Interesting interviews by Maria Bartiromo today as she hosted both John Ratcliffe and Devin Nunes to discuss the latest remarks and investigative approach by Attorney General William Barr.
Representative Ratcliffe is one of the few congressional members who has seen the majority of the classified documents which backstop the activity of the DOJ and FBI during the 2016 election.
A combination of the NAFTA “Fatal Flaw” & transnational Chinese shipments, was always at the heart of President Trump placing steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico during negotiations that culminated in the USMCA trade agreement. The goal was to block China from dumping product into the U.S. through the doors of Canada/Mexico.
Within the USMCA President Trump and Robert Lighthizer placed a specific rule Article 32:10 which grants the U.S. the right to veto (control) Canadian and Mexican purchase agreements with “Non FTA Market Countries”, ie. China.
This Article 32:10 rule is at the core of the USMCA agreement. However, after the USMCA agreement was reached President Trump kept the Steel/Aluminum tariffs in place. For those who don’t understand Trump (insert Chrystia Freeland here) the question was always: why?
Quite simply the answer behind the question was President Trump’s retention of leverage. Yes, in 2018 the USMCA was agreed to; however, the USMCA was not ratified by either Canada or Mexico…. it was only an agreement. Why would Trump remove critical leverage on an initial promise.
Trump is not a politician; he’s a businessman who knows promises are paper until they become action. Additionally, President Trump is a tactician; the tariff leverage was held until such a time as removing it would generate an immediate gain in national compliance toward his trade objective… That’s the action. Today:
(Bloomberg) President Donald Trump said the U.S. will lift steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, boosting efforts to encourage lawmakers to ratify a new North American trade deal.
“I’m pleased to announce that we’ve just reached an agreement with Canada and Mexico and will be selling our product into those countries without the imposition of tariffs or major tariffs,” Trump said at an event Friday. “Hopefully Congress will approve the USMCA quickly.”
CTH noted yesterday that things in/around the Michael Flynn investigation could get very interesting…. not because of what is visible, but rather because of what is likely to surface.
Today, President Trump draws attention to Michael Flynn being under DOJ/FBI investigation during 2016; AND specifically, that candidate Trump and President-elect Trump was never notified of the potential issues:
The backstory issues within the Flynn case may soon surface; so it’s worth a few minutes to describe where this could be heading. Specifically, how a series of data-points are coming together and building toward a strong probability Flynn was under a FISA surveillance warrant during a key part of the 2016 election campaign.
By now everyone is aware General Michael Flynn was under FBI investigation throughout a significant portion of 2016. There are strong indications Flynn was under surveillance even as far back as early to mid 2015.
Yesterday when Judge Sullivan instructed the DOJ to turn over recordings and transcripts of the Flynn-Kislyak phone call, there was a part of Sullivan’s order that indicated his suspicion there was more than just a singular record of a December 29th, 2016, intercept.
(more…)
U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr gives his first media interview since taking office. Bill Hemmer interviews AG Barr in El Salvador on a wide variety of topics. Fox News has packaged the broadcast interview to begin with questions to the AG about the ongoing “review” of FBI and DOJ conduct in the election, ie “SpyGate”.
The Attorney General explains how the primary aspects under review were conducted by a “small group” at the top of the institutions, and he was surprised to discover no-one had valid answers to his initial inquiry. The lack of cogent explanation furthered his concerns and led to his decision to appoint a prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John H Durham, to conduct a more thorough review.
Fox News correspondent Bill Hemmer interviewed U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr in El Salvador during a visit to address the crisis on the U.S-Mexico border, MS-13, drug trafficking and human trafficking.
During the interview Bill Hemmer asked about AG Barr’s ongoing review of DOJ and FBI activity during the 2016 election.
BARR: “I’ve been trying to get answers to the questions and I’ve found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate and some of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together, in a sense I have more questions today than when I first started.”
HEMMER: “What doesn’t hang together?”
BARR: “Some of the explanations of what occurred.”
HEMMER: “Why does that matter?”
BARR: “People have to find out what the government was doing during that period. If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale.”
Funny how that happens. Less than 24 hours after President Trump declared new tech telecommunication is a national security issue; and one day after Secretary Wilbur Ross bans Huawei (and affiliates) from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval; all of a sudden the UK is having second thoughts.
…Huh, go figure:
LONDON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei poses such a grave security risk to the United Kingdom that the government must not allow it to have even a limited role in building 5G networks, a former head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service said on Thursday.
In what some have compared to the Cold War arms race, the United States is worried that 5G dominance would give any global competitor such as China an advantage Washington is not ready to accept.
Mrs. Susan Thornton, the former acting assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration, tells her Beijing audience to stop negotiating until President Trump is removed from office in 2020.
(BEIJING) […] “I want to be optimistic,” said Thornton, whose 27-year career in Washington ended in July. “I tell all our foreign counterparts they should keep steady, keep their heads down and wait. [They should] try to not let anything change dramatically.”
“If this skeptical attitude towards talking diplomacy continues in this administration, you might have to wait till another administration,” Thornton said at an event held by National Committee of US-China relations and Shanghai’s American Chamber. (read more)
There was a prescient article written in Politico when Thornton announced her exit from the State Department. (more…)
On her television show Laura Ingraham reported her ‘sources’ inform her President Trump will execute the declassification directive next week. [Video Tweet Link] If accurate, the timing –in advance of the OIG draft report– makes sense.
The declassification of documents central to previous congressional inquiry, that also encompasses the Inspector General review of the Carter Page FISA application, is the subject of great interest and speculation. However, it would make sense for President Trump to authorize the declassification of documents in advance of the IG report release.
Likely Inspector General Michael Horowitz has reviewed all of the documents in question. If Horowitz wants to include the classified content in his draft report for principle review; and later within the final report; those documents would need to be declassified or else they would be held back, footnoted and outlined in a classified appendix.
If the DOJ and President Trump want the information more broadly available to the public and media, it would make sense to declassify the documents – pending the review and approval of the participating intelligence agencies (DOJ, DOJ-NSD, CIA, NSA, State Dept., FBI, ODNI, DoD, etc.)
♦ The process without controversy – First, each of the executive branch intelligence agencies will have to sign-off on the declassification request, and/or explain to the Chief Executive (that’s Trump), through the ODNI, why their specific intelligence product should not be made public.
Generally speaking, now that the Mueller investigation is complete; and if there is no substantive risk to national security; the intelligence agencies will adhere/defer to the request of the executive. This is where the alignment and support from U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr is critically important.
(more…)
The exit door begins to close. According to the latest leak provided to John Solomon the State Department information -deconstructing Chris Steele- was presented to FBI Agent Peter Strzok a week before they used Steele’s sketchy dossier to prop up the FBI FISA application on Carter Page.
John Solomon – […] The officials declined to say what the FBI did with the information about Steele after it reached Strzok’s team, or what the email specifically revealed. A publicly disclosed version of the email has been heavily redacted in the name of national security.
While much remains to be answered, the email exchange means FBI supervisors knew Steele had contact with State and had reason to inquire what he was saying before they sought the warrant. If they had inquired, agents would have learned Steele had admitted to Kavalec he had been leaking to the news media, had a political deadline of Election Day to get his information public and had provided demonstrably false intelligence in one case, as I reported last week. (read more)
It’s almost guaranteed the reason Kavelec’s email to the FBI was redacted is specifically because Ms. Kavelec used her State Dept. portal to check on travel records and noted the “Michael Cohen in Prague” story was false. Kavalec would have easy access to State Dept. travel records.
(more…)
Against the backdrop of media reports surrounding U.S. Attorney John Durham, and an investigation into potentially corrupt 2016 investigators, perhaps it’s worthwhile to pause, evaluate, reset the outlook and review the backstories.
There’s room for cautious optimism, but there’s also reason to temper expectations. First within the latest Fox News report, the following is noted:
Fox News – […] Durham, known as a “hard-charging, bulldog” prosecutor, according to a source, will focus on the period before Nov. 7, 2016—including the use and assignments of FBI informants, as well as alleged improper issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants. Durham was asked to help Barr to “ensure that intelligence collection activities by the U.S. Government related to the Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign were lawful and appropriate.”