Here’s the opening statement from HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes:

(more…)

The House Intelligence Committee will begin holding public hearings to impeach President Donald Trump today at 10:00am EDT.  The hearings are carefully scripted, organized and planned. Day One begins with Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent.  To support the Democrat impeachment effort all major media networks are carrying the event live, and promoting their anticipation of drama.
Impeachment Chairman Adam Schiff has threatened severe punishment if any member of congress speaks publicly about the CIA helping to organize the ‘whistleblower‘ effort.
Mr. Taylor currently serves as the Chargé D’affaires for the U.S. State Department in Ukraine. Mr. Kent serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the U.S. Department of State.  Both State Dept. officials disagree with President Trump’s foreign policy which they hope will lead to his removal from office.
Fox News Livestream – Fox Business Livestream – CSPAN Livestream – HPSCI Livestream

(more…)

HPSCI Theatrical Director Adam Schiff waited until the last moment to release his rules for the public impeachment performance.  [SEE HERE] The rules include no talking about the CIA ‘whistle-blower’, or else it’s curtains for your political career, curtains:
(more…)

The Washington Post jumps-in to the Horowitz ‘principal review’ timeline adding that some of the opportunities for witnesses to review the final draft report are “still being negotiated”, likely by the attorney’s for the principals.
Take all reporting on this two-week review phase with a grain of salt. Despite the NDA’s there will be a rush to control the narrative.  “People familiar with the matter” will start popping up in the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Buzzfeed and CNN.
There is likely to be a flood of spin from the PR teams behind each principal outlined in the report.  Lawyers for James Comey and Andrew McCabe will be using every angle of Lawfare imaginable to attempt to shape their clients image within the report.

Lawyers, Lawfare legal teams, and DC-based PR consultants for Sally Yates, John Carlin, Mary McCord, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Hillary Clinton, James Baker, Michael Kortan, Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Chris Steele, Glen Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, John Brennan, James Clapper and many more will all be working at courtroom rates to control any report damage for their clients.
The Obama administration will be working in the background, while Fusion-GPS takes in fees and pays their primary journalists and narrative engineers premium rates for column inches that protect their client interests.  This is one big confab of interests all positioning to control any negative impressions and highlight their magnanimous patriotic activity.
Watch and we will see full deployment of the justification defense and “outrage trap“.  After all, according to their predictable defenses, there was evidence, even if slight, that President Trump was a Russian asset belonging to Vladimir Putin…. it had to be taken seriously, etc.  Even the Republicans in congress were alarmed.
(more…)

We finally have confirmation of a procedural process that allows us to anticipate the timing for public release of the FISA report from Inspector General Horowitz.

According to the Associated Press:

The Justice Department’s watchdog is nearing the release of its report on the early stages of the FBI’s Russia investigation, a document likely to revive debate about a politically charged probe that shadowed President Donald Trump’s administration from the outset.

The inspector general in recent days has invited witnesses and their lawyers who were interviewed for the report to review portions of a draft this week and next, a critical final step toward making the document public, according to multiple people familiar with the process who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.

(more…)

As the public impeachment hearings begin tomorrow, here’s the transcript of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy.
[White House September 25th] President Donald J. Trump released a declassified, unredacted transcript of his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from July 25th, 2019. The transcript can be read HERE.
[scribd id=427409969 key=key-VGm7DyayAPURqtX76cpg mode=scroll]
.
You can see when you read the transcript, despite the media narrative to the contrary, President Trump did not ask President Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden.

(more…)

ICIG Michael Atkinson is the link that connects Spygate to the Schiff Impeachment Effort

Chad Pergram noted that Intelligence Community Inspector General (IGIC) Michael Atkinson was spotted today going into HPSCI Chairman Schiffs’ basement bunker for discussions with the impeachment inquisitors.

This is interesting because it was reported today that ICIG Atkinson has now received an ethics complaint about a GoFundMe account set up by the CIA ‘whistleblower’ attorney, Mark S. Zaid, to finance the ongoing efforts of CIA operative Eric Ciaramella.
The dirty dealing is getting thick.  Attorney Mark Zaid has claimed to be working pro-bono for his CIA client.  Meanwhile Adam Schiff is threatening anyone and everyone about keeping the CIA client hidden and anonymous; and the media is all-in with efforts to support the protection.  A narrative created by a CIA operative favorable to the coup.
So what exactly is this current $228,000 for? (goal $300k) And who is this group “Values United” who is organizing it?  That’s where the letter to ICIG Atkinson comes in:
(more…)

Senator Chuck Grassley has questions:

There is a background story happening in DC where re-authorization of the USA Freedom Act is needed prior to expiration on December 15th. Techno Fog points out the bulk NSA data collection and FISA(702) surveillance programs are part of this reauthorization.
On November 6th, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the reauthorization.  “Senators expressed their displeasure Wednesday with the Trump administration’s inability to answer questions about the National Security Agency’s collection of data records” (link). Which begs the question:

Is the current Inspector General report on FISA abuse being delayed due to the need for congress to reauthorize the very same programs the IG is about to criticize?

(more…)

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case: “DHS -vs- Regents of University of California“, also known as the DACA case: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.  DACA was instituted by a President Obama ‘executive action’, not an ‘executive order’.
The Obama Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) did not fully support the constitutional framework around the effort to protect a sub-set of illegal aliens; and therefore the originating presidential action was not an official ‘executive order’, a technicality that could end up as part of the argument(s).  The same issue existed within DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Arrivals), and was ruled unconstitutional by a divided SCOTUS.
Amy Howe at SCOTUS Blog has a great encapsulation of the case and current status:

In 2012, the Obama administration established a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented young adults who came to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation.

(more…)

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing details within the legislative impeachment process.  As part of his remarks Leader McCarthy states: “this is a calculated coup orchestrated by Adam Schiff”…

.
Sometimes we get so far into the weeds we forget to evaluate our location.  The minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives has just stated the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is “orchestrating a coup” against the sitting President of the United States of America…  And, McCarthy is correct.
(more…)