GUEST COMMENTARY

The Sordid Truth Behind the Witch-Hunt Against President Trump

by Larry C. Johnson

[Print version of this transcript]

Larry Johnson is a former CIA analyst and is currently a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This is an edited transcript of the presentation he gave on October 31, 2019 to the weekly LaRouche PAC Thursday night Fireside Chat. The full video, including questions and answers, is available here.

Oct 31—I’m a big fan of irony. I can’t help but enjoy the irony for the mainstream media and the conventional wisdom crowd; they’ve always denounced the LaRouche group as a bunch of conspiracy theorists. And yet, here you are, pointing out what’s actually going on, and it is those very same critics of yours that are the conspiracy deniers, and the conspiracy enablers. While I’m sure you’ve not had fun being accused of being conspiracy nuts, you should at least take some enjoyment in the fact that you are literally like Jeremiah on the walls of Jerusalem warning of the impending invasion; and all they’re doing is throwing sticks and rocks at you, but you’re telling the truth.

The other point I would make about this Ukraine-gate; we are living out the parable of the king with no clothes. We are being told that there is this breach of presidential conduct; that he’s guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Yet here we are, pointing out that “No, the king is absolutely naked in this case.” They insist that there was a quid pro quo that President Trump pressured the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden or else they wouldn’t get military aid. Yet, the transcript shows the exact opposite.

Moreover, what was uncovered in the subsequent days, after that had become the focus of the Democrats, is important. We are seeing the activities of Alexandra Chalupa, the DNC operative, connections with this Army colonel [Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman] who’s got ties to the Ukrainian lobbyists opposed to Trump; and Eric Ciaramella, a CIA analyst—who I hope is under investigation. The investigation will look at every phone record and every visitor. Those folks were getting into the National Security Council in the Old Executive Office Building; the Secret Service does keep meticulous records.

They’ve created, I think, for themselves a high risk of being indicted for a conspiracy charge, because this entire affair turned dramatically a week ago Wednesday, when it was announced from the Department of Justice that this is now a criminal investigation. In fact, it had probably been a criminal investigation for three or four weeks before that, but there was a reason that was leaked.

Before that information became public, the bureaucracy was engaged in trench warfare, trying to prevent the release of the Horowitz report. The Inspector General’s report on the FISA abuses really should have been out about two months ago, but there’s been a rearguard action by the Deep State, by these bureaucrats, trying to block it. They realize how damaging it’s going to be to the FBI and to people like Jim Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others at the Department of Justice. And it will potentially implicate President Obama.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

Then we had Sidney Powell, the attorney for Michael Flynn. She had prepared a new brief with 18 exhibits attached to it, showing that there were Brady violations against General Flynn. A Brady violation means that the government had exculpatory evidence—evidence that would have shown Michael Flynn was innocent; yet, they withheld that information. They kept it out. So, she levelled that charge. The government’s response is very curious; it was basically like PeeWee Herman going “Unh-unh! Unh-unh!” When the government attorneys got into the depth of their argument, they said, “Well, Michael Flynn already pleaded guilty.” But they admitted, “He didn’t lie, and the evidence didn’t show that he lied, but we went ahead, and he admitted to that, so we convicted him.”

So, Sidney Powell had prepared a brief with 18 exhibits that were going to prove her point. The FBI was fighting that; they were trying to get it classified; they were trying to get major portions of it redacted. They didn’t want it out. As soon as the announcement came out that this was now a criminal investigation, within 5-10 minutes, Horowitz’s letter was up to the Hill, stipulating that his report would come out; that there would be no classified annex, and that it would be largely unredacted. That is telling.

Then, the FBI withdrew their objections to Sidney Powell’s brief. It was published, and what she published was dynamite! It showed corruption by the FBI; lying by the FBI; manipulation of the interviews with General Flynn in the write-ups—what are called “302s.” The agents are supposed to write those up within five days. But there was lots of what the bureaucrats call massaging, of the message, to make it say what Michael Flynn actually did not say.

Why the reversal? Once it was announced that this is now a criminal investigation, then obstruction of justice and conspiracy are on the table. Anybody who is involved with these Deep State bureaucrats, who is trying to obstruct or block this investigation, will now potentially find themselves facing down the barrel of obstruction of justice charges, if not conspiracy charges. So, that is a dramatic and important development in my opinion. It’s really been underreported, and not widely recognized or appreciated for what it is. We’re peeling an onion in this case, and this is like a Russian nesting doll on steroids. As we peel off one layer, or pull off one doll, we find something new and surprising beneath it.

A Clandestine Taskforce Uncovered

Just in the last week or so, I learned from a very reliable source with knowledge and access, that in fact John Brennan set up a taskforce at CIA, and it was called the “Trump Taskforce.” Case officers and analysts were specifically recruited—by invitation only. This was designed to carry out operations against Donald Trump.

Some of those operations I think we will find will include Guccifer 2.0. I believe that Guccifer 2.0 was a manufactured creation of this CIA taskforce. It was designed to try and feed the meme that the Russians had in fact hacked the DNC, when the Russians did not hack the DNC. Azra Turk, the honeypot who sat down and tried to entice George Papadopoulos late in the Summer of 2016—I suspect and believe that she was a case officer assigned to that taskforce and sent forward on that mission. There were FBI agents detailed to this taskforce. I don’t know what their names are, but I suspect one of them might be a fellow named Michael Gaeta, who was the handler for Christopher Steele.

We know, despite the FBI claims, that this investigation started at the end of July 2016. We know for a fact from the Mueller report, that an FBI informant that we’ve talked about before with your folks, was Felix Sater, who has been a fully signed-up confidential human source for the FBI since 1998. His first plea deal was put in place by none other than Andrew Weissmann, Robert Mueller’s compadre and deputy.

Another element in this that’s still really to be fully reviewed, is the role that Stefan Halper played. I’ve been given to understand that Halper’s activities started as well in the Summer of 2015 in working with the Brits.

But underlying all of this, is the seriousness that John Durham, the prosecutor, and that [Attorney General] Bill Barr are attacking this. Some might say, well why doesn’t Barr, for example, intervene now and throw out the case against Michael Flynn? I think he has the grounds to do so, but Barr’s a smart bureaucratic infighter. He understands the games that are being played. He knows that if he moved unilaterally before the judicial process runs its course, he could be accused, and would stand accused, of unfair interference on behalf of Donald Trump to feed into the meme that he is Donald Trump’s attorney.

Instead, he’s leaving it in the hands of Judge Sullivan. Judge Emmett Sullivan has a very clear track record on being thoroughly disgusted when he’s presented with evidence showing misconduct by the FBI and by prosecutors. He has punished and sanctioned them before, including Andrew Weissmann, for their conduct in the Enron case and for other cases that they’ve been involved in, certainly in the case of [former Alaska Senator] Ted Stevens.

We’re really in a situation where we’re asking the Justice Department now, under Bill Barr, and through the judiciary, to help save the republic. What you’ve highlighted is not a fantasy; it’s not a conspiracy from folks wearing tin foil. It is the truth; it’s the reality. Yet what we’re witnessing is mass denial on the part of the media.

The Duplicity of the U.S. Media

I learned in my early days at the CIA that the media could play a very critical positive role in helping hold politicians accountable. Because it provided an outlet that, if there was a real issue—and there were some real things going on that manifested disagreement within the intelligence community—you could leak that information out, get it on the front pages, and it would become a discussion in Washington and would force the issue to the surface. If the press is doing its role as an honest broker, that is very critical to our democracy.

But instead, they have become Pravda. Again—speaking of irony—I know that Dennis Speed and Barbara Boyd and I are old enough to remember the good old days of the Cold War. And the good old days of Pravda and other Soviet disinformation channels, of which they were sort of the predecessor of Baghdad Bob in terms of denying reality and creating their own alternate universe. There was a time in the Soviet Union when anyone who would dare question the authorities was immediately designated as mentally ill or schizophrenic; because how could you protest and oppose the government position unless you were mentally ill?

You know what? We’ve now seen a complete reversal of roles. Russia is a far more open, free society, and we have gone the route of becoming a Soviet state in that regard. Where, instead of one Pravda, we have an institutionalized bureaucratized media that is beholden to a very small number of corporations. So far, those corporations have not had to pay a price for feeding into this lie, and promoting this lie, and allowing the message of this lie—the lie that Trump has somehow disgraced this country, betrayed this country, and must go.

The real irony of Donald Trump is that he’s the first President we’ve had in a long time who will probably lose money in the White House and will genuinely go out of the White House a little poorer than when he went in. Not that he’s a poor man, but we’ve witnessed—whether it’s George W. Bush, or George H.W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama—that they’ve all made massive fortunes as a result of their position. As well, many of the people around them have been able to cash in.

Just one final point. It’s peripheral to this, but perhaps useful for your listeners. My business partner, John Moynihan, and his old college roommate Larry Doyle, who is a finance guy on Wall Street, testified before Congressman Mark Meadows’ House Oversight Committee in December 2018, before the Democrats took control. What came out of that testimony was the corruption that was inherent in the Clinton Foundation. They found genuine tax fraud and wanted to be tax whistleblowers. They found documents—a document that was forged by Lois Lerner and used by the Clintons to illegally raise money. So, they filed this claim. It is now going into a tax court; the trial will start in January 2020.

Twenty different law firms initially approached my friend and partner, Mr. Moynihan. They wanted to get involved with the case. But all twenty had to recuse themselves because they were conflicted out, because all of them were corrupted in one manner or another because of the vast amount of money that’s out there washing around the streets of Washington. So, we’re dealing with a system that’s so inherently corrupt and funded by so much dirty money, that it has become widely accepted. And Trump is seen as a genuine threat to that good old boys’ network that has prospered for so long.