Long time CTH readers will note we extended well over a year of benefit-of-the-doubt to the motives of former FBI Director James Comey with regard to the severity of his politicized nature and disposition.  Throughout the entire Clinton investigation we remained ambivalent to Comey’s motives.

Indeed it wasn’t until after the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack when Comey obtusely noted the FBI had been contacted (prior to the attack) about the sketchy behavior of Omar Mateen by a ‘random concerned citizen’ -and our finding that the actual ‘citizen’ was the far more substantive St Lucie county sheriff Ken Mascara– that we recognized how far Comey was willing to go to save his political face.

Yesterday, a friend of James Comey by the name of Benjamin Wittes, editor and writer for lawfare blog, now steps out and admits he was one of the primary sources for the New York Times Comey Memo article (Michael Schmidt); and in so doing outlines the severity of the political nature of the former FBI Director:

[…]  I called Schmidt Friday morning after reading his earlier story, which ran the previous evening, about Comey’s dinner with President Trump and the President’s demands at that dinner for a vow of loyalty.

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Sip slowly, this explainer was hard to write.   There is a considerable amount of perplexed frustration following on the heels of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifying to the Senate Banking Committee earlier today and specifically saying:

02:20 Glass-Steagall? “we do not support a separation of banks from investment banks, we think that would have a very significant problem on the financial markets, on the economy, on liquidity; and we think that there is proper things that potentially we could look at around regulation, but we do not support a separation of banks and investment banks.”

That statement runs counter to the Trump administration’s prior policy statements outlining a preference for a reinstatement of some form of “Glass-Steagall” regulatory separation between commercial banking and investment banking.

In essence when combined with the totality of Mnuchin’s testimony before the committee, Mnuchin is saying the current “too big to fail” (‘too big to succeed’) issue has created a problem for lending liquidity.  Specifically, if divisional separation is required – the banks best interests would naturally put the investment division ahead of commercial lending and the liquid capital within the overall economy would shrink.

I think we have a handle on what the administration is doing based on the executive orders signed and explained earlier.  Bear with me…

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WHITE HOUSE – Mrs. Melania Trump is pleased to announce some of the stops on her first foreign trip as First Lady of the United States of America.

On Friday, May 19, 2017, the First Lady will join her husband President Donald J. Trump on an eight-day, five-stop trek to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Rome, Brussels, and Sicily, returning to Washington, DC, on Saturday, May 27, 2017.

The First Lady will join her husband throughout each day, but will also participate in many of her own events. In the latter part of the trip, Mrs. Trump will attend spousal programs at the NATO and G-7 summits.  She will conclude the trip by delivering remarks to United States military personnel and families in Italy.

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Reminder.  David Plouffe was President Obama’s campaign manager and Senior White House advisor:  (source link)  Plouffe has ideological cohorts, friends and embeds inside almost all corporate media entities; specifically WaPo and NY Times.

Something appears to be happening within the administration that is currently impossible to define with regard to intent of construct. For the sake of my own internal disposition, and to ensure a geographic distance from sharp things, a modicum of levity is necessarily required.  Cue suspicious cats:

Unfortunately, it’s too early (not fully developed pixels) to see the picture, but there appears to be an intentionally constructed parallel set of administrative policies that almost gives the appearance of a paralleling administration. It should be emphasized the construct herein is not necessarily definable as good or bad; it’s just simply too early.

It begins with Vice President Mike Pence delivering a speech at the Invest in America Summit today, which is primarily a gathering of the largest lobbying group in Washington DC via The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  No single lobbying organization has done more to advance global trade interests and diminish the U.S. manufacturing economy than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and its president Tom Donohue.

Simultaneous to this event, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was on Capitol Hill testifying to the Senate Banking Committee, and appears to have recently accepted the premise that the U.S. banking system is institutionally too big to fail, and more alarmingly too big to reform.

First, the Summit remarks:

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President Donald Trump meets today with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Trump and Santos were meeting to discuss collaborative policies on the drug trade and drug cartels.  Together they will hold a joint press conference from the White House at approximately 3:45pm:

UPDATE: Video Added:

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President Donald Trump held an informal luncheon with news reporters and TV anchors today in advance of the upcoming international visit.  Brett Baier reports President Trump was relaxed, warm and comfortable and showing no change in disposition from all prior encounters. Most of the discussion was off the record, however the president did release the following response to a question from one of the participants at the meeting:

Reporter Question: “You made a point about the special counselor and and you believe it hurts this country” —

President Trump: “I believe it hurts our country terribly, because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country. And we have very important things to be doing right now, whether it’s trade deals, whether it’s military, whether it’s stopping nuclear… all of the things that we discussed today. And I think this shows a very divided country.

It also happens to be a pure excuse for the Democrats having lost an election that they should have easily won because of the Electoral College being slanted so much in their way. That’s all this is. I think it shows division, and it shows that we’re not together as a country. And I think it’s a very, very negative thing. And hopefully, this can go quickly, because we have to show unity if we’re going to do great things with respect to the rest of the world.” 

~ President Donald J Trump

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly hold a press conference with Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray and Mexico’s Secretary of Government Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.

President Trump has instructed the State Department and DHS to initiate a new -more aggressive- posture toward the elimination of drugs.  The United States is now developing new strategies to directly combat Mexican drug cartels, including cash flow, banks, cross-border incursions, and political corruption.

This press conference happens on the same day that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross jointly travel to the U.S. Senate to initiate starting the clock (intent notification to senate) for the 90-period prior to reopening NAFTA.

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Combating violent drug cartels, securing the southern U.S. border and the new NAFTA trade agreement are all extremely important undertakings. That said, look at the poor media attendance.  Update: Transcript Added

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The last federal budget was signed into law in September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008 by George W Bush. It has been almost an entire decade since the worlds largest economy, the United State of America, had a federal budget to control spending:

Senator Tom Cotton, Senator Ben Sasse, Senator Chuck Schumer

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Appearing tonight on the Sean Hannity TV show on Fox News, former Ohio democrat congressman Dennis Kucinich states he believes the unelected institutional Washington DC based bureaucratic system known as “deep state” is attempting to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump.

People within Deep State institutions attempting to damage President Trump because he is an existential threat to their interests.

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