Attorney General Jeff Sessions Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosentein, appears on Fox News Sunday to discuss leak investigations and the ongoing Mueller probe into the 2016 election.
If special counsel Robert Mueller finds any crime outside the scope of the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, then he’ll have to seek permission, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said.

If there’s evidence of a crime that’s found within the scope of what they have agreed, then Mueller has free rein, Rosenstein explained. If it’s outside the scope of the probe, then “he needs to come to the acting attorney general, at this time me, for permission to expand his investigation,” he added. Rosenstein noted this as a precedent, which was also followed by independent counsel Ken Starr during the Clinton years.
Reports have come out over the past couple months about how the probe is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice, and that Mueller has impaneled grand juries, capable of issuing subpoenas.
These reports and more have relied on anonymous sources, against whom Rosenstein cautioned could be unreliable. He dubbed these reports, “speculation in the news media.”
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Here’s one angle to the Robert Mueller investigation that was entirely predictable.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now seeking documents from the White House on Michael Flynn and his personal arrangement to lobby for Turkey during the 2016 election.  Specifically they are looking into the financial aspects and whether Flynn masked the lobbying payments made to him.
Before getting to the crux of the issue, CTH must remind everyone that back in November of 2016 when we first discovered (During the Transition) the possibility that Flynn was under consideration for ODNI or National Security Adviser role – WE WARNED this was going to be an issue – SEE HERE November 17th, 2016.
We knew even before the election this could be a problem.  As far as we could surmise at the time – the Trump Campaign and subsequent President-Elect transition team, had no idea that campaign advocate and campaign adviser Michael Flynn was also being paid to lobby in DC on behalf of the government of Turkey, and Recep Erdogan.
The entire Flynn lobbying arrangement was beyond sketchy.  Before the election Flynn penned an op-ed advocating heavily for Recep Erdogan –SEE HERE–  The content was entirely disconnected from the assembled foreign policy outlook of Candidate Donald Trump. The Flynn Op-Ed was actually counter to candidate Trump’s policy views.
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The American Center for Law and Justice filed a FOIA request for information surrounding the infamous 2016 Arizona “Tarmac Meeting” between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the ongoing Hillary Clinton investigation.
The ACLJ has a summary of their initial review –SEE HERE– However, various internet researchers who have reviewed the initial 413 pages (pdf embed below) have discovered something very interesting.
It appears Attorney General Loretta Lynch used an email alias in her communication to disguise her identity.
Lynch’s alias appears to be “Elizabeth Carlisle“.  (screen grab from page #163):

(PDF Link – page #163) – click to enlarge

“Elizabeth” is actually the middle name of Loretta Lynch.  Why AG Lynch would be using an alias is unknown.  However AG Eric Holder also used three aliases when he was Attorney General –SEE HERE-.  The discovery of an alias does open the possibility for FOIA requests into the DOJ for all email correspondence with “Elizabeth Carlisle” and might discover additional communication otherwise unidentified.
There is nobody by the name “Elizabeth Carlisle” in the current contact address book for DOJ employees.  It also appears a Twitter account opened in January of 2017 for Elizabeth Carlisle under the username @ElizCarlisle.  The account has not tweeted, but did ‘like” a February 17th article in Politico by John Podesta: “Trump Trying to Undermine Reality“.
The Elizabeth Carlisle Twitter account follows 29 other accounts including Donald Trump and the local WECT weather in North Carolina, Loretta Lynch’s hometown.
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Chuck Schumer reveals the economic campaign priorities for 2018.  Look familiar?

(LINK)

Essentially the “Better Deal” plan is to copy, identically copy, President Trump’s MAGAnomic economic and trade policy.   Heck, the only thing missing is +”Build a Wall”.
It’s enough to make you wonder if Schumer copied his homework.
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According to numerous media reports Robert Mueller has empaneled a grand jury so that subpoenas can be dispatched to begin taking testimony in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference within the 2016 election.  Apparently Donald Trump Jr. in the first batch of recipients.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Grand jury subpoenas have been issued in connection with a June 2016 meeting that included President Donald Trump’s son, his son-in-law and a Russian lawyer, two sources told Reuters on Thursday, in a sign that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is gathering pace.
The sources added that Mueller had convened a grand jury in Washington to help investigate allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. (link)

Attorney Jay Sekulow weighed in earlier (video below)
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There is a considerable amount of visible internet and social media angst surrounding the National Security Council and staffing decisions made by National Security Advisor HR McMaster.   CTH has no insight into the inner workings of disagreements within the current NSC, however, with a modest amount of both skepticism and cynicism the current level of alarm appears over indulged.

Within any work group there’s going to be differences of opinion.  Within any national security working group there’s going to be ideological differences of opinion.  The issues are important and very complex.  The differences should never be dismissed or marginalized in their potential consequence.  That said, it’s not the differences of opinion that present problems – it’s when those differences become entrenched in opposition to the reason for the groups primary function.  That’s when differences become problems.
Consider the foreign policy proposals, and worldviews therein, of candidate Donald Trump and candidate Ted Cruz.  Now think about taking the foreign policy/NatSec principals from both candidate camps, and the outlooks carried therein, and put them into the same council chamber to hammer out papers of recommended action toward policy.
Can you see the structure for an underlying problem?  Now overlay the ideological interests of the institutional military with a healthy dose of both deep state and religious (centered principle outlook) career ideology, and you’ve got a recipe for disagreement.  Well, that’s essentially what I see when reviewing various media reports of internal group conflict points. (more…)

Former White House Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus was interviewed by Sean Hannity earlier tonight to discuss his feelings about being voluntarily resigned.

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According to a report from The Hill, structured around the leaking of a letter sent by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes to the FBI, “The letter was provided to The Hill from a source in the intelligence community“, outlines a massive amount of unmasking done by Obama officials in 2016.

(Via The Hill) […] “We have found evidence that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information,” Nunes wrote in the letter to Coats.
[…]  In Thursday’s letter, Nunes said the total requests for Americans’ names by Obama political aides numbered in the hundreds during Obama’s last year in office and often lacked a specific intelligence community justification. He called the lack of proper justifications a “serious deficiency.”

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Senior Adviser to President Trump, Jared Kushner, gives a statement to the media following a meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee:

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Mr. Kushner also released his statement as delivered to the committee.
STATEMENT OF JARED C. KUSHNER TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES – July 24, 2017
I am voluntarily providing this statement, submitting documents, and sitting for interviews in order to shed light on issues that have been raised about my role in the Trump for President Campaign and during the transition period.
I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception. Because there has been a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and inaccurate information about me, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight.
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Earlier this morning Dr. Sebastian Gorka appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss Jared Kushner meeting with Senate Intelligence Committee.

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