Pushback with Aaron Mate Pushback with Aaron Maté

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The US government is continuing to seek the extradition of Julian Assange even though a critical witness in its indictment has admitted to fabricating key claims. Bjartmar Alexandersson, the Icelandic journalist who broke this story, discusses the explosive confession of US witness Sigurdur "Siggi" Thordarson.

Guest: Bjartmar Alexandersson. Journalist with Icelandic newspaper Stundin.

Facing growing outcry, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias went before the United Nations Security Council and told new falsehoods about his organization’s Syria cover-up scandal — along with more disingenuous excuses to avoid addressing it. Scholar and researcher Piers Robinson joins Aaron Maté to debunk Arias' latest evasions and distortions.

Guest: Dr. Piers Robinson. Co-Director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, and convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.

As Vice-President in 2014, Joe Biden backed the Maidan coup in Ukraine that set off an ongoing proxy war with Russian-backed forces in the Donbass region. Now as President, Biden met with Vladimir Putin at the Geneva summit to discuss key flashpoints, including Ukraine. Is Biden ready to make peace?

Guest: Nicolai N. Petro. Professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island and editor of "Ukraine in Crisis."

At the Geneva summit, President Biden of the US and President Putin of Russia announced the restoration of their ambassadors and agreed to new talks on vital issues. Meanwhile in Washington and major US media outlets, Russiagate-addled hawks promoted increased confrontation. James Carden analyzes the talks and the bellicose US media response.

"US media outlets seem to be egging biden on to take a harder line than than the President wanted to," Carden says. "It's a product of the last several years of Russiagate hysteria. But it also shows who make up the American press really don't know that much about Russia or foreign policy."

Guest: James Carden. Former State Department adviser and the executive editor for the American Committee for US-Russia Accord. He writes at https://thescrum.substack.com/.

In the last year, US government, intelligence, and Congressional bodies have accused former Paul Manafort aide Konstantin Kilimnik of being a "Russian intelligence officer" or "Russian influence agent" who passed secret Trump campaign polling data to Russia in 2016. The FBI has even issued a $250,000 reward for Kilimnik's arrest on a lowly witness tampering charge -- more than double the amount for six murderers on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

In exclusive audio excerpts, Konstantin Kilimnik talks to Aaron Maté about the explosive -- and evidence-free -- US government claims about him. Despite his supposed central role in the Trump-Russia saga, Kilimnik says that no US government investigator has ever contacted him. He believes it's his Russian passport, not any actual evidence, that put him in the US intelligence crosshairs.

To make the Russiagate narrative work, Kilimnik says, "they needed a f-----g Russian. I happen to be that f------g Russian."

Guest: Konstantin Kilimnik. Ukrainian-Russian political consultant and former aide to Paul Manafort. Wanted by the FBI on a $250,000 bounty for a witness tampering indictment in the Mueller investigation. Neither the FBI or Mueller probe ever contacted him.

Read more: https://mate.substack.com/p/accused-russian-spy-kilimnik-refutes

Rather than pay up for a multi-billion dollar environmental damage ruling in Ecuador, the oil giant Chevron is persecuting one of the attorneys who defeated it in court. Steven Donziger has been subjected to nearly two years of house arrest in a Kafkaesque prosecution engineered by one of the world's top oil giants.

Guest: Steven Donziger, human rights attorney now facing persecution after helping to win a landmark legal judgment against Chevron in Ecuador.