A consortium of major media companies is suing the DOJ/FBI for ignoring Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain the still-secret recordings of January 6.
As the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Graves is rarely on the receiving end of a legal inquiry. In fact, Graves’ hand must be tired from signing thousands of criminal indictments, sentencing memos, and plea offers related to his ongoing investigation into the events of January 6, 2021. Just this week, the FBI arrested two more individuals on minor offenses, giving Graves’ overstaffed office more fresh meat for the Justice Department’s vengeful retaliation against Americans who protested the certification of Joe Biden’s election that day.
No investigative technique is too invasive for Graves’ henchmen to use in court proceedings. Big Tech, banking institutions, airlines, hotels, and other private interests work hand-in-glove with the Justice Department to hunt down Trump supporters and track their every movement before and on January 6. Much of the evidence consists of video footage captured by Capitol police’s closed-circuit television system during the breach of the building. Investigators routinely include still shots of the surveillance video in criminal complaints.
But now Graves is under pressure from all sides to make the video footage public. A consortium of major media companies is suing Graves and the FBI for ignoring Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain the still-secret recordings. As I’ve reported since May 2021, the entire trove was designated “highly sensitive” government material shortly after the investigation began. Clips entered as evidence in January 6 cases are under strict protective orders.
Over the past two years, a group called the Press Coalition filed motions seeking to unseal video clips in numerous cases, however, it never requested access to the full archive of footage. That changed after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy allowed Fox News host Tucker Carlson to view the videos and air selected clips in February.
Lawyers representing the group—which includes CNN, the New York Times, and Politico among other outlets—wrote congressional leaders to demand “all closed-circuit camera footage recorded on January 6, 2021, inside the United States Capitol and on its surrounding outside grounds.”
In what might be a first, news organizations commended McCarthy. “The Speaker also explicitly recognized the overriding public interest in disclosure: ‘I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment,’” the letter quoted McCarthy.
“The Press Coalition agrees with the Speaker. Now that the CCTV videos have been released to one member of the news media—one whose program is categorized by its own network as opinion programming—they must be released to the rest of the news media as well.” To bolster its request, the group filed FOIAs with the executive office of the U.S. attorneys and the FBI seeking copies of the videos.
A month later, the group filed a motion to intervene in the criminal case of William Pope, a January 6 defendant representing himself. Pope has been fighting to gain access to footage recorded by both surveillance and police body-worn cameras. In discrediting the Justice Department’s insistence that releasing the CCTV recordings would pose a security threat, the press coalition noted that the government had no such “security” concerns when video clips were aired during Trump’s second impeachment and by the January 6 select committee during televised hearings.
“Because the public already has access to an enormous volume of CCTV videos from inside the Capitol, the Government likewise cannot demonstrate that permitting Defendant to republish other CCTV videos would pose any further threat to the security of the Capitol,” the group’s lawyers wrote in the March 23 filing. “Especially when weighed against the public’s interest in viewing videos of ‘the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812,’ the Government cannot justify maintaining its designation of the CCTV videos as ‘Sensitive’ or ‘Highly Sensitive.’”
Graves’ office shot back, insisting the security designation was appropriate and questioning the press coalition’s standing in the matter.
The full trove of video, Graves argued, isn’t a “judicial” record so media access should be limited; only clips produced as evidence in specific cases would qualify as such. Graves also suggested “militants” could study the footage in order to plan another attack on the Capitol.
“The government thus has good cause to designate the Capitol CCV at issue as Highly Sensitive—notwithstanding the fact that some other Capitol CCV videos, or a few still images from the videos at issue, are publicly available,” Graves maintained. “Nor does the narrower request to obtain a CCV clip here or there somehow transmute press access to thousands of hours of video in the government’s holding.”
Graves’ claims are, of course, absurd. Nearly 28 months later, as he continues his selective prosecution of thousands of Trump supporters, no one has attempted to “attack” the Capitol again. Capitol police received a major budget boost in the aftermath of January 6, which involved the hiring of new officers and expanding the department’s intelligence services. Capitol police are so flush that the department is opening satellite offices in other states, including California and Florida.
Surely this level of manpower could easily thwart another meemaw/furry-horned “insurrection,” no?
Moreover, once one has lost the regime-compliant corporate press, one is in deep trouble. This could finally be the comeuppance Graves so richly deserves; the judge in the Pope case is now considering the coalition’s motion. Judge Rudolph Contreras sounded skeptical of Graves’ defense during a status hearing several days ago.
Judge Amit Mehta is separately handling the coalition’s FOIA lawsuit against the FBI and Graves, who has yet to respond to the FOIA in the time required. (Ironic how the prosecutor still chasing down Capitol trespassers is immune to following the law himself.)
The FBI, however, did respond—and said the bureau came up empty-handed. “[We] were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA that are responsive to your request,” the FBI’s FOIA chief told the group in a letter last month. “Therefore, your request is being closed.”
The press coalition mocked the FBI’s excuse. “[Even] though it is leading the riot investigation and has published excerpts of the Capitol Surveillance Videos on its own website, the FBI has absurdly and improperly claimed that it searched for but was ‘unable to identify’ the requested records.”
As the public, and January 6 defendants, wait for McCarthy to fulfill his pledge to release all the videos, there’s a slim chance a federal judge will beat him to it. Regardless, the patience of the American people, congressional Republicans, and the media is running thin.
Nice week I've had: Still no new Hetty photo while 4 new pics of NCIS LA's 2 part finale are posted, then Twitter looks to be having another major glitch involving being able to freely search the hashtags, now it looks like Disqus is glitching right now with not notifying me on new Upvotes!!
What a crazy week. Culture war ... insanity. Government ... more insanity. Trolls ... well, they try their best, but we aren't giving out participation trophies here. International geopolitical posturing ... wtf does that even mean? Insanity. That's what it means today. I forgot the point I was going to make when I started this paragraph, but I'm not letting that stop me. We're having an Open Thread today, dadgummit. We've trolled the trolls, made the obligatory internet weed jokes for 4/20, fixed every political problem in the world, shared a sufficient number of cat memes, but we have failed in one area ... sharing music and having weekly Open Threads. I promise you that moving forward I will still fail to post weekly Open Threads. And I really mean it, so hold me to it. I also promise that some time in the future we will have another installment of our weekly non-weekly open thing where we say stuff, hang out and do whatever.
Now I know that the other day I said that I would make like Psaki and circle back to the weed post yesterday ... but I forgot.
Here's a video about food and some random reddit stuff. Be entertained by it.
Yesterday was 4/20, the big day for tokers everywhere ... even the ones about to get busted by their Mom. LOL
And we'll bring it home with some good 'old Dad stuff.
Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk kicked the hornet’s nest when he labeled National Public Radio “state affiliated media.” The howls of protest were amusing, and telling. While they like to pretend otherwise, the mass media in the United States operate much like the state-run media of autocratic regimes.
And it isn’t just NPR. The New York Times and CNN are preoccupied with the generation of propaganda, narrative making, the enforcement of dogmas (“woke” agendas on race, climate, sex, etc.), and the censorship of dissenters.
One knows where the state stands on every question just by assessing the volume and tone of discussion in the press. When something occurs contrary to the narrative, coverage is muted, perfunctory—assuming there is any coverage at all. But on pet issues like “white supremacy,” the breathless moralism of the media is no less crude and dogmatic than the propaganda of China or North Korea.
It was only weeks ago that an anti-Christian mass murderer killed six people, including three children. But shooter’s reported “manifesto” seems to have fallen into a black hole. The Biden Administration has the material, but it hasn’t been made public. If the Justice Department wanted this information out there, it would have been leaked to NBC or the Washington Post by now. If the media wanted it out there, they would seek it out.
Instead of information, we are flooded with propaganda. About the war in Ukraine we know virtually nothing, only that it is a battle for Our Democracy™ and that Ukraine inevitably will win. When a Pentagon leaker released authentic information exposing this narrative as a childish fantasy, the media helped hunt him down and called him a Nazi.
Recall that other Ukraine “whistleblower” behind the first Trump impeachment. The latter was lionized for leaking President Trump’s phone calls. This was a pretty serious violation under the Constitution, but the whistleblower was celebrated for “standing up” to the president the people elected.
During the Trump presidency, the state media LARPed as opposition media. In effect, they orchestrated a coup, working closely with intelligence sources and the Democratic Party to saturate the public discourse with leaks and innuendo that portrayed the president as a secret Russian asset. This was, essentially, a relentless “disinformation” campaign designed to discredit the 2016 presidential election.
Ever since 2020, “disinformation” has become an inescapable shibboleth of the Left, indeed, journalists spend more time frothing over it than they do reporting true information, most of which remains buried. The irony is that no institution spreads disinformation more capably or casually than our own media.
The leftist agenda cannot survive without massive conspiracies of concealment, and this is nowhere more apparent than in their coverage of the subject of race. The media constantly pumps out a narrative of white villainy, while ignoring rampant black crime. They portray “gun violence” as the fault of white ruralites armed with rifles, while ignoring where most “mass shootings” actually happen: in the ghetto.
In the media’s magic lens, blacks are always the victims, even when they are the perpetrators. Such is the case with the “Tennessee Three” (or rather, the Tennessee Two and one guilty white lady). With this tiresome, banal fabrication, complete with a Martin Luther King, Jr. wannabe, the mass media transported us once again to 1965 for another lecture about white guilt. With absolutely no evidence of racial motive presented, two black hecklers were painted as martyrs of “democracy” for disrupting a state legislature with a megaphone.
The wall-to-wall hysteria of the anti-Trump #Resistance now defines American political culture.
There was never any evidence of racial motive in the killing of George Floyd, but it did not matter. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted by the media, along with white society at large, for his role in an imaginary conspiracy to murder blacks. The media and its patrons in the Democratic Party are at it again after the shooting of a black teenager, Ralph Yarl, by an elderly white man who said he was “scared to death” his home was being invaded. While the details are unclear, the usual demagogues have portrayed the incident as common. In fact, this is a “man bites dog” story.
Children were also shot in Chicago lastweekend as a large mob of black teenagers raised hell in the Loop, but there has been a media blackout of the anarchy. With some justice, perhaps: black youths causing destruction is “dog bites man.”
In authoritarian countries, the people usually know when they’re being lied to, but they’re desensitized by the constant battering of nonsense. This is the truly pernicious effect of the U.S. media: by constantly flooding the zone with distractions, conspiracy theories and infantile noise about fake issues and non-events, the state media anesthetizes the citizenry. The people become so demoralized that they cease to even care what is true.
In a political order as dishonest and unnatural as our own, the generation of propaganda is a constant necessity, otherwise, the rickety foundation of lies on which the regime rests would collapse.
China actively employs Grey Zone activities to advance and consummate its 100-year marathon—otherwise known as its plan to replace the U.S. as a global superpower. China knows America is ill-equipped, both temperamentally and strategically, to address China’s strategic, long-term manipulations with agility. China’s strategy is political warfare on steroids.
Where China is the paced marathoner, the U.S. sprints off the block. Where China is poised and cunning, the U.S. is direct and often guileless. While the U.S. follows the rules, China adeptly turns them against us to further its interests. The U.S. is much more conventional in its warfare. China is deceitfully unconventional. The U.S. is historically oriented. China tests the political winds. The cultural and political chasm is so wide that it is almost impossible for the unworldly Western mind to grasp.
China is the proverbial snake in the grass, waiting, silent, and predatory. Snakes detect prey with their forked tongue, probing for scent. Some snakes strike, grab and constrict their prey, monitoring its heartbeat until it dies. Others, like the small-banded kukri snakes, tear their prey’s viscera to shreds while eating them alive. Both are examples of the patience and brutality of the Communist Chinese in dealing with their enemies. Anyone familiar with the Ancient game of Go also understands that it is a game of “encirclement and capture”—so emblematic of how the Chinese operate on the world stage.
Letter from President Panuelo of the FSM
In March, after its elections, the President of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), David W. Panuelo, wrote a weighty letter to the transitioning administration about the impact on FSM of China’s geopolitical strategies. It was his third letter to FSM leaders on the subject of China. The first two, written in 2022, are here and here.
Geographically speaking, FSM is an island country in Oceania in the western Pacific. It comprises four groups of island States in geographic sequence from west to east: Yap State, Chuuk State, Pohnpei State, and Kosrae State, with 607 islands to its name—and about 271 square miles. FSM is of great strategic interest to both China and the U.S.
Micronesia/FSM
In this third letter, Panuelo wisely refers to China’s use of political warfare and Grey Zone tactics. With two months left in his administration, he urges leaders in the new administration to focus on Taiwan as a strategic ally because of the threats he sees from the PRC (People’s Republic of China). The letter speaks from experience and is about the most concise and clear-sighted description of Chinese Grey Zone political warfare. He cites many examples of China’s corrupt influence and Grey Zone incursions on FSM and warns of the gravity of China’s imminent designs on Taiwan. To understand Panuelo’s letter is to understand how China operates geopolitically on the world stage.
FSM/Panuelo
Importantly, Panuelo discusses China’s many overt and covert activities that operate “below the threshold for a nation to respond with force and are otherwise difficult to handle by ‘normal’ means.” The U.S. is particularly vulnerable in this context because China knows we are reluctant to poke them, fearing all-out kinetic war. China also knows we like rules and is more than happy to break rules that allow them to achieve their strategic objectives.
As Panuelo writes, these are “carefully designed operations: measured, possibly prolonged…and are key escalatory thresholds” that allow China to avoid war until the timing is right. China uses every possible strategic and cultural pressure to achieve its end goals. China also knows if it too obviously pushes the U.S., it may weaken its position.
Col. Newsham, an expert on China Grey Zone warfare, describes how China threads the needle with its wish to “incorporate” Taiwan in his April 8 interviewon American Thought Leaders. His description of the Chinese mindset with the U.S. very much parallels Panuelo’s thoughts:
Col Newsham/American Thought Leaders/April 8, 2023
Newsham’s interview is well worth the watch. He examines some of the cunning key Grey Zone strategies China employs to eventually achieve its objectives. He explains that China has mastered the leveraging of U.S. reluctance to directly call out or confront what China is always doing—not only in Taiwan but here in the U.S. as a part of its 100-year marathon. According to Newsham, China aims to take Taiwan “without a fight” but will enter a kinetic war if pushed.
Taiwan’s Capture Breaches the Castle Wall
It is foolish for the U.S. to ignore China’s plans to replace the U.S. as the world’s superpower. Whatever China might say to U.S. leaders, it is not America’s friend. They view us as their most important enemy. Volumes have been written on Taiwan and its strategic importance to China. Note that Taiwan is a crown jewel in China’s march toward America. If China were to capture or entice Taiwan to reincorporate, it would punch a hole in the “castle walls,” leaving a strategic path to the U.S.
Taiwan’s population is 23 million. U.S. leaders often talk about Taiwan’s importance in the context of the high-end chip market. It is, at best, a myopic point of view. If Taiwan comes under Chinese control, it will isolate other nations—Japan to the north and Australia to the south, “cutting it off from the U.S. and the rest of Asia.” Taiwan is the first in a series of island chains that would make “operations farther east into the Pacific much easier to accomplish,” says Newsham. Even as we speak, China is installing infrastructure and exerting political influence in Latin America, about as close to our borders as possible.
ATL/Newsham/Map/Epoch Times
As with almost everything China does, its capture of Taiwan is both political and psychological. If Beijing were to take Taiwan, it is not only a military win; it would give China a psychological advantage. Col. Newsham explains:
“It’s that the U.S. military could not prevent the Americans from keeping 23 million Taiwanese free. U.S. economic and financial power couldn’t do it, and U.S. nuclear weapons couldn’t do it either. In short order, you’re going to find Asia turning red as most countries there realize that an American promise is not what it used to be, and you’re going to see that worldwide as well.”
China is busy building its military forces and arms and making good progress on all. They have the determination, the funding, and the manpower to become our equals in short order. They are now capable of sending Naval flotillas to the U.S. They have a military force to be reckoned with now and in the future.
They also employ unconventional fleets in the form of fishing vessels that “double as a maritime militia with its swarming tactics” and have been used “very successfully in the South China Sea.” Their long-term presence has convinced other fishermen and opponents to stay out of their way, giving the Chinese a strategic advantage without firing a shot. These powerful and armed fishing vessels will sink other vessels if necessary.
Col. Newsham/ATL/April 8, 2023
These fleets are Grey Zone warfare at its finest—a complete charade. China knows the frailties of its opponents, especially the U.S. Americans, will “play by the rules” following conventional rules of engagement. America will fail to call them for what they really are—military vessels. Newsham explains the dynamic well:
Col Newsham/ATL/April 8, 2023
CCP’s Unconventional Warfare with the U.S.
China’s influence operations and unconventional warfare in the U.S. should not be underestimated. Almost every single sector of our country has been infiltrated by the CCP. There are too many examples to explore here fully. However, it is essential to begin to understand some of them if you are to know their tactics.
Fentanyl
Fentanyl kills upwards of 70,000 people a year and flows through our southern border, compliments of the CCP. According to Newsham, China provides “about 99 percent of Fentanyl precursors. The raw materials go to Mexico and are then turned into pills and moved to the U.S.” 12 years of the Viet Nam War killed only 55,000 Americans. China caused the same havoc with the Opium Wars.
Drug trade causes socio-economic ruin, addiction, death, and strain on healthcare systems. What better way to take out large swaths of fighting-age men and women? What better way to kill U.S. factory workers? As we speak, there are growing numbers of young Chinese also migrating from countries on our southern border, poised to fight or work for a low wage for American companies—all Grey Zone warfare. And we do nothing.
WTO and China
Twenty years ago, China’s entry into the rules-based World Trade Organization impacted the U.S. industry profoundly. China was allowed to enter and then proceeded to break the rules repeatedly. Politico reports, “Neither the WTO nor the U.S. government was equipped for China’s combination of relentless exploitation of WTO loopholes with a willful disregard of WTO rules that has put China within possible reach of displacing the U.S. as the world’s largest economy as soon as 2028.” Whole industries moved their operations offshore because of the cheap labor market and access to China’s economy. To this day, China steals U.S. technology and talent, and the U.S. does little to stop it—Grey Zone warfare.
China’s Land and Resources Grab
Find a block in New York City, and the Chinese own real estate there. You name it; the Chinese have been busily acquiring agricultural land worldwide. Some land will be used to compete with American industry, and other purchases may be used for espionage. The National Review reported, “By the beginning of 2020, Chinese companies possessed $1.9 billion in American agricultural land, amounting to approximately 192,000 acres of the almost 900 million acres of farmland in the U.S.”
China controls much of the world’s rare earth minerals and has invested a great deal of money and time in acquiring resources from other countries. Most of the lithium for electric vehicles comes from China. If Green Energy is your thing, then China is the ultimate hypocrite. As the U.S. guilts Americans into upgrading its green energy compliance, destroying industry and jobs, China is unapologetically the world’s biggest polluter.
China’s Infiltration of U.S. Institutions
China has infiltrated almost every important American governmental, political, and educational institution. It steals intellectual property with its 1000 Talents program. Confucious Institutes continue to infiltrate campuses and operate on American soil.
The CCP infiltrates universities with talented scientists who are controlled and helps the Chinese steal our intellectual property. The Chinese have infiltrated the networks of politicians, corporations, and lobbyists at all levels of influence. China co-opts intelligence officers. It sends its CCP-controlled students here to study, who then return to work in multiple industries, sharing our secrets and trades. And when we try to shut them down, China uses our culture against us, accusing us of racism or unfair practices when we dare accuse them of spying. The Biden administration asked its DOJ to shut down its program focused on countering espionage in early 2022—Grey Zone warfare.
The Hill summarizes Chinese influence in America:
“It is a holistic campaign of malign influence designed to disarm our democracy’s protective antibodies and weaken our republic. It is about corrupting people and institutions to ensure that they self-censor, avoid sensitive topics and promote Beijing’s talking points. It is about threatening American businesses with boycotts, as happened with the NBA, to ensure that the companies don’t support Taiwan or Hong Kong, and certainly don’t discuss the imprisonment of millions of Uyghurs. It is about classic intelligence operations that seek to undermine American intelligence and security operations overseas. It is about peddling Chinese propaganda masked as legitimate journalism, such as the China Daily inserts you may have seen in your local papers.”
The Pandemic
There is no better example of Grey Zone warfare than the pandemic. Whether purposeful or not, China leveraged every aspect of the COVID-19 virus to its advantage. During the summer of 2019, China began to scoop up and manufacture PPE. China sold it to third-world countries, leaving other countries short of supplies—almost as if it knew what was ahead. And China continued to conceal the severity of the virus to hoard PPE. China showed photos and videos of people in China keeling over on the streets, creating panic and fear worldwide. When other countries shut down travel, China imposed draconian internal lockdowns but continued to allow outgoing international travel.
We now know that the virus came out of China’s military labs with the help of the U.S. But what better way to eliminate millions of able Americans than to produce a virus that incapacitated more than it killed? The PRC managed to unleash unrestricted warfare in the form of a biological weapon that removed soldiers from the battlefield, doctors and nurses from hospitals, and workers from their jobs—a cunning way to disable large swaths of our able adults without raising the kind of alarm that a more immediately deadly bioweapon would have. To this day, the U.S. struggles to apply sanctions or request reparations for what the CCP unleashed.
Cultural Revolutions and Information Warfare
Probably most insidious is China’s well-hidden funding of U.S.-based groups, which are now growing in their political and cultural influence. These organizations, many of which appear organic in nature, cause tremendous tumult in America.
Trevor Loudin is one of the most important voices on China’s influence here in America. He highlights the work of ultra-progressive Maoist and Socialist organizations like Liberation Road, We Make the Future, the Working Families Party, BLM, and Antifa. These cultural and social justice campaigns are probably some of the most insidiously dangerous examples of the PRC’s Grey Zone Warfare. These groups destabilize communities economically and psychologically. They influence our children with apps like TikTok. The Chinese, directly and indirectly, influence our schools, elections, local politics,and just about everything in between.
Read through Liberation Road’s strategic orientation for 2022-2025. You will find everything you need to know about how the Chinese will patiently reconstruct every aspect of American life from the ground up without firing a single bullet.
Finally, China is very sensitive about its human rights record and hides it from the world. And when the U.S. calls China out on its human rights abuses, China flips the script by claiming American human rights abuses are only getting worse. The U.S. would do well to call a spade a spade so that China feels the heat. China knows it won’t.
Solutions
The U.S. is losing miserably in the Grey Zone war. And kinetic warfare is looming with China’s shifting partnerships with its BRICS partners and its alliances with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and others. China has a footprint in every region of the globe. And it knows how to capitalize on U.S. failures to expand its influence. Rest assured; China will leverage the Ukraine war to its benefit. When the U.S. evacuated Afghanistan, China became emboldened.
Col. Newsham’s approach to solving the China problem is perceptive and imperative. Newsham says we should take a few pages out of their book. Chinese still need American dollars, the convertible currency they are dependent on. U.S. investors in China are often not able to pull out. We should answer by applying pressure wherever it hurts. Newsham states America should cut off Chinese financial institutions “from the U.S. dollar network. Start with the People’s Bank of China, and revoke its license to operate in the U.S. for six months. That would get some attention.”
Chinese elites have massive assets overseas because of their “lack of confidence in their own system and its future.” Seize their bank accounts, cancel their residence permits, and “publicize it to high heaven.” Newsham continues:
Col. Newsham/ATL/April 2023
On Tuesday, the DOJ announced it was “charging 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—the Ministry of Public Security (MPS)—to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States,” activities that are likely much more embedded in the U.S. than Americans realize.
This column barely scrapes the surface of China’s Grey Zone political warfare strategy and our reluctance to address it. It is time the U.S. begins to take China seriously. As Col. Newsham states, we must “not just pass law[s] and sanction a few unlucky officials. [We]have to go up to the highest levels and make them feel the heat. You do have to understand the system, realize how pressure and power are applied, then go to the top.”
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has cast doubt on Ukraine's long-held aspiration to join Nato.
His
intervention came after the bloc's boss, Jens Stoltenberg, said on
Friday that "all Nato allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a Nato
member".
Mr Stoltenberg has consistently said Kyiv will join Nato in the medium term, once the Russian invasion is over.
But Mr Orban was quick to express his surprise at the latest claim in a one-word tweet on Friday afternoon.
"What?!" the Hungarian prime minister exclaimed, reacting to an article on Mr Stoltenberg's comments.
Nato
is a military alliance of 31 countries, mainly in Europe, but also
including the US and Canada. Hungary, like all members, can veto new
members joining.
Joining the bloc brings the protection of Nato's Article Five, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all.
In effect, it means that if Ukraine were invaded or attacked all Nato members - including the US - would come to its aid.
But
Hungary, which joined Nato in 1999, has already shown a willingness to
oppose the expansion of the alliance. After months of delays, it signed
off on Finland's bid to join in March.
And
it has joined with Turkey in holding up Sweden's bid. In March
government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács accused officials in Sweden of
sitting on a "crumbling throne of moral superiority".
Relations have long been tense between Kyiv and Budapest.
Mr
Orban is less critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin than other
Western leaders. And while his government has condemned the illegal
invasion of Ukraine, the Hungarian leader has not sent arms to Kyiv.
Hungary
has also spent years blocking high-level summits between Nato officials
and Ukrainian military leaders, claiming to have concerns over the
rights of Hungarian speakers in western Ukraine.
Despite
his assertion, Mr Stoltenberg conceded at a meeting at the Ramstein US
air base in Germany that Kyiv's bid to join the alliance was not an
immediate priority.
"The
main focus now is of course on how to ensure that Ukraine prevails [in
the war with Russia]," he said. "Without a sovereign, independent
Ukraine, there is no meaning in discussing membership."
But Budapest's stance promises to ignite a fresh dispute within Nato.
The
bloc's eastern members have spent months pushing officials to give Kyiv
an accession timeline and to provide signals that it is making progress
to joining the alliance.
Mr Stoltenberg also said he was confident Ukraine could regain ground in a much-anticipated counter-offensive.
"I'm confident that they will now be in a position to be able to liberate even more land," he said.
There
has been talk for some weeks of Ukraine launching a spring offensive
against Russian forces, whose own offensive in the eastern Donbas region
has largely stalled.
Ukraine's
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Wednesday that some
aspects of the planned counteroffensive were already underway.
