Category Blogger C0nservative Tree House

Aug 21 2025

DNI Tulsi Gabbard Eliminates $700 Million in IC Spending, Reducing Staff 40 Percent


Posted originally on CTH on August 21, 2025 | Sundance

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has announced a major shift in reducing the role of the Intelligence Community and eliminating the politization of intelligence information.

As we have discussed on these pages for several years, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created shortly before the Obama administration took power, and subsequently the fledgling organization was weaponized for domestic influence operations. DNI Tulsi Gabbard takes a major step in addressing this problem.

In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their ideological opposition became the target of the new national security system.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard announced a long-overdue transformation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to refocus on executing its core national security mission with integrity in the most agile, effective, and efficient way. This will reduce ODNI by over 40% by the end of fiscal year 2025 and save taxpayers over $700 million per year and better enable ODNI to focus on fulfilling its critical role of serving as the central hub for intelligence integration, strategic guidance, and oversight over the Intelligence Community.

ODNI was created after the horrific Islamist terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, exposed systemic failures across the Intelligence Community (IC). Its purpose was to integrate intelligence from and provide oversight over all IC elements (currently 18) in order to ensure the intelligence provided to the President and policymakers is timely, accurate, and apolitical.

Unfortunately, two decades later, ODNI has fallen short in fulfilling its mandate.

“Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” said DNI Tulsi Gabbard. “ODNI and the IC must make serious changes to fulfill its responsibility to the American people and the U.S. Constitution by focusing on our core mission: find the truth and provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence to the President and policymakers. Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded. Under President Trump’s leadership, ODNI 2.0 is the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.”

ODNI 2.0 eliminates redundant missions, functions and personnel, and makes critical investments in areas that support the President’s national intelligence priorities, and focuses on rebuilding trust, exposing politicization and weaponization of intelligence, holding bad actors accountable, saving American tax dollars, and focusing on our core mission: protecting the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.

You can find an ODNI 2.0 fact sheet here.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01.  DHS came along in 2002 and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed.  When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus.  However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology.  The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution.  Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.

We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake.  However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design.  By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath.  The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.

As Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard has begun to take down the political surveillance system.

Yesterday, it was announced that Tulsi Gabbard fired twenty of the “according to those familiar with the matter” people. Another ten from the group “who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” And seven of the “officials close to the issue.”

Her work continues.

Aug 21 2025

Big Problems Erupt in Angola – Chinese Citizens Flee as Anger Erupts Due to Belt and Road Consequences


Posted originally on CTH on August 20, 2025 | Sundance

HatTip to Ben for calling attention to this remarkable story.

Essentially China’s “Belt and Road” initiative is a system of China putting massive infrastructure investment funds into a targeted country in exchange for their ability to extract resources needed for Chinese expansion. However, several nations are now rising up against the Chinese influence as it surfaces in the lives of the citizens.

Angola is a case study in China investing billions and with the investment a large number of Chinese citizens arrive set up businesses there.  Over time resentment against the Chinese has been building.  Then a flashpoint with a massive jump in gas prices.  Suddenly, anarchy erupts, and all the Chinese businesses are looted, some even killed in the violence.

[READ STORY HERE]

China is now evacuating some of the 300,000+ Chinese citizens from the region, and the Chinese embassy is urgently warning people about the escalating crisis.

Remember when Tunis erupted at the origin of the “Arab Spring”?  That was a combined economic and cultural flashpoint. This escalating problem in Africa has a similar theme to it.

People often talk about the ‘strength’ of China’s economic model; and indeed within a specific part of their economy -manufacturing- they do have economic strength.  However, the underlying critical architecture of the Chinese economic model is structurally flawed and President Trump with his current economic team understand the weakness better than all international adversaries.

Lets take a stroll and lightly discuss.

China is a central planning economy.  Meaning it never was an outcropping of natural economic conditions.  China was/is controlled as a communist style central-planning government; As such, it is important to reference the basic structural reality that China’s economy was created from the top down.

This construct of government creation is a key big picture distinction that sets the backdrop to understand how weak the economy really is.

Any nations’ economic model is only as stable (or strong) as the underlying architecture or infrastructure of the actual country.

Think about economic strength and stability this way: If a nation was economically walled off from all other nations, can it survive?  …can it sustain itself?

In the big picture – economic strength is an outcome of the ability of a nation, any nation, to support itself first and foremost.   If a nations’ economy is dependent on other nations’ for it to inherently survive it is less strong than a nation whose economy is more independent.

You might not realize it, but China is an extremely dependent nation.

When the central planning for the 21st century Chinese Economy was constructed, there were several critical cultural flaws, dynamics exclusive to China, that needed to be overcome in order to build their economic model.  It took China several decades to map out a way to economic growth that could overcome the inherent critical flaws.

♦Because of the oppressive nature of the Chinese compliant culture, the citizens within China do not innovate or create.  The “Compliance Mindset” is part of the intellectual DNA strain of a Chinese citizen.

Broadly speaking, the modern era Chinese are not able to think outside the box per se’ because the reference of all civil activity has been a history of box control by government, and compliance to stay (think) only within the approved box.  The lack of intellectual thought mapping needed for innovation is why China relies on intellectual theft of innovation created by others.

American culture specifically is based around freedom of thought and severe disdain of government telling us what to do; THAT freedom is necessary for innovation.  That freedom actually creates innovation.

Again, broadly speaking Chinese are better students in American schools and universities because the Chinese are culturally compliant.  They work well with academics and established formulas, and within established systems, but they cannot create the formula or system themselves.

♦ The Chinese Planning Authority skipped the economic cornerstone.  When China planned out their economic entry, they did so from a top-down perspective.  They immediately wanted to be manufacturers of stuff.  They saw their worker population as a strategic advantage, but they never put the source origination infrastructure into place in order to supply their manufacturing needs.   China has no infrastructure for raw material extraction or exploitation.

China relies on:  importing raw material, applying their economic skillset (manufacturing), and then exporting finished goods.  This is the basic economic structure of the Chinese economy.

See the flaw?

Cut off the raw material, and the China economy slows, contracts, and if nations react severely enough with export material boycotts the entire Chinese economy implodes.

Again, we reference the earlier point: Economic strength is the ability of a nation to sustain itself.  [Think about an economy during conflict or war]  China cannot independently sustain itself, therefore China is necessarily vulnerable.

♦The 800lb Panda in the room is that China is arguably the least balanced economy in the modern world.  Hence, China has to take extraordinary measures to secure their supply chain.  This economic dependency is also why China has recently spent so much on military expansion etc., they must protect their vulnerable interests.

Everything important to the Chinese Economy surrounds their critical need to secure a strong global supply chain of raw material to import, and leveraged trade agreements for export.

China’s economy is deep (manufacturing), but China’s economy is also narrow.

China could have spent the time to create a broad-based economy, but the lack of early 1900’s foresight, in conjunction with their communist top-down totalitarian system and a massive population, led to central government decisions to subvert the bottom-up building-out and take short-cuts.  Their population controls only worsened their long term ability to ever broaden their economic model.

It takes a population of young avg-skilled workers to do the hard work of building a raw material infrastructure.  Mine workers, dredge builders, roads and railways, bridges and tunnels etc.  All of these require young strong bodies.   The Chinese cultural/population decisions amid the economic builders precluded this proactive outlook; now they have an aging population and are incapable of doing it.

This is why China has now positioned their economic system as dependent on them being an economic bully.  They must retain their supply chain: import raw materials – export finished goods, at all costs.

This inherent economic structure is a weakness China must continually address through policies toward other nations.  Hence, “One-Belt / One-Road” is essentially their ‘bully plan’ to ensure their supply chain and long-term economic viability.

This economic structure, and the reality of China as a dependent economic model, also puts China at risk from the effects of global economic contraction.

Aug 21 2025

Matt Gaetz Interviews Ed Martin: Did Adam Schiff and the January 6th committee mishandle or even destroy key evidence?


Posted originally on CTH on August 20, 2025 | Sundance

Matt Gaetz is one of the few members of congress who reviewed the activity of the J6 Committee after it was disbanded.  In this interview, Matt Gaetz discusses the activity of the J6 Committee with DOJ Working Group leader, Ed Martin.

Ed Martin is now tasked with assembling all of the various information from open source, classified and declassified documents while reviewing them for potential criminal violations.  Gaetz asks Martin whether any of the J6 activity is positioned to be a part of Ed Martin’s criminal activity review.  WATCH:

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Aug 20 2025

DNI Tulsi Gabbard Removes Security Clearances of 37 Intelligence Analysts


PDirector of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard continues her effort to deconstruct the politicization of the intelligence community with the revocation of security clearances from 37 intelligence analysts.  Many of these names are from the fraudulent Intelligence Community letter that dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation.

In a Twitter announcement today, DNI Gabbard posts a notification letter that the security clearances are revoked effective immediately. Most of the names on the list are unknown to the general public, but these are the people buried deep inside the intelligence information system who are tasked with interpreting intelligence data.

The names on the list come mostly from the staff pool of the National Security Council (NSC), CIA National Intelligence Council (NIC), State Dept. and various sub-silos within the offices that deliver finished intelligence products to the CIA, FBI Counterintelligence Division, NSA intelligence analysis center and ultimately the DNI and White House.

These are the sources of politicized, often manufactured, intelligence interpretations.

When former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, DNI James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan said, “give me this outcome,” the targeted names today are the people who constructed the fraud.  Some of the names, like Beth Sanner, are currently working as “National Security Analysts” for various media operations, like CNN.

Several names on the list are former intelligence analysts who signed the letter manufactured by former Acting CIA Director Mike Morrell about the Biden laptop.

(ODNI – VIA Twitter) – “Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold. In doing so, they undermine our national security, the safety and security of the American people and the foundational principles of our democratic republic.

This is why, at POTUS’ direction, ODNI directed the revocation of the security clearances of 37 current and former intelligence professionals who have abused the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.

Our Intelligence Community must be committed to upholding the values and principles enshrined in the US Constitution and maintain a laser-like focus on our mission of ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people.” (read more)

DNI Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News, Sean Hannity (ugh), to discuss the latest developments.

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard continues her effort to deconstruct the politicization of the intelligence community with the revocation of security clearances from 37 intelligence analysts.  Many of these names are from the fraudulent Intelligence Community letter that dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation.

In a Twitter announcement today, DNI Gabbard posts a notification letter that the security clearances are revoked effective immediately. Most of the names on the list are unknown to the general public, but these are the people buried deep inside the intelligence information system who are tasked with interpreting intelligence data.

The names on the list come mostly from the staff pool of the National Security Council (NSC), CIA National Intelligence Council (NIC), State Dept. and various sub-silos within the offices that deliver finished intelligence products to the CIA, FBI Counterintelligence Division, NSA intelligence analysis center and ultimately the DNI and White House.

These are the sources of politicized, often manufactured, intelligence interpretations.

When former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, DNI James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan said, “give me this outcome,” the targeted names today are the people who constructed the fraud.  Some of the names, like Beth Sanner, are currently working as “National Security Analysts” for various media operations, like CNN.

Several names on the list are former intelligence analysts who signed the letter manufactured by former Acting CIA Director Mike Morrell about the Biden laptop.

(ODNI – VIA Twitter) – “Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold. In doing so, they undermine our national security, the safety and security of the American people and the foundational principles of our democratic republic.

This is why, at POTUS’ direction, ODNI directed the revocation of the security clearances of 37 current and former intelligence professionals who have abused the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.

Our Intelligence Community must be committed to upholding the values and principles enshrined in the US Constitution and maintain a laser-like focus on our mission of ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people.” (read more)

DNI Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News, Sean Hannity (ugh), to discuss the latest developments.

Aug 20 2025

White House Press Briefing – 1:00pm ET Livestream


Posted originally on CTH on August 19, 2025 | Sundance 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is holding a press briefing today at 1:00pm ET.  Livestream Links Below:

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Aug 20 2025

President Trump Describes Telling Europe, “You Can’t Wait Weeks, Thousands Are Dying”


Posted originally on CTH on August 19, 2025 | Sundance

President Trump called into Fox & Friends show this morning to explains some of the details within the Ukraine Peace Summit held at the White House with President Zelenskyy and European leaders.

There’s some interesting insight into the urgency, held by President Trump, as he describes talking about the need to stop the killing now, not next week.  President Trump notes he told the EU leadership, it is ridiculous to say meet again in a few days; thousands of people are dying each week.  Trump told them they need to get into action tonight.  WATCH:

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In his generally off-the-cuff remarks, President Trump provides some remarkable insight into the status of current events.

Aug 20 2025

Secretary of State Marco Rubio Gives Context and Next Steps to Current Ukraine Peace Negotiations


Posted originally on CTH on August 19, 2025

Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, continues to play a key role in both diplomacy and strategy for the goals and policies of President Trump.

Rubio was present for every moment of both the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  Rubio outlines in this interview the goals and objectives of the next steps.  As the EU assembles the outlines for security guarantees to protect Ukraine moving forward, President Trump is organizing a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy.

Hopefully, the Trump administration can set the table for Zelenskyy and Putin to come to terms and stop the war.  If they can agree to terms, President Trump will then coordinate a trilateral meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump to sign a peace deal – complete with the security guarantee package provided by the Europeans.  WATCH:

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Aug 19 2025

President Trump Organizing a Direct Meeting Between Zelenskyy and Putin


Posted originally on CTH on August 19, 2025 | Sundance

Following a historic peace summit consisting of EU leaders attending the White House, President Donald Trump says arrangements are beginning for a bilateral meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine.  If the approach is successful, this could be a significant move toward ending the conflict between the two countries.

President Trump – “I had a very good meeting with distinguished guests, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Friedrich Merz, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, in the White House, which ended in a further meeting in the Oval Office.

During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America. Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine.

At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy. After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself.

Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” (LINK)

The “security guarantees” are a sticking point for many of us.  From previous statements we can infer President Trump is willing to be a backstop to support the military forces of the EU and other countries.   The U.K, France, Germany et al taking the leading role, and the USA is the “in case of emergency break glass” option.

At least that looks like the outline being proposed and organized.

Aug 19 2025

Yesterday’s Oval Office Pictures Harken Back to Memories of G7 in Canada Circa 2019


Posted originally on CTH on August 19, 2025 | Sundance

The White House provides the following pictures of the Ukraine peace summit in the Oval Office.

Everything about the optics is epic.

[Original Source]

The map is also interesting.

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The reference to 2019 comparison.

Aug 19 2025

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey Resigns to Accept Federal Role as Co-Deputy FBI Director


Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has announced his resignation from the state AG position to take a role at the top of the FBI silo.   Pam Bondi has appointed Andrew Bailey as Co-Deputy FBI Director to serve alongside Dan Bongino.

This outcome and appointment make a lot of sense. Missouri AG Andrew Bailey helped expose the DHS manipulation of social media and has pushed the envelope against the Deep State/Lawfare attacks against Donald Trump.

Bailey has used the power of his office for good purposes and provided cautious optimism he could do the same at a federal level in the position. {GO DEEP}

Two weaknesses with the appointment of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were that neither of them had large institutional leadership experience, and neither had organized long investigative processes within the legal system.  The concerns therein were never about intent, but rather, their ability.

Andrew Bailey provides a boost in experience that both the Director and Deputy are lacking.  This is not a slight against Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the appointment of a subject matter expert is strategically necessary.

AG ANDREW BAILEY  Press Release – […] “Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced today that he will resign effective on September 8, 2025.

“It has been a humbling privilege to serve as the 44th Attorney General of the State of Missouri, and I am forever grateful to the people of Missouri for the opportunity to represent our state and your families. My life has been defined by a call to service, and I am once again answering that call, this time at the national level. But wherever I am called, Missouri is and always will be home,” said Attorney General Bailey. “I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to serve as the Co-Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I extend my deepest gratitude to President Trump and U.S. Attorney General Bondi for the privilege to join in their stated mission to Make America Safe Again.”

[…] “I am thrilled to welcome Andrew Bailey as Co-Deputy Director of the FBI. He has served as a distinguished attorney general for Missouri and is a decorated war veteran, bringing expertise and dedication to service,” said U.S. Attorney General Bondi. “His leadership and commitment to country will be a tremendous asset as we work together to advance President Trump’s mission. While we know this is undoubtedly a great loss for Missouri, it is a tremendous gain for America.”  {SOURCE}

Deputy U.S Attorney General Todd Blanche, United States Solicitor General D. John Sauer, and Dept of Justice Investigative Lead, Attorney Ed Martin, are very serious people within Main Justice.  Deputy FBI Director Andrew Bailey will be an excellent addition overall.

DAG Blanche coordinates and prioritizes the day-to-day USAO office activity around the country.  Blanche is the general in charge of eliminating Lawfare efforts.  Solicitor General Sauer faces the Supreme Court.  Sauer is the general in charge of framing the arguments from Blanche that reach the court.  Meanwhile, DC USAO Martin, now with position changed to Presidential Appointment Martin in charge of investigating weaponized justice efforts, is the lead investigator on all enmeshed corruption within Washington DC.

Blanche, Sauer and Martin are serious and purposefully driven men with very specific skillsets. So too is Andrew Bailey.

In our discussions we do not trade in hopium, nor do we promote the popular albeit nonsensical and futile anticorruption efforts favored by most high-profile media types.  We no longer have the benefit of time needed to be sensitive to feelings.

The reality of the DC silo system is not easily understood, and that is entirely by design.  High profiles may generate headlines, but do not generate adequate results as increasingly evidenced by AG Bondi, Director Patel and Deputy Bongino, all essentially, TV performers.

To speak bluntly, Bondi, Patel and Bongino are in over their heads.  However, Pam Bondi has Todd Blanche to run cover for her inadequacies. Kash Patel did not have the same; he does now.

♦ Because there is so much confusion, a little background context is needed. You see, you might remember former Special Prosecutor John Durham who was appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr. During his review of all ‘Russiagate’ matters, John Durham was never permitted to investigate anyone inside govt.

John Durham was given a very specific task and very specific guardrails he was not allowed to cross or touch. The guardrails are what created the outcome. The guardrails were put into place by AG Bill when he officially appointed him in October 19, 2020; five months after the initial request to begin review.

Politicians, political staff, members of the Obama administration, political appointees and any federal govt employee within any agency were off limits to Durham.  During a conversation on August 18, 2020, Durham’s lead investigator Bill Aldenberg first admitted the limitations.  No-one inside government could be investigated.

But FBI Agent Kevin Clinesmith, you say?

Great question.

Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI official who fabricated a CIA email to support the FISA application used against Carter Page, was an OIG criminal referral to Bill Barr and Main Justice from the DOJ Inspector General investigation into the Page FISA construct.

The IG referral by Michael Horowitz preceded John Durham’s appointment and was handed to Durham by AG Barr while being told the Clinesmith case would provide cover for the guardrails.  In essence, Clinesmith would give the appearance that people inside govt were being held accountable by Main Justice through the John Durham special counsel.  This was the intention of Bill Barr.

It was all a farce. The effect of Barr’s approach was to throw off, water down and diffuse criticism from President Trump for inaction by the DOJ about the fraudulent Crossfire Hurricane targeting operation. In essence, Bill Barr gave John Durham the Clinesmith case as a cover operation to protect govt officials.

To be fair, and in defense of his friend, John Durham would likely take issue with my characterization of his probe, yet he would admit the gist of his conversation with Barr (as relayed above) is essentially accurate.

Durham readily admitted his purview was limited to non-governmental participants. No one inside govt or the executive branch was ever investigated directly. Yes, their misconduct surfaced as an outcome of their contacts with Perkins Coie (one example), but those trails were never allowed to be followed.

Given the passage of time, this background is generally a moot point; I am only sharing it again for the sake of clarity.  The key point is that govt participants were never investigated by John Durham, and a full accounting of the corrupt players was never made public.

♦ Now, back to the matter at hand.

WASHINGTON DC – […] Ed Martin has spent months leveraging his perch as top federal DC prosecutor and quietly operating as a tip of the spear in the administration’s war against Russiagate villains, Capitol riot prosecutions and lawfare, The Post has learned.

Now that his responsibilities have been sharpened, Martin anticipates there “may be no limit to the targets” the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group will pursue under his watch, since there “was no limit to the weaponization.”

“It’s a nationwide and frankly, international docket where the government was used against the citizens, where the government was weaponized,” Martin told The Post about his plans for the weaponization working group. “Sometimes there’ll be crimes involved, in which case we’ll prosecute. Sometimes there’ll be just the need to make clear this is not how it’s supposed to go.”

Shortly after Trump tapped him as interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, a post that expires on May 20, Martin quickly demoted over half a dozen prosecutors involved with Capitol riot cases and fired off investigatory letters to key Russiagate actors.

This includes Andrew Weissman, the Mueller probe “pitbull;” Mary McCord, who oversaw DOJ’s sprawling probe into possible Trump-Russia ties; Aaron Zelinsky, another Mueller probe prosecutor; and Charles McGonigal, a former FBI special agent in charge who also worked on the Russia probe of the Trump campaign.

[…] The DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group was established in February by Attorney General Pam Bondi in response to an executive order from Trump to root out remnants of lawfare and hold key perpetrators accountable.

Martin was an early member of the group, and now, as its leader, he will report to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. He has also been tapped to serve as pardon attorney.

“The truth is important, and we need it,” Martin reflected about his new role. “We need to move forward. But then, after the truth is known, we need to hold those accountable that did the wrongdoing, and we need to also help those who are victims. We have both of those obligations.” (link)

We deserve an honest reckoning for what took place.  Andrew Bailey partnered with Ed Martin gets us one step closer.

August 18, 2025 | Sundance