National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow on trade negotiations with China, and how the EU is positioning to off-set global economic contraction. Additionally, Kudlow discusses the aspects of the July jobs report overlooked by Wall Street pundits.
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Do not overlook or underestimate the importance of the bigger picture behind the global economic forecasts and the collective alignment against U.S. President Donald Trump. The ‘America First’ program is against their interests. There are trillions at stake.
Asia, primarily China, and the EU rely on common alignment with the multinationals who control Wall Street and have influenced U.S. trade and economic policy for 35 years. (more…)
The interesting aspect here is to remind ourselves that James Comey is currently in the “Principal Review Phase” of a pending IG report that is specific to his conduct.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz has written a report of Comey’s conduct. Part of that process included a criminal referral to US Attorney John Huber, and a prosecution declination. James Comey has obviously reviewed the IG report (an NDA restricts his ability to talk specifically about it); and we are awaiting publication of the final report.
It sounds like former FBI Director James Comey has concluded his response to the Inspector General’s report. Which means the IG report is soon to be released.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from two days of talks in Shanghai on Thursday. After debriefing President Trump on the results the president announced a decision to apply a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese products.
This announcement would answer the question of whether the Chinese were willing to restart discussions from the previous point of contention. Obviously they are not.
The Wall Street financial/investment class will go bananas. U.S. based multinationals who have invested massively in Chinese manufacturing are apoplectic. The ‘Wall Street’ -vs- Main Street battle now enters a new phase of confrontation and adversarialism.
As we have discussed, President Trump consistently implied he did not see how any deal with China is possible unless they were willing to fundamentally restructure their trade position. It has been clear -validated by the G20 outcome- that President Trump is not going to accept anything less than a full and complete structural change in the U.S. trade position with China. Lighthizer’s severe compliance and enforcement clauses, specific to each unique trade sector, are non-negotiable. (more…)
Now that we know the Department of Justice Inspector General is about to release a report on former FBI Director James Comey; and now that we know the OIG Principal Review Phase was already initiated; we can start to monitor the IG Website for the release.
NOTE: This is NOT the IG report on DOJ and FBI conduct about IG FISA abuses. This is a carve-out report, specific to James Comey and his leaked memos.
It appears the pending IG report will cover the conduct of James Comey and how he handled a series of memos he produced; contemporaneous accounts written by Comey covering events he documented outside of normal FBI protocol.
As part of the process, the inspector general report has been given to James Comey in advance. According to John Solomon reporting, Comey lawyers Patrick Fitzgerald and Daniel Richman, along with spokesperson Keith Urbahn are all participating in his review of the report content. This is called the “Principal Review Phase”.
In the example of the 2018 IG report on Andrew McCabe, the OIG gave McCabe’s team a week during the principal review phase, and then published the report two days after the responses were submitted. [McCabe Report Reviewed] We don’t know how long James Comey has had the report, but my hunch is several days.
If the IG sticks to the same general feedback timeline as the McCabe report, we could see a final IG report very soon; perhaps even as early as tomorrow (Friday August 2nd); which would line-up with the DOJ request for additional time in the Comey Memo/Archey Declaration FOIA case in the DC Circuit (Judge James Boasberg) also due Aug 2nd, and possibly delayed due to the background of the Comey IG report being released. (more…)
To say there is broad-based confusion is an understatement. The recent reporting by John Solomon of The Hill only makes the confusion worse. Let’s stand back and reconcile two issues (with evidence to support) that are MASSIVELY conflated.
First, go read the full Solomon article. Notice the entire construct of the article surrounds “The Comey Memos“. As you will see, this specific topic is important. Within the Solomon article you will find (emphasis mine):
[…] Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s team referred Comey for possible prosecution under the classified information protection laws, but Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors working for Attorney General William Barr reportedly have decided to decline prosecution — a decision that’s likely to upset Comey’s conservative critics. Prosecutors found the IG’s findings compelling but decided not to bring charges because they did not believe they had enough evidence of Comey’s intent to violate the law, according to multiple sources.
A recent FOIA release from Judicial Watch (full pdf below) reveals that two of Mueller’s initial FBI agents, based on dates and redactions – likely Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, visited James Comey on June 7th, 2017, to retrieve a collection of his memos.
[However, a word of caution, one of the memos was titled “last night at 6:30pm” and is being widely misinterpreted to have been written the night before (June 6th, 2017) when that is not accurate. It is likely that memo relates to the January dinner in the White House with President Trump that held the same sentence.]
If we ignore the misinterpreted “last night” memo aspect (dinner with potus in January ’17), here’s what we can learn from this FOIA release:
♦First, the memos were picked up while FBI agent’s Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka were lead FBI agents that transferred into the Mueller team. Therefore it’s likely they were the two who traveled to Comey’s house for this June 7th effort. (more…)
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released significant wage and salary data yesterday which held stunning upward revisions for 2018 and 2019. Wage growth of 5.5% combined with low inflation remaining at 1.4 percent; the disposable income of U.S. workers jumped to a stunning 4.1%. [Data Tables]
Within the revised BEA data, we find employee compensation rose 4.5% in 2017 and 5% in 2018. Importantly the growth trend continued into 2019, with compensation increasing 3.4 percent in the first six months alone. Year-over-year wages and salaries were revised upward to 5.3% for May, and 5.5% in June. These are stunning increases in worker pay.
There are various economic indicators we have shared through the years, but wage growth is one of the more critical. First, wage growth lags behind business activity – workers don’t get pay raises until after business volume demands/provides it. Second, wage growth is generally uni-directional – once businesses hike pay, the increases cement.
As the Wall Street Journal put it: (more…)
It was only a matter of time before someone explained how the Chinese advisors to Chairman Xi Jinping are using President Trump’s inability to hold the coup plotters accountable as evidence they can wait out the President.
This is the crossover, where a lack of accountability for “Spygate” now begins to negatively influence the geopolitical, economic and strategic position of President Trump. However, there’s an upside to this dynamic….
In several interviews the president has noted his preference to keep the DOJ and FBI issues at a distance and deferred action to others. The economic reset is President Trump’s #1 priority. If Trump identifies the lack of DOJ and FBI accountability as an impediment to the economic program, he may become much more engaged.
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SHANGHAI—Plodding progress in trade negotiations between the U.S. and China this week is partly the result of a new tactic from Beijing, which increasingly thinks waiting may produce a more-favorable agreement.
Jumpin’ ju-ju bones, there’s big news in here. Actual Bombshells! For real Tick Tocks and much much more….
Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker appeared on Fox News to discuss the replacement of Dan Coats with John Ratcliffe as head of the ODNI, and the current status of AG Bill Barr’s ongoing reviews into prior DOJ and FBI (mis)conduct.
Whitaker posits the placement of Ratcliffe as looking at the aggregate intelligence apparatus and seeing if there “are systemic issues and failures for how the investigations were kicked-off”; and the engagements with other countries (FBI and CIA).
Additionally Whitaker summarizes U.S. Attorney John Durham as focused on the origin of the intelligence operation against candidate Trump and “prosecuting anyone that needs to be prosecuted“. [By the way, that seems to confirm Durham as an official “investigation”, not a “review”.] Then comes the BOMBSHELL…. (@01:26 below) while seemingly not realizing what he just said, Whitaker outlines U.S. Attorney John Huber as reviewing “anything related to Comey’s memos and the like.” Boom… There it is.
THAT finally explains why the DOJ is fighting the release of the David Archey declarations in the FOIA lawsuit by CNN. [Listen carefully at 01:26 of the interview]
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Until that obscure comment, likely a slip that not many would catch, there has been no valid explanation by the DOJ about any investigation of the Comey memos, which would also encompass the “Archey Declarations”.
If U.S. Attorney John Huber is indeed looking at those Comey memos, that would explain why the DOJ is fighting the release of the Archey Declarations in the DC Circuit Court with Judge James E Boasberg. Now it makes sense. That little obscure comment by Whitaker is a big effen’ deal. (more…)
Speaking to WMAL radio, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova informs the audience that declassified documents will begin to be made public starting Wednesday July 31st.
Additionally, Mr. diGenova states confidently that U.S. Attorney John Durham is not conducting a “review”, but is conducting a full criminal investigation with a grand jury empaneled and currently receiving testimony from witnesses.
The comments come at 04:58of the audio/video below [Prompted just hit play]
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Obviously Joe diGenova is making a very specific statement with measurable and specific action to come on very specific day. Good news !!
On May 23rd, 2019, President Trump gave AG Bill Barr unilateral authority to declassify documents. A month later, against the backdrop of more evidence surfacing showing corruption within the DOJ and FBI (June 14th, 2019), and with a negative balance in the trust account, twenty three House republicans asked President Trump not to wait.
Here’s the list of material possible for declassification, and the intelligence offices who hold custodial authority over the compartmented documents. This was the original list as outlined in 2018: (more…)
