According to John Solomon speaking with Devin Nunes recently, there is likely nothing much left from the files of Kash Patel at the FBI to disclose to the public, perhaps moving to the Mueller information will be the next steps.

For most of us, bringing this storyline to the point of accountability is fraught with frustration.  Here are some of the issues as they present.

♦ The Big Problem Within Russiagate – Special Counsel John Durham previously indicted Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.  Durham said Sussmann misled FBI investigators.  The case against Sussmann resulted in an acquittal.

During the trial of the Perkins Coie lawyer, depositions and testimony were given by the Clinton campaign.  Campaign Manager Robby Mook admitted the Trump-Russia storyline was a false political hit constructed by the Clinton campaign and launched with the full knowledge of Hillary Clinton.

Durham’s case against Sussmann was predicated on a baseline that the Clinton campaign duped the FBI into opening an investigation. This was the core of the Sussmann trial; that Michael Sussmann lied to and misled the FBI.

Anyone who researched the issues already knew the FBI was not “duped” or “misled” by the information; instead, the FBI were active participants. However, to make a case against Perkins Coie, Sussmann and Clinton, the Durham prosecution needed to pretend they didn’t know.  The jury saw through the pretense and Sussmann was acquitted.

At the time of the trial a few of us noted the motive presented by Durham (ie. FBI duped) had ramifications. This predicate claim essentially quashed any later criminal conspiracy as the court records highlighting how the FBI were duped would preclude any reversal of motive toward any other participant.  If the FBI were duped, how could the FBI participants be criminally negligent?

The Clinton team were direct. Yes, they manufactured a political smear about Trump/Russia, and yes it was all political.  The people who manufactured the false claim admitted Trump-Russia was optics and false narratives. So, what?  That’s politics.

(more…)

Peter Navarro, President Trump’s top trade and manufacturing policy advisor, speaks to pool reporters outside the White House.

Within his remarks about the economy overall, Navarro then breaks down the issues soon to come before the Supreme Court surrounding the use of the IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) to enact defensive trade tariffs.

Navarro also addresses the false premise that tariffs create imported inflation.  As reflected in the 2018 tariff outcome, the exporting country absorbs the majority of the tariff impact.  Additionally, the tariff rate is applied to the wholesale price as contracted by the importing company in the USA.   WATCH:

.

(more…)

Former Missouri AG and current Senator from Missouri Eric Schmitt, appears on the Glenn Beck podcast to discuss his perspectives on Russiagate, government weaponization and the background of COVID-19 as he discovered it through lawsuits against the Biden administration.

Senator Schmitt offers a balanced and stable viewpoint as he gives background to his own investigation into how the Biden administration weaponized all the agencies of government to control information and silence dissent. It is an interesting discussion.

At the 23:00 point, Schmitt begins to talk specifically about the information surfacing as a result of DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s efforts. Schmitt is hopeful for a conspiracy charge against the perpetrators of those who abused their office, falsified information, maintained the targeting of Donald Trump and used the power of government to target their political enemies.

.

(more…)

I had not been paying close attention to the overarching issues of President Trump removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook for cause – fraudulent filings on her three mortgage applications. However, the appearance of Norm Eisen as her lawyer certainly highlights the political nature of the defense effort.

Norm Eisen is a well-known Lawfare operative, second only to Mary McCord in his high visibility and connections to all of the anti-Trump efforts. Eisen, like McCord, is at the center of the leftist effort to stop the Trump agenda through the manipulation of the courts, ie. ‘Lawfare.’

Norm Eisen left, Abbe Lowell right. Both lawyers for Lisa Cook

WASHINGTON – A federal judge likely will not rule until next week on whether Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve board, can remain in her job despite President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her.

At the first hearing on Cook’s lawsuit against Trump, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb grappled with the legal issues raised by Trump’s unprecedented move against Cook but offered few hints about how she might rule. The judge, an appointee of Joe Biden, acknowledged the limits of the courts’ power to question the president’s motives, while expressing concerns about the lack of due process afforded to Cook. (more)

(more…)

Barack Obama didn’t like Hillary Clinton.  Barack Obama didn’t even care about Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign.  Barack Obama would have liked nothing more than to watch Hillary Clinton go down in a ball of flames, until something happened in 2016 that changed the dynamic.

Suddenly, Barack Obama needed Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 election…

That my friends, is the reason why so many people get lost in the story of the 2016 election and the eventual Trump-Russia conspiracy.  However, once you understand what changed in those April and May 2016 moments, everything reconciles.

The U.S. government, under the President Obama administration, was spying on American citizens.

It started with Barack Obama and AG Eric Holder’s use of the IRS database in the 2010 midterm, against the primary threat of the Tea Party movement.  However, an IRS whistleblower from the Cincinnati field office took the continued use of the IRS off the table.

From the period of mid-2012 to April-2016, the administration factually and demonstrably shifted to using the power of electronic surveillance to conduct political spying operations using the NSA database and the metadata captures within it.

However, once that NSA surveillance and spying was identified in April 2016, President Obama had a problem.  That’s where the Obama alignment with the Clinton ‘dirty trick’ comes into play.  After May 2016, Obama needed Hillary Clinton to win the election.  The rest is “Russiagate” history.

Those who remember the 2015/2016 presidential race will remember President Obama never campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary.  After all, Bernie Sanders was potentially going to upend Clinton until the DNC stepped heavily on the scales to assist her, and team Sanders was furious. Then suddenly, following the California primary, Barack went all in.

There is a distinct timeline shift during this period that most seem to overlook, because “Russiagate” was/is easily the shiniest thing for people to follow.  However, it was the precursor scandal, ‘spygate’, that is more critical yet gets almost no attention.

Here it becomes critical for people to understand exactly what was taking place.  Absolutely nothing had anything to do with: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, aka FISA – surveillance impacting Americans (FISA-702), the FISA Court, masking, minimizing or unmasking.  None of those terms apply. What the Obama administration was doing was simply spying.

(more…)

There are trillions at stake. The current 7-4 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit surrounds a May decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade. The original case concluded that President Trump exceeded his authority under the 1977 law he invoked to impose both the fentanyl trafficking tariffs and his worldwide tariffs, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). [SEE RULING HERE]

“We are not addressing whether the President’s actions should have been taken as a matter of policy. Nor are we deciding whether IEEPA authorizes any tariffs at all. Rather, the only issue we resolve on appeal is whether the Trafficking Tariffs and Reciprocal Tariffs imposed by the Challenged Executive Orders are authorized by IEEPA. We conclude they are not.”

It is obvious the Democrat appointed majority are tenuous in their position.  No one doubts the presidential power to declare a national emergency.  To wit, the ruling highlights a very nervous court with much of the language straddling the fence trying not give the impression they are interfering in Article II presidential powers to make foreign policy decisions.

Unelected judges restricting the power of the Executive Branch, and by extension restricting a President elected by the majority of the nations’ citizens to address a national emergency, is not a construct supported by the Supreme Court.  The six activist judges on the federal appeals court panel seemingly know this; however, the power of the political -and I would guess financial- pressure compels them.

The court deferred their ruling which will not take effect until Oct. 14, giving the Trump administration time to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.  President Trump responded via Truth Social.

(more…)

There are going to be two major stories in 2026 that we will have full context to understand.  Yes, the 2026 midterm politics are going to lead the headlines, but two other issues will have considerable impact.

The first, is the FISA (702) reauthorization, and there is a lot that will surface in the next several months likely to upend the best laid plans of the administrative UniParty [Tulsi Factor].  The second, is the USMCA reauthorization – the end of the trilateral trade agreement, and the structural shift into two separate free trade agreements.

As to the latter issue, while Mexico and Canada are currently in a state of economic flux, only Mexico is preparing to deal with the seismic shift that is about to unfold.  Canada is going to be caught completely off guard.

While Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is trotting around Europe trying to establish his relevance amid the pro-Ukraine coalition,  Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is spending time focused on her domestic economy.

Mexico is preparing to drop significant tariffs on Chinese imports, a proactive move to position Mexico in advance of the upcoming bilateral discussion.

Sheinbaum knows that right now for every deportation ICE executes, her economy is hit as remittances recede. Simultaneously, for every mile of border wall that is completed, the financial dependency model increases.  President Trump’s leverage in the upcoming bilateral trade negotiation against Mexico increases each day, week and month.

Claudia Sheinbaum is smartly focused on trying to get ahead of the issues, while Mark Carney ignores his vulnerability and is about to make Canada naked to the economic weaknesses created by Justin Trudeau.

(more…)

Like pathetic children who demand that Daddy Trump step into the chaos and punch Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin in the face, the EU leaders admit to media they coordinated and collaborated on using social media to decry the latest missile attacks from Russia.

According to their staff, who reported to Politico, the intent of the EU social media firestorm was to influence President Donald Trump.  Think about how pathetic that is in substance.

The Presidents, Prime Ministers and Commissars of the EU collective couldn’t pick up the phone to call President Trump and discuss their position.  No, instead their best approach, as organized by the group, was to take to social media and protest.

These are not serious people.

“A second European official confirmed that the morning messages were an effort to influence Trump’s thinking, although the person was not optimistic that the attacks would lead Trump to ratchet up the economic pressure on Putin.”  {link} The discussion of conflict that began as ‘World War Reddit’, has now devolved even further and becomes a messaging war on teh Twitter.  Yeah, these are not serious people.

I am reminded of how the White House initially responded to the beginning of the conflict in February 2022:

I said at the time, “Singh’s remarks outlining the view of the ‘West’ toward defeating Russia are eloquent yet batshit crazy in their ideological context. Daleep Singh sounds like the senior head of a Google Human Resources operation telling the department heads how they need to convey their feelings in order to hire the talent for continued growth in the industry.”

Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh boils down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability. Pro Tip: Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t care if EU leaders like him.

The leadership of the Western NATO alliance and the European Union are reduced to shouting on Twitter, ‘Help us Trump, help us’.  Meanwhile, these same leaders wonder why Vladimir Putin doesn’t take them seriously. You just cannot make this stuff up.

(more…)

From an initial report of 3.0% to a revised report of 3.3% second quarter growth. [BEA report HERE]  Not a surprise, when we factor in the prediction we presented after the first quarter GDP.

However, it is nice to see the BEA finally admit, “The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected a decrease in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP.”  I digress.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy rebounded this spring from a first-quarter downturn due to fallout from President Donald Trump’s trade wars.

In an upgrade from its first estimate in July, the Commerce Department said Thursday that U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — expanded at a 3.3% annual pace from April through June after shrinking 0.5% in the first three months of 2025. The department had initially estimated second-quarter growth at 3%.

(more…)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on Fox Business to discuss some very important current issues in the world of finance, banking and trade.

Bessent begins by answering questions about the U.S. government taking equity interests in companies that come to the U.S. for support.  Bessent then notes the potential for the Trump administration to construct a taxpayer stake in Fannie and Freddie, before the Treasury Secretary moves on to talk about the trade issues with India.  WATCH:

.

(more…)