Former U.S. Attorney General under President George W. Bush Michael Mukasey weighs in on Trump’s appointment of William Barr to U.S. attorney general.
House Permanent Sub Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Devin Nunes appears on with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the current state of issues with Michael Flynn.
Chairman Nunes draws attention to the latest documents (released Friday). One of the documents is written by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe who noted that Flynn was aware the FBI had the content of a phone call between himself and Russian Ambassador Kislyak, prior to the FBI interview. Therefore it is highly unlikely Flynn would lie about the content of that Kislyak phone call.
Congressman Darryl Issa appears for an interview with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the sketchy Mueller case against Michael Flynn; the likelihood that someone in the administration is going to have to talk to the FISA court about likely DOJ abuse; and the second round of questions for James Comey scheduled for tomorrow.
Former New York Mayor and current lawyer for President Trump appears on Fox News as swamp guardian Chris Wallace constructs the opposing argument for Robert Mueller.
Well, well, well. This is likely to be quickly brushed under the proverbial rug. If you have followed the case against SSCI Security Director James Wolfe you will note the original indictment against him outlined, obliquely, how Wolfe took custody of the Carter Page FISA application and then leaked it to his concubine at Buzzfeed Ms. Ali Watkins.
The leak of the FISA application was a rather explosive issue not readily identified when Wolfe’s indictment was first presented (June ’18). It was only possible to connect the dots after the FISA application was released (July ’18) and a comparison on specific dates, times, contacts and chain-of-custody, was possible.
In response to his indictment, Wolfe’s lawyers said they would force Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) members to participate and testify in any trial. This was a rather stunning approach. A few months passed and a plea bargain was struck. Wolfe would plead guilty only to one count of lying to FBI investigators. The charges of the leaking “top secret and classified” intelligence were dropped.
Wolfe was not ultimately charged with leaking the FISA application. We sniffed a quid-pro-quo. We suspected Wolfe was instructed by at least one senator, likely SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, to leak the information. This would explain Wolfe’s extraordinary defense position – and the DOJ response therein.
Think about it. A gang-of-eight member (Warner), who happened -as a consequence of the jaw dropping implications- to be one of only TWO SSCI members who was notified by the FBI that Wolfe was compromised. The ramifications cannot be overstated.
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If you’ve followed the MAGAnomic discussion threads you will likely appreciate this interview much more than the typical Fox Business viewer.
In this interview White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett discusses the recent rise in retail sales and why he is optimistic about GDP growth.
Additionally, at the 03:00 point of the interview he is questioned about the disconnect between the exceptional growth in the U.S. economy -vs- the current status of the Wall Street stock market. Hassett points directly to the ‘multinational‘ disconnect.
U.S. District in Texas, Judge Reed O’Connor (Fort Worth) has agreed with a coalition of 19 states that Obamacare is structurally unconstitutional without an enforced federal mandate that requires individual participation. (full ruling pdf below)
Absent the enforcement of the individual mandate, Judge O’Conner ruled it was impossible for the Obamacare law to remain. Texas and the 19 state coalition successfully argued they’ve been harmed by an increase in the number of people on state-funded insurance rolls.
The plaintiffs argued: when Congress repealed the tax penalty last year for the individual mandate; they eliminated the U.S. Supreme Court’s prior rationale for finding the ACA constitutional in 2012. The Texas judge agreed.
Judge O’Conner found it is clear the individual mandate is the linchpin of the law “without marching through every nook and cranny of the ACA’s 900-plus pages. The court must find the individual mandate inseverable from the ACA,” he said. “To find otherwise would be to introduce an entirely new regulatory scheme never intended by Congress or signed by the president.”
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Joe diGenova appears on Fox News with Tucker Carlson to discuss the case against Michael Flynn and calls out the specifics behind the fraud.
Forget the unmentioned brutally obvious political motives and intents behind the operation against Donald Trump for a moment; and focus on the collective Obama activity as if they actually believed the claims they have since presented…
The counterintelligence investigation into candidate, president-elect, and president Donald Trump was predicated on the Obama’s intelligence community believing that campaign officials were colluding, conspiring and otherwise coordinating to take over the office of the presidency, with help from a foreign government. So why wouldn’t the intelligence services of the United States government conduct wiretaps and full blown surveillance upon that incoming administration?
The John Brennan CIA presented a classified electronic communication, “ec”, origination memo (we are not allowed to see) to ODNI (Clapper) and FBI (Comey); who then opened a full-blown counterintelligence operation against officials within the Trump campaign.
We know this operation was political, but again, ignore that aspect and just look at the issues, details and activity while accepting -at face value- their demonstrably dubious claims.
Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn provided the opening for operational surveillance of the Trump team. We can argue about how they were framed in that regard; however, it is factual that FISA-Title-One surveillance is all encompassing.
The target is validated and defined by the FBI as “an agent of a foreign government”. This legal distinction permits full surveillance: electronic, physical, the works. Everything is on the table, no limits or boundaries.
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The curious case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn gets even more curious as Robert Mueller doesn’t deliver the FBI notes (FD-302) from the January 2017 interview of Flynn, as requested by Judge Emmet Sullivan, and instead submits notes from an internal July 19th, 2017, interview with FBI agent Peter Strzok.
The filing by the special counsel team (full pdf below) is a must read.
The special counsel begins their filing by criticizing the approach taken by the Flynn defense in the defense sentencing memo; and attempts to validate/justify their charges against the accused. The details in their response to the judge’s request tell quite a story.
The attachments are very interesting. They begin with notes by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe outlining the contacts with Michael Flynn prior to the FBI interview on January 24, 2017. McCabe did not inform main justice, Sally Yates, until after FBI agents were dispatched. The documents reveal Yates was not happy with McCabe’s decision.
FBI agent Peter Strzok and agent Joe Pientka were sent to the White House to interview Flynn only a few minutes after McCabe called Flynn. There was obviously a plan in place.
From the second attachment we discover that agent Strzok did all the questioning and agent Pientka took all the notes (screen-grab below). Those FD-302 interview notes, written by Pientka on January 24th, 2017, are part of the what Judge Sullivan ordered to be submitted. However, those notes are not included in the responsive Mueller filing.
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