Apparently, Italian media are reporting that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conté has requested the resignations of several top Italian intelligence officials. The move is being interpreted as the Conte’ government responding to the previous governments’ coordinated activity with U.S. intelligence officials during the 2016 U.S. election surrounding “Spygate”.
Prime Minister Conté visited with President Trump in June 2018 at the White House; and reflects a more nationalistic outlook in Italy.  Conte’ has high approval in the country; however, it appears the socialists (including media) are outraged at the challenge to the intelligence apparatus…

[Via Google Translate] The senator of the Pd Luigi Zanda presented an urgent question to the President of the Council after the news appeared today in the newspaper La Repubblica about a presumed request for the resignation of the four deputy directors of the departments of the Italian secret services.

(more…)

A clear example of the Administrative State’s seditious alignment with global financial interests and DC indulgences.  This is the deep state at its deepest and most statist.

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 overall strategery here is brilliant.  After two years of rope-a-dope…. Trump exits the corner for the championship rounds in the trade fight: First the body blow, China boxed-in with trade confrontation and consequences of retreat from agreement (Mnuchin and Lighthizer);… Then whammo, the roundhouse XO placing telecom under national security review (Navarro and Pillsbury); then upper-cut, Wilburine places Hauwei and affiliates on Commerce Dept. trade blacklist…  Lions and Killers and Strategists, oh my.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday it is adding Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and 70 affiliates to its so-called “Entity List” – a move that bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval.
U.S. officials told Reuters the decision would also make it difficult if not impossible for Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment producer in the world, to sell some products because of its reliance on U.S. suppliers.
Under the order that will take effect in the coming days, Huawei will need a U.S. government license to buy American technology. Huawei did not immediately comment.

(more…)

Here we go….  President Trump is laying the groundwork to ban telecommunication companies based on identified risk to national security (ie. Huawei).  Nations who engage in 5-G technology agreements are on notice they may be cut-off from communication partnerships with the U.S.A.

[I think Wall Street just pee’d their pants a little..]

[Executive Order] By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services, which store and communicate vast amounts of sensitive information, facilitate the digital economy, and support critical infrastructure and vital emergency services, in order to commit malicious cyber-enabled actions, including economic and industrial espionage against the United States and its people.
(more…)

Devin Nunes appears on Fox News to discuss why the origin of the Russia narrative is important.  The scale and scope of the fraudulent construct is now a strongly enmeshed narrative, toxic to the systems of cohesive government:

.
If you read the Weissmann/Mueller report carefully one aspect stands out strongly; the Mueller investigation was fully committed to The Steele Dossier. An inordinate amount of the report is focused on justifying their investigative validity and purpose in looking at the claims within the Steele Dossier.
(more…)

Trey Gowdy appears on Fox News to discuss the current ‘investigative’ status and reports of Brennan -vs- Comey on the use of the Steele Dossier within the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment or ICA.
Gowdy is one of the few people, along with John Ratcliffe, who has seen the full and unredacted FISA application used against Carter Page.

.
Regarding the use of the Steele Dossier within the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment; as Gowdy notes there is a likelihood both Brennan and Comey are both correct. It goes back to a story from a couple of months ago [SEE HERE]
(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.”

(more…)

Once again the New York Times is getting out ahead of the story to reveal Attorney General Bill Barr has instructed U.S. Attorney John Durham to review the origins of the 2016 DOJ and FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign. [Durham Background Here]
The appointment looks like a way to keep the sensitive inquiry within Barr’s control as opposed to appointing a special counsel.  John H Durham, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut, has handled previous investigations into the intelligence community.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter, a move that President Trump has long called for but that could anger law enforcement officials who insist that scrutiny of the Trump campaign was lawful.

John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees.

(more…)