Within an interesting interview conducted by Jan Jekielek of Epoch Times, former AAG Matt Whitaker confirms what CTH long suspected. The Mueller investigation was used by corrupt interests within the special counsel’s office to threaten any/all executive branch and congressional officials with “obstruction of justice” charges if they revealed any exculpatory or counter-narrative information during the Mueller probe.

Whitaker describes this as the “obstruction of justice trap.”

Essentially, this approach confirms the second-prong purpose of the Mueller investigation itself. First, use the special counsel in 2017, 2018 and into the beginning of 2019, as a shield (hide information); and secondly a weapon (threats) against any entity who would reveal the background intelligence that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

We know President Trump was threatened by Rod Rosenstein not to declassify any information in September of 2018 or the Mueller investigation would use that act as evidence of obstruction. Whitaker confirms that same approach was applied toward any executive branch officer who would reveal or release information to congress during the tenure of the special counsel; even within the DOJ and including the attorney general.

This is how the Mueller probe was weaponized to mislead the American people.

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The circle of virtue signaling is now complete.   It became apparent during Memorial Day weekend the resistance allies, democrats and media, were going to use the wearing of “masks” as the hot new 2020 virtue signal.  All of the Blue-bot governors quickly fell into line with their own demands for compliant mask wearing in their states.

As with most modern left-wing extremes, influencing the behavior is an issue of control, a compliant community, it takes a village etc.  The issue is not medical benefit.  Toward that end, Joe Biden gets the command signal and joins the movement:

This provides the media with a social narrative to push hard and exploit for political division; a very Alinsky strategy.  Mask wearers become virtuous doers of goodness and virtue; non-mask wearers become visible enemies, targets for the drones.

Thus the politicization of masks is complete.

How do you defeat them? Easy, use their own playbook (Alinsky) and have fun (Breitbart).  Make them live up to their own rules.  Every time they are spotted without a mask, laugh at them and call them out on their hypocrisy.  They hate that.

Their communal tribe members cannot survive the ridicule when their inherent individualism does not want to adhere to the social demand.  Members don’t want to wear masks and the ridicule hits harder and has greater damage because of it.  Freedom is fun, the tribe mindset can only survive in an echo-chamber.

Many people foresaw this likely happening and today it begins. Twitter has intervened in the tweets and speech of the President of the United States to review, censor and use their own perspectives to countermand the opinions of President Donald Trump.

By taking this position Twitter has put themselves into the position of arbitrating the opinions of general speech. This is a remarkable shift in the control mechanism of the platform which will likely have ramifications.

However, beyond the intervention, it is worth pointing to the specific issue that has triggered their decision. Note the issue of greatest concern to the command authority of Twitter is specifically mail-in ballots; this is not accidental.

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Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer addressed the issue of her husband attempting to use his position to get their personal boat prepped and in the water prior to Memorial day so they could enjoy the holiday. The Michigan governor said her husband was joking when he told the boat storage operator he was the husband of the governor and asked if that would move him up in the line of requests.

Additionally Governor Whitmer highlights how the citizens of Michigan are victimizing her; including scary men who have surrounded her home while carrying “automatic weapons.” Whitmer says the COVID-19 virus has created an undue hardship on her and her family, and she is burdened by hurt feelings and wounded sensibilities.  Whitmer personifies what happens when left-wing moonbats are allowed to gain political power.

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Additionally (below), Whitmer denies reports that her family violated her own stay-home orders and traveled to their second home. She insists her husband only traveled to their second home to rake leaves by moonlight for one, or, well, maybe two days… or something.

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As one of his last actions before leaving his post, former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard “Ric” Grenell has declassified the transcripts of the wiretapped phone conversations between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Additionally, it appears that Grenell has declassified some of the origination documents from the CIA and U.S. intel community that were manipulated in the assembly of the Intelligence Community Assessment (an aspect of particular importance to USAO John John Durham).  As we suspected Ric Grenell is leaving the decision, and timing for their release to incoming DNI John Ratcliffe.

WASHINGTON DC – Richard Grenell has declassified a new batch of Russia probe documents on his way out as acting director of national intelligence, leaving the decision on whether to make those files public up to newly sworn-in Director John Ratcliffe.

The documents include transcripts of phone calls that then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had in December 2016, during the presidential transition period.

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For well over a year we’ve been saying AG Bill Barr’s biggest challenge is not investigating the soft-coup but rather managing through what We The People are already aware of.

With that in mind; and with congress moving to put former DAG Rod Rosenstein and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller under a microscope; it is interesting to note AG Bill Barr recently conceding his two friends were corrupt.  WATCH:

[Transcript] …”Now what happened to the president – and I’ve said this many times – what happened to the president in the 2016 election; and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history.”

“The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian-collusion narrative against the president.”

The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the Dept of Justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result.”  ~ (AG Barr, May 18, 2020)

How can AG Barr say the DOJ/FBI conduct during the first two years of the administration “was abhorrent” without specifically implying his two friends, Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein were complicit in the “grave injustice” he outlines?

It is interesting that no media (of any disposition) has ever questioned AG Barr about Rosenstein and Mueller considering his words that outline their behavior as abhorrent.

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China is signaling they will drop the panda illusion and take a full frontal dragon approach toward Hong Kong. Chairman Xi Jinping is deploying, some say he has already deployed, the Ministry of State Security – China’s leading intelligence agency – into Hong Kong to begin formal control through national security laws.

The move appears to be a direct signal that communist Beijing will not longer accept or allow Hong Kong’s current autonomous status as a free democracy. Beijing signaling “enough is enough”, and Hong Kongers are rightly concerned.  If Xi follows through, we can expect to see even more protests and confrontations; and the possibility President Trump will remove the “special trade status” the U.S. gives to Hong Kong.

Right now Hong Kong is exempt from U.S. tariffs and other economic measures the U.S. has deployed against China.  If Beijing takes full control, that could quickly change.

(Reuters) – Beijing appears determined to stamp out any renewed rebellion against the Communist Party’s authority over the former British colony. China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, is preparing to circumvent the city’s lawmaking body, the Legislative Council, in drafting the new laws.

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Long term CTH readers will not find this surprising, but it’s nice to see it starting to be said/admitted openly:

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State Dept. and Defense Dept. embeds primarily operate through CNN.  CIA embeds primarily operate through The Washington Post. FBI embeds primarily work through The New York Times; and Politico carries a blend.  Fox is the controlled opposition.

Researchers who travel the deep weeds of U.S. politics have noted this very predictable pattern has been very visible for well over two decades.

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Well this is an interesting development.  The goal of the lockdown to “flatten the curve” in Michigan has now morphed into eliminating a mysterious second-wave of the COVID-19 virus that no-one has actually identified.

The rules are now justified to prevent the appearance of a ghost virus.

With a mysterious and invisible new-phase of the virus to battle, the Michigan stay home lock-down can possibly be extended to infinity.

According to the Detroit Free Press: [Whitmer] said while coronavirus cases and deaths are clearly declining, “we are not out of the woods yet.”

“If we’re going to lower the chance of a second wave and continue to protect our neighbors and loved ones from the spread of this virus, we must continue to do our part by staying safer at home,” she said in a statement first reported by the Free Press. (read more)

See what Comrade Whitmer is doing there?  The objective that grants her unilateral control over the lives of all citizens, has morphed to “lowering the chance of a second wave” as the hot new justification legalizing her totalitarian dictates.  Slick move.

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On the topic of the FBI capture and use of the December 29, 2016, Flynn-Kislyak phone call…  First we had a hunch; then it became a suspicion… that evolved into a likelihood… that has now become a strong probability.

The capture of the December 29th phone call, which generated the raw “CR cuts“, was an FBI summary, modified for a specific interpretation.  Much like the missing 302 there is now a very strong probability the FBI ‘CR cuts’ do not represent the actual call content.

In this short interview segment Trey Gowdy alludes to one issue, and speaks directly to another.  First, the only reason the FBI opened the internal INSD review is because the information previously hidden has become public.  Second, the Flynn-Kislyak calls that Trey Gowdy has reviewed were “boring” nothing-burgers.  WATCH:

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SELECTIVE CAPTURE – Did you note the part where the FBI told Gowdy some of the Flynn phone calls were “not captured”?  Wouldn’t it be a very convenient framework if the FBI was going to summarize one of those non-captured calls into a “CR cut.” 

FBI: “Oh, sorry, we don’t have the actual transcript, but we do have a summary of what we interpreted that call content to be.”  Huh, funny that.

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