President Trump appointed Richard “Ric” Grenell to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the surprise appointment begins immediately.  Within minutes the media intelligence apparatus displayed apoplexy at the announcement.
All of the right administrative state interests are visibly triggered by the appointment; and it appears this could be a key turning point in President Trump’s push-back against the permanent intelligence apparatus that has targeted his administration for three years.

It does not seem accidental the appointment of Ric Grenell as Acting DNI comes after AG Bill Barr publicly displayed his weakness in managing the DOJ and FBI.  When the U.S. Attorney General chooses to complain about POTUS tweets making it “impossible to do his job” via public statements, the underlying message is an AG unwilling to do his job.
The challenge for the Office of the Presidency has been executive leadership unwilling to confront visible corruption within the DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community (IC).
Failed executive leadership includes Jeff Sessions (DOJ), Rod Rosenstein (DOJ), Chris Wray (FBI), David Bowditch (FBI), Dana Boente (FBI), Michael Horowitz (OIG) Mike Pompeo (CIA), Gina Haspel (CIA), Michael Atkinson (DOJ-NSD/ICIG), Matt Whitaker (DOJ), Dan Coats (DNI), Rex Tillerson (DoS), James Mattis (DoD), the list is long.
The evidence of ongoing efforts to undermine the presidency have surfaced in everything from the FBI not addressing rampant politicization, to an Intelligence Community Inspector General (Michael Atkinson) willing to facilitate an impeachment effort.
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President Trump mentioned the likelihood the military would take a look at the conduct of Lt. Col Alexander Vindman in the wake of his leaking classified information to construct a fraudulent whistle-blower complaint with CIA ally Eric Ciaramella.

Today Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Vindman will not be investigated for his role in breaching national security protocol, fabricating claims and breaking chain of command.

WASHINGTON DC – The Army will not investigate Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the former National Security Council staffer who testified in the president’s impeachment investigation, the service’s top civilian said Friday.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy made the announcement at an event just days after President Donald Trump said he imagined the military would “take a look at” whether Vindman should face disciplinary action for the “horrible things” he told House investigators about the president’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last July. (link)

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Anyone who has followed DC for a while could see this one coming a mile away… including the synergy of self-interested timing.  Catherine Herridge of CBS reports on a ‘tick-tock’ letter from Senator Lindsey Graham to AG Bill Barr where Graham announces his request for witnesses.   The Graham list is an assembly of various DOJ/FBI officials who participated in Crossfire Hurricane and the fraudulent FISA application(s).

The timing of the letter, alluding to some possible hearing at some possible later date, follows a DC pattern. [Chaff and Countermeasures] In essence, cover for visible inaction; an attempt to convince people to put down the pitchforks.
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Senator Mitch McConnell appears on Fox News to discuss his view on AG Bill Barr’s frustration with President Trump’s honest tweeting of opinion.
Leader McConnell agrees with AG Barr that President Trump is not being political enough with his communication.  President Trump is delivering too much honest information and direct opinion in a DC system that relies upon a purely political filter.  The absence of that political filter is creating a problem for all operational systems in Washington DC.
McConnell says the President “should listen to the Attorney General” and ignore the expectations of the American people who hired President Trump to be brutally honest as an anti-politician and disruptive influence in DC. DC-Based Brett Baier guides the conversation to stay focused on attacking President Trump for not being political enough.

An interview by AG Bill Barr today is making a lot of headlines. Within the interview Barr indicates that President Trump’s style of communication makes it more difficult for him to do his job.
Here’s the captured interview without pundit opinion. Watch the full interview yourself and decide:
[wpvideo ouQ46FrC]
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Here’s my take…
It seemed possible yesterday, when AG Bill Barr agreed to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on March 31st, that one of the motives for Barr to coordinate a schedule two months in advance was to gain elbow room.
There never has been any coordination between President Trump and AG Barr on the agenda of the DOJ. However, by placing the testimonial date publicly on his agenda Barr seemed to be stating to those in/around the White House his intent for a disconnect from contact pending questions from highly partisan Democrats.
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NOTE: Article updated 4:00pm to resolve conflict between Exec. Order 13787 / Exec. Order 13775 on DOJ succession and FISA authorities.
Last month the DOJ admitted to the FISA court that two of the four FISA warrants used against Carter Page were fraudulently obtained.

The “DOJ assesses that with respect to the applications in [April and June 2017] “if not earlier, there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter]Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.”” (link)

However, what the DOJ did not admit publicly was how the current FBI Chief Legal Counsel, Dana Boente, participated in obtaining the April 2017 warrant.  In hindsight this story explains the ongoing issues within the FBI.
The original FISA application was October 21st, 2016. The first FISA renewal was January 12, 2017 (84 days from origination) and prior to the inauguration of President Trump. The second renewal was April 7, 2017 (85 days from prior renewal). The third renewal was on June 29th, 2017 (83 days from prior renewal).
The originating FISA and first renewal were authorized by the Obama administration officials.  However, it was the second renewal -now identified as fraudulent- on April 7th 2017, under the Trump administration, when the conniving FBI ran into a problem.
Here’s what happened.
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Devin Nunes appears with Lou Dobbs and breaks the news on national media the nomination of former DC Attorney Jessie Liu was withdrawn.  Mr. Nunes went on to discuss the issues around the DOJ and Deep State resistance effort and then contrasts the sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone against the 30-day sentence for SSCI Security Director James Wolfe.
Additionally, Representative Nunes notes this is only the beginning of sunlight upon the dirty lawyers who organized within the Mueller probe…. and there will be much more to come.

Earlier today President Trump signed a bill supporting the retraining and re-skilling of military service members for important Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs. S. 153, the “Supporting Veterans in STEM Careers Act,” which promotes veteran participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, computer science, and scientific research.
At the conclusion of the remarks celebrating the bill, President Trump took questions from the media (press remarks @21:10) [Video Below – Transcript Will Follow]
During the press portion President Trump took questions on a variety of topics to include the DOJ, the outrageous Roger Stone sentence, Michael Bloomberg, the upcoming trip to India and interestingly President Trump says he is aware who “anonymous” is, but doesn’t want to say… “you’d be surprised, you’d be surprised”. Much more:

CBS News Catherine Herridge reported earlier that top DOJ officials were stunned by the 7 to 9 year prison sentence recommendation; and that DC prosecutors were rogue in this decision and had not informed DOJ leadership.
Additional reporting from Herridge said the DOJ informed the court “they would clarify its position later today with the court after calling the 7-9 year sentencing recommendation for lying and obstructing congress “extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate to Stone’s offenses.”
Hours later Aaron Zelinsky, who worked as a prosecutor for Team Mueller, “resigned effective immediately… as a Special Assistant US Attorney for the District of Columbia,” according to a filing in the Roger Stone case:

It looks like the over-the-top sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone was a planned set-up by Aaron Zelinsky et al, to force AG Bill Barr to step-in and reduce the sentence; thereby giving fuel to those in media/lawfare who are accusing AG Barr of political influence.  This reeks of Lawfare scheming.
However, Zelinsky is only departing the special assistant to DC role, and it appears he is still an assistant US attorney for the District of Maryland.
The Robert Mueller team assembly was a den of snakes.  However, they may have just overplayed their hand on this one.  The seven to nine year sentence recommendation for Roger Stone is so over-the-top even Democrats are admitting it.
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Former U.S. Attorney for DC, Jessie Liu, is scheduled for a Senate confirmation hearing this upcoming Thursday at 10:00am.  There’s also an unreported background story connected to the DOJ, Rod Rosenstein and Ms. Liu so controversial, it’s as big as Spygate.
In the event any Senator on the approval committee would be brave enough to question the participant here’s the story:

EVENT ONE – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.  In 2017 and 2018 Mr. Waldman represented the interests of dossier author Chris Steele and Russian Billionaire Oleg Deripaska.
There was some initial media discussion of the text messages, and some eyebrows raised over why the Vice-Chairman of the SSCI would make statements saying “he would rather not have a paper trail” around the Steele communication, but generally speaking the DC media dropped the story quickly.  It just didn’t fit the anti-Trump narrative in early 2018.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of media curiosity some rather elementary questions were never asked (let alone answered).  Questions including: •Why were the 2017 text messages between Mark Warner and Adam Waldman captured?  •Who captured them?.. and, perhaps more importantly: •why were they released?
The February 2018 story soon disappeared, and no-one ever paid enough attention to go back and see the answers to the questions….
We did.
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