For the life of me, there is absolutely no logic to any of this attack on Russia except the desire to conquer and destroy it as any sort of a superpower or independent nation-state. Every President always sought peace until Biden who seems to be reading the cur cards for Armageddon. Even Henry Kissinger said every president has invited him to the White House EXCEPT Biden.
Even if we assume that the sanctions worked and forced Putin to withdraw from protecting the Russians in the Donbas whom the West had all agreed were entitled to their human rights and self-determination with the fake Minsk Agreement, what would happen in the political crisis in Russia? We confiscated all Japanese assets, put energy embargoes on them, and threaten to prevent them from dealing with any other country for energy. Roosevelt did everything he could to get Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. Biden has done the same to Russia.
The risk of overthrowing Putin would lead to a potential civil war and the further breakup of Russia with more nukes than the West. Of the 14,500 nuclear weapons on the planet, Russia and the United States own the lion’s share, with a combined total of approximately 13,350 nukes. The remaining 1,150 weapons are held by seven countries. The USA has 6,500 nukes and Russia has 6,800. Destabilizing Russia is just insane. Russia will wipe out Europe in the blink of an eye if pushed and they now know that this Ukraine bullshit is really a war of the USA and NATO against Russia and we are the aggressors.
I can say that US troops have been told that we will be at war with China by next year.
All my sources are saying that the Biden Administration is DOMINATED by inexperienced climate zealots who are demanding we have no time to wait and we MUST end fossil fuels NOW before there are any alternatives in place. They are the ones pushing to destroy Russia which is embraced by the Neocons, all because the majority of their GDP is all fossil fuels.
The sanctions now are imposed by the European Union and will ban imports of refined Russian fuels on February 5th, 2023, adding to its embargo on seaborne Russian crude oil that began in December. The EU is putting its entire future and the lives of ALL its population at risk for the Donbas which has been occupied by Russians for centuries and two former Russian leaders came from that region. It was Khrushchev who drew the border within the USSR purely for administrative purposes. That region was never occupied by Ukrainians.
There is no difference if Mexico had demanded Texas and everyone who lives there must surrender their language and their religion to fit the norm of being Mexican. Then Texans have no right to vote on their future. The entire Minsk Agreement has been a joke. It was a deliberate ploy to buy time for war. This has now confirmed to both China and Russia that the United States and Europe cannot be trusted. Treaties mean absolutely nothing! this stupid ploy has opened the door for World War III because there is no point negotiating with the EU, Germany, France, or the United States when they will not HONOR their agreements. That means there can be no resolution!
That leaves only All Out War to the Death
But hey! There will be new business opportunities as well. Just think of the guided tours to show how foolish these mortals have been. There will be plenty of nuked cities to explore. The good news, we will exterminate all the climate change zealots who insisted on destroying Russia. Yet it may be up to us to prevent the politicians from crawling out of their safe underground bunkers to the new light of CO2 free world after they killed off all those nasty trees and plants that need CO2 to survive. They say the one bug that will survive a nuclear attack is cockroaches. I guess that’s why we are supposed to eat bugs now.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 26, 2023 | Sundance
The pundits are noting the man who never expends political capital on an issue where he might lose, has finally expended some political capital. However, what the pundits don’t realize is this has all be gamed-out, strategized and planned by the people who manage Ron DeSantis. {Direct Rumble Link}
First, Mike Lindell announced he was going to challenge Ronna McDaniel for the RNC chair. This sent a shockwave through the Big Club because the potential for support from President Trump loomed over the Lindell announcement. America-First Mike Lindell is not controlled by corporate money, Wall Street, the multinationals or billionaire Big Donors who ultimately control the RNC as a big private club.
So, what happened?… Facing the possibility that Ronna McDaniel might be unseated, a week after Lindell’s announcement, Harmeet Dhillon steps into the picture.
Dhillion is a tenured Big Club member and voice for the billionaire class who fund her. Remember, Dhillon was paid over $1 million by the RNC, separate and above any costs connected to the Trump legal defense fund. Dhillon makes her money from the RNC, and if Lindell won the chairmanship, in addition to her friend losing the seat, Dhillon was financially at risk. Dhillon enters the race as an insurance policy, on behalf of the Big Club donors.
Notice that this interview is pre-taped. Charlie Kirk (TPUSA) the same group who organized the national campaign blitz after DeSantis’ 5 days in the bunker, strategically timed after the Mar-a-Lago raid, pre-tapes an interview with Ron DeSantis where the managed principal endorses Harmeet Dhillon for RNC chair. On the eve of the RNC vote, the interview is aired for maximum exposure. All of this is planned, coordinated, strategized and mapped out in advance. WATCH:
It’s not organic. All of this is scripted. All of it. Every bit of it. Harmeet Dhillon is already part of the DeSantis Big Club operation. The RNC roadmap in 2008 was for John McCain. The RNC roadmap for 2012 was for Mitt Romney. The RNC roadmap for 2016 was for Jeb Bush, and the RNC, Big Club, Wall Street, Billionaire and multinational corporate roadmap in 2024 is for Ron DeSantis. None of this is organic. All of this is scripted.
Once you see the strings….
Ironically, while advocating for Harmeet Dhillon, Ron DeSantis compares the ideology of Washington DC with the extreme left-wing ideology of Harmeet Dhillon’s hometown, San Francisco. lolol I bet the background manager squinted a little at that remark.
The Big Money that Steven Crowder was talking about in his media conflict with The Daily Wire, that’s the big money behind TPUSA. It’s all a conglomeration of Big Banks and multinational financial institutions, all operated within the same ideological outlook, that are behind the financial system that Charlie Kirk must adhere to.
Charlie Kirk, just like Ben Shapiro, is a puppet to the people in power with the money. They all have something in common.
All of these networked interests and stakeholders must make sure the RNC as a Big Club organization, is protected from those like Mike Lindell who they do not control. That’s the essential underpinning of all of this. The same stakeholders who were/are opposed to Donald Trump but were forced to back down a little after he became president.
It’s all about the money folks. That’s all this is about… Multiple millions for the RNC, multiple billions for the donor class on Wall Street and multiple trillions for the multinationals who operate in combination with government.
There are trillions at stake, and everything is about the economics of the thing.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 25, 2023 | Sundance
If you have followed the management and branding efforts of the team around Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the protestations today by campaign official and registered foreign agent Christina Pushaw are quite bizarre.
The Daily Beast wrote an article [SEE HERE] about how Ms. Pushaw organized an astroturf campaign of support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, which included the recruitment of several conservative influencers. The substance of the article is generally well known.
In late 2021, early 2022, Ms. Pushaw invited a group of “influencers” to spend time with Governor DeSantis. It’s not a debatable event. Factually, the collective group took gleeful pictures of their first visit on January 6, 2022, and continued to post frequent pictures on their social media of events throughout last year. The group went to the reelection celebration and inauguration of DeSantis earlier this month.
However, for some odd reason, likely more concerned about people realizing the ‘organized‘ nature of the creation, in a bizarre turn of events, Ms Christina Pushaw is now denying she ever organized the assembly and stating that without any documentary evidence, saying she organized the group is just a conspiracy theory. [Tweet Link]
If Ms. Pushaw is to be believed, the random group of Florida conservative “influencers” just happened to show up at the Governor’s office on January 6, 2022, without any invitation, organization or coordination on her part.
Even lacking the invitation details, hanging your defense on the absence of a paper trail under these circumstances, seems like a very odd position to take.
Why does the DeSantis team fear sunlight on the origin of how this outreach and subsequent meetings took place? Very odd.
I sincerely doubt this group just randomly showed up at Ron DeSantis office on January 6, 2022, without an invitation or organizing.
The same group then continued meeting throughout the year….
.
Nothing about their recruitment, continued meet-ups and aggressive promotion of Ron DeSantis for the GOP nomination in 2024 would be that interesting or even noteworthy if Ms. Christina Pushaw didn’t paint them all into a box by denying she ever organized their first assembly.
And there’s the rub… Why is Christina Pushaw denying that she first organized them on behalf of the political aspirations of her boss, Ron DeSantis?
The only logical reason to make such an outlandish and transparently false claim, is if that original assembly was intended as seed material to use the “influencers” for another purpose, like a 2024 presidential bid. Yet, Ron DeSantis hasn’t announced a 2024 presidential bid…. so that issue is a nonstarter, unless that announcement is eventually going to come forth.
If Ron DeSantis is going to announce his candidacy for the GOP nomination, then suddenly all these background moves look like proactive steps on behalf of the management team. The January 6, 2022, meeting would then infer the presidential aspirations as far back as December 2021.
In combination with the $200+ million in Wall Street money assembled by DeSantis, perhaps that 2024 plan is the risk necessitating the absurd denial.
Let’s get real. Washington DC was built on hypocrisy. No matter what decade you look at we find that perhaps more than any other setting, the political environment has always been characterized by organized hypocrisy. Now with the blow-up of Biden having classified materials, Hillary’s private server had classified documents. Now you have people trying to twist things around and claim that the classified documents that Trump had were somehow more related to national security than Biden’s. The spin doctors are working overtime.
When Biden was a senator, he helped kill President Jimmy Carter’s CIA director nominee all because he allegedly mishandled classified materials. The hypocrisy in Washington knows absolutely no limitation.
Even the interpretation of the Constitution by the courts, the press, and politicians leave a lot to be desired. When Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” in the preamble to the Declaration, people argue about what he meant. Was that individual liberty, or was he speaking collectively to diminish personal liberty? Some argue that Jefferson was not talking about individual equality. He was really talking about how the American colonists, as a people, had the same rights of self-government as other peoples. Therefore, they had a right to declare independence, create new governments and assume their “separate and equal station” among other nations.
Today, if a state wishes to separate, the courts claim they have no such right just as England did during the 18th century. Suddenly, the “all men are created equal” was individual liberty including slaves, and not collectively as a body of people. As you can see, even writing down words that may sound magnanimous, can be flipped around depending on the desired outcome. For example, if you want to outlaw carrots, it becomes simple. Do a study that establishes every person who has EVER eaten a carrot had eventually died! OMG – outlaw carrots! They will kill you! I grew up with a gas stove and gas heating. All of sudden, out comes a study to justify new regulations to outlaw gas stoves. Why? Because the bug we are supposed to be eating in the future will taste better if microwaved.
If you cannot twist your words where they can have two meanings depending upon your end goal, then you have no qualification to be a politician.
Posted originally on thr CTH on January 19, 2023 | Sundance
Tucker Carlson Outlines the Intersection of the Unelected Administrative State and The Fourth Branch of Government
Posted originally on the CTH on January 19, 2023 | Sundance
The fourth branch of government is the superseding national security apparatus or intelligence branch. That system actually existed for decades as the unelected intelligence apparatus built out its capabilities while We The People slept.
Then 9-11 happened, and the intelligence surveillance system was retooled under the Patriot Act. The Legislative Branch came with the big assist. Then Obama came into office, and all the basic tools were in place to fine tune that surveillance and targeting mechanism. So here we are. Enter, Tucker Carlson:
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 19, 2023 | Sundance
On Wednesday President Trump released a new policy video {Direct Rumble link} highlighting “China’s intrusive actions to own America’s infrastructure and vital industries.”
Within the policy, the Trump campaign pledges to enact aggressive regulations to prevent China from influencing American sovereignty. According to the proposal, “the United States will also pressure the Chinese to sell off any current holdings that threaten the country’s national and economic security.” WATCH:
President Trump was the largest voice amid U.S. politicians to call out the economic threat represented by China back in 2015, an extension of criticism and warnings he carried for more than a decade before entering the world of politics. Transcript Below:
[Transcript] – “China is buying up our country. While corrupt Democrats and RINO-type politicians in Washington have been spending trillions of dollars on the Green New Deal nonsense, foolish foreign wars, and providing lavish benefits to illegal aliens from all over the planet, China has been spending trillions of dollars to take over the crown jewels of the United States economy. And they are doing that.
China is buying up our technology. They’re buying up food supplies. They’re buying up our farmland. They’re buying up our minerals and natural resources. They’re buying up our ports and shipping terminals. And with the help of corrupt influence peddlers like the Biden Crime Family, China is even trying to buy up the pillars of the U.S. energy industry. Because frankly, Biden and the group don’t care about real energy. They only care about nonsense energy, energy that doesn’t work, and it never will.
While some are focused on China’s purchases near power plants and military bases, the fact is we should be very concerned about all Chinese Communist activity in the United States. As I’ve long said, economic security is national security. China does not allow American companies to take over their critical infrastructure. And America should not allow China to take over our critical infrastructure. I didn’t allow it when I was president, and I won’t allow it when we become president again.
To protect our country, we need to enact aggressive new restrictions on Chinese ownership of any vital infrastructure in the United States, including energy, technology, telecommunications, farmland, natural resources, medical supplies, and other strategic national assets. We should stop all future Chinese purchases in these essential industries, and we should begin the process of forcing the Chinese to sell any current holdings that put our national security at risk.
If we don’t do this, the United States will be owned by China which would make them very happy. When I’m president, I will ensure that America’s future remains firmly in American hands just as I did when I was president before. It’ll happen again, and our country will be stronger than ever. Thank you.” (link)
Posted originally on the CTH on January 18, 2023 | Sundance
There is something predictable about Main Street economics, eventually what you see around you overwhelms the great pretending. CTH has been outlining the state of the consumer economy in great detail for quite a while, and though it is difficult to note when the outcomes will surface, eventually they do surface. [Reminder Here]
CONTEXT. CTH outlined the moment when the purchasing power of the U.S. middle class actually began contracting. It was March and April of 2021 when that Rubicon was crossed. We saw it in the second and third quarter data from 2021, but few were willing to admit.
What changed in those two months back in ’21 was a dramatic drop in the “unit sales” of stuff within the consumer economy. The drop in unit sales was hidden because it happened simultaneously with the first wave of massive spike in prices. Prices rose so fast the sales data was giving an artificial impression of sales growth, but in the background the actual unit sales dropped. Those analysts correcting and adjusting historic data to ‘inflation adjusted terms’ are now noticing.
Additionally, and not coincidentally – because the metrics are connected, you will note this line from the Wall Street Journal review of the producer price index. “The producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, rose 6.2% in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, the slowest annual pace since March 2021.” In essence, the current rate of wholesale price increase on materials is now returning to the rate of price increase that happened in the period when prices spiked. Again, this is predictable.
Inflation is the measure of the ‘rate’ of price increase over time. March and April of 2021 were the beginning of the first inflationary spike.
Driven almost entirely by the supply side shock from Biden energy policy, in the subsequent 20 months the rate of price increase skyrocketed, peaked August 2022, and now the rate of increase starts returning. This does not mean price declines; this means the rate of growth in the price increase is lessening.
This is a cyclical outcome.
After 20 months of dropping unit sales, a result of massive price increases; and as the rate of inflation now starts to moderate created by the cyclical nature of it; what we now see is the inability of the price increases to continue hiding the drop in unit sales. [Background pdf Data] Total retail sales data is now exposed and that’s why we will see this increasing story about negative sales data as the inflation cycle plateaus.
(Via Wall Street Journal) – Retail spending fell in December at the sharpest pace of 2022, marking a dismal end to the holiday shopping season as rising interest rates, still-high inflation and concerns about a slowing economy pinched American consumers.
Purchases at stores, restaurants and online, declined a seasonally adjusted 1.1% in December from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Sales were also revised lower in November and have fallen three of the past four months.
The decline in retail spending late last year adds to signs that the U.S. economy is slowing. Hiring and wage growth eased in December, U.S. commerce with the rest of the world declined significantly in November, and existing-home sales have fallen for 10 straight months. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that industrial production slumped in December, led by weakness in the manufacturing industry.
S&P Global downgraded its estimate for fourth-quarter economic growth by a half percentage point to a 2.3% annual rate after Wednesday’s data releases. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this month expect higher interest rates to tip the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year.
“The lag impact of elevated inflation weighs heavily on U.S. households, it’s very clear that the median American consumer is still reeling from the loss of wages in inflation-adjusted terms,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP. “We’re moving towards what I would expect to be a mild recession in 2023,” he added. (read more)
When the Baghdad Bob economic pretenders say, “mild recession,” anticipate something more akin to a mild nuclear meltdown, something with breadlines and soup kitchens.
Now, you must keep in mind that almost every financial media outlet used the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales last year. [Reminder] Apparently, collective pretenses must be maintained. Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews were having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales were strong. Here we are in January and the pretending has hit reality.
Negative retail sales in November and December when prices are roughly +10% over the prior year, means the unit sales collapse was far more dramatic…. Far more.
Trying to survive policy driven price increases in housing costs, energy costs, electricity costs, home heating, food and fuel costs has forced consumers to reevaluate purchasing decisions. Consumer demand for non-essential items has collapsed, and Americans are dig deep into their savings just to sustain unavoidable expenses. Eventually, pretending this is not happening is going to run into the wall of reality.
On one hand the leaders of large multinationals must pretend everything is splendid; after all, the only acceptable position they can articulate is to support interest rates being raised because demand is just too darned high…. pretending. But on the other hand – those same suppliers and multinationals are furiously trying to calculate how to avoid being stuck with billions worth of unsold inventory and idle industrial equipment.
Following the crowd of what is popular and supposed to be the cutting edge of investment, Robert Belfer, the oil Barron, lost billions with ENRON and then Bernie Madoff. Then he became a shareholder in FTX. With a track record like that, you certainly would be firing your financial adviser. The inside joke about DAVOS is that whatever the theme forecast they put out and what they all talk about has NEVER been right. The joke is to do the opposite of the DAVOS forecast and you will make money. Andy Serwer, editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance, asked Warren Buffett in a 2019 interview about the DAVOS forecasts. He responded: “Well, I pay none as a guideline to doing anything,” Buffett responded. I have said many times, the majority MUST be wrong for they provide the market energy to create the boom/bust cycle. Because the majority buy the high, when they sell, you get the crash. When everyone is short at the bottom, you get the rally.
COMMENT: I know you saved Mercedes making back their $1 billion lost all because they listened to the fake news about how the pound and the dollar would crumble in the face of the euro. I read the 2011 Barron’s article on your forecast. It was OK to publish that when they thought you would be wrong. Where is the follow-up when you proved to be the only one who was correct? The same can be said of the New York Times and especially Bloomberg. It is obvious that they will not report on the success of your forecasts because they are leading society at the direction of the Deep State.
Keep up the good work. We need someone independent in this time of darkening clouds.
JWN
REPLY: Let me explain something. All the hype about Bernie Madoff is also FAKE NEWS. On December 10th, 2008, Madoff’s sons Mark and Andrew covered themselves most likely at their father’s direction, and told authorities that their father had confessed to them that the asset management unit of his firm was a massive Ponzi scheme. They even supposedly told them it was “one big lie”. The next day, agents from the FBI arrested Madoff and charged him with one count of securities fraud. There was no possible way the FBI would arrest someone like that without an independent investigation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission had previously conducted numerous investigations into his business practices. Vere did ANY audit uncover such a massive fraud. It was then on March 12th, 2009, when Bernie Madoff simply pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme. He was not even indicted. He pled simply to what is known as an “information” so nothing was even presented to a grand jury. That is UNPRECEDENTED!
The banks all claimed that they had “no idea.” Before he died, Madoff did an interview where the headline was that the Banks had to have known. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that the banks were NOT involved or had no idea. That is legally impossible. As a client of a bank of that size especially, the bank must fill its files with KNOWN YOUR CLIENT rules.
In my case, we had companies set up for each note in Turks & Caicos. The bank actually sent someone down there to audit the legal structure behind every account. There is simply no way a bank can even claim it had no idea. That was a serious RED FLAG that the Madoff case was not what it appeared.
Everyone just skipped over the fact that the SEC conducted multiple audits and found nothing. That included looking at bank accounts and positions on hand. That did NOT add up to a PONZI scheme where you are taking money from one person to pay another which is the actual structure of Social Security. The current generation’s contributions are tasked to pay the previous generation.
Add to that, HSBC, which has been itself indicted for money laundering more than once, stood out as the largest “victim” of Madoff’s scheme – $1.5 billion. HSBC pays countless fines for every scandal they seem to be in the middle of.
In my case, the Bank said they had no idea where the money was after they stole it. How does $1 billion leave a bank without a withdrawal of some sort? Had it not been for my clients standing with me and doing what I told them to do and then sued HSBC, they would have gotten nothing, the government would have claimed I lost it all and the ban was not responsible. The government then put a gag order on me to stop me from helping my clients against the bank! If the bank was not trying to take my client’s money to cover their losses in Russia, then why put a gag order on me if the bank did not do anything wrong?
Then to hide my profits, the receiver handed the notes we issued to HSBC for them to redeem for $606 million pocketing $400 million profit stolen from my company. A former employee bumped into a former HSBC official and he asked what the hell went on. The bankers bluntly told him, the deal offered by the government was too good to pass up. When I asked a NY lawyer why no banker ever is charged or goes to jail, he laughed and said: “You don’t shit where you eat!”
Remember the 1995 collapse of the British Barings Bank because of a “rogue” trader? Nicholas William Leeson was an English former derivatives trader whose claimed fraudulent, “unauthorized and speculative trades” resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom’s oldest merchant bank. Leeson was convicted of financial crime in Singapore court and served over four years in Changi Prison. At the time, I owned a Brokerage House I was asked to bail out by the Japanese government. At our Hong Kong office, Barings wanted to open an account to trade with Leeson in charge.
I knew the corruption of the banks and if the trade went wrong, they would claim he was not authorized. That was the standard operational procedure. Knowing the inside of the industry out, I insisted on a letter from the Board of Directions expressly laying out the credit line for Leeson they requested from my company. I got the letter. So when Leeson supposedly went belly up, guess what. I was quietly paid when everyone else it was said Leeson was a rogue trader.
The New York Post journalist Isabel Vincent who wrote Gilded Lilly, the wife of Edmond Safra, had called me and asked that since I had said that Republic National Bank, Edmond Safra’s, had been illegally trading in my accounts, did I think they were laundering money for the Russian mafia “as they were doing in Madoff’s?” I said I did not know. All I could tell was there were countless errors constantly being put into my accounts and then backed out. At first, I assumed they were “parking trades” in my accounts to use my cash for their margin. Of course, if the “error” was backed out to a different account, they indeed, they were engaging in money laundering.
The court-appointed forensic accountant even wrote to the court about the unprecedented errors in the accounts. The government refused to provide account information to allow them to audit what was going on. The court-appointed counsel, David Cooper, I believe was doing everything he could to help the government cover everything up. The forensic accountant then sent letters to the Judge, and he took no action.
You now have the FTX scandal. You will see that there will NEVER be a trial that would expose all the money laundering where the Democrats had Zelensky, which supposedly needed money to defend his country and fee starving Ukrainians, hand the money to FTX who then happened to be the #2 donor to the Democrats for the midterms. Guess what! Sam Bankman-Fried was charged in the most corrupt court in the nation – the Southern District of New York. The Court of Appeals admitted on page 97 of US v Ziccehtello, that judges are altering transcripts and changing the very words spoken in court. That is 20 years in prison if you or I alter court documents. They do it all the time. When I confronted Judge Richard Owen about this practice, so many people showed up in court to see what would happen. The lawyers said you can’t accuse a federal judge of committing a crime. I said you all say they do it. They responded. Yes, but you cannot accuse them of doing it. The judge got scared and admitted it in public but claim it wasn’t material.
All the press was there AP, New York Times, Bloomberg, NT Post, you name it. NOT a single member of the press reported what took place that day. OMG! Exposing the federal courts corruption? Impossible!
If a case is a high profile, you will NEVER see the truth in the media.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 15, 2023 | sundance
There’s no politics here. Washington DC is comprised of magnanimous institutions filled with exceptionally moral people who commit their lives to a career of public service on behalf of this nation. So sayeth Rod Rosenstein as he takes up a defensive position against the vulgarian horde who do not cherish their rulers with enough reverence, or something like that.
As the story is told, there are only honorable and altruistic officials within the institutions of the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The examples of Robert Mueller, Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland and both special counsels Smith and Hur are presented as evidence to highlight the great fortune of an ungrateful nation.
If Washington DC is a bubble, the great pretending Bubble Boy is Rod Rosenstein. WATCH (or, transcript Below):
[Transcript] – CHUCK TODD: And joining me now is the former Deputy Attorney General under President Trump, Rod Rosenstein. The newly-appointed special counsel looking into Biden, Robert Hur, served as Rosenstein’s top aide in the Justice Department, overseeing the special counsel investigation into the Russian election interference. Mr. Rosenstein, welcome to Meet the Press.
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Thank you. Glad to be here, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD: In December, after the appointment of the Trump special counsel, when asked whether you would’ve done it, you said you probably wouldn’t have. How about this Biden special counsel?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Yeah, I think, Chuck, having made the appointment in the Trump case, Merrick Garland put himself in a position where he really had no choice when this matter came along, unless the preliminary inquiry were to establish that there was no chance that a crime had been committed. And according to what we’ve heard, John Lausch did not make that decision.
CHUCK TODD: Do you believe that appointing a special counsel strengthens the Trump special counsel, and strengthens their ability to come to different conclusions? Or does it muddy the waters?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: I think, Chuck, you have to differentiate between the political consequences and the practical consequences for the special counsel. For Jack Smith and Rob Hur, they’re conducting independent investigations. They’re going to go evaluate the facts and the law, make their recommendation based upon what they find. So I don’t anticipate that the existence of two special counsels is going to influence the way either one of them goes about their jobs.
CHUCK TODD: To the public it appears – I had somebody use this metaphor with me, and I want to use it, there are two car wrecks: one clearly is an accident, one appears to be intentional. Is that a fair way to look at these two classified document situations?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: I think, Chuck, we should wait until we know the facts. You know, the key fact with regard to the Biden documents, of course, is what did the president know about those documents? Was he aware that they’d been moved? Did he, in any case, in the past five years, has he handled those documents? Was he aware of them? We just don’t know that yet. So I think even that we really can’t speculate, just based on what’s been public record.
CHUCK TODD: Tell me your confidence level in Jack Smith and in Robert Hur.
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Well, these are two professionals who spent extended amounts of time in the Department of Justice. They understand that their goal is to focus on the facts, and law, and apply department policy. And both of these men are not going to be influenced by political pressure.
CHUCK TODD: You feel that they’re both – you said something intriguing to me. You said, “You know, every special counsel starts with sterling credentials, and then the public gets a hold of them.” But would you say that’s the case with both of these gentlemen?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: It’s certainly true of these gentlemen, as it was with people like Ken Starr and and Bob Mueller, that you pick people with sterling reputations who are known for being nonpartisan. But you’re in the political arena where it’s inevitable you’re going to be attacked.
CHUCK TODD: There’s two sort of unique defenses in each of these cases that I’m curious your take on. One is Donald Trump’s claim that he could declassify anything he wanted. Now, he’s not made a legal claim that he did that. And the second is, Joe Biden’s currently president. So is it currently illegal for him to have classified documents in his possession, even if it’s at his home, next to his Corvette?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Well, that’s one of the questions the special counsel will have to look into. And in addition, you know, the legal status of the vice president, whether or not he has authority to make any declassification decisions. But the key question, the threshold question here is going to be: was President Biden aware of those classified documents?
CHUCK TODD: And how does that get proven? Do you think he’s going to have to sit for an interview?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Well, that would be a logical step if I were conducting this investigation. I want to go right to the source and ask the president directly whether or not he was aware of those documents.
CHUCK TODD: A sitting president can’t be indicted, according to the Justice Department. So let’s say something is found, what would happen?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: You know, Chuck, I think what should happen in a special counsel investigation is that the special counsel should evaluate the facts and the law, look at Department of Justice policies, and make a recommendation to the attorney general about whether or not prosecution is warranted. Then it’s up to the attorney general to make the decision whether to apply that DOJ policy.
CHUCK TODD: Alright. If you were – you had been in this similar situation. It’s November 4th, it’s four days before the elections. The National Archives informs you that, “Hey, you know, President Biden has just turned over some classified documents that he had in his possession.” Is it too close to the election to tell people? Is that why the Justice Department didn’t inform folks publicly? Is it too soon? Are there questions that should be raised about this or not?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Chuck, it’s not the Justice Department’s job to make public announcements like that. The decision about whether or not to go public would be left to the president and the White House. So I would not anticipate the Justice Department under any circumstances to make a public announcement about something like that.
CHUCK TODD: You wouldn’t have done that in that similar situation?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: In the Justice Department I would not have publicized it, no.
CHUCK TODD: I am curious. There’s a lot of new committees on the Hill that want to investigate some Justice Department practices. And some of these are for current investigations. You essentially said, you know, no, when you were there and others, you didn’t turn stuff over to Congress in active investigations. Do you expect Merrick Garland to do the same?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: I think the bright line, Chuck, is not to turn over anything that’s going to in any way interfere with the investigation. And so that’s a decision the department needs to make in addressing each request as it comes along. There are legitimate congressional oversight requirements that the department can accommodate. But there really is a bright line when it comes to anything that might interfere with the investigation.
CHUCK TODD: So the fact that they have already sent letters demanding certain things now, in your mind there’s nothing Justice can do until they’re done with this investigation, correct?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: I wouldn’t say that. I mean, there are, as I said, legitimate oversight issues that can be resolved without interfering with the investigation. So for example, one bright line would be investigating the prosecutor while the case is ongoing. I think that’s a place where the department would need to draw a line.
CHUCK TODD: Let’s go back in time. In hindsight, doing special counsels, is this the slippery slope that many previous attorneys generals have always feared, that once you appoint one you essentially can’t stop appointing them? Once you claim there’s a rationale of a perception of unfairness, aren’t you stuck, basically, appointing them throughout the rest of the term?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Yeah, that was true, Chuck, under the independent counsel statute, where there was actually a statutory obligation to appoint an independent counsel. It’s not true under the special counsel guidelines. It’s always left to the discretion of the Attorney General to decide whether the public interest warrants it in that particular case. So I do think when you have a similar case, as you do with the Trump and Biden documents, that you have established a precedent. But I don’t know that you need to apply that universally.
CHUCK TODD: I ask that because a decision was made last year not to appoint a special counsel on the Hunter Biden investigation. But now he has appointed a special counsel to look into Joe Biden and these classified documents. Merrick Garland made the decision to put both January 6 and the classified documents under the umbrella of one special counsel. Is he going to be forced to do the same thing with Hunter Biden?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: Well, I think you need to distinguish Hunter Biden from President Biden. We don’t know whether that Hunter Biden implicates the president in any wrongdoing. If it did, I think Merrick Garland would need to make that decision. But as long as it’s just about Hunter Biden, I don’t think that decision point will be reached.
CHUCK TODD: There’s a lot of criticism on Capitol Hill of the FBI. You worked pretty closely with Christopher Wray. What say you about Christopher Wray?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: I think Christopher Wray is doing a superb job under very challenging circumstances. You know, this criticism of the FBI has been ongoing for some time. But if you look at the work the Bureau is doing on a day-to-day basis, I think the American people should have confidence in what they’re doing. And I think Chris Wray is the right person to be in that job now.
CHUCK TODD: Judging by our political climate of the last decade, do we have to figure out another way to politically appoint members of the Justice Department? Or do you think we can get through this moment?
ROD ROSENSTEIN: I don’t think there’s any reason to mess with the appointment process, Chuck. You know, the majority of employees of the department are career employees. The leadership is subject to political appointment, and I think that that’s an appropriate way to manage the department.
CHUCK TODD: All right, Rod Rosenstein, former Deputy Attorney General who’s seen his share of special counsels, and has been through this. Appreciate you coming on–
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