After losing a key vote to advance her Brexit plan, the U.K. Parliament held a confidence vote. Despite the lost vote 24 hours earlier, British MPs voted 325 to 306 affirming their confidence in May’s government.
Prime Minister May delivered remarks on the past two days from 10 Downing Street.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer met privately with AG nominee William Barr earlier today. At the conclusion of the meeting Senator Schumer addresses the media.
Schumer appears conflicted and confused as to how to describe his own highly political desires with the answers he received from Mr. Barr. It does not appear Schumer was pleased with his overall inability to leverage control over the nominee; and that comes out in the early part of his statement. That’s a good sign. Watch:
Another day, another leaked congressional transcript. This time George Papadopoulos.
Once again the actual transcript is not released, only the Epoch Times authors’ interpretations of the content of the leaked transcript. *Note* the author does not reveal the name of the “alleged spy”.
Previous leaked transcripts from:
Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts. HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018). Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by DOJ/FBI officials within the current administration. So each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
Showcasing the severe political resistance objectives of Democrats, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has sent a politically crafted letter to the White House requesting that President Trump cancel his State of the Union address.
The pretense of the letter surrounds the ongoing partial government shutdown and a concern for security. However, DHS and the Secret Service have stated nothing in the letter is factually correct; and they were not contacted by Pelosi with questions.
In short, it’s a political stunt by Speaker Pelosi and Democrat leadership.
Chairman Graham is very happy with the nomination of William Barr as U.S. Attorney General. It would appear purposeful Barr will re-balance the DC interests, and return the DOJ to a more ordinary level of corruption. In this way Barr pushes back the fulcrum tilting the DOJ away from the more violent weaponized lean in the past eight years.
President Trump’s AG nominee William Barr testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his legal views and perspectives. Overall post-testimonial punditry converges on the outlook Mr. Barr will be easily confirmed with broad bipartisan support.
Rather than agree or disagree with various opinions CTH is providing a full video of the Barr hearing below with a recap video as presented by Global News:
Well, here we are again; another leaked transcript, this time from DOJ Official Bruce Ohr. And as with the prior two transcript leaks, we don’t get the raw information. So let me first, necessarily, reassert our CTH position on these “leaks”.
Leaking is bad, period; in all directions. Because *leaking* is simply a method, a mechanism, to direct and control the focus of sunlight upon illicit action. Regardless of whether you support or oppose the message within any individual leak; the leak itself does not expose corruption…. only full and unfiltered information can expose corruption. That means we need the actual raw transcripts to make determinations for ourselves.
As a factual standard for honesty and sunlight, CTH would never describe a transcript where we could not provide the reader with the raw and underlying material. We have held this standard for many years; most of you know that. The truth has no agenda.
That said, someone is leaking congressional transcripts and a current tug-of-war exists between two opposing narrative engineers. The heavily promoted New York Times article last Friday, was based on leaks of James Baker Transcripts, from sources who were responding to the leaks from other sources that were given to the Epoch Times. Each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts. HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018). Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by corrupt cabinet members within the current administration.
(more…)
If you wait long enough, the Lawfare actors brazenly expose their intents. Cue the example today as former SDNY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara showcases the ideology behind the DOJ and FBI weaponizing their offices based on political policy differences.
It has been outlined that President Trump would prefer to withdraw the U.S. from NATO. Trump’s view stems from NATO allies (Germany) engaging with NATO adversaries (Russia) with strategic energy policy (gas pipeline) to benefit Russia; while simultaneously demanding the U.S. taxpayer fund the defense of Germany (and EU) from Russia.
In response to reports that President Trump may withdraw from NATO, a strategic U.S. policy shift, Preet Bharara demands “impeachment and conviction”:
This clear example evidences the mentality within the DOJ and FBI that is becoming more openly obvious. The institutions of the DOJ were/are weaponized, against candidate and president Trump, based on political differences and viewpoints.
Wow, this has some potential massive ramifications. The trial of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been ongoing in federal court since November. During the trial today a witness and confidante of El Chapo outlined how he participated in a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Pena Nieto.
No wonder the terms of the U.S-Mexico trade agreement (USMCA) were so favorable.
(Reuters) – A witness at the U.S. trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman testified on Tuesday that he previously told U.S. authorities the accused Mexican drug lord once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of Guzman for years, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, “That’s right.”
There’s a vastly different opinion amid some who review the action of Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller. CTH has noted a common corrupt theme amid the DOJ and FBI that crosses both the Obama and Trump administrations: A priority to preserve the institution; regardless of how corrupt the institution is; and regardless of how much collateral damage those system administrators will create in their effort toward that preservation goal.
Within the larger discussion, sometimes comments hit the proverbial nail. I think this one does exactly that:
RTLW – “Not ALL FBI Agents are moral pariahs. 60% are good American patriots who joined the Agency in good faith expecting to serve their Country and put bad people behind bars.
The other 40% are Peter Strozk and Lisa Page. ALL of FBI HQ is populated by the Strozk/Page types. Recruitment of this type of Agent started under Mueller and continued under Comey. Mueller drove out all of the old school “Brick Agents” shortly after he became Director.
Mueller implemented an “up or out” policy where all SSAs were required to move to DC and do Headquarters time or lose their GS 14 pay grade. This policy change by Mueller purposely targeted the most senior Agents in the FBI who had finally earned the right to move their family to a medium sized office in fly over country, had teenage kids and were living a comfortable life.
