During a recent episode of Liberty Report, host and former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul spoke with co-host Daniel McAdams about Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is trailing front-runner Bernie Sanders in the primary.
The pair began speaking about Buttigieg’s rise into his current position behind Sanders.
“He had a huge lead and then all of a sudden here comes Buttigieg, the CIA choice,” McAdams said.
Paul spoke on the wealth of information available on the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor’s alleged connections.
“Buttigieg is close to the CIA and the military and all that. And he looks like he’s well trained,” Paul later said, adding that the former mayor will rise into a powerful government position at some point in the future, regardless of his success in the current election cycle.
McAdams noted the work done by Max Blumenthal’s The Grayzone, which has reported on Buttigieg’s alleged ties to the intelligence community. In a recent piece at the end of 2019, the publication pointed out his seemingly overnight rise and pointed to the many billionaires that have donated to his campaign.
Buttigieg has also received 218 endorsements from “foreign policy and national security professionals” — per USA Today — which was likewise detailed by The Grayzone.
“Buttigieg’s lengthy roster of endorsements is loaded with former intelligence operatives, national security hardliners, regime-change specialists, and vulture capitalists,” the publication reported.
Another curious connection was pointed out by left-wing journalist and author Brian Abrams, who noted the Buttigieg campaign’s payment of nearly $600,000 to defense contractor Patriot Group International, which is described by The Grayzone as a “Blackwater-style mercenary firm.”
Any idea why Mayor Pete's campaign has spent nearly $600,000 for "security services" from defense contractor Patriot Group International? https://t.co/eTosBddAcm
Typically it's the municipalities that bill campaigns for protection/public-safety costs, not private spy agencies. pic.twitter.com/tDcxpbyPFT
— brian abrams (@BrianAbrams) December 6, 2019
“Buttigieg’s new roster of endorsements from former high-ranking CIA officials, regime-change architects, and global financiers should raise more questions about the real forces propelling his campaign,” the report reads.
Interestingly, Buttigieg has offered very little in terms of his foreign policy plans. As The Grayzone notes, he devotes just five sentences to these plans, providing little in the way of concrete details. In addition, Business Insider reported that he refused to answer The New York Times’ questions about critical foreign policy challenges, including how he plans to handle Iran and North Korea.
Recently, Buttigieg’s campaign has come under additional scrutiny after he declared an early victory in the Iowa caucuses. The event was marred by reports of discrepancies and a faulty results app created by Shadow — a developer that Buttigieg’s campaign enlisted services from.
Amid an already extensive range of criticism of Buttigieg’s willingness to take money from big-money donors, many pointed to Shadow’s relationship with liberal firm ACRONYM, a company run by Democratic operative Tara McGowan — who is married to one of the former mayor’s campaign strategists.