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President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP
Kayleigh McEnany Twitter @PressSec
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
…”because I’m good enough; I’m strong enough; and doggone it, people like me.”
That’s the kitchen table sensibility as projected by FBI Director Christopher Wray in this interview. It’s a communication style blending the modern term “corporate responsibility” with the patronizing mannerisms of a dad discussing sixth grade peer pressure with his tender gender-neutral offspring.
This is actually a very revealing interview to understand why 50 FBI agents chased the Russian conspiracy for two years with Robert Mueller; and why 15 FBI agents excitedly responded to a garage door pull-down rope. The emphasis is on the wrong syllable, but golly we only have a 0.4 percent turnover ratio, so we must be doing something right.
I’ve actually met a Chris Wray clone in the past. While culling a tier of toxic executive management, the CEO voice in the organization said to me: “what if you fire all of them and later find out you’re wrong?” To which I replied: “what’s more dangerous to you, my firing them and being wrong, or you keeping them around and my being right?”…
Director Wray is the guy who doesn’t deal with the toxic infection, instead he uses words like: “we have an opportunity”, “they need to be supported more”; and “I challenge you to provide continuous coaching.” Note at 09:45 Wray says “I put in place an entire new leadership team”, without even realizing that Bill Barr just removed -by force- Wray’s hand-selected chief legal counsel, Dana Boente. It doesn’t even register with him.
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Chris Wray’s performance as FBI Director is akin to what would happen if you took a hotel manager and made him the captain of a cruise ship.
Michael Flynn’s defense counsel, Sidney Powell, appears on Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the defense victory in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; and the next steps in the case.
Ms. Powell still has legal business in front of Judge Emmet Sullivan, so she obviously needs to be a little tempered at this inflection point. That said, what an incredible job Ms. Powell has done on behalf of her client. Remarkable legal counsel. WATCH:
In a court filing yesterday [pdf here] the DOJ provided -initially under seal- the Flynn defense team with more exculpatory evidence. The filing includes hand-written notes taken by FBI agent Peter Strzok in/around key dates in early January 2017.
The filing was unsealed today, and the Peter Strzok notes are released.
One of the reasons CTH has been slow on discussing this release is specifically because I am trying to accurately determine the provenance of the notes (as below). USAO Jeff Jensen is unsure of the exact date of the notes. Either January 3rd, 4th, or 5th… and there’s a good reason for that confusing ambiguity; which I am attempting to filter.
The notes are written by Peter Strzok during a conversation with former FBI Director James Comey; that context is important. What the notes contain are Peter Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with White House officials.
Repeat: The notes are Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with the White House. Comey is communicating to Strzok the status of opinion from various officials; those officials may include President Obama and Vice-President Biden.
President Trump and President Duda of Poland hold a press availability in the oval office prior to a bilateral meeting. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s an honor to have President Duda, a friend. We’ve had many discussions, and we work very well with Poland. I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to Poland than we are right now. And we’re going to have a very important meeting on economic development, military, and other things. And that’ll start in about 10 minutes.
President Trump and President Andrzej Duda of the Republic of Poland are scheduled to hold a joint press conference today following their bilateral meetings. Both leaders have a warm personal friendship. Anticipated start time 3:30pm ET.
UPDATE: Video Added
The three judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals have approved a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case against Michael Flynn. [pdf here]
The panel ruled 2-1, that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan overstepped his authority in not accepting the unopposed motion and questioning prosecutors’ decision. This is a big victory for the Flynn defense team. Not sure what Sullivan will do now.
Judges Karen Henderson and Neomi Rao supported the writ, judge Robert Wilkins did not. Henderson was the surprise vote.
Writing the majority opinion Judge Neomi Rao noted, “in this case, the district court’s actions will result in specific harms to the exercise of the Executive Branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power.” “If evidence comes to light calling into question the integrity or purpose of an underlying criminal investigation, the Executive Branch must have the authority to decide that further prosecution is not in the interest of justice,” Rao added.
Before NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace appeared on CNN with Don Lémon to discuss his now disproven racial “noose” targeting, he had a decision to make. Wallace could accept the FBI/NASCAR finding and admit an honest mistake was made by an overly sensitive Richard Petty racing team; or he could make racism his new identity in NASCAR as Colin Kaepernick did with football in the NFL. Bubba Wallace chose the latter.
As a result of Wallace’s new identity, and his announced career goals, NASCAR will now fragment in the same way as the National Football League. Social justice will now define Mr. Wallace’s professional effort; driving with NASCAR becomes a method to achieve his new career aspirations. That inflection point, his identity choice, is clear in his interview.
However, before getting to the interview it is worth looking at how this entire fiasco was created, starting with the carefully obtuse explanation from Richard Petty Motorsports:
Obviously Richard Petty’s team are socially woke and enlightened to their obligations in a new era of racial sensitivity. Notice the careful wording: “discovered a rope tied in the fashion of a noose”, key word “fashion.” The careful wording allows the statement to skirt on the fringes of common sense truth because they don’t ‘technically’ say it’s a noose; quite simply, because it isn’t. If it were a noose it would be useless as a garage door pull.
That brings up the second obtuse aspect of the sentence: “discovered a rope”, notice they don’t say it was attached to the garage door pull (which it was) because that would make their misinterpretation seem even more ridiculous. Saying ‘we discovered a garage door pull-down rope that appeared to be fashioned as a noose’, would illicit eye-rolls. So they carefully avoid noting their stupidity by ignoring common sense.
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