This interview is really quite funny. Former Governor John Sununu, a vocal 2016 critic of the Trump campaign for the presidency, appears on CNN and completely takes apart the nothingburger narrative surrounding the ‘Vast-Russian-Conspiracy’ theory.
On one hand it’s refreshing and, well, quite funny to see someone pointing out the absurdity of the nonsense. However, on the other hand the entire narrative has become so ridiculous it’s destroying the legacy media itself; we really don’t want to see the media drop the nonsense because their tenuous grip on it actually helps marginalize them.
Hi John! Governor Sununu is correct albeit under-emphasized in some points. John Brennan (CIA) and James Clapper (ODNI) have thrown the entire hot mess into the lap of former FBI Director James Comey.
Funny Watch: “How Much Crow Are You Going To Eat?“…
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Camerota and CNN are fully immersed in Baghdad Bob level absurdity.
As the British Police make two more arrests they are asking for help filling in the timeline of activity for Manchester Bombing terrorist Salman Abedi (22).
MANCHESTER – British police on Saturday released surveillance-camera images of the Manchester concert bomber on the night of the attack as they appealed for more information about his final days.
[…] The photos released by police show attacker Salman Abedi on the night of the bombing, wearing sneakers, jeans, a dark jacket and a baseball cap. The straps of a knapsack are visible on his shoulders. Authorities said they had made major progress in unravelling the plot behind the concert bombing but acknowledged there were still gaps in their knowledge.
Reuters/Washington Post Puts a Slice of Kushner Cheese on Russian Nothingburger and simultaneously prove the Obama Administration was spying on the Trump campaign.
The extent of the U.S. media’s straw-grasping is boundless, but this one is going to backfire. HOPEFULLY. For the most recent example consider the Washington Post and Reuters claiming President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner participating in a proposal to set up a back-channel with Russia for communication after the November 8th election.
Firstly, Reuters and The Washington Post are idiots in their claimed “exclusive” bombast, etc. UPI reported on the nothingburger back-channel Russian construct on April 3rd. This “breaking” news is old news, and old nothingburger news at that.
Of course President-elect Trump’s staff would consider a back-channel set up for communications with Russian government officials in November and December 2016, just about everyone with a tinge of common sense was saying that exact construct was needed.
Why?
Well, you must remember the atmosphere after the November 8th election during the time period being discussed. President Obama, in close coordination with his U.S. media allies, was filling the airwaves with toxic anti-Russian narratives in an explicit attempt to make any structural positive relationship between the pending Trump administration and Russia impossible.
A newly released court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) found the Obama NSA routinely violated American privacy protections as his administration and officials scoured through overseas intercepts and targeted U.S. citizens.
The Obama administration failed to disclose the extent of the unlawful activity until just before the election in 2016. The FISA court ruling states the illegal searches conducted by the NSA under Obama were “widespread” and created a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue.” Video explanation via Judicial Watch:
It is not coincidental the origin of all ‘vast-Russian-conspiracy‘ stories seem to start with a discussion of intelligence gathering beginning in July of 2016. The GOP convention to nominate Donald Trump was July 18-21st of 2016.
Surrounding the nomination that stunned the geo-political world almost every foreign government was trying to figure out who and what Donald J Trump was all about; and more specifically: how would his run for the presidency impact their specific interests.
WASHINGTON NYT — American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.
[Paragraph #5] The information collected last summer was considered credible enough for intelligence agencies to pass to the F.B.I., which during that period opened a counterintelligence investigation that is continuing. It is unclear, however, whether Russian officials actually tried to directly influence Mr. Manafort and Mr. Flynn. Both have denied any collusion with the Russian government on the campaign to disrupt the election. (link)
The New York Times should win a Pulitzer for undermining their own ‘Russian Conspiracy’ headline narrative within the fifth paragraph. [It’s a current trend] I digress.
Obviously Russia would be asking these questions along with China, France, England, the larger EU and every nation in every continent. It would be silly to claim otherwise.
Today former CIA Director John Brennan testified to congress on the Russian counter-intelligence operation which began in July 2016. Today, John Brennan completely contradicted the March 20th, 2017, testimony of former FBI Director James Comey.
We have previously drawn attention to a particular part of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to congress from March 20th. The issue is when was congressional leadership, specifically the congressional intelligence oversight group called the “Gang-of-Eight”, notified of the Russian investigation (a counter-intelligence operation).
Pay close attention. On March 20th FBI Director James Comey -together with NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers- testified to congress specifically about this notification (first three minutes of the video):
Rep. Stefanik: [01:12] …”when did you notify the White House, the DNI or congressional leadership”?
James Comey: …”good question. Congressional leadership, sometime recently they were briefed on the nature of the investigation, as I said. Obviously the department of justice has been aware of it all along”…
Watch the first 3 minutes of that video. Notice the discomfort etc. We have previously outlined why THAT is such a big deal –SEE HERE– Comey is discussing the recent notification to congress that took place approximately a week earlier. Prior to that congressional notification FBI Director Comey admits to keeping congress in the dark “because of the sensitivity of the matter” from July 2016 through March 2017.
Now, watch the opening statement from former CIA Director John Brennan today:
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join President Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt) and Saudi King Salman to participate in the inauguration of The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. [two videos below] ‘Hearts and Memes’?
Essentially the center appears to be a Saudi data hub for monitoring multiple media and social media platforms, detecting extremist sentiments and countering the concerning rhetoric with positive social media messaging. In the U.S. we have the NSA cyber command monitoring system, a ‘big brother’ per se’. The Saudi version appears to be a non military enterprise which might be considered ‘Big Allah’.
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Given First Lady Melania’s interests in combating social media bullying, this Saudi enterprise and exhibit was likely interesting.
Darnit, shuddup Dersh, you’re giving away the play. Lefty Alan Dershowitz rightly points out the appointment of a “special counsel” is tantamount to putting cheese on a nothingburger. There is no legal risk to President Trump within any of the moonbat declarations currently gripped like political life-preservers by his opposition.
However, Dershowitz also recognizes the danger to his like-minded colleagues in political office. The only criminal acts factually evidenced so far are the intelligence leaks. Robert Mueller has all the power he needs to investigate the illegal leaking of classified information.
This entire ‘muh Russia’ fiasco could have, and in my estimation‘will have‘, the absolute opposite result the loony left is looking for.
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Donald Trump has a history of this exact strategy. He creates such angst amid his opponents they drive themselves to the furthest extreme in opposition. Once they are in their crazy-space the Donald just laughs; their rabid thrashing and over-the-top displays of condescending anger create such friction they self-immolate.
Long time CTH readers will note we extended well over a year of benefit-of-the-doubt to the motives of former FBI Director James Comey with regard to the severity of his politicized nature and disposition. Throughout the entire Clinton investigation we remained ambivalent to Comey’s motives.
Indeed it wasn’t until after the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack when Comey obtusely noted the FBI had been contacted (prior to the attack) about the sketchy behavior of Omar Mateen by a ‘random concerned citizen’ -and our finding that the actual ‘citizen’ was the far more substantive St Lucie county sheriff Ken Mascara– that we recognized how far Comey was willing to go to save his political face.
Yesterday, a friend of James Comey by the name of Benjamin Wittes, editor and writer for lawfare blog, now steps out and admits he was one of the primary sources for the New York Times Comey Memo article (Michael Schmidt); and in so doing outlines the severity of the political nature of the former FBI Director:
[…] I called Schmidt Friday morning after reading his earlier story, which ran the previous evening, about Comey’s dinner with President Trump and the President’s demands at that dinner for a vow of loyalty.
President Trump has a long history of action that almost all media and political opposition seem to ignore when trying to attack him. Every effort to “get” Trump fails due to a key flaw in their approach; a flaw they can never overcome.
President Trump approaches his opposition in politics similarly to his opposition in business, with one key and consequential difference. In business opponents challenge goals based on financial ends; in politics opponents challenge based on intent or motive.
The reason no attacks stick to Trump as a candidate, or now to Trump as a president, is because his motives and intents are transparently good. He genuinely wants to see America Great Again. Period. There’s no self-interest, benefit or self-advancement within President Trump’s objective; as a consequence the ‘motive’ or ‘intent’ to attack Trump on the political angle consistently fails.
It’s a weird and disconcerting dynamic for career politicians to face an opponent who is not looking to advance his ‘political career’. However, conversely, understanding this dynamic politician Trump consistently hits at his opposition specifically on the motive and intent angle. (more…)
