Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on the impeachment of President Trump, the John Durham investigation into the origins of Russiagate, the Democratic debate last night, the UK election and the status of Brexit, and who will be the next Prime Minister of Iraq.
Seven Democrats faced off last night in the latest presidential debate as voting in early states approaches. Pete Buttigieg was the target of attacks and Joe Biden simply tried to stay out of the way, and yet again many of the key concerns of the American people were not seriously dealt with. Ben Norton, a journalist with Greyzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast, joins the show.
Impeachment has been the big story of the week. But it seems to have ground to a half, as Democrats try to figure out if they want to actually send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial or if they want to withhold those articles to accrue some sort of political benefit. Meanwhile, Special Prosecutor John Durham is investigating former CIA Director John Brennan and his role in how the intelligence community assessed allegations that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. Durham, who announced publicly that his investigation was “criminal” in nature, has asked the CIA to provide him with Brennan’s emails, call logs, and other documents, including notes of his meetings and calls with former FBI Director James Comey. Brian and John speak with Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books--“The Frozen Republic,” “The Velvet Coup,” and “America's Undeclared War.”
Wikileaks cofounder Julian Assange testified yesterday via video link in a preliminary hearing relative to his extradition hearing and the judge acknowledged that the extradition hearing itself would now likely take as long as four weeks. Meanwhile, two doctors representing a group called Doctors4Assange and who wanted to wanted to observe Julian’s physical condition, were denied entry into the public gallery. Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, joins the show.
The coup government in Bolivia desperately wants to see President Evo Morales in prison, and has issued an arrest warrant this week seeking to bring him into custody. But today the new government of Argentina, where Morales has received asylum, firmly refused to hand him over. Wyatt Reed, a journalist whose writing can be found at Roanoke Times, Mintpress News, and the Grayzone Project, who just returned from Bolivia, joins Brian and John.
It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell.
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