Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

The crowd has realized that Senator Lindsey Graham is playing a role and has no intention to do anything to stop the malicious impeachment of President Trump.  Last night Senator Rand Paul went on the record and called attention to Senator Graham’s duplicitous lack of action…. Oh dear, people are catching on.
To protect himself from the disinfecting sunlight of scrutiny, Senator Graham runs to the office of Sean Hannity for protection.  Together they pitch the idea of a strongly worded letter as an action that might provide Graham some more time to hide and get away from the pesky spotlight….  Tonight, they sell it:

.
In the background Senator Graham knows a democrat Senator will oppose the resolution (it only takes one). Because the procedure for a single senator to bring a resolution vote to the Senate Chamber requires unanimous consent, the resolution can also be blocked by a single senator.
[Don’t disregard which outlet Graham is using to sell his plan, that too is by design.]
This strategy provides Senator Graham the optic of doing something, being blocked by democrats…. which he expects, and actually accomplishing nothing.  That’s the plan; and it’ll probably work.  Too many people are fooled by the Decepticon tricks.
(more…)

Representative Elise Stefanik (R-New York) gives a good general perspective from a centrist, non ideological, politician.  As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Stefanik is at the center of the impeachment efforts undertaken by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff.
Ms. Stefanik has had enough of the schemes and games and is publicly calling out Chairman Schiff for his manipulation of the impeachment process.  This type of push-back is good, because Pelosi and Schiff’s crew are comfortable with the customary GOP push-back from McCarthy, Jordan, Meadows, Gaetz, Collins, Nunes etc. However, the Lawfare crowd is not prepared to deal with the optics of a more dangerous Stefanik.

(more…)

White House manufacturing policy advisor Peter Navarro discusses the lack of action from Speaker Pelosi on ratification of the USMCA.
As CTH has outlined since the July 2019 alliance meeting between Pelosi and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the strongest likelihood is the House will table the ratification vote until after the 2020 election. It is a strategic political decision.

.
(more…)

Representative John Ratcliffe appears with Martha MacCallum to discuss the ongoing closed-door testimony from officials upset about President Trump’s unorthodox approach to foreign policy.
Mr. Ratcliffe notes the purposeful leaks from Chairman Adam Schiff and his Lawfare staff to their aligned media scribes are intentionally false by design.

(more…)

Boy howdy, this DOJ announcement is alarming on many levels.  Imaad Zuberi, a 49-year-old resident of Arcadia, California, has agreed to plead guilty to a variety of illegal activities surrounding campaign contributions, political influence, and unregistered lobbying on behalf of foreign clients.  Mr. Zuberi was under DOJ, FBI and IRS investigation since 2015 (<= important aspect on the alarming part).

(Via DOJ) Federal prosecutors today filed a criminal case charging Imaad Shah Zuberi, a Southern California campaign fundraiser, with falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials. The criminal charges allege that Zuberi engaged in lobbying efforts that earned him millions of dollars, most of which was pilfered from his clients, and Zuberi has agreed to plead guilty to those charges at a later date, pursuant to a plea agreement.

(more…)

The Christopher Steele dossier was called “Crown Material” by FBI agents within the small group during their 2016 political surveillance operation. The “Crown” description reflects the unofficial British intelligence aspect to the dossier as provided by Steele.

In May 2019 former House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy stated there are emails from former FBI Director James Comey that outline instructions from CIA Director John Brennan to include the “Crown Material” within the highly political Intelligence Community Assessment.
Specifically outlined by Gowdy, the wording of the Comey email is reported to say:

…”Brennan is insisting the Crown Material be included in the intel assessment.”

However, on May 23rd, 2017, in testimony -under oath- to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) John Brennan stated [@01:54:28]:

GOWDY: Director Brennan, do you know who commissioned the Steele dossier?
BRENNAN: I don’t.
GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau [FBI] ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filing, applications?
BRENNAN: I have no awareness.
GOWDY: Did the CIA rely on it?
BRENNAN: No.
GOWDY: Why not?
BRENNAN: Because we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done. Uh … it was not.

(more…)

After the DOJ/FBI advanced their defensive efforts last weekend via the New York Times and NBC, now the CIA/ODNI faction step forth with the same intents and purposes.
CIA defending journalist Natasha Bertrand has been participating in the multi-year PR effort which helped frame the CIA/ODNI talking points against President Trump, and she is deployed again in the latest effort within Politico.   The timing here is predictable.

(Via Politico) President Donald Trump’s obsession with former CIA director John Brennan could be on a collision course with an ongoing Justice Department probe as Attorney General Bill Barr takes a more hands-on approach to examining the intelligence community’s actions in 2016.
[…] Durham’s report is likely to land well after the results of an inquiry by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, who is examining the FBI’s applications to a secret court in 2016 and 2017 to obtain surveillance warrants on a Trump campaign aide.

(more…)

The back-story here is likely worse than the obvious.  In a tweet today Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announces his resolution warning President Trump not to remove troops from Syria or Afghanistan.  [Not coincidentally the two countries visited by Speaker Pelosi and Adam Schiff last weekend.]

(Source)

Of course the obvious, albeit unwritten “or else” part, is Senator McConnell threatening to join with with Senator Lindsey Graham and support President Trump’s impeachment.
We cannot say we were not warned [ SEE HERE ] it was obvious immediately after the Democrats won the House in 2018 that McConnell was breathing a sigh of relief.  [Also reminder, the SSCI doesn’t run an operation against the President and the Leader of the Senate not know about it…. just sayin’.]

In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Stephanie Grisham Twitter @StephGrisham45