In 2017 SSCI Security Director James Wolfe was caught leaking Top Secret Classified information, the Page FISA application, to his journalist girlfriend. In late 2018 the SSCI intelligence breech was covered-up by DAG Rod Rosenstein and DC Attorney Jessie Liu.
In 2019 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) employee, Henry Kyle Frese, was caught leaking Top Secret classified intelligence to his journalist girlfriend.  In 2020 he pleads guilty to the charges:

[Via DOJ] – An employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) pleaded guilty today to charges related to his disclosure of classified national defense information (NDI) to two journalists in 2018 and 2019.
[…] According to court documents, Henry Kyle Frese, 31, of Alexandria, was employed by DIA as a counterterrorism analyst from February 2018 to October 2019, and held a Top Secret//Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance.

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More good signs.  Last week we noted Johnny McEntee (pictured right w/ Stephen Miller) was promoted to run the White House personnel office responsible for filling hundreds of top political jobs throughout various federal agencies. Mr. McEntee replaced Sean Doocey, who moved to the State Department.
The personnel office has been a key point of contention for the administration as several political appointments later became weak points with people not in alignment with the policies and objectives of President Trump.  The objective of McEntee would be to assist in finding and vetting the right MAGA person, with the right MAGA skillset, for the right job.
Today Axios is reporting:

Johnny McEntee called in White House liaisons from cabinet agencies for an introductory meeting Thursday, in which he asked them to identify political appointees across the U.S. government who are believed to be anti-Trump, three sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.

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Kash Patel previously worked as Devin Nunes’ senior staffer on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI).  It was Patel who was the lead author of the Nunes memo exposing corrupt conduct of the FBI and DOJ officials during Crossfire Hurricane.

Patel joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate last February and was promoted to the senior counterterrorism role at the NSC mid-summer 2019.  According to recent reporting Patel is now joining Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell as a Senior Advisor and Catherine Herridge is reporting the objective is to ‘clean house‘.

The New York Times and a host of allied political narrative engineers attempted to spin up another Russia narrative yesterday.  The claim surrounds a briefing by DNI Joseph Maguire (pictured below) to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  Adam Schiff and house Democrats in the briefing claim DNI Maguire stated Russians favored President Trump and would work to assist his re-election.

The Democrat spin was to claim President Trump replaced Maguire as an outcome of this briefing; and Trump wants to ignore Russia interference assistance. etc. etc.  The media ran with the framework of the Democrat narrative; and the political operatives piled-on.
However, in a surprise move Jake Tapper actually undercuts the narrative engineering through his own sources with information on the reality of the briefing:

(1) DNI Joseph Maguire never said Russia was, would, or is working to interfere in the election to help President Trump.  Rather the briefing nuance was that Russia has an understanding of Trump and would likely view him as a deal-maker they could work with and Sanders, Buttigieg et al were unknowns.

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Last night it was reported that President Trump was considering Doug Collins amid a group of four names for the Director of National Intelligence.    However, Collins is currently running for a Georgia senate seat.
Appearing on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo this morning Rep. Collins outlines he is appreciative of the consideration but not interested in the position.

The dynamic for the Georgia senate seat is another example of Mitch McConnell and the Club -vs- grassroots MAGA voters.  Georgia doesn’t have a Senate primary vote, so the November senate election will be a jungle ballot.
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It was the final question in a wild and furious Democrat debate last night: “If no candidate earns the majority of delegates how should a nominee be chosen?”  Should the candidate with the most delegates be selected as the nominee?
Every candidate on stage -except Bernie Sanders- stated the private Club rules should determine the nominee at the DNC convention in Wisconsin; regardless of who comes to the convention with the highest number of delegates.   Bernie Sanders position is that whoever has the highest number of votes and earned delegates should be the nominee.

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With proportional distribution this difference of opinion could be problematic if most of the candidates stay in the race (quite probable now, except Biden) and split the non-Bernie vote. Yet, Bernie Sanders beats them all in the popular vote and earned delegate count.
After the first round delegate count at the convention the 700 ‘Super Delegates’ could select a ‘non-Bernie’ nominee in round two. This has always looked like the Club plan; however, Team Bernie will likely go bananas.
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The potential for supply chain disruption as a result of China dealing with the Coronavirus, and almost a complete shutdown of their manufacturing economy, is looming heavy upon Wall Street multinationals invested in China.
However, tangentially related, as a result of USMCA we are now seeing signs of shifted investment into North America and increases in forecasts for U.S. manufacturing.

(Via CNBC) […] Early in the week, New York’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey for general business conditions posted a reading of 12.9, up 8 points from January and its best level since May. New orders surged to 22.1, the highest since September 2017, and shipments rose to 18.9, the best since November 2018.
On Thursday, the Philadelphia survey exploded 20 points higher to 36.7, the highest since February 2017. New orders hit their highest since May 2018. (more)

The Philadelphia FED tracks factory orders in eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware.  New orders in that region soared far higher than all expectations, reflecting a strong consumer-driven economy with ongoing purchases of durable goods.
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Today President Trump will be delivering the commencement address at Hope for Prisoners graduation ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada. Anticipated start time 2:45pm ET.
UPDATE: Video Added [POTUS remarks at 49:50]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Good to see you. How long have you been doing this?

MR. PONDER: Eleven years.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s fantastic.

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Roger Stone receives three years and four months in federal prison as a first offender. However, Judge Amy Berman Jackson has delayed the implementation of the sentence until she takes up the issues with a biased jury foreperson, and request for a new trial.

Within the process to deal with Stone’s motion for a new trial, Judge Berman-Jackson knows resolving the petition involves bringing jury foreperson Tomeka Hart to her courtroom for questioning.  The activist judge did not want a damaging political optic prior to delivering her sentence.  An appearance by the foreperson to explain overt bias begs the question of how poorly Judge Berman-Jackson handled jury selection.
Judge Jackson also keeps the blanket gag order on Roger Stone which stops him from discussing, highlighting or complaining about any issue related to his prosecution and trial.

President Trump appointed Richard “Ric” Grenell to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the surprise appointment begins immediately.  Within minutes the media intelligence apparatus displayed apoplexy at the announcement.
All of the right administrative state interests are visibly triggered by the appointment; and it appears this could be a key turning point in President Trump’s push-back against the permanent intelligence apparatus that has targeted his administration for three years.

It does not seem accidental the appointment of Ric Grenell as Acting DNI comes after AG Bill Barr publicly displayed his weakness in managing the DOJ and FBI.  When the U.S. Attorney General chooses to complain about POTUS tweets making it “impossible to do his job” via public statements, the underlying message is an AG unwilling to do his job.
The challenge for the Office of the Presidency has been executive leadership unwilling to confront visible corruption within the DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community (IC).
Failed executive leadership includes Jeff Sessions (DOJ), Rod Rosenstein (DOJ), Chris Wray (FBI), David Bowditch (FBI), Dana Boente (FBI), Michael Horowitz (OIG) Mike Pompeo (CIA), Gina Haspel (CIA), Michael Atkinson (DOJ-NSD/ICIG), Matt Whitaker (DOJ), Dan Coats (DNI), Rex Tillerson (DoS), James Mattis (DoD), the list is long.
The evidence of ongoing efforts to undermine the presidency have surfaced in everything from the FBI not addressing rampant politicization, to an Intelligence Community Inspector General (Michael Atkinson) willing to facilitate an impeachment effort.
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