Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice has reversed her position and is now refusing to testify to a Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee investigating Russia’s interference with the 2016 election.   The key risk to Susan Rice is public discussion and discovery of her requests to unmask names within NSA intelligence and surveillance reports on political opponents.

Against revelations that pointed to Susan Rice as the epicenter of the political surveillance programs, her testimony was a risk to herself, the Obama administration and the entire democrat apparatus.  Her appearance at a Senate Committee where questions would sure to be raised was a significant risk.

The cover for Rice’s retreat from sunlight is brutally obvious.  Kathryn Ruemmler, Rice’s attorney delivers a letter to CNN so the media outlet can push a narrative that Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse -ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee- has told Rice her attendance would not be needed.

“Senator Whitehouse has informed us by letter that he did not agree to Chairman Graham’s invitation to Ambassador Rice, a significant departure from the bipartisan invitations extended to other witnesses,” Ruemmler wrote. “Under these circumstances, Ambassador Rice respectfully declines Senator Graham’s invitation to testify.”

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National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster appears on Fox News Sunday for an interview with swamp guardian Chris Wallace.

Previously, some people, stimulated by the worries of annoying arbitrary gnat nonsense, expressed concern that McMaster might be inclined to lean the President Trump administration further toward an interventionist foreign policy.

If you listen to the numerous interviews McMaster has given since taking on the role of National Security Adviser you can clearly sense that President Trump has clear eyes and a firm grip on any McMaster lean.

Secretary T-Rex is the preferred policy point, and doing brilliantly.  McMaster represents the AWACS covering Tillerson’s travel, and Mattis is the archangel on his shoulder.

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Oh what a tangled web is weaved…. Apparently, the FBI used the Jeb Bush/DNC Commissioned opposition research dossier on candidate Trump as evidence to the FISA court to gain a warrant for surveillance.   Things just got more interesting.

If this report via CNN is factual in its baseline accuracy, methinks the motive for the stuttering obfuscation of FBI Director James Comey just gained some sunlight.

Washington (CNN) – The FBI last year used a dossier of allegations of Russian ties to Donald Trump’s campaign as part of the justification to win approval to secretly monitor a Trump associate, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to US officials briefed on the probe.

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During a February interview which broadcast just before the Superbowl, President Trump recalled riding with former President Barack Obama to the Inauguration on Jan. 20 when he asked Obama to list the three greatest issues America was facing.

[…] “I asked him what you think our biggest problem is and he told me,” Trump said, recalling the limousine ride to the U.S. Capitol with Obama.

“I can’t tell you,” Trump said after O’Reilly interrupted to ask about specifics. “But it’s a problem, its a military problem with a certain place. No, it’s not China. But it is – he did mention, cause I did ask him what would you say our number one, two, three problems are and the number one problem that he felt – I was a little bit surprised, but I fully understand.” (link)

Almost every mainstream political pundit and political observer believes the concerning country within that conversation was North Korea. Indeed, if you were to evaluate the comment in isolation, against the backdrop of world media headlines, N-Korea seemingly becomes a natural conclusion.

However, CTH does not believe North Korea was the country of concern. President Obama viewed and acted upon all foreign affairs through the prism of ideological belief. Every action taken by the Obama administration was in furtherance of an ideological world-view that was personal to the small circle of like-minded fellow travelers.

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National Security Advisor HR McMaster has been selected by conspiracy nuts and alt-reality moonbats as a necessary evil foil to retain their pearl-clutching placement at the table of doomsday drum-beating.

Apparently, when candidate Trump, then president-elect Trump, and now President Trump said: “bomb the s**t out of ISIS“, “rebuild our military” and recreate “peace through strength” – a sketchy handful of fools perceived such statements possible without actually ‘bombing‘, ‘rebuilding‘ or ‘reasserting strength‘.

Yes, cognitive dissonance relies upon use of the Mamet Principle; and yes, it happens on the fringe elements of both sides of the circular political continuum.

In the most recent proclamations of the Moonbats any adviser to the President who would be connected with presenting ‘bombing‘, ‘rebuilding‘ or ‘reasserting‘ options of military use to the President, necessarily becomes a war-mongering pod carrier intent on lulling a 70-year-old President to sleep and exit the room converted to John McCain.

The people selling this narrative are both nuts and gnats.

Please pay attention to HR McMaster in this interview laying out a very reasonable perspective on the various regional issues, his praise for the diplomatic approach by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and his accompanying overview to include (@10:38) the answer to the question: “do you think we need more troops in Syria?“.  McMaster’s response: “I don’t think so“.

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Microsoft tries to thread the needle of transparency by telling its consuming audience as much about governmental collection of data as possible. Toward that end Microsoft releases a biannual transparency report.

Within the latest transparency release Microsoft reports in the first half of 2016 they received a massive increase in FISA orders; primarily from U.S. governmental agencies.

• “For the latest Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data reported, Microsoft received 1,000-1,499 FISA orders seeking content disclosures affecting 12,000-12,499 accounts, compared to the 0-499 FISA orders seeking disclosure of content impacting 17,500-17,999 accounts reported for the previous period.

We received 0-499 National Security Letters in the latest reporting period, which remains unchanged from the previous period.” (link)

Why would there be such a significant spike in FISA orders during the first six months of 2016?

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On March 14th Judge Andrew Napolitano said:

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for the British spying agency. They have 24/7 access to the NSA database. So by simply having two people go to them saying, ‘President Obama needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump, conversations involving president-elect Trump,’ he’s able to get it, and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”

~ Judge Andrew Napolitano

On March 20th Fox News suspended Napolitano for making those remarks.  The British government and British intelligence community was furious at Napolitano and Fox News.  At the time Rupert Murdoch was attempting to purchase SkyNews, which might have aided in the severity of his response to Napolitano.

However, today CNN is confirming much of the construct for what Napolitano was previously saying:  (more…)

CTH Susan Rice Back Story:

• Susan Rice appears on MSNBC to Explain
• Rice Explanation Points to President Obama’s Daily Briefing

Today, Catherine Herridge is reporting the unmasking requests made by former National Security Adviser were requests for details of daily surveillance of President Trump’s transition team regarding their daily life activity.

(New York) The intelligence reports at the center of the Susan Rice unmasking controversy were detailed, and almost resembled a private investigator’s file, according to a Republican congressman familiar with the documents.

“This is information about their everyday lives,” Rep. Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence committee said. “Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on.”

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The anti-Trump media jumped into a level of gleeful frenzy today amid a required security filing noticing that Senior Trump Adviser Steve Bannon was no longer a member of the “principals committee” on the National Security Council.

The hilarity cemented itself when competing media outlets were arguing about Steve Bannon being on the NSC, or being kicked-off the NSC, while Bannon walked past them en route to today’s NSC meeting.  Wait, wha… huh?   Yeah -{Insert Laugh Track HERE}-

Nothing ever happens in a vacuum, and today is no exception.   No, Steve Bannon is not being removed from the Senior advisory role to President Trump and will attend NSC meetings with the President.  Bannon’s security clearance therein remains unchanged.

However, Bannon is removing himself from the Principal’s Committee of the H.R. McMaster NSC (*note* he never attended the committee meetings, well, that is, he did, once), now that the political weaponization of NSC intelligence operations has been removed; and McMaster has recalibrated the incoming intelligence agencies to remove the political intelligence they were previously used to sending.

What does that prior paragraph mean?

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Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice only needed to confirm one aspect of the intelligence unmasking story for all of the dots to connect.  She made that confirmation within two minutes of her interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.

From the MSNBC transcript, emphasis mine:

Susan Rice @00:51 – …”Let me explain how this works.  I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country.  That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.; and every morning, to enable us to do that, we receive – from the intelligence community – a compilation of intelligence reports that the IC, the intelligence community, has selected for us –on a daily basis– to give us the best information as to what’s going on around the world.”

Note, right there.  STOP. No need to go any further.  There it is – Susan Rice is describing the Presidents’ Daily Briefing, aka the “PDB”.  She continues:

“I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to.  Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and assess it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.”

This is the important detail.  Susan Rice was requesting unmasking of U.S. person’s names, which she moments later describes as “U.S. official[s]”, to understand the context and importance for the intelligence being given within the Presidents’ Daily Brief.

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