During a healthcare event in the Oval Office (full video below fold), President Trump took questions from the assembled press pool on current events of interest. The Q&A session lasted just short of 20 minutes.
The primary questioning focused on the ongoing Iran conflict. WATCH:
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Full event video below:
President Trump announced today, the U.S-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by three weeks.
President Trump posted news of the extension on Truth Social following a meeting at the White House that included “high ranking” representatives from Israel and Lebanon in addition to Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa. “I look forward in the near future to hosting the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, and the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun. It was a Great Honor to be a participant at this very Historic Meeting!” [SOURCE]
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President Donald Trump continues to repair and replace the worn-out DC infrastructure ahead of our 250th Independence Day anniversary.
In this video President Trump walks through the repair to the DC Mall Reflection Pool. WATCH:
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DOJ – “The Department of Justice, through U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro and Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Criminal Division, together with its partners, today announced a series of coordinated actions by the Scam Center Strike Force against Southeast Asian criminal organizations operating scam centers that have defrauded Americans of billions of dollars.
The Scam Center Strike Force’s actions include criminal charges against two Chinese nationals who managed a cryptocurrency investment fraud compound in Burma and attempted to open another compound in Cambodia, the seizure of a Telegram messaging app channel used to recruit human trafficking victims to a scam compound in Cambodia in order to work a law enforcement impersonation scam, and the seizure of 503 fake invesment websites, among other actions.” (more)
…”the scam workers specifically targeted U.S. persons. In the fraud scheme, victims received cold calls from individuals posing as bank representatives, including impersonators of JPMorgan or other U.S. bank customer service agents, warning them that their bank accounts had been used to purchase firearms from an actual U.S. gun store website. Victims were then transferred to individuals posing as “NYPD detectives” or other supposed law enforcement, and later sent to the “New York Supreme Court” or other purported prosecutorial officials. Through sustained pressure conducted over WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams, victims were induced to disclose their bank account information and ultimately transfer their savings to the scammers.” (source)
There is still no warrant requirement in the newest version of the FISA(702) reauthorization bill as proposed [SEE HERE]. The new modifications are only nine pages, and I would recommend all interested parties to review the language.
The House proposal is for a three-year extension of 702 with a new structural compliance report process that requires the FBI to submit a monthly report to the Civil Liberties Protection Officer (CLPO) within the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Essentially, the ODNI becomes the compliance auditor for how the FBI uses the process.
The CLPO reviews the names and summaries of intents that have been searched through the use of FISA (702) as submitted -monthly- by the FBI. If there are any violations or concerns the CLPO notifies the Intelligence Community Inspector General for investigation. Both the CLPO and the ICIG report to the ODNI (Tulsi Gabbard, currently).
“The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community shall investigate each query referred … to determine whether the query constitutes a violation of laws, rules, or regulations or an abuse of authority.” It’s another layer of compliance review intended to stop search abuses within the database that is held and maintained by the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command.
Here’s the issue with that part: The FBI can only submit the names that were searched if they are aware of them. Meaning, the FBI doesn’t maintain the audit trail, so the FBI only knows who was searched using 702 based on the FBI ‘searcher‘ reporting their search.
This compliance process doesn’t address unlawful database searches that are not reported because they are unknown to the FBI compiling the report.
The NSA and Cyber Command would still need to be monitoring and auditing the searching of the NSA database; and those searches may, or may not, be done by FBI officials who are filling out reports telling the DNI of their activity.
If a non-FBI person is abusing the database; or if an FBI agent simply doesn’t report his search; that/those search(es) would not show up on the monthly report to be delivered to the CLPO. Hence, how would the Civil Liberties Protection Officer even know?
That layer of compliance just doesn’t make sense.
This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.
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 †
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Prior to 2018 any public mention of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would be cause for you to immediately lose your security clearance in government. However, by mid-2018 DC officials were not only openly discussing FISA in public settings, but the DOJ released a Top-Secret Compartmented Intelligence Title-1 FISA warrant.
Why was a TSCI Title-1 FISA warrant made public in 2018?
The Carter Page FISA application and subsequent warrant would have been the easiest document to keep hidden from the public. You cannot FOIA classified documents. However, someone in the DOJ released their exclusive national security equity. I am certain it was Andrew Weissmann who made the call.
Additionally, when the DOJ FISA application was made public, few people noticed the date stamp on the application itself [copy from FISC 3/17/17].
Why was the DOJ releasing the warrant to the public, and why did they use that specific copy that came from the FISC on March 17, 2017. Why not release their own copies from their own DOJ-NSD files? What was it about the FISC copy that made it the option of their choice?
Just as the Atkinson transcript, whistleblower report and IC IG investigative material showed a fraudulent and corrupt impeachment effort, the background details of the FISA application being made public shows the fraudulent and corrupt intent of the Robert Mueller investigation that preceded it.
You will remember the massive media debate in early 2018 about the FISA application deployed against former short-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The DOJ, at the time under the control of the Mueller special counsel for all things Trump-Russia related, wouldn’t let congress see the FISA application. Devin Nunes complained to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Eventually a deal was struck and two members from the House Intelligence committee (democrats and republicans) and two members from the House Judiciary Committee, were allowed to go to Main Justice and read the FISA application, but not copy it. Four congressmen were allowed to go read and take notes. Trey Gowdy and John Ratcliffe represented the two republicans, and their notes formed the basis for what later was called “The Nunes Memo.”
The Democrats were not happy with the claims in the Nunes memo, and subsequently HPSCI ranking member Adam Schiff wrote the democrat version.
Both of those sets of memos then needed to be declassified, more delays, before they could be made public. For weeks and weeks, the Nunes -vs- Schiff memos were debated by both sides, with each saying their version was the truth and the other party’s version was spin and/or false. All of this was happening in January, February and March 2018.
Then, later in the summer, something really weird happened. On July 21, 2018, Main Justice completely reversed position on keeping the FISA application secret, and for the first time in U.S. history a top secret classified Title-1 FISA application was released to the public (with redactions).
People were so filled with curiosity about the Carter Page FISA application that few, heck, almost no one, stopped to ask why it was released?
Why the sudden secrecy reversal by the DOJ?
A generally good big-picture overview here from the folks at Promethean PAC.
“In this midweek update, Susan Kokinda argues that Kevin Warsh’s Senate Banking Committee testimony—calling for “regime change” at the Federal Reserve and blaming inflation on excessive money creation—signals a broader shift aligned with the Trump administration against what she describes as an Imperial, British-led free-trade order.
Kokinda highlights Warsh’s criticism of post-2008 quantitative easing as benefiting financial asset holders while many Americans own no assets, and contrasts this with Democrats’ focus on divestment issues. Kokinda ties Warsh’s stance to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s emphasis on raising living standards over bailing out markets and to Trump’s comments on Fed independence. She then points to Trump’s April 20 Defense Production Act action citing market failures in energy infrastructure, including transformer shortages, as national-security threats, linking this to energy independence and Iran, and contrasts it with Mark Carney’s globalist posture and references to the War of 1812.”
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held an impromptu press availability today at the White House. The primary focus of the questioning relates to the status in Iran.
Mrs Leavitt notes there is an internal political fracture within Iran between hardline religious extremists and moderate religious extremists, and President Trump is giving those two factions space to come to a unified negotiation approach. WATCH:
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