You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD

Appearing on Life, Liberty and Levin, Mr. Dan Bongino and Mr. Joe diGenova have an in-depth conversation about ongoing issues with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation, and the precipitating events/action within the Obama Intel Community:

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More *’nuther stuff* below.

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Quietly, almost invisibly today, National Security Agency Director Navy Admiral Mike S Rogers turned over his command to Army General Paul Nakasone.

Together with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan, a small but formal ceremony was held at Fort Meade, Maryland, on the same day the U.S. Cyber Command was elevated to become the nation’s 10th unified combatant command.

[wpvideo 3aqMSV1Y]

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It does not seem coincidental that today, in the background of events, there is also a great deal of activity within the aggregate intelligence community (FBI/DOJ).  As DNI Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers are together in a formal and official capacity for the final time, the FBI was purging usurping agents (Page, Baker). Indeed with Admiral Rogers exit from service, he is now able to testify regarding his knowledge of prior FISA issues.

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NOW IT ALL COMES TOGETHER…

Michael Caputo appears on Fox News for a general discussion of his third experience being grilled by Hillary Clinton’s Legal Team within the Clinton-Mueller Special Counsel.

However, one of the interesting bits of information is where Mr. Caputo notes the Clinton-Mueller team have the personal emails, phone call logs, communications and even text messages of every targeted member of the investigation. This little factoid is jaw-dropping important because it highlights the underlying reason why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein needed to grant a July 2017 extension of the Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant (initiated against Carter Page); that was actually being utilized by the FBI to conduct political surveillance of these same Trump officials.

Without the July 2017 FISA extension, Robert Mueller would not have predicate investigative authority to reach into the accounts of his targets and extract their personal communication.  Mueller would have needed to go to court for a search warrant; he is conducting a criminal investigation; he would have needed probable cause.  However, by applying the 2016 extended FISA Title-1 warrant, the Clinton-Mueller special counsel used the previous legal authority to extract all the information they wanted to review.

Things are making much more sense now.

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Former federal prosecutor, Mayor of New York and presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani is now one of the lawyers for President Donald Trump.

Tonight Mr. Giuliani appeared on Fox News with Sean Hannity for a wide-ranging interview of current events and issues. Giuliani discussed the ongoing resistance efforts from the Clinton embeds inside the Robert Mueller team; and also discussed the “personal heartbreak” felt by President Trump toward the conduct of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.

Additionally, Giuliani discussed the attacks against the Trump allies, former campaign aides, the Trump family and the other legal representatives of Donald Trump including Michael Cohen.  The institutional media apparatus is going bananas over this interview.

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A great deal of excitement today centers around President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence participating in a formal swearing-in ceremony for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

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[Transcript] Washington, D.C. – 11:17 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. I must say, that’s more spirit that I’ve heard from the State Department in a long time — many years. (Laughter.) We can say many years, and maybe many decades. It’s going to be a fantastic start, a fantastic day. And that spirit will only be magnified, will only — with this man right here. I know that for a fact.

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses the ongoing trade initiatives with China ahead of the U.S. delegation departing later tonight.  Secretary Ross, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative/Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow and White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro are all heading to Beijing to meet with their Chinese counterparts.

Secretary Ross is like the Babe Ruth of trade-baseball. Wilburine has a way of taking complex issues pitched to him, and knocking them out of the ballpark with an extremely fast common sense bat.  He makes it look effortless.  Watch:

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Two quick thoughts. First, I think this is the first time every member of Team America (Ross, Mnuchin, Lighthizer, Kudlow, Navarro) has unified into one specific set of trade negotiations. That helps understand the scale of importance of the China trade relationship.

Second, there’s no traveling parallel contingent consisting of outside government members/advisers from of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This is a significant change from the past 30 years of Wall Street policy manipulation by the CoC. Many people may not be aware but until President Trump the U.S. government didn’t actually write the trade agreements.

For all prior administrations the actual negotiations and agreements were willingly sub-contracted out to U.S. Chamber of Commerce delegations. This is how the multinationals took control of trade policy and eventually the U.S. economy. CoC President Tom Donohue must be apoplectic now that he is facing an administration actually writing the trade agreements.

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Earlier today President Trump participated in the presentation of the Commander-in-Chief trophy to the U.S. Military Academy football team; Army Black Nights.

Rose Garden – 12:00 P.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT: At ease. Good afternoon, and welcome to the White House. And this is officially, for you, most of you know, the Rose Garden. Very special. Very, very special place. Today is a day of celebration, so relax and have a good time.

I have no higher honor as President than to serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces. And I truly have no greater pleasure than to award the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, for the first time in 21 years, to the Army Black Knights. Congratulations. (Applause.)

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President Trump’s MAGAnomic team have announced a 30-day extension for the Steel (25%) and Aluminum (10%) tariffs for the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

Also, after a prior agreement with South-Korea, the “KORUS” deal, team U.S.A. has also reached an agreement in principle with Australia, Argentina and Brazil which will be finalized in next 30 days.

Via Wall Street Journal – President Donald Trump has decided to postpone decisions about imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union and other U.S. allies until June 1, a senior administration official said.

In addition to announcing the delay, the White House is expected to say Monday evening that it has finalized a deal to exempt South Korea from the tariffs, mirroring details that have been previously released by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

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There is a geopolitical strategy happening this week that is essentially under the radar.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, USTR Robert Lighthizer, Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow, and the U.S. trade team are heading to China.

The outcome of their discussions connects the initiatives behind North Korea, China and NAFTA.  The steel and aluminum tariffs are part of the toolbox.  Only one media personality, our favorite suspicious cat, appears to understand the larger economic play and how it is being deployed.

From the U.S. perspective, NAFTA has a fatal flaw. Mexico and Canada admitted the flaw for the first time a few weeks ago. The flaw is Mexico and Canada’s exploitation of NAFTA as a backdoor into the U.S. market for Asian, mostly Chinese, manufactured products. Multinational corporations who have invested in Canada and Mexico are determined to retain the flaw.

President Trump understands that as long as Canada and Mexico can unilaterally make trade agreements with the EU and ASEAN nations, any NAFTA agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is moot. The NAFTA talks are paused.

The U.S. Team now heads to China. There’s no doubt part of the objective is to begin a structural discussion that must happen for the U.S. trade team to approach closing the fatal NAFTA flaw from the source of origin. [*note* on the EU side of this issue, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is leading a similar discussion. Mnuchin and Lighthizer are focused on Asia, Ross has responsibility for Europe]

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The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), who track GDP  -and-  U.S. Labor Department (DoL) Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), who track wage growth, have released the initial sets of analysis for Quarter 1 of this year (Jan-March).   The first quarter growth in GDP comes in at 2.3%.  [Most estimates initially expected 2.0% or slightly less.]

CBS – […] It’s common for economic growth to slow in the first quarter and then accelerate later in the year. Still, the January-March increase was better than expected: Economists had foreseen a 2 percent annualized rate. In the current quarter, economists expect growth to surpass 3 percent.

The 2.3% first quarter result puts 2018 on track to achieve President Trump’s targeted growth rate: over three percent combined growth for the full year.   Due to seasonal fluctuations the first quarter is historically the weakest for GDP growth.  The second quarter will likely rebound well above 3.5% as the historic Q1 -vs- Q2 trend shows above.

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