According to Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg News the Vindman weasel may soon be removed from the National Security Council.  Hopefully a full damage assessment has been conducted in the wake of the national security damage Vindman has created.

As would be expected from modern media the Bloomberg article is written to emphasize their ideological position that President Donald Trump, the head of the Executive Branch, should not be allowed to select the people who provide him advice and counsel:

Bloomberg – The White House is weighing a plan to dismiss Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council after he testified in President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, preparing to position the move as part of a broader effort to shrink the foreign policy bureaucracy, two people familiar with the matter said.

(more…)

Against the backdrop of massively consequential events, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had an important interview today with Maria Bartiromo.
The interview covers multiple topics to include: China dropping tariffs; the overall status of the U.S. economy; potential economic impacts from the Coronavirus; an important legislative infrastructure program, and much more…  However, there’s a statement within the interview that subtle but highly important.  [Listen Carefully at 04:46]
The YouTube ID of tGJ9NwFmrEA?start=286 is invalid.
.
Long-term CTH readers may remember a key point, since we initially outlined the consequences of President Trump’s policy objectives in 2016, that everyone should carefully consider the scale of President Trump’s opposition.
We encapsulated by saying: “there are trillions at stake“.
(more…)

Earlier today President Donald Trump delivered remarks from the East room about the impeachment acquittal.  After spending more than three years under investigations by government agencies and operatives of DC politics, President Trump did not hold back in pointing out the corruption behind his opposition. [Transcript Below]

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Wow. (Applause.) Well, thank you very much, everybody. Wow. We’ve all been through a lot together, and we probably deserve that hand for all of us, because it’s been a very unfair situation.
I invited some of our very good friends. And we have limited room, but everybody wanted to come. We kept it down to a minimum. And believe it or not, this is a minimum.

But a tremendous thing was done over the last number of months, but really, if you go back to it, over the last number of years. We had the witch hunt. It started from the day we came down the elevator, myself and our future First Lady, who’s with us right now. Thank you, Melania. (Applause.)

(more…)

In the spring of 2018 a group of congressional reps led by Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Lee Zeldin and Bob Goodlatte, asked President Trump to declassify a series of documents so the public could see how former officials in the DOJ & FBI abused their offices and conducted political surveillance.
In September of 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked President Trump not to declassify those same documents until after the Mueller probe was complete. Rosenstein informed the President (confirmed in later POTUS interviews) that declassifying the material could be interpreted as impeding the Mueller investigation.
Two months later, in November 2018, the mid-term election took place. Republicans lost the House and their committee chairs. Many people suspectthe mid-term election was the real motive for the Sept. 2018 request from Rosenstein. Four months after the mid-term, March 2019, the Mueller investigation of President Trump ended.
(more…)

Immediately after the impeachment acquittal vote, senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson send a letter [pdf link here] to the Director of the Secret Service, James Murray, seeking travel records for Hunter Biden.
It appears the senators are looking into the background of Biden surrounding business dealings with China and Ukraine: ““We write to request information about whether Hunter Biden used government-sponsored travel to help conduct private business, to include his work for Rosemont Seneca and related entities in China and Ukraine.”…

What makes this approach interesting is the questioning earlier today by House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler toward FBI Director Chris Wray.  Nadler asked several pointed questions to Wray about whether any FBI investigation of the Bidens was requested by the White House or Congress….  Perhaps Nadler expected some inquiries to start.
(more…)

FBI Director Chris Wray is testifying to the House Judiciary Committee today and will likely receive questions about the FISA abuse issue.  Chairman Nadler scheduled the hearing today in a transparent effort to avoid publicity on the content.
Fox News Livestream Link – House Judiciary Link

Earlier today Senator Rand Paul delivered his remarks on impeachment from the Senate floor.  During his remarks Senator Paul highlighted the real and present danger of allowing agents within government to plot against a sitting president.
Senator Paul asks the same question he presented to Chief Justice John Roberts as the presiding officer of the Senate trial.  A question Roberts refused to ask:

“Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together; and are you aware -and how do you respond to- reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings?“

Good grief, could House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler be any more transparent with his intentions here?  Knowing all eyes will be on the Senate impeachment vote at 4:00pm on the same day, Democrat Chairman Nadler schedules the House oversight hearing on FBI (FISA Misconduct) for 10:00am Wednesday, February 5th, to bury it.

[Link to Judiciary Notice]

FBI Director Christopher Wray has not been scheduled to face any questioning or public scrutiny by any legislative oversight body since the Inspector General report highlighted gross corruption and FBI misconduct in the December 9th, 2019, FISA report.
Additionally, the DOJ/FBI response to the demands of the FISC were also extended to February 5th.  The corrupt institutions, and the administrative state that surrounds them, are working overtime to avoid any exposure and national discussion about misconduct that should alarm everyone.  Why? Because they targeted Donald Trump… So, bury it.
Remember, the questions within this hearing are important.  The DOJ/FBI has admitted they need to sequester all evidence in all cases that stemmed from the Carter Page Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant; and they are hunting for that information.
(more…)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the impeachment proceedings, the likely continuance of resistance investigative efforts, and Graham’s role in any Senate proceedings.
Despite never having a single investigative hearing since he started promising hearings at the conclusion of the Mueller probe in April 2019, Senator Graham promises hearings to get to the bottom of the Biden-Burisma issue.  Not likely.  Bartiromo pushes the Senator on whether he will investigate the origin of the Whistleblower complaint, Graham avoids.
Graham promises hearings on FISA abuse. You decide if they will ever happen.  The FISA bulk metadata collection re-authorization vote is next month around March 15th.

The Crossfire Hurricane hand-off  to Weissmann using Mueller was the hoax known generally as Trump-Russia, or Coup 1.0.   If you stand back and look at the totality of the ‘big picture’ behind the Trump-Ukraine impeachment coup it’s clear to see a 2.0 version.
The Trump-Russia hoax (coup 1.0) was dependent on a ‘Special Counsel’ because the coup plotters held no other avenue to eliminate Donald Trump.  In 2017 and 2018 both the House and Senate were republican.  Coup 1.0 relied upon a created structure of oversight, an insurance policy of sorts, within the framework of government.

However, after the 2018 mid-terms, when Democrats won the House, impeachment was possible.  In the month following the Nov ’18 election Pelosi and the resistance group (assembled from current and former DOJ officials, ie. The Lawfare group), mapped out the impeachment plan and created new House rules to facilitate it.  Pelosi hired Doug Letter as Chief House Counsel and contracted with a host of lawyers to assist.
The Weissmann special counsel group, using Robert Mueller as a figurehead, failed to deliver because the Trump-Russia narrative was always a hoax. Without the ‘there‘ there the only damage they could deploy was political speculation, innuendo and weaponized narratives. They tried hard, but were only able to create a tenuous ‘obstruction’ case.
When Mueller eventually testified about his investigation the world saw he was merely a figurehead, a visible prop to represent a team he barely understood; and with that testimony the impeachment usefulness collapsed.  Imagine Mueller being cross examined about his two year investigation; imagine the deposition that would have been needed; yeah, the insurance policy was immediately worthless.
(more…)