President Trump holds a mini press conference with Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon to announce her departure.  During the presser President Trump also answers questions on a variety of current events. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] Mar-a-Lago – Palm Beach, Florida, – 4:17 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. Linda McMahon has done an incredible job as the head of the Small Business Administration. She has been a superstar. The fact is that I’ve known her for a long time. I knew she was good, but I didn’t know she was that good. She has been one of our all-time favorites. It was just so smooth. She’s helped so many people in the world of small business.
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Oh boy, if you’ve been following the Justin Trudeau scandal surrounding the SNC-Lavalin bribery and corruption case, well, things just got more interesting.  Former Justice Minister, Canadian Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould, has stated, repeatedly, she felt pressured by Justin Trudeau to interfere in a criminal prosecution to help a business based on politics.  [Backstory Here – and Here – and Here]
Obviously Ms. Wilson-Raybould knew Trudeau was putting her in a legally precarious position because she took the unprecedented step of recording a conversation with Trudeau’s aide, Michael Wernick, while he was applying the pressure.  LISTEN:

CANADA – […] The recording shows Trudeau aide Michael Wernick telling the Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould that Trudeau “is determined, quite firm,” in finding a way to avoid a prosecution that could put 9,000 jobs at risk.
It also shows Wilson-Raybould, who was also attorney general, saying she regards the pressure as “inappropriate.”

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The Robert Mueller report on the investigation into Russia’s election interference will be made public by mid-April according to a letter sent today from Attorney General William P. Barr. The White House will not see the document before he sent it to Congress.

According to AG Barr the full report is going through the intelligence review process for classification and removal of sensitive material, as well as grand jury evidence. [pdf Link to Letter]  Here’s the letter:

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There’s a somewhat sketchy background here that’s a little bit more granular and important than is being outlined. The redacted Comey memos were originally released to congress and the media.  However, the unredacted memos -and more importantly the reason for the redactions– has never been held up to scrutiny.
As noted by Fox News: “Washington District Court Judge James E. Boasberg — an Obama appointee who was also tapped by Chief Justice John Roberts for a seat on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court — issued an order Wednesday demanding the FBI hand over “clean and unredacted copies of the documents in dispute here,” apparently including the Comey memos and documents relating to the declarations.” (more)

However, as “Undercover Huber” has noted, Judge Boasberg has previously seen the Comey memos back in 2017 when the original arguments were made by Mueller’s team to keep them redacted from public review.

[…] the main issue now isn’t “handing over the Comey memos” (the Judge already saw them long ago), but whether to publicly release the FBI/DOJ justifications for NOT releasing the Comey memos to the public AND release the Comey memos completely unredacted.
The FBI/DOJ filed those justifications against releasing the Comey memos “in camera” & “ex parte” with the court on Oct 13 2017 & Jan 19 2018 They were written by the then FBI lead on Mueller’s team, David W. Archey (who replaced Peter Strzok, he led all FBI agents from Sep-17).

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President Trump tweeted earlier today that he plans to close at least a portion of the U.S-Mexico border next week in an effort to force Mexico to take action and stop the constant caravans of migrants.  Because the economic consequences to border closing will be so severe (cross-border trade) it is prudent to provide advanced notice so everyone can prepare:

Something has to change. Doing the same thing repeatedly and not changing the outcome is not a sustainable policy.  There is a major ongoing crisis at the border.

(Via NBC) […] Trump has threatened to close the border before. In December, amid the partial government shutdown, Trump threatened to close the border if Democrats didn’t agree to fund the construction of his border wall.

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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

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

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 †

Great job team.  This is exactly what’s needed.  More of this trumpet… keep fighting back with the atomic sledgehammer of truth.  HPSCI committee member Mike Conaway tells HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff he’s a corrupt, lying, disengenuous crapweasel.
The calls from Republicans for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to step down as head of the House Intelligence Committee have been loud following the release of the four-page Mueller report summary. On Thursday, the request for Schiff’s resignation was made right to the Chairman’s face.  Crapweasel Schiff was triggered…

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Additionally, and interestingly, Trey Gowdy appears on TV to give his impression of the HPSCI confrontation as well as the Mueller findings and John Brennan.
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Last night President Trump called-in to Sean Hannity for an extensive interview.  Here’s the transcript from that interview (sorry for the delay):
Mr. President, thank you for taking time for being with us tonight.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT (via telephone): Well, thank you, Sean, very much. It’s an honor.
HANNITY: I appreciate you being here.
You really have not had an opportunity to react, to respond to the Mueller report, the A.G.’s letter, that summarized the report that exonerated you. No collusion after all these years, as you have been claiming. He left the decision as it relates to obstruction to the attorney general and deputy attorney general. They quickly said, no, that does not rise to the level.
And I wanted to get your reaction.
TRUMP: Well, we are very happy about it. It’s gone on for a long time, almost since the beginning of my term, and you know, if you look at it, we’ve done so much despite that. But it was a cloud. It was a cloud that most people didn’t believe, fortunately.
They spent more than $30 million, hundreds of interviews of people, in some cases very innocent people that were put through the ringer. Millions of document pages, millions and millions of document pages, and after that, there was no collusion, there was no obstruction. It was such a ridiculous thing that happened.
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Former CIA Director John Brennan lies at the heart of the intelligence community decision to weaponize against Donald Trump.  In this outline I will make the case for a possible criminal referral by Devin Nunes.

The FBI’s formal origination of the counterintelligence investigation into candidate Donald Trump known as “Operation Crossfire Hurricane”, begins with a two-page memo submitted by former CIA Director John Brennan to former FBI Director James Comey.
The two page origination memo is known as an “EC” or “electronic communication”.  This classified origination memo is one of the key documents requested by congress for declassification by President Trump, to be shared with the American people.
According to House Intelligence Committee member Devin Nunes; who is also a member of the intelligence oversight ‘Gang-of-Eight’; that EC contains intelligence material that did not come through “official intelligence channels” into the U.S. intelligence apparatus.
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