This is oddly interesting.
( h/t GWP ) At the heart of the current media Russian narrative du jour is a story about Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya.  That meeting took place on June 9th 2016 in Trump Tower.
Now it is discovered via video and images, that only 5 days later, June 14th 2016, Ms. Veselnitskaya was a guest of former Obama administration Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul in Washington DC for a House of Representatives hearing on U.S. Policy Toward Putin’s Russia.  [Video HERE – and Video HERE]

Ms. Natalia Veselnitskaya is pictured seated in the front row directly behind former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Mr. Michael McFaul at the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This is June 14th, 2016, five days after the reported meeting with Donald Trump Jr.
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White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders conducts a press briefing for media on July 11th 2017. Audio and Transcript below:

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[Transcript] 2:26 P.M. EDT – MS. SANDERS: Good afternoon. Before I get into the issues of today and take your questions, I first want to take a minute to acknowledge the 16 servicemen and women who lost their lives yesterday in a crash of a Marine Corps transport plane in Mississippi. As of now, the investigation into the details of the crash is still ongoing, but as the President said this morning, this is a truly heartbreaking incident. The thoughts and prayers of the entire administration are with the friends and families of the Marines who died in this tragic accident.
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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will be traveling to France on Thursday at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bastille Day.
Given the nature of the people, corporations and global interests, behind the installation of French President Macron, the planned events in Paris on the Champs-Élysées represent the largest security risk to date for U.S. President Trump.  Macron is a useful idiot, the exemplification of a disposable puppet.  Macron’s dispatch, post-catastrophic international security embarrassment, would not be seen as a significant problem.
Today the White House conducted a press availability to discuss the trip and answer media questions in advance of the President and First Lady’s departure into hostile territory.

[Transcript] 3:32 P.M. EDT – AIDE: Good afternoon. For your recording purposes, this background briefing on the President’s upcoming foreign travel is off-camera and not for broadcast. Attribution for your briefing is senior administration official. This information will be embargoed until the conclusion of the briefing and we’ll release a transcript afterwards.
Okay, so open remarks and when my colleague calls on you, please identify who you are, and your outlet, so he knows who he’s speaking with. Thanks.
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Nuance and subtlety is everything in China.  Culturally harsh tones are seen as a sign of weakness and considered intensely impolite in public displays between officials; especially within approved and released statements by officials representing the government.
Historic Chinese cultural policy, the totalitarian control over expressed political sentiment and diplomacy through silence, is evident in the strategic use of the space between carefully chosen words, not just the words themselves.
China has no cultural or political space between peace and war; they are a historic nation based on two points of polarity.  They see peace and war as coexisting with each other. China accepts and believes opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.  Flowing between these polar states is a natural dynamic to be used -with serious contemplation- in advancing objectives as needed.
Peace or war. Win or lose. Yin and Yang. Culturally there is no middle position in dealings with China; they are not constitutionally capable of understanding or valuing the western philosophy of mutual benefit where concession of terms gains a larger outcome.  If it does not benefit China, it is not done. The outlook is simply, a polarity of peace or war.  In politics or economics the same perspective is true.  It is a zero-sum outlook.
Therefore, when you see China publicly use strong language – it indicates a level of internal disposition beyond the defined western angst.  Big Panda becomes Red Dragon; there is no mid-status or evolutionary phase.  Every American associated with investment, economics and China would be well advised to put their business affairs in order accordingly.
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Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to President Trump, appeared today on MSNBC and CNN to discuss the liberation of Mosul Iraq from ISIS. During both interviews the networks began by questioning Gorka about the latest information surrounding Donald Trump Jr. and the contacts by a Russian business associate to facilitate delivery of opposition research on Hillary Clinton.
MNSBC’s Stephanie Ruhle begins her questioning on the controversy surrounding Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian attorney. Dr. Gorka describes the underlying story as a “massive nothing burger.”

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Earlier this morning Sebastian Gorka appeared on CNN with Alisyn Camerota for her New Day program.
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Today Donald Trump Jr. released a chain of emails detailing his 2016 communication  after being contacted by a music producer expert from The Box Tiger Music (acquaintance) to set up a meeting with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya who claimed to have political opposition research information on Hillary Clinton.

Rob Goldstone is a music producer who represents a Russian pop star named Emin Agalarov.  Emin Agalarov’s father was a business contact who coordinated bringing the Miss Universe pageant to Russia in 2013.  Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr. to set up a meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya. The email chain is below:
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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sean Spicer 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 †

Those of you following along at home might be having a remarkable feeling of Deja-Vu with the similarity between Hillary Clinton’s approach to her emails containing classified information, and James Comey’s approach today to reports of his leaked memos containing “classified” intelligence.
The defensive narrative ‘fact pattern’ appears identical in sequencing:
Step 1 – The emails/memos were not classified. √
Step 2 – The emails/memos were not ‘marked’ classified. √
Step 3 – The emails/memos were ‘retroactively classified‘. √

(Politico Link – Lastest)

Next up in the logical sequence:

Step 4 –  Missing/deleted = Wiped Comey memos: “what, like with a cloth or something?”
Step 5 –  Robert Mueller (filling the role of Comey circa 2016) will hold a 2017 presser to say: James Comey didn’t intentionally violate the law with sharing classified information within his leaked memos in 2017.  Adding: “we could find no intent” by him to do so.
Step 6 – Mueller will conclude his presser by saying: “no reasonable special counsel would recommend charges“.
Bets?
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short deliver information to the media during today’s press briefing:

[Transcript] 2:28 P.M. EDT – MS. SANDERS: Good afternoon. Before we get started, I’d like to bring up Marc Short, the Director of Legislative Affairs, to give an update on how we’re moving the President’s agenda through Congress, particularly on the historic obstruction from Senate Democrats on confirming the President’s incredibly qualified nominees to posts across the federal government.
After his statement, Marc will take a few of your questions on that topic; and after that, I will be back to answer your other questions.
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