The latest set of statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows all of the professional pundit claims of higher prices on imported goods due to Trump tariffs are simply disconnected from reality.  In actuality the year-over-year prices of import products are actually dropping:

U.S. Import prices fell 0.3 percent in May, the first monthly decline since a 1.4-percent drop in December. Import prices advanced 1.8 percent from December to April before the downturn in May. The price index for overall imports decreased 1.5 percent over the past 12 months, matching the drop in January. These were the largest over-the-year declines since the index fell 2.2 percent in August 2016. (See table 1.)

The U.S steel and aluminum tariffs have been in effect globally since 2017. Tariffs on softwood lumber (Canada) & durable appliances (S. Korea), same duration.  Additionally the first set of tariffs on China is now well over a year old; and the second set of expanded tariffs on China began a month ago; again, no material impact to the delivered price.
Despite two years of claims by the professional media that tariffs would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers, as you can see above the reality is quite different.
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Against the backdrop of the DOJ admitting FBI investigators never had access to the DNC servers to verify a Russian hack; and with new information about the FBI receiving partial and redacted analysis from Crowdstrike; the review by U.S. Attorney John Durham toward the downstream assessment/claims of the CIA takes on new meaning.
CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.
The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment.   The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.
The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.
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The foundation for the Russian election interference narrative is built on the claim of Russians hacking the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently releasing damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders.
Despite the Russian ‘hacking’ claim the DOJ previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server.  Instead the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.

The narrative around the DNC hack claim was always sketchy; many people believe the DNC email data was downloaded onto a flash drive and leaked.  In a court filing (full pdf below) the scale of sketchy has increased exponentially.
Suspecting they could prove the Russian hacking claim was false, lawyers representing Roger Stone requested the full Crowdstrike report on the DNC hack.  When the DOJ responded to the Stone motion they made a rather significant admission.  Not only did the FBI not review the DNC server, the FBI/DOJ never even saw the Crowdstrike report.
Yes, that is correct.  The FBI and DOJ were only allowed to see a “draft” report prepared by Crowdstrike, and that report was redacted… and that redacted draft is the “last version of the report produced”; meaning, there are no unredacted & final versions.
Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!
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Too funny…. apparently Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez didn’t watch what happened to China (or Canada) when they made similar threats of retaliation against President Trump’s tariffs.  Seriously.


President Trump wants the border secure, yes. However, President Trump would also welcome a trade tariff battle with Mexico (they can’t win); so this isn’t a technically a threat from the position of POTUS:

(Reuters) – Mexico will be ready to retaliate in kind if the U.S. government imposes tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States, Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez said on Friday.

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Twenty-three House republicans request declassification of documents directly from President Trump as soon as possible.  Despite the executive office directive to AG Bill Barr, the republican group seemingly do not trust the DOJ and FBI institutional interests.
It’s a smart move to keep the pressure on.
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It’s important to remember President Obama’s ideological ally, former DOJ Civil Rights Division head Tom Perez, is the current Chairman of the DNC.  There are still two generally adverse camps within the DNC Club, though the boundary is much softer.
The professionals (former Clinton wing) and the activists (former Obama wing).  Tom Perez hails from the ideological activist wing.  The Democrat debate will take place in Miami and the group has been broken up into two groups over two nights.

Despite the nonsense that might be spun by NBC, the selection was not random draw (they never are) by the club. The DNC selected the candidates for each night and coordinated with NBC.  Interestingly, Elizabeth Warren is the biggest winner and Bernie Sanders is the biggest loser.  That’s a *tell*.  The DNC is shaping the perspectives of the college crowd.
By positioning Elizabeth Warren on the first night (highest rating night); and positioning her with little intellectual or policy challenge; it appears the Perez DNC activist wing wants Warren over Sanders. It’s also obvious Warren can critique Sanders without an rebuttal (smart move).  Additionally Beto will look like the goofball he is.  This helps assemble the college crowd to Warren (again, subtle but smart move).
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During a White House event to announce the “Second Hiring” initiative, President Donald Trump took a moment to thank departing White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders [Video and Transcript]

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[Transcript] […] THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
And I thought maybe I’d just a take moment. So, at the White House — and been with me now three and a half years, before I won, before the election — is a person, a friend, a woman — a great, great magnificent person, actually — named Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And she’s very popular. She’s very popular. (Applause.)
And — and she’s done an incredible job. We’ve been through a lot together, and she’s tough but she’s good. You know, you also have tough and bad, right? (Laughter.) She’s tough and she’s good. She’s great.
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If you’ve got the time this is well worth watching.  Larry Kudlow is Chairman of the National Economic Council and delivers a strong voice amid the economic team of assembled by President Trump.
Kudlow provides value because he comes from the Wall Street economic punditry networking group that just doesn’t understand MAGAnomics, or ‘America First’ Main Street policy.   President Trump has taught Kudlow a great deal.  So Kudlow’s value is heightened by his ability to explain Trump’s Main Street policy to his old Wall St. tribe; who genuinely have no concept of Main Street policy (hence, they’re always puzzled).

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HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes appears with judiciary committee member Mark Meadows to discuss today’s HPSCI hearing, corruption within the DOJ/FBI, and the current NYT story about AG Bill Barr questioning the CIA construct of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.
Notice in Mr. Nunes statements: “corrupt rank and file“? {CURIOUS}; also Fusion GPS and the FBI operating on “parallel tracks“? {CURIOUS x 2}  Additionally, from Rep. Mark Meadows we hear this:

“We are now getting a lot of whistle-blowers” … “people who knew this was wrong are coming forward now” …

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Also from Nunes, confirmation that Rosenstein’s original scope memo was based on empowering/authorizing Weissmann and Mueller to investigate (ie. ‘utilize’) the dossier manufactured by Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele.
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The New York Times has a report this evening surrounding U.S. Attorney John Durham questioning CIA officials about the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation.
However, a closer look at the substance underneath the NYT reporting and it doesn’t actually look like Durham is questioning the CIA about the investigation itself; rather it appears he is questioning the CIA about how they came to the conclusions within the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA.

(New York Times) […] Mr. Barr wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign, an official has said. He also wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.

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