A historic set of meetings within the deepest parts of the DC Swamp is on the schedule for this afternoon with a rather unusual set of alliances, conflicts and competing interests amid both parties and all three branches of government.

After much debate, scheduling, positioning, narrative selling, re-scheduling and changes in attendees, the legislative branch and executive branch are set hold a meeting to discuss oversight, document production and investigative authority over prior intelligence and justice department abuses.  It’s a very odd day indeed.

2017/2018 Intelligence Oversight “Gang of Eight”

♦At high-noon House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R), and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R), are meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. (link) and (link)

In this first meeting the legislative branch will be asking the executive branch, yet again, for unredacted documents relating to their oversight over the Intelligence Community and Department of Justice.  The concerns are prior IC, DOJ and FBI conduct in spy operations against the former campaign of current President Donald Trump. ie. “SpyGate”.

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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

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

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 †

Tucker Carlson led off his broadcast on Tuesday night with a discussion of the latest developments in “Spygate”.   An illegal operation by intelligence leadership within President Obama’s cabinet.

FBI Director James Comey, DOJ Attorney General Loretta Lynch, DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan are all identified within the Spygate operation conducting and facilitating surveillance against their political opposition.

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Big picture move by President Trump today that has massive, and generally misinterpreted, ramifications for any trade deal with China, EU and most importantly NAFTA.

China is using U.S. nuclear negotiations with North Korea as leverage for more beneficial trade outcomes; the communist regime is in full manipulative dragon-mode. President Trump can see through the economic play and is dropping the Panda outreach.  Eagle-one now hits back at Chairman Xi for deploying such dangerous tactics.

If you have been following trade nuance, the Automobile Sector is one of the biggest points of contention within varying trade negotiations. In the NAFTA discussion the auto-sector, via rules of origin, runs at the heart of NAFTA’s fatal flaw.

The fatal flaw is the use of Asian, mostly Chinese, auto components within auto manufacturing. Mexico and Canada arguing to allow more Chinese auto parts in North American manufacturing; and President Trump demanding more North American parts for North American auto manufacturing.

Many U.S. Auto manufacturers have moved to Mexico to exploit the NAFTA loophole (fatal flaw). Vehicles assembled in Mexico use cheaper Chinese parts and are shipped into the U.S. without any tariff under NAFTA rules.

It didn’t take long before EU auto-manufacturers, mostly German, to begin taking the same approach. Albeit to a lesser extent, German auto companies also invested in building vehicles in Mexico/Canada for tariff-free transfer into the U.S. This works out great for Canada and Mexico auto-workers, but not for the U.S.

In essence, the auto-sector is representative of much of the manufacturing exploitation by multinational corporations beyond vehicle production. China has supported this approach because they produce the components for multiple sectors (furniture, appliances etc).

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This is an interesting development.  Until now, for some mysterious reason, no-one in congress has ever asked for the redactions of the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page text messages to be removed.  Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is the first politician to ask for all of the text messages without redactions.

In a letter today to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (full pdf below), Chairman Grassley cites examples of unnecessary redactions that are in place simply to avoid the embarrassment upon the DOJ and FBI.  Accordingly this is not an acceptable reason for hiding information from congress and the American people.

Based on the details within the approximately 400 pages of text messages, there is a tremendous amount of evidence that points directly to the motives and intents of the DOJ and FBI group who were conducting the operation to exonerate Hillary Clinton; and the group who was working on the surveillance operation against the Trump campaign.

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Prior to departing for New York to attend an immigration roundtable President Trump held an impromptu press conference on the South Lawn.  The primary topic was the congressional leadership meeting tomorrow with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, FBI Director Christopher Wray and DOJ Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Edward O’Callaghan (formerly from DOJ-NSD).

During the impromptu remarks the term “spygate” was coined.

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Today President Donald Trump is speaking about MS-13 gang violence and overall immigration issues at the Morrelli Center in Bethpage, NY.  Anticipated start time 2:00pm EST:

UPDATE: Video Added

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There is a meeting scheduled tomorrow between key congressional oversight committee heads (Nunes, Gowdy etc.) and leadership of the FBI (Director Wray), DOJ (Edward O’Callaghan) and ODNI (Dan Coats).  The meeting was set up by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and the purpose of the meeting is to come to some agreement on access to documents being withheld by the DOJ, DOJ-NSD and FBI.

However, amid the ongoing debate over spies and informants used by the CIA and FBI to conduct political surveillance, there’s an aspect of the ongoing investigation that seems to be entirely overlooked.

On January 7th, 2016 the Inspector General of the National Security Agency, George Ellard, submitted a mandatory compliance report outlining the status of the NSA’s ability to monitor the access of users within the NSA database.

I’m including the full report below in pdf format because it is important to understand what the NSA inspector general said.  I strongly urge you to read it (despite the redactions) because the larger issues remain visible within the report:

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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

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45