Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be appearing before a joint hearing with the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The structural reasoning -as sold by media- surrounds social media privacy, and the use and abuse of user data. However, Democrats are also planning to use this testimony to prove that Facebook allowed Russian operatives to elect Donald Trump. Anticipated start time 2:15pm EST.
You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States. ~SD
Moments ago a righteously angered President Trump responded to the FBI raids on the office and home of his personal attorney Michael Cohen. In addition to expressing outrage at Robert Mueller and his team of “small group” political allies, President Trump expressed his disappointment in Attorney General Jeff Sessions for authorizing the ongoing action.
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[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys — a good man. And it’s a disgraceful situation. It’s a total witch hunt. I’ve been saying it for a long time. I’ve wanted to keep it down. We’ve given, I believe, over a million pages’ worth of documents to the Special Counsel.
They continue to just go forward. And here we are talking about Syria and we’re talking about a lot of serious things. We’re the greatest fighting force ever. And I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now — and actually, much more than that. You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.
And it’s a disgrace. It’s, frankly, a real disgrace. It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.
You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States. ~SD
It is being reported today that Special Counsel Robert Mueller instructed the FBI field office from the Southern District of New York to raid the home and office of President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.
[Via New York Times] The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.
Tomorrow Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce the assignment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ (Horowitz/Huber) to the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.
Mr. Lausch is a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney from outside Washington DC. John Lausch currently heads the Northern District of Illinois which includes Chicago, and this specific U.S. Attorney has extensive experience in complex cases of conspiracy and political corruption; a key skill-set given the issues within the Horowitz/Huber investigation of potential politicization of the FBI and DOJ offices.
Accepting the OIG report is almost certainly the most complex undertaking of IG Horowitz career; and accepting the multitude of possible angles within each section of the investigative inquiry are so consequential; there’s a strong likelihood the report could come out in stages.
A very well informed Maria Bartiromo has an interesting interview with Trey Gowdy this morning. In the first section of the interview Representative Gowdy reveals he has seen some of the originating “electronic communication” (EC) source material that initiated the 2016 counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.
An interesting aspect to this interview is how much ‘deep-weed’ background information Mrs. Bartiromo is aware of. [Obviously Maria has a direct network to some very specific information.] WATCH:
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Representative Gowdy seems to using the Mamet Princple in this interview. Gowdy is obviously aware the DOJ cannot, and should not, release all evidence in their custody if some of that evidence outlines the basis for criminal referrals and will be used later by Prosecutor John Huber. So why does he demand access to it, and public release of it?
Gowdy’s presentation is almost enough to make a person wonder if he’s not trying to protect entities that might be at risk from sunlight or prosecution. It couldn’t be that perhaps there were/are 2016 republican political campaigns (*cough* Rubio), and/or uniparty leadership, who were in common-cause alignment with an operation that might eliminate Trump? Wait… wha?
Very interesting interview with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes earlier today. Chairman Nunes discusses his current objective to gain the two-page “electronic communication” document that initiated the FBI and DOJ-NSD investigation into the campaign of presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Chairman Nunes is focusing more intensely on the use of FBI/DOJ counterintelligence operations a weaponized agencies against political opponents. As a result of that focus the origination documents gain increased importance along with the FISA Title-1 application used to conduct exhaustive surveillance on U.S. person Carter Page.
Another very interesting dynamic occurs toward the latter half of the interview where Chairman Nunes brings up the international allies, and specifically describes the origination of “The Alliance of the Orb“, against the backdrop of weaponized intel.
Gordon Chang discusses the ongoing trade initiatives by President Trump to reset the trade imbalance with China. The dynamic of confronting a bilateral trade relationship with a government controlled economic state (China) is the dynamic behind the discussion.
Mr. Chang does a good job of outlining the ‘big picture’ issue from the perspective of the Trump administration trade policy toward China.
National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News for an interview with Chris Wallace discussing Trump administration trade positions. Kudlow and Wallace were previously on the same team, and held the same positions, perspectives and outlooks.
In the face of four decades of results which cannot be refuted, Chairman Kudlow is modifying his position to align with President Trump and Main Street. At the same time Kudlow is trying to convince Wall Street and GOPe Wallace-types to follow his lead.
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[*side note* notice how no-one ever mentions MfN status?]
In some ways POTUS Trump’s selection of Kudlow is an interesting test to see if the functionally obsolescent Wall Street-minded economists have the capacity to retool decades of flawed thinking.
A few hours ago President Trump tweeted a curiously specific pair of tweets targeting the FBI, DOJ and FISA investigations as it relates to the House Judiciary Committee and Chairman Bob Goodlatte. Something’s up:
Against the backdrop of the DOJ notifying the House Intelligence and House Senate committees last night of their ability to review the DOJ/FBI submission of the FISA Court application used to target U.S. person Carter Page, the specificity of POTUS Trump’s direction is curious.
As we previously discussed the DOJ allowing expanded congressional oversight over the FISA application, against the backdrop of a previously announced IG reviewof this specific FISA application, would indicate Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Federal Prosecutor John Huber signed-off on, or perhaps directed, last night’s approval.
