Fired FBI Director James Comey has released his carefully prepared opening remarks that he will deliver to congress tomorrow.  The full remarks are below.

However, before discussing the remarks it is important to note the reason for their release. It’s politics, pure unadulterated politics; there is no “there” there.

These remarks are released specifically to lower expectations and carefully deflate the entire construct of the ‘President Trump Interference narrative’.

If the testimony by James Comey was going to be legally or ethically damaging to President Trump the prepared remarks would never have been released.  Additionally, it is James Comey who is at risk from his testimony, not President Trump.  Comey’s prior testimony (March 20th) established the foundation that he politicized his office and the FBI by working with President Obama to conduct a political surveillance operation -and unmasking political opponents- under the guise of a faux counterintelligence operation.

Against the backdrop of a nothingburger, the biggest manufactured nothingburger in recent political history, President Trump’s opposition, all of it, media and political creatures, now need to find an exit that provides them some measure of face-saving for their exhaustive efforts to smear and cloud the presidency of the United States.

James Comey testimony is set up to become a nothinburger because James Comey has nothing he can show which points to President Trump doing anything illegal or unethical – because President Trump did nothing more controversial than request Comey’s public clarity in purpose while President Trump tried to do his job without the ridiculous manufactured faux-controversy of the counterintelligence investigation impeding his ability to do so.  Full Stop.

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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.

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BUSTED !!

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:

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Watching several minutes of CNN’s punditry coverage of President Trump’s Harrisburg rally is exceptionally interesting from the perspective of watching what happens when full-throated liberal media ideology is confronted by a political opponent inoculated from battered politician syndrome.  The media cries foul.

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There are many new commentators at CTH, and even more new people taking notice of politics for perhaps the first time in their lives.   There is also some confusion noticed between two distinct groups who appear to be talking above and around each other.  Two groups trying to communicate from two entirely divergent sets of understanding.

Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.

Many, heck, most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.

There is not a single congress person who writes legislation or laws.

In 2017 not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct.  This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body.  Here’s how it works.

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National Security Advisor HR McMaster has been selected by conspiracy nuts and alt-reality moonbats as a necessary evil foil to retain their pearl-clutching placement at the table of doomsday drum-beating.

Apparently, when candidate Trump, then president-elect Trump, and now President Trump said: “bomb the s**t out of ISIS“, “rebuild our military” and recreate “peace through strength” – a sketchy handful of fools perceived such statements possible without actually ‘bombing‘, ‘rebuilding‘ or ‘reasserting strength‘.

Yes, cognitive dissonance relies upon use of the Mamet Principle; and yes, it happens on the fringe elements of both sides of the circular political continuum.

In the most recent proclamations of the Moonbats any adviser to the President who would be connected with presenting ‘bombing‘, ‘rebuilding‘ or ‘reasserting‘ options of military use to the President, necessarily becomes a war-mongering pod carrier intent on lulling a 70-year-old President to sleep and exit the room converted to John McCain.

The people selling this narrative are both nuts and gnats.

Please pay attention to HR McMaster in this interview laying out a very reasonable perspective on the various regional issues, his praise for the diplomatic approach by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and his accompanying overview to include (@10:38) the answer to the question: “do you think we need more troops in Syria?“.  McMaster’s response: “I don’t think so“.

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On March 14th Judge Andrew Napolitano said:

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for the British spying agency. They have 24/7 access to the NSA database. So by simply having two people go to them saying, ‘President Obama needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump, conversations involving president-elect Trump,’ he’s able to get it, and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”

~ Judge Andrew Napolitano

On March 20th Fox News suspended Napolitano for making those remarks.  The British government and British intelligence community was furious at Napolitano and Fox News.  At the time Rupert Murdoch was attempting to purchase SkyNews, which might have aided in the severity of his response to Napolitano.

However, today CNN is confirming much of the construct for what Napolitano was previously saying:  (more…)

The launch of Tomahawk missiles by President Trump has displaced the gravitational center of twitter purists, litmus nuts, conspiracy loons and the even creepier goons that orbit the remnants of the Ted Cruz #NeverTrump camp.

Their latest anti-Trumpism du jour targets Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and spouse of Ivanka Trump.   Every loon campaign needs a hashtag, and their chosen identifying moonbattery is scribed under #FireKushner.

The concern, as it is openly expressed by those pushing the hashtag, is that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will sneak into President Trump’s bedroom and place a pod under his bed which will envelop the elder Trump overnight, replicate him, and simultaneously turn him into a left-wing liberal globalist.  Yes, that appears to be the general concern.

To validate this concern the current consensus conspiracy theory evidence points to Steve Bannon being dispatched from the White House (which he’s not) in combination with Jared Kushner sitting at a table and Steven Miller’s physical proximity to the corner of the room as reflected in a photograph taken during the aftermath of the Syrian missile launch.

Uh huh.

Like all similar ideological moonbattery that has come before (primary race 2015/16), there is an echo-chamber of more than tinged antisemitism, combined with a dash of Cruzian litmus testing of all activity.   In essence, this is yet another outcropping of the continuing evolution of #NeverTrump.   It’s silly, but, alas people take this stuff seriously.

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CTH Susan Rice Back Story:

• Susan Rice appears on MSNBC to Explain
• Rice Explanation Points to President Obama’s Daily Briefing

Today, Catherine Herridge is reporting the unmasking requests made by former National Security Adviser were requests for details of daily surveillance of President Trump’s transition team regarding their daily life activity.

(New York) The intelligence reports at the center of the Susan Rice unmasking controversy were detailed, and almost resembled a private investigator’s file, according to a Republican congressman familiar with the documents.

“This is information about their everyday lives,” Rep. Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence committee said. “Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on.”

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The anti-Trump media jumped into a level of gleeful frenzy today amid a required security filing noticing that Senior Trump Adviser Steve Bannon was no longer a member of the “principals committee” on the National Security Council.

The hilarity cemented itself when competing media outlets were arguing about Steve Bannon being on the NSC, or being kicked-off the NSC, while Bannon walked past them en route to today’s NSC meeting.  Wait, wha… huh?   Yeah -{Insert Laugh Track HERE}-

Nothing ever happens in a vacuum, and today is no exception.   No, Steve Bannon is not being removed from the Senior advisory role to President Trump and will attend NSC meetings with the President.  Bannon’s security clearance therein remains unchanged.

However, Bannon is removing himself from the Principal’s Committee of the H.R. McMaster NSC (*note* he never attended the committee meetings, well, that is, he did, once), now that the political weaponization of NSC intelligence operations has been removed; and McMaster has recalibrated the incoming intelligence agencies to remove the political intelligence they were previously used to sending.

What does that prior paragraph mean?

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