ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST
The Coming Collapse of Russia-Gate:
We Need LaRouche’s Four Laws
To Move Forward!
This is an edited transcript of Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s weekly webcast of Dec. 14, 2017.
[Print version of this transcript]
Harley Schlanger: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute. Welcome to this week’s international strategic briefing from Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and President of the Schiller Institute. I have to say this has been an extraordinary last couple of days, in terms of the unravelling of the so-called Russia-gate investigation, the exposure of the web of corruption surrounding Robert Mueller and his investigation. As we’ve been saying since the outset of the attacks on Trump, during the campaign last year, this is coming from the highest levels of British intelligence; it includes the networks of Mueller and Comey at the FBI, Justice Department and others. It’s quite extraordinary, including the statement from the Deputy Attorney General yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee, when he said it doesn’t matter if there’s bias, as long as they’re able to do their job.
 White House/Peter Souza
Robert Mueller
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Helga, this is exactly what we pointed out in the special dossier we did on Robert Mueller. Why don’t you catch us up on these developments in the last couple of days?
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: This is very fascinating because what is now happening is exactly the opposite of what the intention was: Namely that those people who tried to prove collusion between Trump and the Russian government, are now the targets of a potential investigation themselves, with quite incredible implications. There are already calls out that all of these people—Mueller, McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, and various other individuals—that they should all be “led away in handcuffs.” This is the demand of former judge and prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, on Dec. 9 on Fox Television, and what she referred to is the fact that now it is becoming very clear in the hearings in the House and in the Senate, that there was collusion among people who were clearly a task force against Trump even before he was elected, who wanted to have a sort of “life insurance” policy against the possibility that Trump might be elected, and they worked together with the “former” MI6 agent Christopher Steele on his dirty dossier.
Now, it turns out that the degree of corruption is even much deeper. For example, the wife of the recently demoted Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr worked for the very firm which was dealing with Christopher Steele on behalf of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton election team—namely Fusion GPS.
So there is very clearly conflict of interest, to say the least, and what happened in the hearing was that the situation became so hot that FBI Deputy Director McCabe, at the last moment, “discovered” a so-called conflict in his schedule, and he didn’t appear. House Intelligence Chairman Congressman Nunes immediately said that he didn’t believe that for a second, because it was not credible. The cover-up no longer works, because the questions asked of these individuals were about things that they should already have volunteered themselves. If there were signs of bias in the investigation, they should have volunteered this themselves without waiting to be asked.
I think this is turning the whole situation around. Russia-gate is crumbling, and this has incredible strategic implications, because this whole thing—if we recall how this developed—was all intended from the very beginning, by the Obama administration, and the leftovers from the previous Bush administration, to prevent President Trump from developing a positive relationship with Russia. And now that it has turned against those who are the accusers, that opens a whole new strategic dimension.
Schlanger: What I’d like to do is go through a couple of the things that came out, including these incredible text messages that were sent from Peter Strzok, who is the former number-two counterintelligence official for the FBI, who was involved in the interrogation of Hillary—I should say the friendly investigation of Hillary Clinton on the emails. He actually softened Comey’s conclusions on Hillary Clinton so there would be no legal problem for her. He was involved in the Flynn interview—this guy Strzok is a walking conflict of interest! But the Inspector General of the Justice Department put out 90 pages of SMS messages, and in one of them—this is the one that’s most damning—Strzok said to his girlfriend Lisa Page, who is an attorney who worked directly under FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office, that there’s no way Trump gets elected, but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.” “Andy” is Andrew McCabe: There was a meeting in McCabe’s office to discuss how to keep Trump from getting elected, by top officials of the FBI! I think this is absolutely unprecedented.
 Peter Strzok
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Zepp-LaRouche: Yes! It is a coup. And there was a congressman from Florida, Gaetz, who warned Trump that this is a coup against him. I think that that is absolutely the case. President Putin of Russia had said several months ago, that what is going on against Trump is exactly a “Maidan”—I mean the kind of coup which occurred against the Ukrainian government in February 2014. And I think if you look at the dramatis personae, the relevant figures, then it’s very clear that it is exactly the same apparatus which was also responsible for the Maidan in Kiev. So I think this is not the end of the story, but an incredible crime is just being discovered and being brought into the open.
Schlanger: On the whole question of Mueller and his role, we played a major role in exposing that in our dossier, which we’re now going to reprint. People can get that and use it. This is an unfolding story of a coup that we’re ahead of! We can cut it off, we can end this attempted coup if we do our job, instead of letting them go ahead unimpeded.
One of the other really striking things in this whole thing is where you see that Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele were brought in by Bruce Ohr, the Associate Deputy Attorney General, for discussion. This shows that the Justice Department and the FBI, back in August of 2016—maybe even in July of 2016—were working out an operation against Trump. Now, is any of this getting out in the media in Europe as far as you know, Helga?
Zepp-LaRouche: No! We are putting it out, but so far, I have not seen any—any—coverage of this at all. What the media are playing up here is the election result in Alabama, as a big blow to Trump—saying that the end of Trump is already in sight. So the picture the European population gets is quite the opposite of what is happening.
Schlanger: The thing that’s being kept out of the media because of the focus on all these other kinds of things, is the recent developments around North Korea. Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, said that the U.S. is ready for negotiations without preconditions, in cooperation with Russia and China. There have been some other developments around the whole North Korea question. What do you have on that?
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U.S. State Department
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressing a press conference, after a UN Security Council meeting on the subject of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, Dec. 15, 2017.
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Zepp-LaRouche: Somebody in the State Department felt it necessary to immediately correct Tillerson, by saying “yes, that’s true, but now is not the right time.” So you can see an ongoing battle on every issue, even in the State Department, with Tillerson being contradicted.
But otherwise, the situation looks hopeful. Certainly the whole North Korean issue is extremely dangerous, because clearly North Korea now is a full-fledged nuclear power; it has ICBMs which can reach everywhere in the United States and many other places as well, and therefore, we are sitting on a powderkeg as long as the U.S. and South Korean, and Japanese military maneuvers are still scheduled.
But there is hope right now, because you had high-level representatives of the United Nations—Under-Secretary-General Feltman, who is an American, and from Russia and China—in Pyongyang. Therefore, if Pyongyang would send a signal that it won’t do any tests for the next 60 days, and if the United States calls off this big maneuver which is supposed to start at the beginning of the year, then conditions would be right. Especially if the Tillerson approach of sitting down at the table without preconditions is actually maintained, there is, indeed, hope.
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UN/Rick Bajornas
UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, addressing the UN Security Council on Nov. 29, 2017, on the North Korean missile launch.
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And I think it shows once more, how extremely important it is that the big powers—the United States, Russia, China—work together. Because there are several conflicts in the world which cannot be defused if those powers are on a confrontation course against each other. So I think it is dangerous, but it is also hopeful right now.
Ukraine Narrative Failing
Schlanger: And on this question of the battle against Trump’s attempt to bring us into a relationship with China and Russia, we saw two things in the last couple of days: One was Joe Biden’s comments against the Russians in Italy. But then, also this crazy speech from National Security Advisor McMaster, who spoke at a British-American think tank that’s committed to keeping the so-called “special relationship” together, and he said, “geopolitics are back with a vengeance.” I think he’s answering you on that one, Helga, because you’ve made the point that we have to get beyond geopolitics. He went on to talk about Russian military “aggression,” and Chinese economic aggression. This shows these coup-plotters are still making clear what their intention is.
Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, Biden also claimed that the Russians intervened in the outcome of the referendum concerning the change of the Italian Constitution last year, and he was immediately refuted by the Five-Star party, by the Lega Nord, and by former Prime Minister Berlusconi. Most of the political spectrum in Italy said Biden is completely off.
But I think the truth is about to come out in many places. One other thing on this Russia question is an ongoing trial against the Berkut special police battalion which is standing trial for supposed criminal activity during the Maidan coup in Kiev in early 2014. Now the lawyer for this battalion has two or three witnesses, Georgians, who claim that they had been hired as snipers by Mikheil Saakashvili, from Georgia, at the time; and that they were ordered to shoot on both the demonstrators on the Maidan as well as at the police. And that confirms, again, our analysis of how this thing was completely orchestrated to create chaos and the condition for the coup against Yanukovych.
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youtube
Ukrainian policeman on fire in Maidan attacks in 2014, during the staged coup which overthrew the government.
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This is very interesting, because these people will provide testimony in a court case by telephone hookup—obviously, they don’t want to appear and admit their deeds, but they are basically admitting what they did—and that means that the whole narrative on Ukraine is also crumbling.
Putin once said that if Ukraine had not happened his opponents, would have invented some other problem, some other story, and I believe that that’s true. But as history unfolded, it was Ukraine: first, the $5 billion that Victoria Nuland admitted was spent by the State Department in order to finance the color revolution in Ukraine, starting in 2004—the Orange Revolution and then the Maidan. The whole “narrative” hinges on the fact of the referendum in the Crimea, when the population decided to be part of Russia. And that development was used to demonize Putin, and to impose the sanctions.
However, if you take it back and see that the actual trigger point was not the “annexation” of Crimea, as it is always portrayed, but that there was a staged coup in which snipers fired on people from both sides—that unravels the whole “narrative.”
I want to point our readers and viewers to a dossier we published about the Ukraine story as well, because I think “the narrative,” as it is called, is failing—you know, narrative means it’s not the truth—and I think the truth also has to come out on Ukraine. And then the whole picture—it’s almost like a catharsis which is taking place, or we’re seeing the beginning of it, but sometimes, such real cleansings are absolutely necessary.
Schlanger: Also the proof that this had nothing to do with the well-being of the people of Ukraine, is the complete dysfunction of the current government, and the fact that Saakashvili, whom you mentioned, led Georgia in a rebellion against Russia and triggered another crisis much earlier. Recently they’ve been trying to arrest him in Ukraine, and his own organizers have been saying they’re going to overthrow the current government of Ukraine!
I would like to call our listeners’ attention to a very powerful report given by Natalia Vitrenko, a good friend of yours and the Schiller Institute’s, at the recent Schiller Institute conference in Bad Soden. It’s available on the New Paradigm Schiller Institute website, https://schillerinstitute.com/media/chinas-initiative-view-ukraine/.
We talked a little bit before about the Italian situation: You mentioned to me before the webcast, a new documentary on the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank case, and the implications of this for the situation in Europe. What can you tell us about this documentary?
Zepp-LaRouche: I can only advise our viewers to absolutely try to watch this movie. It’s a documentary by ARTE, which is the German-French TV channel; it exists so far only in German and in French, but the story told there is absolutely mind-boggling. The title of it is “Death of a Banker,” and it refers to the supposed suicide of a banker named David Rossi, on March 6, 2013. He was the communications manager for Monte dei Paschi, the oldest bank in the world. This all occurred in the context of the big financial crisis of 2007-2008, in the circumstances in which a small bank called Antonveneta was taken over by Santander and Monte dei Paschi was drawn into this. There was an incredible amount of wheeling and dealing, covering up losses with derivatives—this looks like another case of Mario Draghi saying he would do whatever it takes to save the euro, which he said as ECB head, in terms of buying up bonds and quantitative easing. However, this is a case where that question comes up. Because it was Draghi in his function as head of the Banca d’Italia, who agreed to this wheeling and dealing, even if much was completely dubious.
Now clearly this David Rossi knew about criminal activities inside and outside of the bank. The thing that makes this documentary so absolutely suspenseful, is video footage which shows the end-phase of his fall from his office building, and then shows him lying dead on the street. Then a man, another banker from the same bank, comes by without even looking closely or trying to help him, walks away, comes back, and makes a call on his mobile phone—this is all very, very suspicious.
There is now a new forensic investigation in Italy into the circumstances of this supposed suicide. The initial findings say that he could not have fallen by himself, and end up in the position in which he landed on the street. His wife is very active, and his family does not believe it was suicide at all; she has already posted this movie on her Facebook page, even though it’s only in German and French so far—and it’s going viral. The mainstream media are not yet reporting it, but this is an unbelievable story.
One implication is that a banker from Deutsche Bank who was also found dead in London one year later [in January 2014], a person called William Broeksmit, was involved in similar financial arrangements.
This is a case where it has been said that the Italian banking crisis created a risk to the European system, but as the authors of this movie have pointed out, the Italian banking system was completely fine, including Monte dei Paschi, until Italy was forced to have a huge privatization of its banking sector to supposedly make Italy ripe for the euro.
I would guess that this is not the end of it, because there are now criminal investigations into the circumstances, and this is clearly another case where you see the criminal activity around this banking system. I think our viewers should really watch this movie.
European Union Flounders
Schlanger: This just underscores the whole point that what’s going on in Italy, and what’s going on with the investigation into the Maidan, exposes how the total instability of Europe is part of the reason for the coup against Trump: Because beginning with the Brexit, we have been seeing the disintegration of political parties in Europe, and the loss of any approach to a real production policy. We see the Chinese becoming very much involved in Europe right now.
And I’d like you to give us a quick update on what’s going on in Germany: Because it appears as though there’s still a very significant problem in putting together a new government after the recent elections.
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, it’s now already two and half months since the elections, and the first effort by Merkel to form a government with the [Free Democratic] liberal party and the Greens failed. Now, they’re trying again, a Grand Coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), but in the Social Democracy there is a lot of opposition against the continuation of the policy which almost destroyed the SPD in the earlier coalition. The crazy proposal by Martin Schulz, the head of the SPD, is now to form another Grand Coalition, but this time it will be a “cooperation coalition,” which is the idea that they only agree on certain particular points, and then place ministers into the cabinet on that basis; and on the points they don’t agree on, each side can be free to form opposition coalitions in the Bundestag, in the parliament—which obviously is ridiculous. Because how can you be in the government and oppose your own government at the same time? And that would also mean that on certain issues, the CDU/CSU could only get a majority by relying on the AfD, the Alternative for Germany, which is an extreme right-wing party which has very dangerous elements within it.
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bundeskanzlerin.de
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing Parliament, April 29, 2017.
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So I think this is total instability. As long as you don’t have a government in Germany, all the plans for Europe are null and void, because without a German government those plans cannot be implemented.
What is on the table right now are various proposals which only differ in nuances: One is by French President Macron, which is to have a European Finance Minister, and a European budget. Then you have [EU Commission] President Juncker, who wants to put everything under the European Union Commission, and build that bureaucracy up as a European government; and German SPD leader Martin Schulz, who says, “yes, we must have a United States of Europe.”
This is a very absurd proposal; it was absurd all along, because there is no European people. There are many different cultures, traditions, and languages—and people in one part of Europe have no inkling what’s going on in another part of Europe because they can’t read the newspapers, they don’t understand the history, and they are totally uninformed—so there’s no European people.
But if this scheme was already dubious many years ago, it is completely impossible now, because the East Europeans, the Central Europeans, and people from the Balkans have a completely different attitude towards China’s New Silk Road. There is Austria, where the new coalition government program even includes a paragraph that Austria will cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative. Switzerland is excited to be cooperating with China in this respect. Hungary just now blocked a NATO/Ukraine commission meeting, because they don’t agree with the policy of NATO encircling Russia. And so there is no unity. But clearly, this is all because they don’t want to look at the axioms of their policy failures.
In the rest of the world, there is a growing awareness that Europe is not functioning, but I think it requires a real policy discussion: What are the principles of economy? What is in the interest of the people? How should we form a policy, a vision for the future? And none of these things has been addressed by the present coalition discussions in Germany.
But there is a growing demand, coming from industry, from the Mittelstand [small and medium-sized industry, especially high technology]—and the Schiller Institute is holding events to try to make the policy of the Silk Road better known. People must know more about the real advantages of cooperating with the Belt and Road Initiative—for example, in the reconstruction of Syria which is now seriously on the table, especially because of the roles of Russia and China; and also the need to cooperate in the development of Africa. The problem is, rather than joining hands in win-win cooperation with China, what Brussels—and unfortunately also Berlin—are saying, is they feel that they have to be in geopolitical competition with China.
And I think this problem of thinking in geopolitical terms is the main obstacle. If you look at the long arc of human history, it is very clear that unless we develop a vision of one, single, humanity working towards the common aims of mankind, we are not going to make it, and we will always be in danger of war. In the time of thermonuclear weapons, this could be fatal for the human race.
So we have to develop a different perspective on how nations can cooperate.
Schlanger: I think we have a perfect example of that coming from China right now. There’s a discussion about investment in providing electricity for more than one billion people in mostly Africa and South Asia. The Chinese are talking about $1.5 trillion investment to do that! That’s obviously aimed at precisely what you’re talking about—the improvement of the future for people who otherwise have no hope.
I’d like to come back to one final point here, which again, gets at this question of why they’re trying to get rid of Trump. There was an announcement a couple of days ago by President Trump about the U.S. space program, and his commitment to take the United States back to the Moon, and beyond to Mars and to other planets, other galaxies, even. This kind of optimism was also seen in a China-U.S. conference on space, where there was discussion about collaboration for the future—which by the way, right now is not allowed, because of the rules against the U.S. scientists talking to the Chinese, enforced by the same FBI that we’ve seen in this conflict of interest.
So, what are your thoughts on this great potential for the space cooperation?
Zepp-LaRouche: There is also an agreement between the United States and Russia to build a lunar space station together, a decision by Trump—you can really see who is who when you see how people react to that. ESA, the European Space Agency, was completely enthusiastic and welcomed that; the Chinese government expressed happiness about this decision. The European media covered it as though Trump were completely crazy to go back to the Moon—this is really incredible! The people who have been in space, the astronauts, come back and say, “this is an incredible experience, because in space, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, because you have to rely on each other, otherwise you can’t carry our such an extremely challenging mission.” And a Russian cosmonaut just said: We should develop an attitude of solving problems on Earth with the same spirit with which we cooperate in space.
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White House/Joyce N. Boghosian
President Trump signing Space Directive 1 on Dec. 11, 2017, to relaunch the U.S. space program.
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That is a point we have been making for a very long time, that once you take the view that man is not an Earth-bound earthling, but that we are continuing the process of evolution, not only by developing infrastructure across all continents, and developing a World Land-Bridge—but that the next natural step in infrastructure development is in nearby space. Industrializing the Moon is the precondition for longer space-flights to other planets; and that is the natural identity of man, that we are part of that universe, and not just earthlings with limited resources.
So I think it’s a very optimistic thing that President Trump has reconnected to the spirit of John F. Kennedy. This is exactly what we have been fighting for, to put an end to the negative cultural paradigm of the period between John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the end of the Obama administration when space was really on the back burner, and no fundamental progress was made.
I think this is all reason for optimism, and you should really help to get this message out, because the mass media are keeping the lid on a lot of positive developments which would give people enormous optimism if only they knew about them.
Schlanger: And to close with that thought, we are now releasing a new pamphlet titled, “America’s Future on the New Silk Road,” which outlines why, as you said, this is not just necessary, but how Lyndon LaRouche, your husband, developed the economic policy, his Four Laws, on how we can do it. Without those four basic laws, we’re not going to be able to take advantage of this, and that’s a central part of this fight.
So Helga, this has been a very rapidly moving discussion today. I thank you for giving us this update, and I’m sure that events are going to continue at this accelerating pace. We’ll be back again next week, with the next Schiller Institute international webcast. Thank you.
Zepp-LaRouche: Bye-bye.
