After a round of golf together earlier today President Trump joins with Vice President Mike Pence to host Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his delegation for a working lunch between close allies. Japan is well positioned for a golden-trade-ticket. A joint press conference will follow later in the day.
Led by Representative Ron DeSantis congress has sent a criminal referral letter (full pdf below) to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Federal Prosecutor John Huber.
The identified targets of the referral include: •former FBI Director James Comey; •former Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe; •former Attorney General Loretta Lynch; •former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; •current FBI Agent Peter Strzok; and •current DOJ Attorney Lisa Page (former Special Counsel to Andrew McCabe).
The identified reasoning for each of the referrals is outlined in the letter below. However, the risk to James Comey is not simply contained within the letter, but also contained within the non-discussed fact that FBI chief-legal-counsel James Baker is a cooperating witness for IG Horowitz and Huber.
One of the lesser discussed aspects to the ongoing investigative overview is how a few key people, with direct and specific knowledge of the events that took place within the FBI and DOJ activity, remain inside the institutions as they are being investigated.
Those key DOJ and FBI officials have been removed from their position, yet remain inside with no identified or explained responsibility.
Video from last night’s dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Lady Akie Abe, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
It is not unusual for the Abe family and Trump family to drop formality and use informal terms/guestures during their meetings. The relationship between both families -including their children and grandchildren- extends well beyond the realm of politics; they are close personal friends.
During the Easter holiday weekend, CIA Director Mike Pompeo traveled to Pyongyang North Korea and met with Kim Jong Un, laying the groundwork for an upcoming summit between Kim and President Trump. There were no leaks about the meeting.
“We’ll either have a very good meeting or we won’t have a good meeting; and maybe we won’t even have a meeting at all, depending on what’s going in. But I think that there’s a great chance to solve a world problem.” ~ President Trump
U.S. Attorney John Lausch had previously explained his specific role is to coordinate document production from the DOJ-OIG with specific focus on evidence documents that pertain to the “original” Horowitz investigation path. That only includes documents pertaining to the politicization of the DOJ/FBI relating to the Clinton investigation.
U.S. Prosecutor John Huber is paralleling IG Horowitz on all investigative findings that fall into potentially criminal conduct. The evidence being culled into the Huber files are not going to congress because they are potentially evidence in ongoing criminal cases. The Huber evidence contains grand jury material and evidence of likely criminal conduct.
Yesterday, in response to congressional committee demand by Chairman Goodlatte (Judiciary), Chairman Nunes (Intel) and Chairman Gowdy (Oversight), for the memos written by James Comey, some of which were leaked to media, Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has asked for additional time for DOJ review.
As expected, China is starting to realize they underestimated the severity of President Trump’s three-decade-long perspective on trade.
Against the backdrop of $150 billion in looming U.S. trade tariffs, Beijing sends an economic emissary to Europe attempting to restructure international trade agreements.
(Reuters) China’s international trade representative held a series of meetings with the ambassadors from major European nations last week to ask them to stand together with Beijing against U.S. protectionism, according to four sources familiar with the discussions.
Some of the western diplomats involved in the meetings with Fu Ziying, who is also a vice-commerce minister, have viewed the approaches as a sign of how anxious Beijing is getting about the expanding conflict with Washington, the sources said.
White House Press Briefing by National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Matthew Pottinger. Today’s briefing is happening during a Presidential summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Kudlow is discussing the trade and economic issues; Pottinger is discussing national security issues surrounding negotiations with North Korea. As Secretary Ross has stated frequently: “Economic Security is National Security.”
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[Transcript] West Palm Beach, Florida – 12:20 P.M. EDT – MR. KUDLOW: I’ll just say to start, before we take some questions, this is a very important meeting. A lot of really key issues are on the line. You obviously know about the foreign policy side regarding North Korea, which is a major, major issue for Japan and for the United States.
On the economic and trade side, there will also be very important issues. Japan is a great friend and ally. We have certain disagreements with respect to some of the trading issues. We’ll iron those out, hopefully.
Come back to this video if you don’t have the time to watch the whole thing. As most readers are aware Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has a massive portfolio of big issue responsibilities within President Trump’s administration.
The reason Secretary Ross has such a large influence is due to President Trump’s unique strategy of leveraging economic power as a geopolitical tool to achieve national security and economic security outcomes. No prior president ever used ‘commerce’ and ‘economics’ as successfully as President Trump.
Today, our favorite Commerce Secretary was given another key strategic initiative and responsibility – “manage Space”; like, all of it. Seriously, MUST WATCH:
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Yes, Wilbur “Wilburine” Ross is now “Master of The Universe”. How cool is that?
Too funny. The one constant in an ever-changing financial universe has been Donald Trump’s three-decade-long position on U.S. trade and Main Street economic policy. However, despite this reality the Wall Street purchased politicians continue to think their opposition to Trump will create leverage to influence his economic views.
Last week’s example was Senator Ben Sasse and the purchased clan of BIG-AG, who demanded President Trump re-enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
POTUS Trump, in a transparently familiar response, told Larry Kudlow to “take a look at it.” The GOPe immediately began backslapping, the corporate media went joyfully bananas and Lou Dobbs was mad. CTH said relax:
Well, here’s Kudlow today:
(Bloomberg) White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow downplayed the possibility the U.S. would enter into negotiations to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, calling it more of a “thought than a policy” for now.
“We’ve also started talking with North Korea directly. We have had direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels, with North Korea. I really believe there’s a lot of good will. Well see what happens, as I always say. Because ultimately its the end result that counts.” ~ President Donald Trump
The formal bilateral meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. POTUS Trump and PM Abe together with translators and delegations. The U.S. side: Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Adviser John Bolton, US Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty and National Security Council Asia director Matthew Pottinger.
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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said their one-on-one meeting was productive. On North Korea, “for the first time in the history of the world there will be a summit meeting between the United States and North Korea”, Abe said. Prime Minister Abe said “Trump has applied maximum pressure on the North and credited it for leading to the direct talks.”