President Trump holds a press conference at the White House.  Start time 5:30pm ET

WH Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream Link – PBS Livestream Link

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This is theatrically absurd now.  Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham appears with Sean Hannity to say he’s going to ask Chris Wray who was the FBI official who falsely briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 14, 2018.

First, it was Scott Schools (Main Justice) and Andrew McCabe from FBI.  According to their own records that’s who did the briefing – what the hell is Graham trying to figure out?

Second, presume there were no records…. why the heck doesn’t Graham just walk down the hall and ask his senate friends who it was?  This is not a complex puzzle to solve. And Sean Hannity is just clapping and nodding along… Ridiculous kabuki.  This is what we are up against.  Nuts.

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Seriously, this is Pravda-esque controlled media at this point.

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Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson has issued a subpoena for records from FBI Director Christopher Wray.  [pdf here] The subpoena is a demand for documents, not testimony. Specifically, Johnson is asking for “all documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

[More Details]

Unfortunately, given what CTH knows of this specific committee, this approach seems a little like loading the horse into the starting gate after the race is over.   They are all good people, but it’s the system that keeps everything compartmentalized by design.

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This is interesting…. During the final question of his press conference President Trump forcefully outlined the names of key former administration officials who participated in the effort to remove him.

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President Trump calls out a GOP member of the never-Trump community for opposing the administration efforts to assist middle-class workers and families.

“The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop,” Nebraska Senator Sasse said Saturday night. “President Obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with DACA, and President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law. Under the Constitution, that power belongs to the American people acting through their members of Congress.” [LINK]

Today at 5:30pm President Trump will be holding a press briefing from the White House.

White House Livestream – Fox News Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream LInk

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Yesterday evening President Trump delivered remarks to the press pool as he departed New Jersey for the return trip to the White House. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. We had a very important call this morning at eight o’clock with Lebanon and with many leaders from different countries. And I think it was — first of all, it’s one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen. But it was a very important call. It was a — really led with France and President Macron, who is very close, as you know, to Lebanon. And we had it — a lot of things were worked out.

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It would be an extreme long-shot if these two documented events were not analogous.

Senator Lindsay Graham asked today {Go Deep} who was the FBI official who delivered a set of false talking points to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) on February 14,2018?

Now we look within the SSCI Russian Active Measures Report… [Page #10, Footnote #25]

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We have a saying in the south: ‘hang around a one-legged man long enough and eventually you’re gonna start limping‘.  This interview is an example of how that cuts through the BS, spin and political chaff and countermeasures.  Steven Schrage should be trusted as far as you can spit into a hurricane – which is to say, not at all.

First, in an article to accompany his media effort, Schrage waxes philosophical and woefully about how his years-long good friend and phd supervisor, Stephan Halper, the one-legged character in the metaphor, turned out to be a politically motivated snake and spy.  Oh, but all the years previous this wasn’t noticed?  Not buying it.

Second, Schrage sat and watched Michael Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova get raked over the coals for three+ years only now, right now, to find his conscience bothered by his participation in assisting the lies pushed by his friend against them?  Isn’t that convenient timing?… Yeah, sure. I might have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.

Third, Schrage notes he was interviewed by John Durham. Horsepucky. Durham doesn’t interview anyone; someone else does, someone very specific; and the fact that Schrage has no clue who that person is implies an aspect to the side-show he now presents as total nonsense.  In short, this is a distraction story…. Look over there…. shiny things.

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I’ve watched and researched these intelligence characters for so long their M.O. screams like visible strings on marionettes. And yes, once you see the strings it’s impossible to return to a time when you did not see them. This interview is a purposeful ruse.

[His article here]

I also do not fault Matt Taibbi or Maria Bartiromo for falling for it.

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Today Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham released a set of talking points [full pdf below – AND here] from the FBI during a briefing on February 14, 2018 to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The unknown FBI briefer is informing the SSCI about the reliability of Chris Steele’s primary sub-source, and whether he agrees with the Dossier content & conclusions:

At first blush the impression from the release; and indeed the expressed position as outlined by Graham in the release; is that some unknown entity from the FBI was misleading the SSCI in February of 2018 about Christopher Steele and the perspective of his primary sub-source. However, there’s a deeper story.

Within the release it must be noted the date of the briefing material is February 14, 2018. The unknown FBI briefer is saying, in essence, the primary sub-source doesn’t dispute the Dossier material. Obviously this position is demonstrably false given how the PSS said the Dossier was full of “rumor”, “gossip”, “innuendo” and “bar talk”.

The FBI briefer is misleading the Senate and so today we see the angry position expressed by Graham as he reveals this misleading briefing. However, five days prior to this briefing, on February 9, 2018, the text messages between SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, were released. This frames the accurate context to consider the position of the SSCI and FBI briefer on Feb 14, 2018.

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