they sure know everything about anybody that they’re interested in knowing about no question there.
Ray McGovern 21:47
And I know from very authoritative sources that that begin with one person like Pollard in the NSA, so to doing this all by himself now That is putting a little extra line in so that Israel get everything we have.
Scott Horton 22:07
And so instead of locking that guy up, they just legalized it and made that the policy.
Ray McGovern 22:11
Yeah, yeah, they regularize that. So, yeah, it’s pretty bad. And it’s my Russian tissues to say, this is nothing to laugh. This is nothing to laugh. Why are you laughing? Julio laughing Do not laugh.
Scott Horton 22:26
Funny. It’s they don’t do articles, the Russians.
Ray McGovern 22:29
If we didn’t have two presidents who are former generals, Washington was one. Eisenhower was another who learned specifically about foreign entanglements. The notion of having a passionate attachment of one country to another, which would leave you with the impression that the goals and the objectives of this one country were the same as yours, but Washington saw that and you In his farewell address he spoke out against at the time it was France. Everybody wanted to come to France as a because they went to war with Britain and France helped us a lot. And he doesn’t make any sense. It makes no sense at all.
Scott Horton 23:15
Yeah.
Ray McGovern 23:16
And then, you know, Eisenhower warned also about these things. So
Scott Horton 23:21
Well, that’s a two state thing or the annexation problem here that you’re talking about, you know, as a as your example of the whole that the Israel lobby still hasn’t the Israeli government still has over the us that this is a major change, right. For the last 30 years. They have said, just hold your horses, what really lasts 40 years right since cam David, they said just hold your horses, you’ll get a Palestinian state just give us a little time we’re working on the peace process, you’ll get a Palestinian state. Now they’re essentially no longer pretending they’re annexing so much of the West Bank, or they claim to be about two that it will make that an absolute impossibility. Even For the most self diluted American liberal Zionists to be able to hold these conflicting views in their head, and they’ll have to choose then it’s a major turning point what is to happen to the Palestinians? And how is it when there was a future of independence possible for them? That was the trap, you know, the the escape hatch, essentially, from being accused of that South African apartheid type system that you’re describing, after annexation? There’ll just be no question. You’re talking about 6 million people almost something like that among the Palestinian Christians and Muslims there in the West Bank and Gaza and in East Jerusalem and so. But then, on this side, the point being back to your point, on this side of the oceans here, it’s essentially silence and I know that there’s an epidemic and a protest movement and all these other newsworthy things going Not, but this is essentially going unremarked. No controversy whatsoever. And you would think that this would be incredibly controversial? Because after all, I think it’s super majorities of American Jews support a two state solution and oppose this kind of annexation. And, you know, certainly it’s well within liberal civil rights tradition, to think that the Palestinians deserve a little bit more than absolutely nothing, right? Like if you ask Bernie Sanders to be like, Look, we’ve got to treat these people fairly, you know, that kind of?
Ray McGovern 25:34
Well, you know, the two state solution has been dead for years. The Palestinians have been tricked out and lots of things. Some people consider that their leaders have been naive. Well, there was one who was not so naive. His name was Yes, here, verify. And he was poisoned. He was killed. Who did it? It was very, very, very, very obscure. But I don’t know, one Palestinian or one objective observer of these kinds of things that doubts that Israeli intelligence did that, okay. So without leadership and dispersed as they are, and with the Israeli military machine being given millions and millions, millions, billions actually of arms and money for arms by the United States, the Palestinians hadn’t have had a chance now what’s really interesting to me at least, is that how long How much longer will it be able to say Oh, Israel’s The only democracy or when Mr. Crowley it ma cracy in the Middle East and because you know, you’re gonna you’re gonna end up with more Palestinians and Israelis and then Israelis in what they are expanding to Laban spouse Is what Hitler called it room for expansion. So, these these palaces not going to be able to vote, they’re not going to be citizens. Well, how can you? How can you pretend to be a democracy if you give everybody the vote? Yeah. So that’s really pretty, pretty basic. And it’ll be, you know, be yours. Unfortunately, before this thing works itself out, but the Israelis unless they do mass genocide,
I’m not suggesting that they would.
I would not rule that out.
Unless they do that, they’ll end up with a patently undemocratic country that even the best pundits under Israeli influence and a lot of them are in this country and not be able to pretend that Israel is democracy. Much less that they married, was it $3.8 billion of, of arms support every year from the US Treasury. And they’re trying to increase that now. So you know, we have to get this money out of the out of things because
Scott Horton 28:17
they couldn’t massacre millions of people, but they can put them in boxcars, and ship them all to Gaza, or ship them to the Sinai desert. Or maybe just try to force March them, you know, Andrew Jackson style into the Jordan River and hope they can swim.
Ray McGovern 28:32
Yeah. Well, you know, when you talk about –
Scott Horton 28:34
it does make sense, though. I mean, I’m, you know, and your point that well, what are you going to do with these people? Clearly, the Israelis want that land and do not want those people. And they have the martial ability, in a literal sense to do whatever they want with them. Right.
Ray McGovern 28:50
Yeah. And what what people need to realize is that there are very sturdy Palestinians who are been living in the West Bank forever? Okay. They’re not going to take this sitting down. Now, some of you will remember I had Tommy, who slapped a Israeli soldier and did six months in jail for that. And he came with a hero. I know her I met her, I stated her, her father’s boss him at Tommy’s house. That was three years ago with a Veterans for peace delegation. Why do I say that? I say that because I talked to a father after everyone else who’s been nice advice him. How can you How can you encourage or how can you allow your children to go up there and challenge the wall? You your brother in law was shot by a sniper in the head killed. One of your sons has leg blown off eg he’s crippled. How can you We just did a very dangerous demonstration. We were all tear gassed earlier today. Well, how can you let the kids do this? They looked at me like I was from Mars. He says, “Ray, what’s the alternative? what’s the alternative? Do you want me to tell my children that they have to live under foreign occupiers without protesting? Is that what you’re trying to say to me? There’s no alternative right? I will not restrain my children.” Now later, of course, she must be about 18 or 19 Now she was arrested for slapping the Israeli soldier and her mother was put in jail again as well. But that’s not gonna stop. Moral of the story is that these people have guts that that you wouldn’t believe and powerless as they seem. They have the most Oral authority on their side and as long as the world does not when the world gets out of this COVID-19 tragedy and begins to pay attention again I think there are enough people enough I hope there are enough people in enough countries to put the put the BDS into real effective force and to shame the knighted states into not doing anything further to establish apartheid in Israel.
Scott Horton 31:40
Let’s talk about Russia gate, the worst president in all of American History According to you, which I don’t think there’s any way measures up to Truman or or Wilson or a few others but anyway According to you the worst president united states, he was framed by the FBI counterintelligence division in the CIA for being a traitor under the control of the Kremlin, of all things, which happens to be your speciality. And you never believed it and he defended him from day one, because you’re not a partisan except for the truth. And and so, there have been recent developments even since we last spoke, and you have two new articles at consortium news calm. Turn out the lights Russia gate is over. And memo to the Attorney General, more on Muller’s forensics free findings here, so well go in fact, I’ll say one more thing. I’m actually not sure the original source of this. Oh, I know. Yeah. It’s what’s his name, Greg Jarrett from Fox News says that nearly three dozen subpoenas have been approved for obama administration officials. So I guess they haven’t been delivered yet. That’s like a leak that this is coming. So I don’t know. Anyway, so a possibility that the Durham investigation into the origins of this hoax is developing further. I think it’s one of your articles you quote bar, implying that some people are going to be indicted and punished for their roles in this thing. But anyway, you go ahead and take it from there and say whatever you want for the next half hour.
Ray McGovern 34:33
I was saying to myself, Trump, Barr, Durham, it sounds like a law firm, doesn’t it? Trump barn door Yeah. That’s what
Scott Horton 34:45
sounds like bad guys. But in this case, you know, they’re on the side of riding this one anyway.
Ray McGovern 34:50
I said lawyers. Yeah. You know, there’s that. Let me put it this way. It’s hard for the normal person to understand the ethos of an intelligence analyst. The more so, because CIA is really two units, one is a political one doing covert action and the other, which is the one that was established by Harry Truman established to have one place you could go to to get get the truth, okay, you didn’t want to have the filter of the Pentagon, which always said that the Soviets were 10 feet tall. He didn’t want the State Department to be massaging the truth to show that their policies are working just splendidly. He wanted one place to go, which was answerable only to him, that he would control our careers. And he could say, look, give it to me straight what’s going on here. Okay. Now that became adulterated over the years, and especially over the last 10 years or so. It’s become pretty much impossible for American citizens to believe that they could be an ethos like ours that says, hey, we’re after the truth here. And wherever the chips may fall that does, that’s not our job. We do the truth. Okay. So it was not a matter of defending Trump or anything like that. And you aren’t suggesting that I know. It was a matter of smelling a rat. As soon as people started saying, Russia did, Russia did it Russia did. Russia did while Russia hacked into the DNC and gave those terribly damaging emails, all of them authentic to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks published them three days before the Democratic National Committee convention and it hurt Hillary. Well, number one. I didn’t get much play at the time because they had already started To say Russia did it Russia did it. Russia did it. And when they were released when they will publish the 22nd of July 2016, three days before the convention, all the headlines were saying, Why did Russia do this? Why did Russia do this? Why did Russia do this? nobody paid any attention to the content of the emails, which clearly showed that the DNC and the Clinton campaign had stolen the nomination from Bernie Sanders, pure and simple. By the way, they rigged the primaries. Bye, bye, bye, everything. Okay. So it worked from the beginning. So give a give a kind of a diversion. Now, their version became an explanation once beyond all expectations. Hillary lost. Okay. Now, what happened then? Well, there are a couple of things that happen then that are really important. People like James comi, head of the FBI, john brennan. The CIA, James Clapper, Ursa phob, from way back head of the National Intelligence set up, they did everything they could, before the election to make sure that Hillary won and the Trump lost. It’s very simple. It’s in the record. Just look at the template. The texts exchanges between Peter struck of the FBI and his paramour, Lisa Paige, who I will note is now a big judicial commentator on msnbc. My God, anyhow, all right. Look at those texts, exchanges. It’s very, very clear. They tried to sabotage Trump and help Hillary now it didn’t work. But oh, wait a second. Wouldn’t it didn’t work they realized oh, my god. We were so confident that Hillary is gonna win that we didn’t hide our tracks. Oh my god. Oh, what’s going oh, this guy friends coveted He knows where the bodies are buried. Oh my God he’s got so what I’m saying here Scott is that a lot of the reasons for Russia gate to wish I like Russia gate one was before the election okay Russia gate to the after the election were to make sure that they could they could hide their tracks ex post facto which is human I know isn’t that really possible in this day and age and make sure that they didn’t get found out instead you lead your best defenses and offense and that’s what you do. Now, one big question these days is how much did Obama know?
Wow. That’s a legitimate question. Why do I say that? Is McGovern against Obama? No. Government is it against anybody? He’s not for anybody either. is for the facts. Okay, now on the second of September 2016 Lisa page The top lawyer who worked for deputy FBI Director, McCabe texted her friend or lover. Peter struck and said, My God, I’m preparing. Preparing talk, talking points. POTUS. POTUS is president of the United States. So POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing. And, quote, wow. POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing the second of September 2016. Hmm. That’s pretty persuasive evidence that what that Obama wanted to do. Okay. And then there’s also indications from how Obama acted on the fifth of January just before Trump took office. How are you authorized clapper Brennan, and call me to go ahead with this steel dossier exposure to the president elect himself. How Komi did the deed by telling them Mr. Brennan and Mr. Clapper, you would need to leave now because I have something very, very delicate to raise with the president elect. And so he says to, to Trump, he says Now, Mr. Trump, we have this is terribly awkward. We have this dossier. And it shows that well, we really can’t prove it. We can’t it’s not uncorroborated, but it shows that you were or you were messing with prostitutes in Moscow in all manner of other things. Just so you know, that just Just so you know, because we think the press is gonna gonna have it and so just so you know, now, if I were Trump, Trump was a new new newbie here in Washington. If I were Trump, I would have said, Thank you very much, Mr. Comey. I direct you right now to go back to the Bureau. clean out your desk. Don’t show your face in my presence anymore. You’re out of there as soon as I become president on the 20th of January, just a couple weeks from now. Okay, get out of here. I know that trick as JFK that’s as Jagger Hoover on steroids For God’s sake. It happens to every every incoming president every president elect, so don’t try to pull that stuff. I mean, instead, it was Trump do. Yeah, it does the real estate stuff from New York. Yeah. I can cajole this guy. I could get him on my side. I could show him at a great man I hit so he plays around with me for months and months and finally has the firearm. So that’s what’s at stake here. Now. comi Brennan, and clapper have all been named not only by the Attorney General bar, but by the President himself. And the President is his has said in an interview. Let me get this right here. Things keep going the way they’re going. I have a chance to destroy the deep state. Whoa, well, now, if things keep going the way they were going, he said that before all these terrible things having to do with the riots about race. That’s a big diversion. COVID-19 is another big diversion. Right now. Trump is at a low point. As I see it, he’s lost all manner of support, except by his most rabid supporters. He has a choice. And this is the choice that I see. He’s got the good sunny skies, as I said, it didn’t, you know, they, they were so sure that Hillary is gonna win. That James Comey admits that in his book, he says, and I quote
I was operating in an environment in which Hillary Clinton was should be our next president. Period, end quote. So if you’re operating in that kind of environment, you got to take all manner of liberties with the law, the constitution and regulations and I’m gonna be indicted for you’re gonna be promoted or allowed to stay in your job is that guy. So, it all it all makes very good sense that this is how they proceeded but now now the evidence is available to john bright john Durham was the US Attorney in Connecticut. It’s a vailable to a district to a US Attorney named bashes looking into these disclosures about who, who asked people to be unmasked. And so it’s all come to a head. Now the question is, this is the This is the worst possible time for Trump to claim some credibility. I mean, everybody hates him. Colin Powell is gonna vote against them. Everybody and his brother thinks he’s, so what was he going to do? Now? You need a psychiatrist to figure this out. But there’s a really good one. His name is just the Frank. He used to do some psychological assessments for us at the CIA. We call them arm’s length or distance psychological assessments. And I wrote them last night so Jessie, for God’s sake, not another book, not another book about bush on the couch or Trump on the couch. What we need now is an assessment what’s what’s Trump gonna do? push us come to shove here? Is he gonna let that he’s gonna let dorm let it all hang out and indict call me Brennan clapper. Maybe even less That Loretta Lynch that the attorney general former, or is he going to cave? Or was he going to do well, what is it in a desperate frame of mind like this? There’s no telling way so some people make a my do a false flag operation or whatever they call it a wag the dog operation in Venezuela or in yarn. But I think it’s much more likely that he’ll have to either bite the bullet on this with he called these guys vicious people, this deep state, you know, I hate to agree with but they are And not only that, but they have lots of chips to call in, and lots of people who are involved with them, they know what the story is. So bottom line for me is that if he goes ahead and does the gutsy thing Hmm, I’d say only 49% then it’s good to meet with the kind of resistance That the deep state can mount and that’s going to be formidable. All the more so since they have the complete mainstream media at their beck and call, so there’ll be a Donnybrook. If he does that, if he doesn’t do that, then as a as a person. And this sounds funny, but I’m gonna say it anyway, as a person who has taken only one solemn oath and that is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That constitution will not be in the same shape that it was before Trump, because the deep state security state will have one will have shown its power and any incoming president will be treated to the same core sort of level. We have this dossier Mr. President Elect, and we’ll have to couch out to these very, very powerful forces to keep wars going. Give Israel billions of dollars that do all manner of things to keep the American people as malnourished and as oppressed, as most of our people are. So the, the, the stakes are really, really high. And I’m hoping that my friend, Dr. Frank, just the Frank will come in and say, you know, he’s likely to my gift best guess without having him on the couch physically, is that he’s likely to do this. So that and just these been right in the past. We need to we need to draw on all professional resources, in this case, psychiatry to figure out how Trump is going to react because he’s in a corner now is get something really good going for him. That is the facts on Russia gate. But if he puts that into play, you
Scott Horton 48:54
I mean but you know what, even if Trump says to bar, you tell Durham I want to see this thing. Through the hard way, they might not go along with that. You know, he’s not really in control of that. And Durham has already proven his usefulness to the CIA. I wouldn’t know why. to assume that his job is anything here but to cover for them just as he did in the torture and murder scandal of the Bush years.
Ray McGovern 49:20
Yeah, that was well, actually that was Obama that.
Let Well, yeah. torture and scandal the Bush years, but it was Obama. Obama era cover up. Yeah.
We did cover up. Yeah. Well, we’ve had this conversation before.
Scott Horton 49:34
That’s an important point, too. He covered up the Bush era torture and murder scandal for Barack Obama. So yeah, that’s a bit of nuance with some import there and seems like
Ray McGovern 49:47
you and I agree completely that Durham will do what he’s told. Okay. Now, Obama told him to let these guys off even though the evidence was just horrendous, the accurate and clear. Now, we’ll bar well bar is going to do in my view what Trump tells him to do and if Trump tells him as I fear look you know this these are big fish these are these are what he calls them a really bad people bad cops vicious vicious was the word he used well they are so if he says the bar luck we have a couple of lawyers that falsified evidence. We get get these medium guys at the medium levels and let’s just fold Fold the thing up, then my guess is that I would be shocked if far So no, no, no, no, we gotta get these guys. Now he’ll say yes, yes, Mr. President, and you tell tell them to knock it off. That’s what happened last time. I just don’t think that see Obama was scared but he is He was riding pretty high, having just won the election. Trump is scared, but he’s riding really, really low. So the question is where they’ll go ahead and do what nobody expects him to do. And there’s hold these people accountable. And if he does that, it’s going to be real Donnybrook. And you know, I started on the Constitution. We care about the constitution and when we see liberties being taken with it by the likes of Comey and clapper and Loretta Lynch, for God’s sake and Brennan, we feel strongly about that. And, you know, last time I checked, our oath has no expiration data. Okay. And I don’t mean that track quarterly. I often think of a good friend of mine. His name was Dave ob. He was head of House Budget Committee for many, many years. And he he teared before George or George Shultz. was ordered to appear before ob on Iran Contra. Because of course, there were all kinds of violations of the law having to do with weapons being delivered to to Iran. Okay. So this is late in the Iran Contra thing and Schultz made the mistake of saying, you know, missed ob, with all due respect. I’m a little tired and the American people are tired of all this. And cook in dico Dave ob says Mr. Secretary, Phillips was Secretary of State. As the Secretary. I didn’t take a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution United States against all enemies foreign and domestic until I got tired. Well, that’s the way we look at it and veteran intelligence professionals who say it’s for sanity. We were trained, and we were encouraged We were paid by the American people to tell the truth. And no matter how, Which Way, the Truth cuts, we continue to do that. And
Scott Horton 53:11
not to tell the truth to us, but to tell the truth to the people in the White House at least, right?
Ray McGovern 53:16
Yeah. But
Scott Horton 53:18
don’t tell me that they paid you to tell the truth to the American people, right?
Ray McGovern 53:22
No, no, no, no. You have to tell
Scott Horton 53:25
Bob Perry might have paid you to tell the truth of the American people. But that’s different. Yeah,
Ray McGovern 53:30
you don’t make no mistake. What we’re trying to do here is substitute for the stuff you get in the mainstream media, which is a bunch of garbage. And the thing is that Russia gate is already too big to fail, so to speak. So many people are are committed to the fable. People from lindsey graham to Jimmy Carter, for God’s sake, you know, I mean, so Even though one slice of that, namely collusion has petered out because of what Muller was able to do. The other thing which Muller either was not well was not, did not do is to say the whole thing, Russian hacking of the DNC was a hoax. And maybe that’s the end. And on this note here, we have, let’s see what’s today, the eighth of June now, exactly a month ago, on the seventh of May. documents were revealed regarding testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, headed at that time by Conway who is substituting for newness, and the ranking member was Adam Schiff we all know. Now Adam Schiff is the head of CrowdStrike CrowdStrike was the firm picked and paid for by the Democratic National Committee. Just as Christopher Steele was picked and paid for by the Democratic National Committee, they were the ones that call me Let do the forensics on the so called Russian hack the DNC. FBI didn’t do this forensics. No, no, they prefer to give it to this firm hired by the DNC itself. Hmm. Okay. So now, Sean Henry, who is the head of CrowdStrike, testified before that House Intelligence Committee on the fifth of December 2017. So are we talking in two and a half years ago? Okay. What do you say? Well, here’s newness. Mr. Henry, can you tell us the date that the Russians hacked into the DNC? What would that have been? Henry Sean Henry, head of CrowdStrike With his lawyer, he says, Well, my counsel advises that we have no evidence that there was exfiltration of the DNC documents exfiltration fancy word for hacked. We sometimes says Henry, we have very good evidence, we know exactly what happened. But this time, we have no concrete evidence.
Scott Horton 56:25
It’s interesting, isn’t it, Ray that his lawyer made him tell the truth about that. I wonder why? Because he could have just kept lying about it and saying, well, I can’t show you because we don’t have it anymore. But trust us or something, right, but
Ray McGovern 56:37
well, it has something to do with being under oath.
Scott Horton 56:41
I guess so. Yeah.
Ray McGovern 56:43
So that’s, that’s the So you mentioned all these subpoenas going out? Well, Lindsey Graham is still trying to persuade most of his committee to let him do what what’s his name the Senator from from Illinois has already done that is issued dozens of subpoenas so it’s all going to be done over the coming weeks but in my view at VB people really are tired of this now nobody’s gonna pay attention anymore especially with the virus going around and the the disturbances having to do with killing blacks. So I don’t know how that’s gonna fall out but they do have the chairs in these committees. And now Johnson has his name the Senator Johnson from from Illinois. He’s got he’s got a homeland security purchase. Okay, so he can do this and when lindsey graham will do the same, but Graham GOT GOT Rosen Stein who is the acting Attorney General for a while, he got him to admit that he never would have proved last face applications if he knew now, if you know that anybody knows now, and then McCabe is here. No, no, he’s lying. So it’s gonna be who’s Said I he said she said or he said he said he said and then Lisa page will come in and read and visit MSNBC and say well now I said he said, so it’s going to be a little little tedious. I think the question is dorm was supposed to report around now, like April May is what? What Barr originally said. Now it’s June. What’s going to happen? Is he just gonna kind of go longer and then let it be seen as a pure political ploy employed by Trump to win the election. That’s that’s the danger. I say. There’s enough evidence out there to close the damn thing. And so make sure that those who are clearly indicted or indicted, Barr threatens to do that. Trump threatens to do that to whether they have the guts to do it is another question and then whether they have the ability to do it. If you had another question, and again, I come down on the side of the Constitution, if these people violated the Constitution, which is very clear to me that they did they need to be held accountable. Otherwise, every incoming president will be faced with the same kind of situation.
Scott Horton 59:17
Yeah. Hey, listen, I mean, Dave Smith said this, I thought it was great that the seriousness of this scandal of the fake Russia hoax and the false accusations by these cops and spies against first, a major party candidate for president, then the president elect and the President himself after being sworn in that it is as big as the claims were, if it had all been true. Essentially, their accusations of his treason, were treason. They were acting, they’re so far out of their legitimate authority to have done what they did. That is essentially equal to the scandal if the whole story had been true.
Ray McGovern 1:00:06
Yeah, I agree I wouldn’t use treason I would use sedition. It’s it’s a little bit more precise in what they did. And since I’m against the death penalty, although I might make an exception in these cases, treason carries the death penalty. sedition doesn’t
Scott Horton 1:00:26
either banishment in exile. I think that is more fitting. He sees all their family’s property and you kick all of the Brennan’s out of America permanently, you know, down to the second cousins.
Ray McGovern 1:00:39
I think Belmarsh sounds a little better. maximum security prison in London. Julian should be laid out. These guys should be put in.
Scott Horton 1:00:51
That sounds fair. You know what they still have a prison down at Guantanamo Bay. I think John Brennan might know little something about that. His CIA murdered three men down there.
Ray McGovern 1:01:04
Yep. And we know that but you know obama. I have to say that from the very start, I saw that Obama had a very strange relationship with john brennan. And it began, actually, as he started to be a candidate, he was still a senator. Okay. And he was a progressive senator or so he thought. And he made a big deal about this illegal eavesdropping, which was going on note this even before 911 but then when on steroids, okay, these are the telephone calls and all that kind of stuff. All right, so so Obama comes out and says, I am against holding these mega corporations, these, these big telephone and internet corporations harmless, they violated the law. They’re going to pay the price. I’m voting For this, this bill that says they’re going to be they’re going to be held accountable. Oh, that was that was May June 2012 2008, I guess right. When was he elected? 2008? Yeah. Okay. So what happens? Oh, john brennan joins his team. And in late June, Obama says I changed my mind on those on holding those mega corporations, telecoms, countable nouns I think they should be held harmless. I said to myself, what kind of guy is this? And I wrote about it at the time. I said, Look, you know, I’m an intelligence officer. I see a real rad here. Let’s be on guard. This guy does not deserve our support. is going to be this malleable in the hands of I didn’t know whom at the time, but it was at precisely that time. burnin join his campaign. Then, you know another telling thing was when the Senate Intelligence Committee to its great credit, completed a four year study on CIA torture. What did Obama do? Well, they looked away when john brennan had his goons go into the senate computers, talk about separation of powers. They went into the senate computers. Okay. And then, when it became clear that the Senate investigators persisted, and that wonder of wonders Dianne Feinstein was really supporting her staff. What did he do? He sent his chief of staff to every one of those meetings that they had to declassify or to get this out of the reporter and his chief of staff every one of those meetings. Then at the very end he pleaded with Feinstein Hey, get john carried away in with all those senators No, no, don’t do this would be a terrible thing. And Feinstein persisted. And I think the way she got got it done was she said, lay on this fellow out there and Colorado. That senator, Mark, What’s the name? can take any sec, but he likes this rebid for re election and he feels real strongly about this. And he’s going to read the report from the Senate floor. If you don’t publish it, it’s all redacted. just publish it. And Obama said, Oh, darn, sorry, john. Sorry, john. We have to report so what am I saying? I said, What What in the world would compel Obama to defend Brennan from these horrendous horrendous practices? You know, it was very clear people need to read that executive summary. It was awful. What happened? Why Why was Obama So? So fastidious, so, so compelled to defend Brennan on that? I’ll say one more thing. There’s a fella named Spencer Ackerman. He’s a journalist. He used to be better than he is now but he was really really good and telling the story of how this one investigator and his co workers they’re working for Dianne Feinstein, close this thing to, to reach completion. Most things like it do not. And he wrote a three part series for The Guardian. You should look it up Ackerman a ck he or ma n. Spencer, first name, a really good trio of articles are showing, showing how Obama was was so obsequious to Brennan. And so why is that? I don’t know. But it’s there. And now Now we have to ask the question. You know, when when Trump said Obama gate I said, Oh, no. No, no. Why? Because Trump said there is an Obama gate, and it’s automatically automatically dismissed. Because he came out of the the mouth of Trump. So, you know, I mentioned before Lisa page saying, the President wants to know, everything we’re doing. Well, I mean, that’s a little bit more than just circumstantial evidence, in my view. And that’s one reason why Obama is out on the hustings now. Talking about Oh, god, yes. Yesterday talked about the equivalent of Trump Oh, yeah, bro. The bromance before between Trump and Putin talked about
Scott Horton 1:06:45
Obama said that. See ya. Oh, can you believe that?
Ray McGovern 1:06:50
Yeah, the bromance and what was the other thing he said? It was equally bad. So you know,
Scott Horton 1:06:57
you know what, back to what you’re saying about the investigation here. Why are they taunting him? You know what I mean? Like, if anything is gonna solidify Trump’s determination to see the very worst done here in the best sense. I mean, it would be something like Obama waving a red flag at him. You know what I mean? That’s completely crazy.
Ray McGovern 1:07:20
Yeah, I’m saying I’m saying that Obama has a dog in this fight. Okay. And he’s just like the others mounting an offense offensive here at a time when Trump is at a new low, deservedly so. And
Scott Horton 1:07:38
still bad strategy man. He should wait till he knows if his people are going to be indicted or not before he starts defending himself too much like that, you know?
Ray McGovern 1:07:47
Yeah. So, it’s gonna be it’s gonna be interesting. And, you know, I’ve been talking about a constitutional conflict. For years now, but now there will be one or there won’t be one. If there is one, it’s going to be really, really important how it comes out. If there isn’t any Well, that’s worse, because that will mean that every president that comes in will be treated to something like Chuck Schumer’s warning. Remember, on the third of January 2016, Chuck says to Rachel Maddow, Rachel, I got it got interesting thing to tell you so. So they go on the show. And she says, Now, Chuck, you said you had something interesting about about President Elect Trump? And Schumer says yes, Rachel. I used to. I used to think he’s a was a very smart businessman. He would he would pick his quarrels, but he said something very, very stupid. Rachel. Oh, what would that be Chuck? He’s taken on the intelligence community. And they have six ways from Sunday to get you there. Always very, very foolish. Ah, thanks, Chuck. Now, third of January 2017, what happened the day after? Well, on the fifth is when Obama was briefed by The Three Musketeers Brennan clapper and call me about this dossier that they had on Trump. And should we give him the dossier together with this assessment? this so called intelligence community assessment, which pretty much will, which concludes that pitching helped the president elect to become the president elect. And should we give them the dossier? Yeah, go ahead, give them the dossier. And that’s when that little scenario that I spelled out before it took place on the sixth the next day. So you have Schumer and the third Okay, warning. Pretty, pretty clearly what’s going to happen if you take on the intelligence can You have the fifth Obama said, Okay, go get them. Okay. On the sixth they brief Trump as president elect, not only on this assessment, which says he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for the help from poaching, but also, we have this dossier. It’s very scarless. It’s not corroborated, but it’s out there. Just so you know, Mr. President elect, just so you know.
Scott Horton 1:10:27
Yeah. Nice little pretext. And then well, we got to report it now because now that it’s been he’s been confronted with it, we have a hook.
Ray McGovern 1:10:37
Right
Scott Horton 1:10:37
and build on that, just like they did with Mike Flynn where clapper told David Ignatius at the post, take to kill shot. So Ignatius writes something in the post and then the FBI says, Oh, look, a pretext for us to go interview Flynn about that thing we read in the post.
Ray McGovern 1:10:54
Yeah. You know, the challenges to make this intelligible to the normal citizens. And now I think your listeners are certainly up to it. But there are certain things that jump out at you and need to be made as simple as possible. And that’s that’s what we’re struggling with now. Our latest that I’m talking about veteran intelligence professionals for Saturday. Our latest was a follow up to a to a memo we sent to bar a month after he took office. The date was March 13 2019. So a month after he took office, we tell him at the time Look, Marlon is going to give you this report, and it’s going to have zero forensics. So, this is nine days before we got that report. Okay. We said so, so please take a look at it and see if it has, if it has zero forensics, it is ipso facto, incomplete report, okay. Give them an incomplete mark and mark the fact that there has zero forensics, we called our memo, the forensics free report by Muller. This was before he gave it okay. And so we rehearse that just last couple days ago, when we did a follow up and we said, Look, you know, not not only will we write about that, but now this proof. And if you read the New York Times this zero proof, it’s been a month, a whole month, since the head of trice, CrowdStrike testified, there was no hack of the DNC, none, not by Russia, not by anybody. And Mr. Mr. Barr, if you’re unaware, you need to know first that you have the the horse’s mouth saying that they had CrowdStrike. And you need to know secondly, that no one who reads the New York Times or its derivatives knows this. So just so you know, Mr. Mr. Barr,
Scott Horton 1:12:58
and that is so important. They knew that, you know, they knew before they ever started the Muller investigation that Oh, the Papadopoulos thing. Yeah, though now that doesn’t really add up and the page thing Yeah, no, we know that CIA says he actually works for us. And he’s all right. And the Mike Flynn and the phone call. Yeah, he was asking them for a favor. They said, No, no collusion there. And they knew all that before they ever started. That before Rosenstein ever turned the thing over to Bob Muller to even begin this investigation. And then as you say, what, nine months after that in December of Trump’s first year, you have the guy from CrowdStrike admit that? Yeah. We have no evidence that the Russians got these files. Yeah, sorry if we might have led anybody to believe otherwise. And then that was it and then they kept the thing going for another year and a half after that, through your midterm elections in 2018. Until the late spring, early summer 2019 did they finally admit that they had nothing at all, and they knew they had nothing before they began. They’re just dragging the whole thing out just as a smear job, you know, you gotta admire it in a way in terms of cointelpro Ops, you know, taken on the Black Panthers by writing letters and other men’s handwriting or whatever, that’s one thing, but taken on the president this way, it’s, it’s quite an accomplishment. I mean, they failed, but it’s, it’s still you know, for for the the level of art that they mounted here. And it was it’s pretty substantial.
Ray McGovern 1:14:41
The big difference, Scott, I would suggest between then and now is that now the entire mainstream media has bought into this fable to the point where american people don’t have a chance To know what’s going on. Really and truly, these are bright people who are interested in the truth, but they have been so conditioned to believing that the Russians hacked the DNC that I have some of my old buddies up there in New York I went to college with they just can’t deal with it.
Scott Horton 1:15:20
That’s true. I mean, all these new developments they don’t get coverage on CNN, they don’t get a thing. There’s not a big headline in the New York Times. Turns out that after all, they knew that they were lying. Oops, no, no come up. It’s just like with Iraq, hell, just like with Syria no admission that they were ever wrong about any of it. And so this keep rolling on and as you say, yeah, people who aren’t exposed to mostly right wing partisan media, they don’t ever even get to hear this stuff. Other than you know, if you read Greenwald or a couple other you know, Matt Taibbi or a couple of Aaron Mata Of course, on the left, but other than that, certainly not on TV. They never frame it this way that hey, that one narrative, it turns out, it really wasn’t true. After all, they never came clean even when the Mueller report came out. They were still just trying to cherry pick things to say they were right. Mostly, you know.
Ray McGovern 1:16:10
Yeah. You know, Scott, it’s all terribly reminiscent of the weapons of mass destruction. And as consequential I would suggest, well, not not. I take that back. There’s Bedlam in the Middle East now. But you know, there were a few of us that were right, in saying there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction, that Colin Powell was lying through his teeth, he to emerge to yesterday to have his word. And nobody, and nobody really kind of fessed up but there was one exception and this is worth recording, the head of the editorial section of the Washington Post, Fred Hiatt. He’s been in place 20 years, count them 22 zero years. Okay. Well, after the debacle on iraq where there were no weapons of mass destruction, he was asked at the Columbia Columbia Journalism Institute, the one that puts out that report. Tell me, Mr. Hyatt, tell me what you kept saying that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How do you how do you explain that? This is what I had said. We did assert it as flat fact. And if we’re wrong, we probably shouldn’t have said it. No, no, no Bob Perry cover to this. No, that’s a cardinal facet of journalism. If it’s wrong, you probably shouldn’t say. So,
Scott Horton 1:17:56
that’s funny
Ray McGovern 1:17:57
what I was going to say is there was one answer Remember that fellow may who did all the investigations for a whole year afterwards, given a billion dollars to find those weapons of mass destruction? Well, they finally reported I think was the spring of probably 2005 or four, that there weren’t any any could verify they tracked it all down when I happen to be out in Detroit speaking to the editorial board of the was that detroit news and they used to have a really good paper out there. The main major Detroit paper there, I’ll remember name in a second. So Wow, were they welcoming me, the whole board and others came around and said, How do you explain this? There’s no weapons of mass the trick. They were. They were physically disheveled. And, you know, they hadn’t been reading my stuff, of course. So I laid it all out for them. Do you know what the editor of the editorial page did? He apologized two days later. He apologized to his readers. And he suggested that other major newspapers do the same. Because this was a terrible mistake, and how could they have been so, so reckless and just repeating this garbage now? Oh, it was nice that I had that opportunity to take them through that. But there was no other newspapers. It said that. The toy I can’t remember the name of it. But anyhow, what I’m saying is here, nobody paid any price. Fred Hyatt is still head of the editorial section of the washington post at the you know, except for that one, Judy Miller, who sort of disappeared somewhere. Nobody paid price. Not David Sanger, not all those other new york times people who
Scott Horton 1:19:48
Michael Gordon, he’s at the Wall Street Journal now.
Ray McGovern 1:19:51
And they’re the same guys that are playing this leading role in Russia gate. So you would think that Americans might have a chance to look did all this but trying to make a living trying to put food on the table you kick your your slippers off and you watch fox nosy you don’t really learn an awful lot alone. I guess you can learn as much from fox news these days as the others given even though it’s it’s slanted one way or the other.
Scott Horton 1:20:18
Yeah. All right. Well listen, I better cut you off here. We’re at an hour 20 and I want people to want to listen to this thing. I love talking to you. Right? We could do this all afternoon if you were an austenite.
Ray McGovern 1:20:30
But I enjoyed Scott and keep up the good work, man.
Scott Horton 1:20:33
Okay, good deal, man. Talk to you again very soon. Thanks, Ray.
Ray McGovern 1:20:36
That’s great. I know.
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