Yesterday during the white house briefing on the status of the coronavirus, CNN asked President Trump why he wasn’t being more dramatic and emphasizing the potential downsides to the COVID-19 impact on the nation.  President Trump responded:

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[Hat Tip Carpe Donktum for the video recap]

One of the many things that makes President Trump valuable during this crisis is his non-political authenticity. We can see and feel President Trump’s desire to get through this challenge, hold our people together, and exit even stronger than before.

No decisions are easy and the pressure is enormous; yet inherently most Americans know what President Trump is trying to do is deliver the best possible outcome for our nation.

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“Rally to the standard” is a call to arms when a situation is critical, there is no time for lengthy debate, and optimal solutions are needed.  Americans are rallying to the standard.

President Trump is subjecting himself to ridiculous attacks by an insufferable corporate media press corps during daily press briefings. The result is helping to expose a resistance ideology that rots the nation; and Americans are rallying behind him.

President Trump has surrounded himself with health experts, and subject expertise from the medical community; however, he also cuts through the complex aspects with common sense answers the American public can understand.  POTUS is really good at skipping the pontificating elocution & relating, conveying, the challenges to middle-America on terms that everyone can see.

As a result of Americans seeing a direct and accountable, solution-driven, business approach being applied to a national emergency, the approval ratings for President Trump have jumped significantly.  Optimal solutions are not always perfect; but in times of crisis, great leaders know to generate optimal solutions.   The entire administration is focused on achieving optimal solutions for every part of the coronavirus challenge as they surface.

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An assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012.  After an initial attempt to exploit IRS records, the legal tool used to access the NSA database was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations & gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of four to six years.

The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process only after a previous DOJ effort ran into trouble. The established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017, helps explain the details.
I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court.  Very specifically, the court outlined how the Obama administration was continually lying to the court about both their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information. These violations continued for multiple years throughout Obama’s terms.
Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.
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Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions came in second place to former Auburn head football coach Tommy Tuberville in the Alabama primary. Now the two will head into a March 31st runoff to decide the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat.
Tommy Tuberville won approximately 33 percent of the vote while Jeff Sessions won 31 percent. U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne placed third with 25 percent. The result sets up an interesting four-week race between Sessions and Tuberville; and it would appear Jeff Sessions is not likely to get any support from his old boss:

Comeuppance !

June 2019 – PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I would say if I had one do over, it would be, I would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. That would be my one —
CHUCK TODD: That’s your, in your mind, that’s your worst mistake?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, that was the biggest mistake. (link)

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This is a fantastic and well-timed video that cuts to the heart of the matter.  John Spiropoulos has produced an exceptional video outlining the structural issues within the FISA process.  This video succinctly outlines the modern history of FISA abuse issues and highlights why we must use this critical moment to reform the FISA process.  WATCH:

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Share this video with those who need a fast encapsulation of the FISA issues at hand.
According to Senator Rand Paul, President Trump is committed to seeing that FISA is not reauthorized without “significant” reform.  Senator Paul has proposed to significantly change the FISA process by forcing the DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community to apply for search and surveillance warrants to Title-3 courts in order to access any NSA database containing private information of American citizens.
Current FISA authority expires on March 15th.  The Senate is scheduled to go back into recess March 13, 2020.  Additionally, the DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court order (due February 5th) has still not been made public.  If congress is going to reauthorize the controversial FISA provisions, they now have nine days.
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Senator Rand Paul reported earlier this evening that he met with President Trump in the White House to discuss the pending FISA reauthorization.  According to Senator Paul President Trump will not support reauthorization without “significant FISA reform”.
Senator Paul appears with Lou Dobbs to discuss the latest developments.  The position being put forth by Rand Paul is exactly correct.  Change the law so that FISA can only be used against foreign actors, and force the DOJ or intelligence apparatus to go to a normal Title-3 court for a search/surveillance warrant against any American. WATCH:

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Completely agree with Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton here. During a discussion of congress trying to pass a clean FISA reauthorization or a reform version, Tom Fitton says the only way to really reform the process is to arrest, prosecute & jail those who abused it.
Fitton’s point is similar to the CTH argument surrounding SSCI leaker James Wolfe.  If the DOJ had prosecuted Wolfe for the criminal leaks of classified intelligence, the landscape of an adversarial intelligence apparatus over the past two years would be completely different.   The same general perspective applies to the FISA abuse issue.

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In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020.
AG Bill Barr is requesting a clean FISA renewal with no reforms or revisions. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham support the AG request.  The American people want it scrapped, or, at a minimum strongly revised. Congress is trying to hide the FISA renewal within the Coronavirus appropriations bill.

According to media reporting, Rand Paul said he talked to President Trump yesterday, and President Trump does not support a “clean renewal” of the FISA authorities that were used against him and his campaign:

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump told Sen. Rand Paul that he does not support a clean extension of expiring surveillance authorities, throwing the future of the program into doubt ahead of a fast-approaching March 15 deadline to re-up key features of the Patriot Act.
The Kentucky Republican told reporters that Trump made the comments to him on Wednesday, just a day after Attorney General William Barr told GOP senators that Congress should extend the expiring provisions regarding roving wire taps, lone wolf actors and the most controversial provision: call data collection.

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Lawyers representing Michael Flynn presented a strong argument today (pdf below) in reply to the governments’ continued efforts to refute prosecutorial wrongdoing.
Within the reply motion Sidney Powell highlights the conduct of prosecutor Brandon Van Grack and hypocrisy within the government arguments: “Mr. Van Grack’s contention that he satisfied the government’s obligations by providing this information before Mr. Flynn’s sentencing now proves the point that he suppressed it when it was most important to Mr. Flynn: before his guilty plea on December 1, 2017, and before what was scheduled to be his sentencing on December 18, 2018.”

Prosecutor Van Grack suppressed evidence to protect… “the prosecutors, his team, and the cadre of malfeasant FBI agents from the discovery of their negligence, crimes, and wrongs.”

The tone of the reply motion reads like the Flynn defense is chomping at the bit to take this case to trial. Perhaps that is a strategy to add weight to their dismissal argument; or perhaps that is a reflection of defense confidence they can highlight all of the abuses at trial.
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When the FISA Court responded to the DOJ Inspector General report in December and January 2020 they requested an action plan from the DOJ and FBI to respond to the issues raised about misrepresentations to the court.
The DOJ/FBI replied to the FISA Court admitting the last two FISA renewals (April, June ’17) used against Carter Page were insufficiency predicated while withholding opinion on the original application (Oct ’16) and first renewal (Jan ’17).
To address the consequences of fraudulently obtained FISA warrants the DOJ and FBI informed the court they would begin a process to “sequester” all collected evidence from all four FISA warrants. [FISA COURT LINK]
Sequestering the evidence is essentially a search for what investigative material the FISA warrants were used to obtain; ie. the search for the fruit of the poisoned tree; and then a review of all DOJ/FBI cases that may have utilized that investigative material.
In late January the DOJ contacted the FISA court and asked for an extension to the deadline.  The FISA court granted an extension until February 5th [LINK]  The response from the DOJ has not yet been declassified or released by the FISC for public review.
However, with recent media reporting of AG Barr using “outside prosecutors” to review current, former and ongoing cases, it simply makes sense this ‘outsider’ effort is part of the DOJ/FBI sequestration review.
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