In order to present an accurate record of events, it is important to remain focused on specifics.  During the period from May, 2017, through April of 2019, Main Justice in Washington DC was split into two divisions.

In one division there was the Special Counsel Robert Mueller team in control of everything related to DOJ and FBI activity around the 2016 election, with emphasis on the Trump-Russia headlines.  This division handled 100% of everything that was sucking up the oxygen in Washington DC.  Andrew Weissmann was in charge of this division.

In the second division, there was everything else the DOJ was doing, which is to say not much. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was heading this division.

The liaison between both divisions was Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who generally didn’t know what was going on inside the Mueller/Weissmann operation; but, as he later testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee [June 2020 link], Rosenstein had the job of signing off and authorizing everything Weissmann et al were doing.  Rosenstein authorized every request and not a single ‘ask’ from the Mueller team was ever denied – including expanding the scope of the Mueller investigation, twice.

Why does this matter?  It matters because everything happening in Main Justice from May ’17 to April ’19, activity that was grabbing every scintilla of media attention, was being done by the Mueller/Weissmann team.  Key word ‘everything.’

There was not a single action from Main Justice that was not controlled by Andrew Weissman and company.  This action includes the recent revelations of staff and congressional members from the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) having subpoenas for their private emails, phone records, text message and communication.

Andrew Weissmann sent over 2,800 subpoenas for records [See 156-Pages of Examples Here].  Some of those subpoenas were sent to various telecommunications and social media platforms so they could monitor what congress was doing.

(more…)

During a broadcast this evening, journalist Michael Shellenberger gives a good encapsulation of his review of the Twitter Files {Direct Rumble Link}.

As noted by Shellenberger the FBI running internal domestic political operations against the American public should be the subject of a serious investigation. The problem becomes, when the national law enforcement agency is running corrupt political operations, who is left to investigate the FBI? WATCH:

.

(more…)

The timing of stuff and the context of the historic reference points matter when looking at any story involving the DOJ.  Failing to understand the background context leads to mistaken impressions, false assumptions, corrupt hidden actors getting away with prior misconduct and generally flawed analysis.  That is the accurate takeaway from a story that seems to have gained attention amid the professionally republican class of punditry.

Here at CTH we have dropped the pretending, focus on the evidence and call the baby ugly when warranted.

Today’s outrage du jour surrounds Kash Patel sharing documents with John Solomon about a subpoena dated November 20, 2017, targeting investigative staff from the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  [Article Here] Dates matter. Redactions matter.

[Document Source]

Who redacted this document?…  Kash Patel?  John Solomon? or the DOJ?  It matters.

In November of 2017, everything related to the Trump-Russia operation was being handled at the Dept of Justice by lead DOJ Special Counsel official Andrew Weissmann under the auspices of what is commonly called the Mueller probe or ‘Mueller investigation‘.  On November 20, 2017, the main focus of Weissmann was the guilty plea of Michael Flynn which was at its apex and was later signed November 30, 2017.

The public battle on Capitol Hill November 2017, was between HPSCI and Main Justice.  Nunes -vs- Schiff -vs- FBI -vs- Main Justice -vs- White House -vs- Special Counsel.  Each entity competing for the public and political narrative.

In his later (June 2020) Senate testimony, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein testified that Weissmann/Mueller were in charge of everything at Main Justice and he was used as a go-between liaison between congress, the White House and the DOJ.  Rosenstein gave Weissmann/Mueller full autonomy, full authority, and never once questioned a request from them.  Put simply, Rosenstein said Mueller and Weissmann called every shot in the DOJ that had anything even remotely associated with Trump-Russia, which was essentially everything at Main Justice for two years.

(more…)

Twitter file release #7 comes from Michael Shellenberger and focuses on how the FBI specifically engaged with Twitter before, during and after the Hunter Biden Laptop story surfaced.  [RELEASE HERE]

There are some interesting facets to the Shellenberger outline including his naming of the communications method, “Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter, ” and Shellenberger’s identification of payments from the FBI to Twitter in order to cover the expenses related to the censorship they requested.

As Shellenberger notes on paragraph 46, “The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time. “I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.”

[Twitter File #7 Release Here]

Overall, the Twitter file 7 release shows the FBI being well aware of the Hunter Biden laptop issue long before the fall of 2020 and taking specific action to mitigate any potential damage to the Biden campaign.   The FBI was aware of the laptop in December of 2019, and the engagements with the social media platform were transparently proactive measures with political intentions.

The story weaves in and out of Washington DC and transfers the action items from DC to the San Francisco field office of the FBI where Elvis Chan was in charge of coordinating control over the content of the Twitter platform.

Factually, a solid argument could be made that this specific release shows how the FBI Russiagate effort against Trump needed to exit Washington DC following the 2016 election, and so the majority of FBI’s anti-Trump activity for 2020 shifted to San Francisco.

Washington DC DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community efforts focused on protecting itself from discovery of their activity in 2015 and 2016, while San Francisco became the headquarters for FBI anti-Trump efforts targeting 2020.  This location shift aligns with the datapoint of Russiagate FBI Agent Joseph Pientka transferring from DC to San Francisco; with Elvis Chan taking the place of Pientka as the targeting focused on social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, etc).

(more…)

Matt Taibbi files a supplemental thread to his review of DHS/FBI instructions, through the still undisclosed portal.  [Twitter File Supplemental Here]

Just a reminder… how the ‘asks’ actually took place is still a mystery, Taibbi & Weiss et al are only privy to the internal actions and discussions after the inbound requests arrive.  Put another way, we are blind to the method of the DHS/FBI portal into the network.  I do not believe that secrecy is accidental.

[Twitter File Supplemental Here]

The essence of Taibbi’s supplemental report is based on a few internal emails amid the group following DHS/FBI and ODNI officials telling the Twitter rulers they were not cracking down hard enough on the platform content.

As Taibbi notes, “The questionnaire authors seem displeased with Twitter for implying, in a July 20th “DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing,” that “you indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform.”

Twitter official Yoel Roth then responded to the U.S intelligence community in a series of back-and-forth conversations, and internally to the Twitter censorship group.

As noted by Taibbi, “[Roth] was not “comfortable with the Bureau (and by extension the IC) demanding written answers.”  Taibbi then seems to pull out the pretending not to know things card and ponders, “the idea of the FBI acting as conduit for the Intelligence Community is interesting, given that many agencies are barred from domestic operations.”

Gee, ya think?  Go figure.

(more…)

Displaying some of the most insufferable logic imaginable, four Republican senators voted against reinstating military members who were discharged for refusal to get vaccinated.

Apparently, according to the logic provided, Congress can select the location for the military to engage, select the weapons they can use, select their commanding officers who will lead their engagement, select the method, manner and purpose of their deployment…. yet, when it comes to requiring vaccinations, Congress must defer to military leadership.

Apparently, the concept of “civilian lead military oversight,” does not apply when it comes to forced COVID-19 vaccination.  Sorry, but these Republican senators are intellectually dishonest idiots.

(Via Daily Signal) –   Four Republican senators voted Thursday against reinstating military members who were discharged for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Mitt Romney of Utah, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Susan Collins of Maine voted against Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s amendment that would have reinstated and provided backpay to military members discharged for refusing to get vaccinated.

(more…)

During a podcast Matt Taibbi describes the big picture takeaway of the data they have been permitted to review so far. {Direct Rumble Link}

Interestingly, Taibbi notes the silo effect within Twitter as the division in charge of taking action on requests is not necessarily the division that receives the requests.  There is an inflection point between two silos. Taibbi notes the current data set does not include access to the inbound requests and instructions from government officials, they are limited to only seeing what happens after the request is received.

They are also limited in only seeing the activity that is taken within the action division where the accounts are restricted.  The division within Twitter that was in the process of amplifying or boosting accounts, is a different silo.

Additionally, as Taibbi also notes, if the scale of what they are seeing in Twitter is representative of outside contacts to other social media platforms, then he is sure Facebook, YouTube, Google, Microsoft, Instagram, Apple etc. also have a process to receive and act upon these inbound DHS/FBI instructions.  WATCH:

.

In essence, everything Taibbi is seeing is fully in line with Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.

(more…)

The G7 leaders have been debating the problem of African farming for quite a while. The issue surrounds the conflicts between the G7 climate change agenda and the need for Africa to develop fertilizer production to enhance their farming and crop yields.

As noted in a Reuters article from June, “the European Union is divided on how to help poorer nations fight a growing food crisis and address shortages of fertilisers caused by the war in Ukraine, with some fearing a plan to invest in plants in Africa would clash with EU green goals.”  As the argument unfolded, “the EU Commission explicitly opposed” any effort to enhance African fertilizer development, “warning that supporting fertilizer production in developing nations would be inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies.”  

The energy development corporations, the source industry needed to create the components for nitrogen-based fertilizer, have been waiting to invest in African energy production pending the approval of western government decisions.  Addressing the issue today, Joe Biden told the African Union the United States would send an emergency $2.5 billion in food crisis aid to offset the inability of Africa to feed itself.

In essence, instead of Western government policy supporting energy production in Africa that would lead to a greater farm yield, and by extension a greater level of food independence, the Biden administration would rather restrict energy/food development in Africa and send them food subsidies; because, climate change.

(White House) – […]  President Biden announced an additional $2.5 billion in emergency aid and medium to long-term food security assistance for resilient African food systems and supply markets, which builds upon over $11 billion in U.S. humanitarian and food security assistance for this year alone.  President Biden also launched a new strategic partnership on food security between the United States and the African Union.  

(more…)

Friends, in the late summer and fall of 2021 CTH warned of massive waves of price increases that would push inflation to record highs.  We watched as each wave arrived almost on schedule throughout 2022, and as a direct result of Joe Biden energy and economic policy, prices necessarily skyrocketed.

In essence in 2021 we were warning about the expenditure side of the ledger that all working-class and fixed income families would experience.  We advised to take every proactive measure possible to avoid future price increases.

Now, unfortunately, we begin moving those same warnings to the other side of the ledger; because as a natural consequence of consumer checkbook pain, the financial pressure always transfers to the income and employment side of the economic dynamic.

Keep in mind, retail sales are calculated in dollars spent by consumers.   November 2022 retail sales as reported by the commerce department today [DATA pdf], reflect a 0.6% decrease in spending vs October.  November data includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the traditional early holiday shopping.  0.6% less dollars were spent, despite prices being double digits higher than the prior year.

When the prices you are charging for goods and/or services are 10, 20, even as high as 60 percent more than prior year, yet your sales are running flat to negative – that means consumer purchases of those goods/services are substantially lower.

If you were selling 100 widgets for $1 each in 2021, you gross $100.   If your widgets now sell for $1.25 and you gross $94 in 2022 sales, you have sold 75 widgets.

(more…)

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson to explain some of the details surrounding her election day lawsuit {Direct Rumble Link Here}. 

As Mrs. Lake notes there were widespread issues throughout the state and multiple irregularities in Maricopa, County specifically.   Approximately 60% of the voting equipment was not working on election day and Mrs. Lake believes an intentional effort to create crisis was behind the lack of preparation.  WATCH:

.

I do not recall when a post-election lawsuit has ever succeeded in overturning a certified election result.   If Mrs. Lake is successful in her legal battle, I’m afraid the victory would be pyrrhic. The court may agree the lawsuit provides evidence that the 2022 election was demonstrably fraudulent, yet the certified results still stand.

(more…)