As one of his last actions before leaving his post, former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard “Ric” Grenell has declassified the transcripts of the wiretapped phone conversations between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Additionally, it appears that Grenell has declassified some of the origination documents from the CIA and U.S. intel community that were manipulated in the assembly of the Intelligence Community Assessment (an aspect of particular importance to USAO John John Durham).  As we suspected Ric Grenell is leaving the decision, and timing for their release to incoming DNI John Ratcliffe.

WASHINGTON DC – Richard Grenell has declassified a new batch of Russia probe documents on his way out as acting director of national intelligence, leaving the decision on whether to make those files public up to newly sworn-in Director John Ratcliffe.

The documents include transcripts of phone calls that then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had in December 2016, during the presidential transition period.

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Oh my, acting DNI Ric Grenell was/is buckets of brutally honest awesome.

In a departing letter to SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner, Grenell responds to a Warner inquiry demanding justification for his blitz of sunlight and naming of unmaskers.

Specifically pointing to the release of names that unmasked Trump administration officials Grenell notes “the decision to declassify the names of individuals who sough to unmask the identity of General Flynn poses absolutely no risk of compromise of either sources or methods.”  Grenell also tells Warner, “cherry picking certain documents for release while attacking the release of others that don’t fit your political narrative is part of the problem the American people have with Washington DC politicians.”

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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow weighs in on reopening of U.S. economy in a post-pandemic country. White the second quarter economic data has more bad news yet to be assembled and reported, the U.S. economy, workers and consumers are poised to make a Great American Recovery.

The U.S. stock market is looking forward and climbing in response to the economic reopening; while -as expected- many blue state governors are intentionally attempting to hold back their economies and planning for a federal bailout to cover their revenue shortfalls. Remove the possibility for a bailout and those governors will be forced to join the reopening.

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Tomorrow morning ends the tenure of Richard “Ric” Grenell as the acting Director of National Intelligence.  At 12:15pm DNI John Ratcliffe will be sworn-in [LINK] and the declassification/sunlight baton will be passed to senate confirmed DNI John Ratcliffe.

On the topic of the FBI capture and use of the December 29, 2016, Flynn-Kislyak phone call…  First we had a hunch; then it became a suspicion… that evolved into a likelihood… that has now become a strong probability.

The capture of the December 29th phone call, which generated the raw “CR cuts“, was an FBI summary, modified for a specific interpretation.  Much like the missing 302 there is now a very strong probability the FBI ‘CR cuts’ do not represent the actual call content.

Within a twitter response by Grenell, part of the riddle behind the transcripts gets a little more clarity: “The IC doesn’t have all the transcripts/summaries…. it wasn’t our product.”

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For well over a year we’ve been saying AG Bill Barr’s biggest challenge is not investigating the soft-coup but rather managing through what We The People are already aware of.

With that in mind; and with congress moving to put former DAG Rod Rosenstein and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller under a microscope; it is interesting to note AG Bill Barr recently conceding his two friends were corrupt.  WATCH:

[Transcript] …”Now what happened to the president – and I’ve said this many times – what happened to the president in the 2016 election; and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history.”

“The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian-collusion narrative against the president.”

The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the Dept of Justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result.”  ~ (AG Barr, May 18, 2020)

How can AG Barr say the DOJ/FBI conduct during the first two years of the administration “was abhorrent” without specifically implying his two friends, Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein were complicit in the “grave injustice” he outlines?

It is interesting that no media (of any disposition) has ever questioned AG Barr about Rosenstein and Mueller considering his words that outline their behavior as abhorrent.

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When contemplating the malign activity of Rod Rosenstein; and how angered President Trump is with former AG Jeff Sessions; it is worth remembering that Sessions requested Rod Rosenstein as his deputy, and then immediately thereafter Sessions recused himself, effectively positioning Rosenstein to run the operation against President Trump.

That’s the background context for a great interview by Gregg Jarrett where Jarrett walks through the timeline of events with former HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes. At the 5:30 point of the interview, Nunes identifies Rosenstein as part of the coup attempt and blasts him for how Rosenstein structured the fraudulent scope memos.

Nunes says his investigation is now looking at the part of the effort where Robert Mueller’s investigation was used as part of the initiating effort to remove President Trump. With the focus on the Mueller team, Nunes is now making additional criminal referrals based on his findings. WATCH:

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The Obama-era surveillance network is at the center of all of this.

It’s worth remembering Sharyl Attkisson has identified Rosenstein as a defendant in her lawsuit about illegal surveillance operations carried out while she was a CBS reporter.

According to the lawsuit (full pdf) Rod Rosenstein, as the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, was in charge of the Obama 2011 and 2012 operation to monitor journalists specific to Ms. Attkisson’s reporting on Fast-n-Furious and Benghazi.

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China is signaling they will drop the panda illusion and take a full frontal dragon approach toward Hong Kong. Chairman Xi Jinping is deploying, some say he has already deployed, the Ministry of State Security – China’s leading intelligence agency – into Hong Kong to begin formal control through national security laws.

The move appears to be a direct signal that communist Beijing will not longer accept or allow Hong Kong’s current autonomous status as a free democracy. Beijing signaling “enough is enough”, and Hong Kongers are rightly concerned.  If Xi follows through, we can expect to see even more protests and confrontations; and the possibility President Trump will remove the “special trade status” the U.S. gives to Hong Kong.

Right now Hong Kong is exempt from U.S. tariffs and other economic measures the U.S. has deployed against China.  If Beijing takes full control, that could quickly change.

(Reuters) – Beijing appears determined to stamp out any renewed rebellion against the Communist Party’s authority over the former British colony. China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, is preparing to circumvent the city’s lawmaking body, the Legislative Council, in drafting the new laws.

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Yesterday we noted a rather important, yet less discussed, motive for the strength of the DC Circuit Court position against Judge Emmet Sullivan.  I’ll expand after the video.

In this interview Gregg Jarrett talks with Flynn’s defense lawyer Sidney Powell about the rather unusual behavior of Judge Emmet Sullivan.  WATCH:

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A DC judge hiring a well connected DC lawyer to write his response to a DC circuit court appeals panel is the part that’s interesting.  There’s no guarantee the appeals court will accept such a response; but that’s also another issue.   Bottom line: Judge Sullivan is importing a lawyer to represent his interests.  Very unusual.

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It’s a question that has been asked several times: why is FBI Director Christopher Wray now starting an internal review of those within the FBI who were engaged with the events around Lt. General Michael Flynn.  Why did he wait so long?

In this interview Representative Andy Biggs discusses that question.  WATCH:

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The most likely answer is simply sunlight.  The corrupt FBI activity was clearly evident within the organization in 2018 and 2019.  However, the recent change is the public awareness of it with documented evidence.

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The defensive posture by those attempting to deflect attention from the political unmasking requests made by the Obama-era administration and embed career officials is to highlight the volume of unmasking requests made in 2017 and 2018.

This is presented in a good question received via Twitter:

“Sundance what is your take on this fact that’s getting thrown around about 16,000 unmaskings in 2018? Wallace makes sure to point that out, and that it is not a crime itself, but leaking it is a crime. Although if the unmasking isn’t for the purpose stated it should be a crime.”

The answer is really quite simple. Think about what the Special Counsel’s office [Mueller Team] previously explained about the SCO investigation… These requests flowed through a very facilitating DNI Dan Coats and explains the vast majority of “unmasking” requests:

Again, in order for the media to retain their resistance bona fides, and keep the flow of their cocktail party invites, they have to pretend not to know things.

Carry on.

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