I’m not sure why they choose Hannity but given that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now also the interim National Security Advisor, it’s worth quickly visiting his perspectives in this new dual role. WATCH (prompted):

.

(more…)

The question can be asked, has President Trump ever had a National Security Advisor who was not compromised?

Unfortunately, some people are rushing to the Mike Flynn redo. As a consequence, some context for why Flynn can never be in the administration again is needed. In brief, he’s a fibber.

In November of 2016 CTH first warned of the issue when it was rumored that Flynn would be selected as Trump’s NSA. [SEE HERE] We knew even before the election this could be a problem.  As far as we could surmise at the time – the Trump Campaign and subsequent President-Elect transition team, had no idea that campaign advocate and campaign adviser Michael Flynn was also being paid to lobby in DC on behalf of the government of Turkey, and ultimately put a positive perspective on Recep Erdogan.

The Flynn lobbying arrangement, a corporate lobbyist, then a foreign agent lobbyist, was beyond sketchy.  Before the 2016 election Flynn penned an op-ed advocating heavily for Recep Erdogan –SEE HERE–  The content was entirely disconnected from the assembled foreign policy outlook of Candidate Donald Trump. The Flynn Op-Ed was actually counter to candidate Trump’s policy views.

If you go read the Op-Ed now, you will notice a very specific editors note: “On March 8, 2017, four months after this article was published, General Flynn filed documents with the Federal government indicating that he earned $530,000 last fall for consulting work that might have aided the government of Turkey. In the filings, Flynn disclosed that he had received payments from Inovo BV, a Dutch company owned by a Turkish businessman with ties to Turkey’s president and that Inovo reviewed the draft before it was submitted to The Hill. Neither General Flynn nor his representatives disclosed this information when the essay was submitted.”

(more…)

The move and shift in National Security Advisor responsibility makes sense on a couple of different levels.  First the U.N position carries “prestige” softening the ouster of Waltz; second, with the foreign policy run from the White House, a dual Secretary of State/NSA role works under currently assigned responsibilities.

[SOURCE]

The combined nature of the SoS and NSA position makes good interim sense; both would have essentially been traveling the same itinerary.  However, putting the former head of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into place as National Security Advisor, well, that’s a level of trust that has never before been witnessed.

Mike Waltz becomes the Nikki Haley of term-2.

Optimal solution.

(more…)

CTH said in November 2024, I doubt he could succeed.   I said in December 2024, he would be the first to get fired.  I have said over the past several weeks it was obvious Mike Waltz was no longer in a position of National Security influence, and that President Trump had an NSA “in name only.”

Today, Trump fired National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and his deputy, Alex Wong….

VIA CBS – National security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts in the Trump White House, according to multiple sources familiar with their departure.

[…] One source familiar with the situation at the National Security Council said the president thinks sufficient time has passed since the Signal incident that Waltz and Wong’s departures can be framed as part of a reorganization. The president has been hesitant to oust Waltz over the perception that doing so could be seen as bending to outside pressure.

Wong served in the first Trump administration as deputy special representative for North Korea and also as deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the State Department. In announcing his appointment, Mr. Trump said that Wong helped negotiate his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (more)

I’m not going to repeat all the issues that made this outcome transparently predictable from the first day of then President-elect Trump’s announcement.  You can read the background HERE and HERE and HERE.

(more…)

I am trying to avoid my own confirmation bias, which is difficult in this case, because when Congressman Mike Waltz was announced as NSA to President-elect Donald Trump, immediately I thought he would be the first to exit the national security team; his ideology just doesn’t mesh right.

Following the fiasco with Signal and his Jeffrey Goldberg foul up, it looked like Waltz was pushed out of the immediate circle of influence and instead told to focus on restructuring the National Security Council.  His proximity still exists, but his immediate role appears -at least outwardly- to have shifted; he seems less influential as a direct emissary for President Trump to foreign intelligence peers and leaders.

I have this horribly annoying affliction to noticing small details and taking notes, and all indications point in that direction.  When you start to notice this shift, what becomes evident is within the verbiage used as a proximity person begins describing events as if they were an observer, not a direct participant. [The “we” is lost.] Listen to how Mike Waltz describes current geopolitical events, he sounds like a pundit not a participant.

.

If my suspicion is accurate, President Trump has a National Security Advisor in name only.

(more…)

As the Deep State Intelligence Apparatus continues its long-standing position in opposition to President Trump, perhaps the Trump administration finally hit back at one of the lead elements.

General Timothy Haugh has been fired from his position as Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) on Friday. Additionally, his deputy Wendy Noble has been removed from the NSA and reassigned. No explanations yet made.

(Washington Post) – The director of the powerful wiretapping and cyber espionage service, the National Security Agency, was fired Thursday, according to two current and one former U.S. officials.

Gen. Timothy Haugh, who also heads U.S. Cyber Command, was let go along with his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, according to the officials.

Noble was reassigned to a job within the Pentagon’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. The NSA is part of the department.

(more…)

Yesterday President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting: “Immediate Declassification of Materials Related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.” [ORDER TEXT HERE]

Within the XO President Trump informs the Attorney General (Pam Bondi) the Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (John Ratcliffe), “I have determined that all of the materials referenced in the Presidential Memorandum of January 19, 2021 (Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation), are no longer classified.”

However, there’s an important set of qualifiers.

“I have further determined that the material proposed for redaction by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a cover letter dated January 17, 2021, remains classified.

My decision to declassify the materials described above does not extend to materials that must be protected from disclosure pursuant to orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and does not require the disclosure of certain personally identifiable information or any other materials that must be protected from disclosure under applicable law.” (link)

Caution is warranted.  Yes, there may be a few new items, perhaps a few redactions removed on previously released items, but essentially this is likely be a rehash of assembled component parts we have already discussed at length.  In essence, this sounds like the Mar-a-Lago ten-inch binder content the FBI was previously trying to get back.

There is also a possibility the FISA Court has ordered some materials related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, sealed by the FISC.  President Trump does not extend his order to these materials.

There is a certain likelihood the CIA holds foreign intelligence equities that tangentially supports the origin of the Crossfire Hurricane targeting.  We already know officials and intelligence operations from the U.K, Australia, Italy and Israel were involved in the 2016 operation against Trump.  President Trump does not extend his order to these materials, because the equity ownership of the classified material rests in the foreign intelligence services.

(more…)

Perhaps viewed as a Lawfare shot across the bow to those who might share or discuss sensitive government information including leaks to media from internal sources, President Trump has reportedly revoked the security clearances of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and around a dozen DC operators who use the currency of information access to assimilate wealth and influence.

WASHINGTON – President Trump issued a memo Friday rescinding the security clearances of more than a dozen individuals, including former President Joe Biden and his entire family, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.

“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump wrote in the memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies, before naming those he’s barring from receiving classified information.

The list includes his three past presidential election opponents — Clinton, Biden and Harris — as well as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Former Biden administration officials Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Lisa Monaco are also on the list, as is anti-Trump Republicans Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

(more…)

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz appears on CNN to outline how the U.S. team no longer sees Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a man who can lead his nation to a place of peace.

Waltz notes that at a certain point there are going to be negotiations and discussions about Ukraine territory that Zelenskyy is going to need to face with pragmatic honesty. However, at the current state of conflict Zelenskyy is intransigent toward any ceasefire agreement that does not include U.S. troops on the ground as a “security guarantee.”  WATCH:

.

(more…)

While I do not expect Mrs. Gabbard to be a heroine in defense of liberty, perhaps she will pause government weaponization and privacy destruction for a few years.   In this interview, Gabbard does seem to understand the issues about Big Govt using ‘national security’ as a justification for the elimination of all privacy protection.

Whether she can do anything about it, right before privacy elimination is scheduled to get a lot worse, is an unknown variable. WATCH:

.

(more…)