You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD

U.S. Attorney John Lausch arrived in Washington DC to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ and be the point person for contact with congress. Today, Representatives Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows discuss their ongoing frustration.

Against the backdrop of the Robert Mueller’s “small group” corrupt officials continuing their effective efforts to undermine the Office of the President, and now targeting the personal attorney of a sitting president; and against the continued display of ineptitude, weakness and seemingly intentional inability of Trump appointed officials to defend the Office of the President; the frustration is at a boiling point….

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While necessarily needing to continue the gamesmanship, and publicly exhibit positive reception therein, I doubt seriously President Trump is fooled by this familiar Chinese ploy. Actions speak louder than words:

BOAO/BEIJING, China (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping promised on Tuesday to open the country’s economy further and lower import tariffs on products like cars, in a speech seen as an attempt to defuse an escalating trade dispute with the United States.

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According to updated information the Trump appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, was recused from any aspect surrounding the FBI raid of President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

One of the key points made by those who defended the highly charged political raid of Michael Cohen’s home, office and hotel suite was that a President Trump appointed U.S. Attorney signed off on the raid.  That deflection point is now demonstrably removed.

(Via ABC) […] Berman was not involved in the decision to raid Cohen’s office because of the recusal, two sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

The recusal was approved by senior Justice Department officials who report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the sources said. Rosenstein himself was notified of the recusal after the decision was made.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be appearing before a joint hearing with the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.  The structural reasoning -as sold by media- surrounds social media privacy, and the use and abuse of user data.  However, Democrats are also planning to use this testimony to prove that Facebook allowed Russian operatives to elect Donald Trump.  Anticipated start time 2:15pm EST.

POTUS Trump Livestream Link – PBS Livestream Link – Fox10 Livestream Link

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You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD

Moments ago a righteously angered President Trump responded to the FBI raids on the office and home of his personal attorney Michael Cohen.  In addition to expressing outrage at Robert Mueller and his team of “small group” political allies, President Trump expressed his disappointment in Attorney General Jeff Sessions for authorizing the ongoing action.

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[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys — a good man. And it’s a disgraceful situation. It’s a total witch hunt. I’ve been saying it for a long time. I’ve wanted to keep it down. We’ve given, I believe, over a million pages’ worth of documents to the Special Counsel.

They continue to just go forward. And here we are talking about Syria and we’re talking about a lot of serious things. We’re the greatest fighting force ever. And I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now — and actually, much more than that. You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.

And it’s a disgrace. It’s, frankly, a real disgrace. It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.

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You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD

It is being reported today that Special Counsel Robert Mueller instructed the FBI field office from the Southern District of New York to raid the home and office of President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.

[Via New York Times] The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.

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Tomorrow Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce the assignment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ (Horowitz/Huber) to the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

Mr. Lausch is a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney from outside Washington DC.  John Lausch currently heads the Northern District of Illinois which includes Chicago, and this specific U.S. Attorney has extensive experience in complex cases of conspiracy and political corruption; a key skill-set given the issues within the Horowitz/Huber investigation of potential politicization of the FBI and DOJ offices.

Accepting the OIG report is almost certainly the most complex undertaking of IG Horowitz career; and accepting the multitude of possible angles within each section of the investigative inquiry are so consequential; there’s a strong likelihood the report could come out in stages.

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A very well informed Maria Bartiromo has an interesting interview with Trey Gowdy this morning.  In the first section of the interview Representative Gowdy reveals he has seen some of the originating “electronic communication” (EC) source material that initiated the 2016 counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.

An interesting aspect to this interview is how much ‘deep-weed’ background information Mrs. Bartiromo is aware of. [Obviously Maria has a direct network to some very specific information.]  WATCH:

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Representative Gowdy seems to using the Mamet Princple in this interview. Gowdy is obviously aware the DOJ cannot, and should not, release all evidence in their custody if some of that evidence outlines the basis for criminal referrals and will be used later by Prosecutor John Huber. So why does he demand access to it, and public release of it?

Gowdy’s presentation is almost enough to make a person wonder if he’s not trying to protect entities that might be at risk from sunlight or prosecution. It couldn’t be that perhaps there were/are 2016 republican political campaigns (*cough* Rubio), and/or uniparty leadership, who were in common-cause alignment with an operation that might eliminate Trump? Wait… wha?

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Gordon Chang discusses the ongoing trade initiatives by President Trump to reset the trade imbalance with China.  The dynamic of confronting a bilateral trade relationship with a government controlled economic state (China) is the dynamic behind the discussion.

Mr. Chang does a good job of outlining the ‘big picture’ issue from the perspective of the Trump administration trade policy toward China.

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National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News for an interview with Chris Wallace discussing Trump administration trade positions.  Kudlow and Wallace were previously on the same team, and held the same positions, perspectives and outlooks.

In the face of four decades of results which cannot be refuted, Chairman Kudlow is modifying his position to align with President Trump and Main Street.  At the same time Kudlow is trying to convince Wall Street and GOPe Wallace-types to follow his lead.

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[*side note* notice how no-one ever mentions MfN status?]

In some ways POTUS Trump’s selection of Kudlow is an interesting test to see if the functionally obsolescent Wall Street-minded economists have the capacity to retool decades of flawed thinking.

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