Saturday, April 8, 2017

The Deep State Behind Trumpgate

 The Deep State Behind Trumpgate

The following is selected and edited from the LaRouche PAC Weekly
Webcast of March 31, 2017, and includes comments by LPAC'sJason
Ross and transcripts of two film clips from an interview with Ray
McGovern, the co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern headed the Soviet foreign policy branch
at the CIA, among other posts.

The video of the interview can be watched at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Px0rxcU7XQ

{{JASON ROSS:}} The first aspect we're going to be dealing with
is what's called ``Trumpgate,'' or the idea that Vladimir Putin
not only put Trump in power, but is actually running the Trump
administration and setting policy. To discuss that with us, we
had an interview earlier today with retired CIA analyst Ray
McGovern; who worked in the CIA for decades and is one of the
co-founders of VIPS, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity ...

First Video Clip:

{{ROSS:}} Ever since Trump was elected, and especially since his
inauguration, there has been a growing chorus of claims about
Vladimir Putin putting Trump in office by directing the election,
and of even directing Trump's policy. That, in effect, Vladimir
Putin is running the United States government. So, is this true?

{{RAY MCGOVERN:}} Well, if it is, then I don't know anything
about Russia or the Soviet Union. I was counting up the years
that I've been immersed in Russian studies; it goes back 59 years
when I decided to major in Russian, got my graduate degree in
Russian. Taught Russian; was the head of the Soviet foreign
policy branch at the CIA; briefed Presidents on Gorbachov. I like
to think I learned something about how Russian leaders look at
the world.
        When I heard this meme going around that Vladimir Putin
clearly preferred Donald Trump, my notion was, well, here's
Vladimir Putin sitting with his advisors, and he's saying, ``That
Trump fellow--he's not only unpredictable, but he's proud of it.
He brags about it, and he lashes out strongly at every slight,
whether it's real or imagined. This is just the guy I want to
have his finger on the nuclear codes across the ocean.'' It
boggles the mind that Vladimir Putin would have had any
preference for Donald Trump. That's aside from the fact that
everyone--and that would include Vladimir Putin, unless he's
clairvoyant--knew that Hillary was going to win.
        So, just to pursue this thing very briefly, if the major
premise is that Vladimir Putin and the terrible Russians wanted
Trump to win, then you have a syllogism. Therefore, they tried to
help him; therefore, they did all kinds of things to help him.
But if you don't accept that major premise, the whole syllogism
falls apart, and I don't accept that major premise. Putin said it
himself: ``I don't have a preference.'' And I didn't have any
preference; I happened to be in Germany during the election, in
Berlin. It was exciting, because the German anchors didn't know
what to say, to make of it; and my German friends were saying,
``We have a German expression here: The choice between Trump and
Hillary Clinton is {eine Wahl zwischen Pest und Cholera}.'' That
means it's a choice between plague and cholera. I said, ``You
know, I kind of agree.''
        That's the way I looked at it. I kind of think that's the
way Putin looked at it, and when he said, ``I don't have any
preference,'' he probably meant he didn't have any preference.
So, that syllogism falls down.
        Now, just pursue that one little bit here. Everyone expected
Hillary to win; everyone. We're talking summer; we're talking
fall as Trump disgraced himself in one manner or another. He
could never win, right? And nobody thought that Hillary was such
a flawed candidate that nobody trusted her, that she might lose.
So, you hear what I'm saying? ``Well, it looks like Hillary is
going to win. Looks pretty sure she's going to win. So, why not
hack into her mechanism there in the Democratic National
Committee? If I get caught, well she may be angry with me, but
what's to lose?'' I don't think so. Putin is a very cautious
fellow. If he thought Hillary was going to win, like the rest of
us did, the last thing he would want to do is hack into their DNC
apparatus and be caught; because he would likely be caught. And
have an additional grievance for Hillary to advertise against
him. So, it falls down on logic alone.
        Now, luckily, you mentioned Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity. We are the beneficiary of a membership
whose expertise in intelligence matters just won't quit. This
includes four former high officials in the National Security
Agency--retired; one of whom devised all of these collection
systems that NSA is still using. His name is Bill Binney. He and
I are very close. He writes for us, and he helps me write things.
What he has said from the outset--and this is five months ago--is
that this could not be a hack; it had to be a leak. And for your
your viewers, a hack goes over the network.

{{ROSS:}} You're speaking of the DNC?

{{MCGOVERN:}} Yeah, I'm talking about the Russians--thanks for
interrupting; the Russians are accused, of course, of hacking
into the Democratic National Committee emails, and they're also
accused of surfacing the Podesta emails. Bill says, ``Look, I
know this network; I created pretty much the bones of it. And,
I'm free to talk about it. Why? Here are the slides that Ed
Snowden brought out; here are the trace points, the trace
mechanism. And there are hundreds in the network. So, everything
that goes across the network, Ray, and I know this is hard for
you to believe, and you're looking at me real strange, but
{everything}. You know where it starts and you know where it ends
up, everything.'' So, if this was a hack, NSA would know about
it. NSA does not know about it.
        As a matter of fact, the CIA and the FBI said, ``We have
high confidence that the Russians did this.'' But the NSA, which
is the only real agency that has the capability to trace this,
said ``We only have moderate confidence.'' In the Army, we called
that the SWAG factor--it's a Scientific Wild-Assed Guess. So NSA
doesn't have the information. If they had the information, I'm
pretty sure they would release it, because this is not rocket
science. Everybody knows how these things work, particularly
since Ed Snowden revealed the whole kit and caboodle.

 
        [End of video clip transcript]

                  - The Surveillance State -
 
{{ROSS:}} Ray McGovern and Bill Binney co-authored an article
three days ago, called ``The Surveillance State Behind
Russia-gate.'' I want to read a very short part of it. [see:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/28/the-s
urveillance-state-behind-russia-gate/ ] They write:
        "Although many details are still hazy because of
secrecy--and further befogged by politics--it appears House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was informed last
week about invasive electronic surveillance of senior U.S.
government officials and, in turn, passed that information on to
President Trump.
        "This news presents Trump with an unwelcome but unavoidable
choice: Confront those who have kept him in the dark about such
rogue activities or live fearfully in their shadow....
        "What President Trump decides will largely determine the
freedom of action he enjoys as President on many key security and
other issues. But even more so, his choice may decide whether
there is a future for this constitutional republic."
        Very strong words. In the past month, on March 4, we saw
Trump's announcement that he was surveilled by the outgoing Obama
administration; he used the word ``wiretap'' at times, for which
he was attacked for his choice of language. But the statement
still stands about surveillance. On March 20, FBI Director Comey
testified that he was investigating the Trump administration;
guess he didn't have any time to investigate the Saudis.
        Just today, Wikileaks came out with a report in which it
released the latest section of what they are calling ``Vault 7,''
which is a collection of material from the CIA --documentation
and source code. What this latest release showed was ``Project
Marble,'' as the CIA called it, which revealed a program that
they have to obfuscate their own creation of cyber weaponry, of
malware and other types of attacks, and the ability to easily
attribute such attacks to other state actors--including the
ability to make it look as though an attack came from Russia,
also including a seeming cover-up of Russian tracks so that a
security researcher might feel that they had stumbled across a
clue by finding Russian language comments in this cyber attack
weapon, when really it had been planted from the beginning. This
of course raises the question of attribution at all, and in
particular about the DNC hacks.
        The FBI never investigated the DNC computers, and all the
complaints about Russian involvement and Russian malware came
from CrowdStrike, an independent firm ... All signs point to this
and the Podesta emails being leaks rather than hacks anyway.
        So, let's hear our second clip that we have for the program
from our interview with Ray McGovern.

Second Video Clip:

{{MCGOVERN:}} I think Nunes wants to do the right thing. Whether
he'll succeed or not is anybody's guess. All I can say is, he's
up against formidable opponents; witness what the ranking member
or minority leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has said
outright to Rachel Maddow.
         He says, ``You know, I thought Trump was a really smart
guy. But he's done something very foolish.'' What's that? ``Well,
he's taken on the CIA''--now this is Schumer--``and the CIA has
six ways from Sunday to get at you. So, whereas I thought Trump
was a reasonably bright guy, a really good businessman, I'm not
so sure anymore, because he's done something very foolish.'' Now,
what does Rachel say? Well, if you were Rachel, if I were Rachel,
I think I would have said, ``Senator Schumer, are you saying that
the President of the United States should be afraid of the CIA?
Is that what you're saying?'' What she did say was, ``Oh, I guess
we have to go to break now.'' So, all I'm saying is, there's the
minority head of the Senate, and he's saying ``Look, you take on
the CIA, they've got six ways to Sunday''--that's an old Bronx
expression; I come from the Bronx. ``Six ways to Sunday'' means
six days of the week 'til Sunday to get at you.
        So, that was part and parcel of all this. They're afraid.

{{ROSS:}} Yeah. It puts the rank in ranking.

{{MCGOVERN:}} Yeah, you got it!

{{ROSS:}} I think this story or picture that you've painted
really gives us something that we need to do, because if this is
to be fought out only among institutional layers, it's a tough
fight. It's something where, if people are aware, as we're able
to make known to the population more generally, that this is a
fight--that this isn't about Democrats versus Republicans,-- This
is really much more about Deep State versus the potential of
elected government to determine our course. The threats of say,
blackmail via the FBI or other intelligence agencies, the
dossiers that no doubt exist on these elected officials--that
stands as a threat if people aren't aware of that being the
{modus operandi}.
        I think people are more familiar with the way the FBI
targeted Martin Luther King, urged him on more than one occasion
to commit suicide to prevent these kinds of documents from
getting out. I think it really means that there's something for
all of us to do in terms of making sure that this is known;
making sure that the terms of the fight are known, to make it
possible to win this one.

{{MCGOVERN:}} Exactly, and those were wiretaps, back in the late
'50s, early '60s, those were real wiretaps. You're quite right;
that was heinous. Now I asked Coleen Rowley, who is, as I say,
[an example of] the expertise we have available to us at Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity that won't quit. Colleen
was the counsel of the Minneapolis division of the FBI; she was
the one who wrote memos to the Director saying this is how we
screwed up on 9/11. She's got guts that won't quit as well. I
said, ``Colleen, Robert Kennedy--my God! Robert Kennedy, Attorney
General, allowing, authorizing the FBI to try to persuade Dr.
King to commit suicide? How do you figure that, Colleen?'' And
she said, ``Ray, wiretapping, J. Edgar Hoover. Bobby Kennedy
would know that J. Edgar Hoover has lots of information on all
those pretty girls that he and Jack used to invite to the White
House pool and all of that stuff.''
        She's {imagining} this; but the reality is, Robert Kennedy
would know that J. Edgar Hoover would have lots of material to
blackmail not only him, but his big brother.
        That's big; and that's why when all this came out in the mid
'70s, they created these laws and created these Oversight
Committees, which for a while, did their job. Now, they're
hopelessly unable, unwilling; they don't want to know this stuff,
and they don't know it for that matter. The intelligence
officials say, ``They don't want to know this, so why should we
tell them?''
        As for citizens, I would emphasize that this whole business
when Edward Snowden came out with his revelations in June of
2013, what happened? People said, ``Well isn't this interesting?
Everything--they intercept everything! Emails, telephone calls,
wow! Luckily, I have nothing to hide.'' So, we asked someone from
the Stasi--Stasi is the old East German secret service; and if
people have seen {Die Leben der Anderen}--``Other People's
Lives''--an Academy Award film about East Germany and the Stasi.
The Stasi was their KGB. You get a picture of what they did.
Wolfgang Schmidt--his real name by the way--a Stasi colonel, is
interviewed. One of the Americans sits down and asks, ``Wolfgang,
what do you think about people in America when we say, `We have
nothing to hide'?''
        Schmidt says, ``This is incredibly naive. Everyone has
something to hide. You don't get to decide what they get on you.
The only way to prevent it from being against you, is to prevent
it from being collected in the first place.'' Beautiful, you
know? If they collect it, they can use it. They don't read it
all; they don't listen to it all. But they put it into these
little files--they're not files, but they're ...
        So, yeah, all of us. What Edward Snowden said about
``turnkey tyranny.'' If you have these kinds of private
information about {everyone} including the President and Michael
Flynn and all his associates, back in October, November,
December; well, you have the ability, if not to win the election,
then at least to destroy,-- or make these folks seem beholden to
the {Russians}, of all places, and disarm the attempts that Trump
wants to make, vis-a-a-vis Russia.
        Now, I would have to tell you, that I am against everything
Trump stands for, internally. I think he's not only unqualified
to be President, but all his instincts are terrible.... [But]
he's right about Russia. If he were to say to Vladimir Putin,
``Look, I don't think we need to put more troops in the Baltic
states or Poland, so why don't I pull out those troops, and you
pull out the troops on the other side? It's a deal?'' I'm morally
certain Putin would say, ``It's a deal!'' Now, what would that
  mean? That would mean what Pope Francis, to his credit, called
``the blood-drenched arms traders'' would lose out, big time.
Peace: bad for business. Tension: very good for business. So,
there's a lot at stake among very, very powerful people, and if
Trump can make this stick--this is not a puny, incidental issue,
it's a transcendental one.
        I was more afraid that Hillary would bring us to a nuclear
confrontation than Trump. I didn't like Trump on the environment,
because I have nine grandchildren. So, for me it was a choice
between plague and cholera. But here we have a possibility for a
new--what the Germans call {Ostpolitik}--a new policy, looking to
the East. Take my word for it; I've looked at what the Russians
have done. I've looked at the heyday of the relationship of the
United States and Russia, which goes back to October of 2013 when
Putin pulled Obama's chestnuts out of the fire by persuading the
Syrians to destroy, or have destroyed, all their chemical weapons
{on U.S. ships}. Okay? Nobody knows about that but the United
States.
        But the neocons, the people who want to create a {bad}
atmosphere in relations between the United States and
Russia--they know about it. It only took them six months to mount
a coup on Russia's doorstep in Kiev, Ukraine. And that's where
all this trouble started: Russians accused of invading
Ukraine--not true; of invading Crimea--not true. All that stuff
was artificially pumped up; it's just as easily deflated. And
Trump, if he's willing to do that, well, that would be a biggie.

{{ROSS:}} Great! Thanks very much, Ray. Thanks.

{{MCGOVERN:}} You're most welcome. Thanks for asking. It's very
rare that I get a chance to review what I observe.

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