Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on CBS News to counter the false information being spread by Margaret Brennan on behalf of Wall Street corporations.  The topics of interest surround China and tariffs.

Let me clarify for the audience that does not follow closely.  Tariffs are paid by the importer based on the wholesale price of the product as delivered by the exporting country depending on the exporters’ tariff rate.  Tariffs are NOT LEVIED/PAID based on the retail price of the product as sold to the consumer.

Example:  A pair of Denim Jeans made in China for Guess Brand.  The Chinese manufacturer sells the jeans to Guess Brand for $10 a pair manufactured.  Guess sells the jeans at retail in the USA for $100 (a $90 gross profit).

A 50% tariff on China means the jeans cost Guess Brand $15 instead of $10 (an $85 gross profit).  A 50% tariff on Guess brand jeans, that retail for $100, changes the cost to the retail brand by $5.

Multinational corporations who have off shored their production and manufacturing to China are the ones screaming about tariffs.  Ultimately in the final analysis, President Trump is exposing corporatism, multinational corporate vultures; he is not necessarily just exposing China.

In the example above the company makes $85 gross profit as opposed to $90 gross profit on the pair of jeans if they do not raise the retail price.  They don’t raise the price because their profit margins are already ridiculous, and that’s why consumer prices do not go up. A 50% direct tariff on Chinese goods only marginally hits the multinational corporation.  American consumers need to understand this dynamic better.    WATCH: 

[TRANSCRIPT] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face the Nation.’ We begin today with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Good morning and thank you for being here.

SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s so much to get to. I want to start with China, because the Defense Secretary just said there’s an imminent military threat from China to Taiwan. Days earlier, Secretary Rubio said he’d aggressively revoked Chinese student visas. On top of that, you have curbing exports to China. Trade talks you said with Beijing are stalled, and President Trump just accused China of violating an agreement, and now says no more, ‘Mr. Nice Guy.’ Are you intentionally escalating this standoff with Beijing?

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As previously noted, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley released some of the FBI investigative files related to a congressional referral of Nellie Ohr for false testimony to congress.  Within the Grassley release the declassified FBI investigative notes show that Trump-Russia files were compartmentalized, allowing control over access to them by the FBI Director and FBI Deputy Director.

The 7th floor level classification within the FBI’s Sentinel record-keeping system was previously unknown, and now people are starting to ask questions about what other information may be filed yet invisible due to the classification designation of “Prohibited Access.”

The Sentinel record-keeping system allows FBI officials and investigators to review and research the status of investigations both past and current. The Sentinel system is also the information system that is searched for responsive documents to legal cases and FOIA inquires.  The Sentinel system contains all the information used by the FBI.

[Page 3, pdf Here]

Within the Sentinel system there are “Restricted Access” files that are used to control who can view the file information.  The FBI official can see the file but cannot access the information within it without a higher clearance level.  However, now people are discovering there is a “Prohibited Access” designation that makes the file invisible to searches or queries and is controlled by the FBI Director and FBI Deputy Director.

Margot Cleveland is asking some good questions about how the use of the “Prohibited Access” designation may circumvent the FBI’s legal requirements (brady material) and FOIA searches.  [SEE HERE] However, I would also note this approach hides information not only from congress and from the public, but also from the Executive branch itself.  The DNI wouldn’t even know what information exists.

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We all knew the system would strike back. There are trillions at stake.

UPDATES AT BOTTOM: A federal trade court based out of New York has just ruled in a three-judge decision that President Trump does not have the authority within the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to initiate emergency trade tariffs.  [The Ruling is HERE]

WASHINGTON DC – A federal trade court ruled President Trump didn’t have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs on virtually every nation, voiding the levies that have sparked a global trade war and threatened to upend the world economy.

The decision on Wednesday from the Court of International Trade blocked one of the Trump administration’s most audacious assertions of executive power, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, and sets the stage for a possible appeal by the White House.

“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” a three-judge panel wrote. (link)

“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court wrote.  The court also ordered that the tariffs that the Trump administration has collected so far be “vacated.”

UPDATE #1: I’m tearing through this ruling right now and I can find several structural flaws in the 3-judge panel decision.

[From Page 6, pdf] “…[…] in 1962, Congress delegated to the President the power to take action to adjust imports when the Secretary of Commerce finds that an “article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security.” Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Pub. L. No. 87-794, § 232(b), 76 Stat. 872, 877 (codified as amended at 19 U.S.C. § 1862(c)(1)(A)). This delegation is conditioned upon an investigation and findings by the Secretary of Commerce, and agreement by the President. See id. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, requires that the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) take action, which may include imposing tariffs, where “the rights of the United States under any trade agreement are being denied” or “an act, policy, or practice of a foreign country” is “unjustifiable and burdens or restricts United States commerce.” 19 U.S.C. § 2411(a)(1)(A)–(B). The USTR may impose duties also where the USTR determines that “an act, policy, or practice of a foreign country is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts United States commerce.” Id. § 2411(b)(1). This power is conditioned on extensive procedural requirements including an investigation that culminates in an affirmative finding that another country imposed unfair trade barriers under § 2411(a)(1)(A) or (B) or § 2411(b), and a public notice and comment period. See id. § 2414(b).”… [source]

I’ve just gotten started, but that citation is just one reason why the ruling can be overturned on appeal.

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Eight years ago, I created a simple graphic to help readers and researchers understand how Nellie Ohr was connected to the construct of the Steele Dossier, the core source material that underpinned the Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant used against the Donald Trump 2016 campaign and President Trump administration.

In addition to outlining how Nellie Ohr took Ham radio operator classes (May 2016) during her employment with Fusion GPS (began Dec 2015), the graphic shows the circular process of how the Steele Dossier (technically Nellie Ohr’s dossier) was constructed.  Additionally, the graphic is also a timeline showing how Nellie Ohr interacted with the overall ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation, which eventually evolved to the Mueller investigation.

A CTH review of the Nellie Ohr research activity proved Nellie Ohr’s work aligned with the content of the Dossier, and the Nellie research was used as verification of the dossier. [See the release of verification documents (SEE HERE)] In essence the source information for the Dossier was used to validate the dossier conclusions because it’s the same damn material. That’s why Nellie Ohr took the Fusion-GPS header off the top of the material she provided to congress. NOTE: This graphic is almost eight years old.

Nellie Ohr was far more important than Chris Steele.

It was Nellie Ohr’s work product that Steele used in his dossier assembly.

In addition to publicly publishing all of the research material on Nellie Ohr, including how she falsified her testimony to congress, I have personally hand-delivered all of the Nellie Ohr research files to Washington DC, repeatedly, including the FCC License which contradicted her testimony.

Today, Senator Chuck Grassley declassified and released the FBI research files into Nellie Ohr [SEE FILE HERE], proving everything CTH previously asserted in our research.    Chuck Grassley’s press release IS HERE.

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King Charles is arriving in Canada today in advance of an opening speech he will deliver to the Canadian Parliament.   Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited King Charles to attend, and while the media portray the visit as mostly symbolic there is no doubt the substantive issue for Canada is the economic dependency on the USA and how the U.K can bolster the position of Canada against that threat.

Everything is always about the money of the thing, this dynamic between the U.K and Canada is no different.  What we would call the ‘western’ global financial system is contingent upon all U.S. allies retaining the United States as their consumer base and stable currency center.  President Trump has exposed the vulnerability of Canada as he confronts the parasitic relationship {GO DEEP}.

In advance of the U.K positioning itself as the skirt behind which Canada can hide from the horrible Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer extended an invitation for President Trump to attend a state visit in his honor later this year.  The effusive praise from Starmer during the White House meeting was keenly strategic, so too was their urgency in creating the first new-era free trade agreement with the USA.

Perhaps President Trump’s embrace of Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia should be viewed through this financial prism where the EU, U.K and Canada will ultimately go to war (together) against the efforts of President Trump.  Within the partnership of the UK, EU and Canada, the Snow Mexicans are the weakest link, the most vulnerable to collapse from Trump’s economic policy.

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Russia has continued the operation to secure a “buffer zone” between the held regions in the Eastern part of Ukraine and the area west of the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions.  The NATO alliance continues pouring weapons in to support Ukraine defenses, but the Russians are methodically grinding down the Ukrainian military.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now saying President Trump’s silence is emboldening the Russian assaults. “Each such terrorist attack by Russia is a sufficient reason for new sanctions against Russia. Russia is dragging out this war and continues to kill every day,” Zelensky said in a post on Telegram Sunday morning.  “The world may go on vacation, but the war continues, despite weekends and weekdays. This cannot be ignored. America’s silence, and the silence of others in the world, only encourages Putin,” he continued.

This is an interesting dynamic to continue watching unfold.  In the background as Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio and perhaps even John Ratcliffe begin confronting rogue elements within the CIA and pulling them away from covert operation in Ukraine, per the strategic withdrawal of influence announced by President Trump, the position of Zelenskyy could weaken quickly.

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As we often remind ourselves, maintaining a leftist ideology is contingent upon pretending not to know things, and that applies even when you are discussing the opposition not doing something that you yourself never did.

During a recent podcast interview, President Obama’s former National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, takes the pretending to stratospheric levels needed in order to retain Obama-level pretending.  The criticism she rails against is so hilariously hypocritical I find myself wondering if anyone ever were to call her out, could she even respond.

Susan Rice complains about President Trump having a relationship with the duplicitous “Qataris,” who she proclaims are terribly nefarious and dastardly, and no President should have a relationship with Qatar.  Laughably, it was Susan Rice herself who constructed the “CIA Finding Memo” for President Obama to sign, which authorized sending Surface to Air missiles to Qatar, which would then be transferred by CIA Director Leon Panetta to Libya.  It was Susan Rice herself organizing covert operations inside our government using the horribly nefarious Qataris she now says are terrible.

That’s only one background reality amid more than a dozen points of gaslighting hypocrisy I could point out from this interview.  However, for the sake of recent headlines, the part where Susan Rice complains about President Trump not trusting or using the CIA’s Presidential Daily Brief is almost too funny {prompted below}.  President Obama famously didn’t put any value on the PDB and didn’t even want it, sending it to almost two-dozen staff so he didn’t have to bother with it.   Methinks Mrs Rice doth protest too much. WATCH:

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We shall skip the entire Benghazi was the result of a YouTube fiasco, that Susan Rice was so well known for, and put it beside the infamous January 5, 2017, Susan Rice memo published on 1/20/17 pretending that President Obama didn’t know or authorize the FBI Russiagate operation.  lolol

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The National Security Council is a ¹cushy job inside the White House filled with bureaucratic analysts and people who are in place in an attempt to steer policy.  Many of those detailed to the NSC represent the interests of the Silo agency from which they originate.

The National Security Council contains approximately 350 full-time employees.  The National Security Advisor, now Marco Rubio, is in charge of the NSC.  Secretary Marco Rubio just fired more than 100 of them.  A few quotes from Axios are beautiful, and telling:

[…] “The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,” the official said of the move, which will cut the NSC staff to about half of its current 350 members. “The right-sizing of the NSC is in line with its original purpose and the president’s vision,” Rubio told Axios in a statement. “The NSC will now be better positioned to collaborate with agencies.” [link]

WASHINGTON DC – The Trump administration has put more than 100 officials at the National Security Council at the White House on administrative leave on Friday as part of a restructuring under interim national security adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to two US officials and another source familiar with the matter.

[…] An email from NSC chief of staff Brian McCormack went out around 4:20 p.m. informing those being dismissed they’d have 30 minutes to clean out their desks, according to an administration official. If they weren’t on campus, the email read, they could email an address and arrange a time to retrieve their stuff later and turn in devices.

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As President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson departed a Republican conference meeting covering the pending legislative vote on the Budget and Tax bill proposal, they paused to talk to media (two videos below).

President Trump is focused on growing the economy, the Republican budget hawks want spending reduced.  President Trump doesn’t want to increase the deduction for State and Local Taxes (SALT), the blue state Republicans demand the red states pay for their state tax policy.  WATCH:

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WASHINGTON DC – […] Trump’s Capitol Hill visit comes less than 24 hours before Johnson wants the House Rules Committee to meet and finalize the bill for a floor vote. Johnson told reporters after the meeting that a Wednesday vote “would be optimal” but acknowledged he had to “tie up a few loose ends” with the various factions.

What’s clear is that Trump himself is not interested in stretching out the talks much longer. He said in response to a question from POLITICO that the hard-liners needed to pare back their demands for deeper spending cuts: “I’m a bigger fiscal hawk,” he said. “There’s nobody like me.”

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… And Director Gabbard may not know they exist.

If you have followed the construct of the Trump-Russia collusion story, you are likely outraged that accountability has not followed.  There’s a very frustrating reason for that and I will explain how two distinctly different issues are being conflated.  Separating them is the key.

The first issue is the FBI’s illegal surveillance of presidential candidates’, including candidate Donald Trump.  The second issue is the Clinton campaign inspired Russia-Collusion story, that led to Crossfire Hurricane, colloquially known as “Russiagate.”  All investigative emphasis, including John Durham, has been on the latter which takes you into a DC silo construct where all tentacles lead to dead ends and inaction.

Russiagate was a Clinton-inspired political smear campaign that was given the patina of credibility by the FBI opening the investigation called “Crossfire Hurricane.”  If you focus on that storyline, you end up with zero accountability and endless talk that goes nowhere.

However, if President Trump and DNI Tulsi Gabbard reveal the first element, the FBI’s illegal surveillance of candidate Donald Trump, that path has a physical trail and documents that cannot be deflected by political obfuscation.

♦THE FBI SURVEILLANCE – The original agreement between Clinton and Obama going back to 2008 was for Obama to take the nomination, the presidency and then eventually support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election bid.

Obama would be President. Obama would appoint Clinton to Secretary of State, Hillary would then use her office to build wealth for herself and her family, and then HRC would exit the Dept of State to begin her presidential run.

John Podesta would enter the Obama administration as Hillary left (post Benghazi mess) in 2013.  Podesta would look out for Hillary’s interests from his position inside the Obama White House.  The Clintons and Obamas never fully trusted each other.

Barack Obama would put all the mechanisms into place that would transition his administration into Hillary Clintons’.  That was always the plan running in the background.

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