Month: April 2023

Damaging Leaks From Inside the Pentagon Embarrass Allies and Demoralize Ukrainian Officials 

We begin with the damaging leak of documents from the Pentagon that originated with the Joint Chief of Staff’s intelligence arm J2 and somehow got into the hands of Russian intelligence where they were doctored then distributed to media platforms like Discord and the far-right 4Chan much to the embarrassment of US allies and the demoralization of Ukrainian officials. We discuss the extent of the damage to Ukraine’s military ahead of a planned counteroffensive from the leaks that expose weaknesses in Ukrainian weaponry, air defenses and battalion sizes and readiness. Joining us is Olga Lautman, a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis who is also the creator and co-host of Kremlin File podcast series, which features expert discussions on the Kremlin’s internal affairs, global operations, and tactics used from their hybrid warfare toolkit to destabilize Western democracies. Olga’s research focuses on the cross-section of organized crime and intelligence operations in Russia and Ukraine, their impact on the West, and the monitoring of active measures campaigns conducted by the Kremlin to destabilize democratic practices and influence foreign elections. She has a new Substack newsletter covering Russia, Ukraine, Eastern, and Central Europe with a focus on Russia’s intelligence operations to destabilize global democracies available at olgalautman.substack.com.

Along With the House, Senate and Fox News, is There a Pro-Putin Network Inside the Pentagon?

Then we look into the extent to which there is a pro-Putin network in the Pentagon given that the former president and current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination is completely in Putin’s pocket and similarly in the House you have Marjorie Taylor Greene and others working to cut aid to Ukraine along with Fox News’s top pro-Putin propagandist Tucker Carlson and JD Vance in the US Senate. Joining us is Lawrence Korb, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1985, and is the author of A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.  

What Will it Take to Censure or Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas?

Then finally we look into what it will take to censure if not impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas whose wife is one of the leading January 6 insurrectionists and the recipient of right wing dark money. Following the expose by ProPublica of Thomas’s ties to a Nazi-loving billionaire and Leonard Leo who single-handedly has stacked the Supreme Court with six far-right justices, we speak with Lisa Tucker, a professor of law at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law. An expert on the United States Supreme Court, she is a columnist at SCOTUSblog and the author of numerous biographies about Supreme Court justices and prominent elected officials.