President Trump has taken the leverage of economics to levels of geopolitical strategy never seen before.  Nowhere is the genius strategy more clear than in the way Trump has positioned the trade reset and confrontation with China.
In hindsight every move since early 2017 including:  (1) the warm welcome of Chairman Xi Jinping to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate; (2) the vociferous praise poured upon Xi; (3) the November 2017 tour of Asia; (4) the direct engagement with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un; the strategic relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; and a host of smaller nuanced moves have been quietly building toward a conclusion.
The upcoming G-20 summit is the last chance for Trump and Xi to reconcile considerable differences and President Trump has the strongest strategic position any Chinese official has ever faced.
After Beijing walked away from previous agreements between USTR Robert Lighthizer and Vice-Premier Liu He, Trump initiated a series of punishing economic consequences that had to have been well planned in advance.
The economy in China is reeling from the pressure applied; and stunningly it has only been a month since the consequence phase began.
In addition to tariff increases, the U.S. blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co., threatened other major Chinese tech companies and essentially cut-off China from the international supply chain it needs to sustain itself.  Beijing responded by drawing up a list of “unreliable entities” and making threats against any enterprise that would walk away from business engagement with China.  The totalitarian response has worsened the situation, and more companies have announced their intent to decouple from Beijing.
An important aspect, missed by most observers, is the ideology and outlook within any Chinese engagement. Quite simply, if it does not benefit China it is not done.  Therefore any negotiation with China is challenging because Beijing will cede no ground they view as already won.
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Against the backdrop of the DOJ admitting FBI investigators never had access to the DNC servers to verify a Russian hack; and with new information about the FBI receiving partial and redacted analysis from Crowdstrike; the review by U.S. Attorney John Durham toward the downstream assessment/claims of the CIA takes on new meaning.
CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.
The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment.   The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.
The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.
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The foundation for the Russian election interference narrative is built on the claim of Russians hacking the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently releasing damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders.
Despite the Russian ‘hacking’ claim the DOJ previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server.  Instead the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.

The narrative around the DNC hack claim was always sketchy; many people believe the DNC email data was downloaded onto a flash drive and leaked.  In a court filing (full pdf below) the scale of sketchy has increased exponentially.
Suspecting they could prove the Russian hacking claim was false, lawyers representing Roger Stone requested the full Crowdstrike report on the DNC hack.  When the DOJ responded to the Stone motion they made a rather significant admission.  Not only did the FBI not review the DNC server, the FBI/DOJ never even saw the Crowdstrike report.
Yes, that is correct.  The FBI and DOJ were only allowed to see a “draft” report prepared by Crowdstrike, and that report was redacted… and that redacted draft is the “last version of the report produced”; meaning, there are no unredacted & final versions.
Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!
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Twenty-three House republicans request declassification of documents directly from President Trump as soon as possible.  Despite the executive office directive to AG Bill Barr, the republican group seemingly do not trust the DOJ and FBI institutional interests.
It’s a smart move to keep the pressure on.
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HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes appears with judiciary committee member Mark Meadows to discuss today’s HPSCI hearing, corruption within the DOJ/FBI, and the current NYT story about AG Bill Barr questioning the CIA construct of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.
Notice in Mr. Nunes statements: “corrupt rank and file“? {CURIOUS}; also Fusion GPS and the FBI operating on “parallel tracks“? {CURIOUS x 2}  Additionally, from Rep. Mark Meadows we hear this:

“We are now getting a lot of whistle-blowers” … “people who knew this was wrong are coming forward now” …

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Also from Nunes, confirmation that Rosenstein’s original scope memo was based on empowering/authorizing Weissmann and Mueller to investigate (ie. ‘utilize’) the dossier manufactured by Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele.
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The New York Times has a report this evening surrounding U.S. Attorney John Durham questioning CIA officials about the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation.
However, a closer look at the substance underneath the NYT reporting and it doesn’t actually look like Durham is questioning the CIA about the investigation itself; rather it appears he is questioning the CIA about how they came to the conclusions within the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA.

(New York Times) […] Mr. Barr wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign, an official has said. He also wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.

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Responding to a request from Chairman Jerry Nadler, Attorney General William Barr has sent a letter (full pdf below)explaining the scope of the DOJ review of intelligence activities in the 2016 presidential campaign.  According to the letter AG Barr says the review is “broad in scope and multifaceted,” and includes examining actions by US and foreign intelligence agencies, “as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.”
Here’s the letter:

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This interview is interesting from a few aspects.  First, Carter Page states he was a long-standing source of information for the intelligence apparatus, specifically for the CIA for decades.  Secondly, the framework by Page as outlined, and the underlying motive of the FBI to use him as an unwitting target for the FISA application, is essentially confirmation of our prior reconciled point on why the FBI exploited him.  [Watch]

It never made sense that U.S. Person Carter Page was an FBI witness from 2013 through to March/May 2016 and yet in October 2016, to achieve a FISA warrant, the FBI called him an agent of a foreign government.  [FISA APPLICATION]  It never made sense until with more information about the Mueller investigation we realized the FISA warrant was essentially irrelevant; what the Obama intel apparatus needed for their “insurance policy” was The Dossier.
Fusion GPS was not contracted in April 2016 to research Donald Trump. The intelligence community was already doing unlawful NSA-database surveillance and political spy operations. They already knew everything about the Trump campaign. The Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification, an insurance policy of sorts, for pre-existing surveillance and spy operations.
Fusion-GPS fulfilled that contract by delivering the Steele Dossier.
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Fox News host Maria Bartiromo interviewed Mark Meadows earlier today on her Sunday morning show.  This is quite possibly the most revealing interview so far this year on the Obama ‘Spygate’ and surveillance investigation.  The interview is jam-packed with info.

Clapper and Brennan demanding protection for sources and methods, but at the same time they’re saying people weren’t spied on. … Well, you wouldn’t need to protect sources and methods if people in the Trump administration weren’t spied on.

The segment with Meadows begins at 18:37 [prompted, just hit play] and includes multiple new aspects including: •Weissmann/Mueller report collapsing under scrutiny. •New investigative documents likely mean criminal indictments. •New evidence of a “cover-up” within the FBI. •AG Bill Barr has firm disposition to provide accountability. •Expect significant delay in OIG Horowitz report (ie. Steele interview etc.). •FBI Papadopoulos covert recordings likely to be public. •Overall declassification delayed; likely no release prior to OIG report.
https://youtu.be/qCJa3MDqEaE?t=18m30s
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President Trump sat down for an extensive interview with Laura Ingraham to discuss the D-Day commemorative event and a variety of current event topics including: Tariffs on Mexico, Nancy Pelosi and impeachment threats, China trade confrontation and the relationship between President Trump and H.M. Queen Elizabeth.

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President Trump and First Lady Melania return from Ireland today. Schedule below.
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