Earlier today, in the Eastern district of New york.
A complaint was unsealed charging to PRC intelligence
officers with attempting to obstruct influence and
impede a criminal prosecution of a PRC based telecommunications company.
>> You just heard from United States Attorney General Merrick Garland who spoke
at a very stern press conference earlier today.
Now he explained to the American people that US intelligence has unveiled
three separate cases of Chinese spies operating in the United States.
Now, we'll talk about the implications and what the actual motivations are for
this announcement and this press conference.
But first let me give you the details about what the allegations are and
then we can get to the ramifications.
Now in total, Merrick Garland revealed that
the United States Department of Justice has charged 13 individuals for
trying to quote unlawfully exert influence in the United States on behalf of China.
Those 13 individuals were charged in three separate cases.
Now, let's get to the cases.
One case charges seven Chinese nationals of trying to forcefully
repatriate a Chinese national.
Four others were charged in an intelligence scheme that allegedly
targeted individuals in the United States to act on China's behalf.
And two other men were charged with interfering
in a United States criminal prosecution of a global telecommunications company.
Now, Garland did not specifically cite the company involved in the last case but
NBC news reports that the details of the complaint match a lawsuit against Huawei.
And that is of course a massive Chinese telecommunications company and
we had previously arrested one of the executives for Huawei.
So I want to give you the rest of the story in just a moment.
But before I do Cenk, do you want to weigh in?
>> I do and that's why I'm on muted.
Okay, so number one, isn't it interesting?
It depends on what the country is for the reaction,
the political reaction that you get.
>> Yeah. >> So this case looks like it's got very
good evidence, you never know until you go to court but
good I'm glad they brought it, but I'm unbiased.
I don't care if it's China or any other country.
Do I want them spying in and trying to influence criminal
investigations and other government proceedings?
No, of course not.
Why would I want any other country to do that?
Wouldn't want it if it was Canada, right?
But let's assume for a second that it was Russian companies that have done this and
Russian nationals, what would have been the reaction?
The right wing would have been like Russia Russia, no way, man!
The poor Russians didn't do it.
The democrats are trying to try to use this for the Russia hoax.
But did you even look at that, [LAUGH] right?
But you know that's what the reaction would have been if it was Israel,
they wouldn't even have the press conference Saudi Arabia,
they wouldn't have the press conference.
So those are our beloved allies that need to be protected no matter what they do
wrong, right?
So the both the reaction of the democrats and
the republicans are totally based on which country it is.
>> No a 100% and I mean, Cenk, I mean the thing about
the individuals who would be upset about the investigation.
Or criminal charges against Russian nationals
would have a point because it would just amount to McCarthy smear.
>> [LAUGH] >> That's it, that's all would be anyway.
>> No matter what it is, when it comes to Russia, it doesn't matter.
I mean, it's the way that Putin is killing people in Russia is hilarious.
One guy tripped over a bathtub and fell out a window.
You mean the excuses or the cover story is hilarious.
>> Yeah. >> And ridiculous and
you can't believe it, obviously, yeah.
>> Yeah, of course, there's another guy who was in the hospital and he somehow
magically got up and he also tripped outside a window and fell out of it.
It's amazing.
>> They're a lot tripping going on.
>> For sure, in Russia anyway, every time your story like that comes out,
both the right wing and the fake left go Joe McCarthy smear off, but
nobody's yelling McCarthy smear about China in this case, why?
Because China is apparently not bribing enough media pundits on the right wing and
the fake left.
>> Well, sure, I think that's a decent point to make.
The other thing is in terms of the two political parties you don't really
have a lot of disagreement in regard to having a more hawkish take on China.
Both democrats and republicans are incredibly hawkish toward China.
In fact, I remember during the political campaigning for Joe Biden and
Donald Trump, they were trying to outdo one another over who would be
the more the most hawkish toward China.
Which I think has some consequences that are worth discussing.
Now, back to the conference though, because during this press
conference with Merrick Garland, he also featured a lot of chest puffing.
So we have a compilation of that, let's take a look.
>> The Department of Justice will not tolerate threats from a foreign
power to the rights of Americans or to our nation's institutions.
In the words of our intelligence community,
China seeks to be a major power on the world stage and
to challenge the United States in multiple arenas.
>> So, there's multiple things going on as well because there's the economic
competition with China that plays a role.
There's also the rhetoric coming from Biden's administration.
And Biden himself in regard to how far the United States is willing to go
to ensure that Taiwan remains independent of China's government and
that continues to escalate tensions.
And earlier this month,
by the way the Biden administration had placed the following export restrictions
on the semiconductor chip technology from China per the new controls.
The United states will no longer permit chip making equipment or certain chips,
notably those for supercomputing and artificial intelligence to be exported.
Two Chinese companies, let's go to graphic six year 31 Chinese firms
have been added to the Bureau of Industry and Securities Unverified list.
Which makes it more difficult to send items to the listed entities that
are US-made.
Or produced with us supply-chain links, including foreign made products
created using technology that originated in the United States.
And look, I just find the spat with China fascinating,
especially when you consider the fact that we played a huge
role in strengthening their economy through, free trade deals.
Through essentially allowing us based companies and
corporations to outsource manufacturing jobs to exploit Chinese labor.
They would send their intellectual property there.
Because obviously they would need to do so in order for
the workers there to manufacture the products that we typically would have
manufactured here in the United States.
And then US companies cry about all sorts of like intellectual property theft and
things like that.
I mean, we did this and now that the chickens have come home to roost.
It's just fascinating to watch both political parties cry about it.
Yeah and of course they want to protect corporations in both directions, right?
Both republicans and
the democrats and that they wanted to let them outsource all their jobs.
And they don't want to tell you that's the actual problem, right?
And then when the corporations get cheated by China, they need to be stand up for
those beloved corporations that are their donors against China.
And that's why you hear all the tough talk from republicans and democrats,
that's clear.
And look, I respect China's game, but it's a little old school.
So they do things behind the scenes, they try all these different things,
they send in spies etc.
They're not as loud as China, but they're very effective in the long run.
They just keep going and going and going now, having said that,
what I'm really worried about is that they're gonna update their game.
And then we're gonna be really screwed because if they update their game,
what they're gonna do is the Russian way, right?
So and by the way, not just Russian again, Saudi Israeli etc.
So the Saudis funnel money to republicans through guys like norm Coleman who is
a former Republican senator.
And they give him the money and then he gives them giants, republican senators,
giant amount of money.
So they never question the Saudis.
They can set up democratic majority for China as they set up democratic majority
for Israel and that way you influence all the primaries on the democratic side.
And then you can do patreon and twitter trolls and bots and
you get a bunch of right wing and pretend left wingers on your side.
And then you'll have propaganda wall to wall in your behalf,
any country can come and buy American media and by American politicians.
Once the Chinese find that out, we're all screwed, so that.
>> I mean they know, believe me.
They know [LAUGH] so yeah, I mean there's already some of that going on Cenk.
But back to the matter is at the end of the day, I want everyone
to understand I'm not in any way trying to provide cover for
Chinese spies who have been charged with these crimes.
But the point that I do want to make is take a step back look at the bigger
picture.
And look at how the United States government under the leadership of either
political party has been more and more antagonistic towards China.
And it's the case at a time when we still rely on China for
a great deal of our imports because so
many of our products are manufactured there.
So like it's just I don't know it's just a disaster.
It is a mess.
And I don't think that we should continue poking the bear.
We should be thinking about diplomatic relations.
And if you want to do this investigation, you file these criminal charges,
the chest puffing and the theatrics I think are not helpful.
>> Yeah and so
last note on that the idea that Merrick garland is a tough guy is hilarious.
So, he puffs his chest when there's no domestic political opponent.
Both republican democrats wanna be tough against China.
So, he pretends he's tough, right?
But this idiot didn't charge Trump for
two straight years because my best guess is they, the Democratic Party
wanted to just use the threat of charges as political propaganda.
But they're too, but
Merrick garland is too much of a coward to actually charge Trump.
But ironically, now, the republicans say, hey, if we ever get hold of Congress,
which they're very likely to do soon.
We're gonna impeach Garland and maybe imprison him.
Okay, so hey, Merrick Garland.
Your cowardice is going to have that at the end of the rainbow.
I hope you enjoy and no one's buying your fake tough guy act against China.
All you're doing is trying to placate American corporations.
Yes, you should pursue this case, but spare us the rest.