President Trump gave an in interesting interview to three New York Times reporters,  Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, on Wednesday.   President Trump’s assistant Ms. Hope Hicks also sat in on the interview.
It is interesting President Trump allowed/chose Michael Schmidt as one of the interviewers in that Schmidt is the primary recipient of leaks provided by fired FBI Director James Comey.   Michael Schmidt is the primary contact source for Comey’s allies within the FBI when they decide to leak information intended to damage the office of the President.
The New York Times article is HERE.

The following are excerpts from that conversation, transcribed by The Times. It has been lightly edited for content and clarity, and omits several off-the-record comments and asides. Additional excerpts will be added as they are compiled.

(Transcript – Via New York Times) TRUMP: Look, [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions gets the job. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself.

BAKER: Was that a mistake?

TRUMP: Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.

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Those of you following along at home might be having a remarkable feeling of Deja-Vu with the similarity between Hillary Clinton’s approach to her emails containing classified information, and James Comey’s approach today to reports of his leaked memos containing “classified” intelligence.
The defensive narrative ‘fact pattern’ appears identical in sequencing:
Step 1 – The emails/memos were not classified. √
Step 2 – The emails/memos were not ‘marked’ classified. √
Step 3 – The emails/memos were ‘retroactively classified‘. √

(Politico Link – Lastest)

Next up in the logical sequence:

Step 4 –  Missing/deleted = Wiped Comey memos: “what, like with a cloth or something?”
Step 5 –  Robert Mueller (filling the role of Comey circa 2016) will hold a 2017 presser to say: James Comey didn’t intentionally violate the law with sharing classified information within his leaked memos in 2017.  Adding: “we could find no intent” by him to do so.
Step 6 – Mueller will conclude his presser by saying: “no reasonable special counsel would recommend charges“.
Bets?
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You just can’t make this stuff up.  Yesterday it was revealed that several of fired FBI Director James Comey memos contained classified information:
(Via The Hill) More than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents.
This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton over in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election. (link)
This latest report is contrary to James Comey’s prior assertion that he specifically wrote the memos about his contact and communication with President Trump to avoid containing classified information.
Today, the recipient of at least one of the leaked memos, Daniel Richman, claims the memo leaked to him by FBI Director Comey, with the specific intention to leak to the New York Times, did not contain markings designating the memo as “classified”:
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The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold the nomination hearing for the position of FBI Director on Wednesday July 12th at 9:30am EDT.   President Trump has nominated Christopher Wray to become the head of the FBI replacing fired director James Comey.

Chairman Chuck Grassley announces:

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing entitled: “Nominations” scheduled for Wednesday, July 12, 2017 will now begin at 9:30 a.m., in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. (link)

Christopher Wray’s confirmation hearing may dive into his legal background but will almost certainly focus on the political nonsense infecting DC. Democrats will be seeking assurances of his independence from President Donald Trump. Lawyers and FBI agents who have worked with Mr. Wray don’t expect that to be a problem, describing him as calm, methodical and even-handed.

Former CIA Director John Brennan has been a long-time political operative with the Obama campaign and political apparatus.  First working on the campaign, then working for President Obama in the White House, then taking on the role of CIA Director.
•During the 2008 campaign Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., was caught breaking into the State Department to cleanse the passport records of candidate Barack Obama. •As CIA Director John Brennan admitted to using his agency to spy on congress and apologized.
Everything John Brennan touches is weaponized for political benefit.

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Regarding this interview. There is a great deal of misinformation surrounding the JAR (Joint Analysis Report) or the “Russian Intelligence Report”:
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An interesting New York Times “correction“ appears today providing yet further evidence of a convenient retreat from six months of media propaganda.

The correction references a Russian Election Interference Joint Analysis Report, widely called the “Russian Intelligence Report”, which has been falsely used by most media to frame a narrative that 17 agencies within the U.S. intelligence community agreed that Russia attempted to interfere with the U.S. election:

(Link)

The Times Correction somewhat opaquely clarifies that only the CIA (Brennan), FBI (Comey) and NSA (Rogers) participated in the December Intelligence Analysis that underwrites the overall report.  ODNI (Clapper) is a hub for gathering and sharing information and does not generate intelligence as an entity in/unto itself.

It is not coincidental the two most politicized intelligence operatives, John Brennan (CIA) and James Comey (FBI), presented the information along with like-minded political traveler ODNI James Clapper. While Admiral Mike Rogers (NSA) is also included in the report authorship, it is largely overlooked that Rogers only held a “moderate confidence” in the overall report finding. It was only Brennan and Comey who claimed “high confidence” in the overall report content.

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Hillary Clinton and aligned political operatives manufactured the illusion of a connection between Russian entities and the Trump campaign/organization. Those manufactured points of evidence, including a sketchy Russian Dossier, were used by the political intelligence community (Clapper, Brennan Comey) to open an investigation of nothingness – to nowhere.

The mere existence of the investigation was then used as the originating point for a series of media intel leaks (the narrative) intended to cloud and damage the Trump campaign/organization.  CNN, The Washington Post and New York Times led the charge:

Washington (CNN) – The FBI last year used a dossier of allegations of Russian ties to Donald Trump’s campaign as part of the justification to win approval to secretly monitor a Trump associate, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

FBI Director James Comey, as head of one of the investigative agencies. became a willing part of that political apparatus, kept congress in the dark, and yet engaged in leaking information to his friends and media allies.

However, now, with usefulness exhausted and with increasing sunlight representing a legal risk, it’s CYA time all around for the originating entities.  “CNN President Jeff Zucker is personally involved in the internal investigation into a now-retracted hit piece, sources inside CNN with direct knowledge confirmed to Breitbart News.”  CNN now saying any reporting pushing the Russia conspiracy need executive approvals before being allowed.

This slow walk to the exits occurs simultaneously to the sketchy organization, Fusion GPS, with direct ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign effort, refuses to give any information to congressional investigators.

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Details are beginning to surface of a fraud investigation that began in 2016 as a result of complaints about Jane Sanders and her role in obtaining multi-million-dollar loans for a now defunct (closed in May ’16) Burlington University.  Many people might remember the origins of this story which began long before the presidential primary season last year.

BACKSTORY – At the end of 2010, Mrs. Jane Sanders took out $10 million in loans on behalf of Burlington College to purchase a 32-acre swathe of land from the Roman Catholic diocese, which put the land up for sale to help cover the costs of a $17 million sexual-abuse settlement

As Ms. Sanders pursued financing for the land acquisition, she repeatedly said that Burlington College had received more than $2 million in fundraising commitments and pledges, according to numerous records. However, in fiscal year 2011, Burlington College raised only $279,000, though the college had earlier claimed to have secured $1.2 million in confirmed pledges.

The college almost immediately fell short on its financial obligations as the fundraising pledges and commitments Ms. Sanders cited in loan agreements never materialized. Less than a year after leading Burlington College into massive debt, Ms. Sanders resigned, taking with her a $200,000 severance package.  The college was forced to close in 2016.

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The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein, have officially launched an investigation into former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  Their inquiry surrounds Lynch assuring the Hillary Clinton campaign that the FBI probe into Clinton’s emails wouldn’t go too far.

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(Via Politico) The Judiciary panel announced Friday it had sent letters to Lynch and other officials — the opening bid in what Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said last week would be separate investigations into the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and whether the Obama administration attempted to influence FBI investigations. (more)