The sound of sad trombones echos through the halls of media networks today as a year of speculation, surrounding contacts between Don Trump Jr. and ‘blocked phone records’ before and after the oft-emphasized Trump Tower meeting, ends with congress identifying two long-time Trump friends and a major nothing-burger.

Three phone calls by Donald Trump Jr. to blocked numbers in June 2016 fueled rampant media speculation that DJT-Jr. was coordinating with his father, Candidate Trump, over the substance of the Trump Tower meeting, before and after it took place.

SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff both sold a suspicion narrative that candidate Donald Trump and Trump-Jr. were organizing, coordinating and colluding with “Russians”.   Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his primary investigative asset Andrew Weissmann fueled the Russian Conspiracy speculation with targeted leaks to allies in the media.  However, the truth comes out; and it is boring:

VIA ABC NEWS – Investigators on the Senate Intelligence Committee have learned the identities of three blocked phone calls with Donald Trump Jr just before and after the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, three sources familiar with the calls told ABC News.

The calls to blocked numbers, which came on June 6, and after the meeting on June 9, were between Trump Jr.’s cell phone and two family friends — NASCAR CEO Brian France and real estate developer Howard Lorber, according to the sources.

Both men have close ties to President Donald Trump and actively supported his campaign during the 2016 election. (read more)

Fox News Catherine Herridge files a report covering the relationships between Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr and the DOJ and FBI.

President Trump gave an exclusive interview to the Daily Caller.  Part of that interview entailed President Trump outlining the back-story behind him signing the Omnibus spending bill and a promise from Paul Ryan.

[Transcript]THE DAILY CALLER: Well, the people who elected you are very interested in the immigration decision and what’s going on with this negotiation. Republicans in charge of Congress for two years didn’t get to your wall promise in Congress. How big of a roadblock to wall funding was Paul Ryan, now that he’s gone?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I was going to veto the omnibus bill and Paul told me in the strongest of language, ‘Please don’t do that, we’ll get you the wall.’ And I said, ‘I hope you mean that, because I don’t like this bill,’ although I love the bill for what it did for the military. And therefore, if it weren’t for the military, I would have vetoed it.

Just so you understand, our military needed funding desperately. Totally depleted. And this bill was great for the military. Had I vetoed it, you would never have gotten the numbers back that I got. 700 and 716 billion dollars over the past two years. Which is substantially more — much more than President Obama was able to get for the military.

So that was a negative, but a big factor as to why that was the reason I signed it. But another very big factor was the fact that Paul told me in the strongest of terms that, ‘please sign this and if you sign this we will get you that wall.’ Which is desperately needed by our country. Humanitarian crisis, trafficking, drugs, you know, everything — people, criminals, gangs, so, you know, we need the wall.

And then he went lame duck. And once he went lame duck it was just really an exercise in waving to people and the power was gone so I was very disappointed. I was very disappointed in Paul because the wall was so desperately needed. And I’ll get the wall.

THE DAILY CALLER: Did he lie to you? Did he play you?

TRUMP: I don’t want to say he lied. I think he probably meant it at the time, I guess. I hope. So I don’t call that lying. But when he went lame duck, meaning, he said he’s not running again — and it was very unusual because usually they’ll do that sometime after an election and he didn’t want to do that because it’s somewhat misrepresenting and I understand that too. But maybe you don’t run, okay? Maybe you just don’t run. And he had an excellent person taking his place in Congress, he ran a really great campaign, did a really good job.

So Paul said, please sign the omnibus bill. Now, in all fairness to Paul, I may have signed it anyway because it was so much more money than anyone ever thought possible for the military and equal to the wall, and maybe even greater than the wall was my promise to refurbish the military.  (More)

Moral of the story: Never Trust a NeverTrumper….

Additional Transcript of POTUS Discussing Mueller HERE

So far the joint house committee transcripts have been leaked to: John Solomon (The Hill), The Epoch Times, The New York Times, and now The Daily Caller.  Someone is trying to get additional traction to these structured transcripts.

The content is also interesting.  The only thing we knew previously about the testimony of Nellie Ohr was that she evoked ‘spousal privilege’ during her deposition.  However, now the Daily Caller is reporting that Nellie Ohr gave testimony about her research with Fusion GPS, to include doing research on Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr’s travels:

Daily Caller – The wife of a Justice Department official who worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign told Congress in 2018 that one of her tasks at the opposition research firm was to research President Donald Trump’s children, including their business activities and travel.

Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for Fusion GPS, also told lawmakers during an Oct. 19 deposition that she recalls that Christopher Steele gave her husband, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, materials from the infamous anti-Trump dossier funded by Democrats.

Ohr said during the testimony that Steele, who like her was a contractor for Fusion GPS, hoped that her husband would pass the materials to the FBI.

“My understanding was that Chris Steele was hoping that Bruce could put in a word with the FBI to follow up in some way,” Ohr testified to members of the House Oversight and House Judiciary Committees, according to transcripts confirmed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.  (read more)

According to the prior leaked transcript Bruce Ohr gave testimony he accepted a thumb drive from Glenn Simpson (Nellie’s employer – Fusion GPS), and another from his wife Nellie Ohr, and he passed them along to FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka.

The interesting aspect to the Daily Caller report of Nellie Ohr’s testimony is her apparent focus on research into the Trump family travel:

“How about Donald Trump Jr.? Did you do more in-depth research on Donald Trump Jr. than some of the others?” she was asked.

“I’m afraid it was relatively superficial. It was,” adding that, “I looked into some of his travels and you know not sure how much detail I remember, at this point.”

“Ivanka Trump?”

“I looked into some of her travels,” said Ohr.

The goal was “to see whether they were involved in dealings and transactions with people who had had suspicious pasts.”  (read more)

This becomes more of a central issue when we go back to the mistake about Michael Cohen within the Steele Dossier; that was also a mistake about travel.  [Cohen in Prague]   Our suspicion has always been that Nellie Ohr was exploiting her CIA authorized access to the FBI/NSA database doing research (ie. FISA abuse).

Additionally, it has always appeared to be evident that Nellie actually sent her research material to Christopher Steele (another Fusion GPS contractor), who was tasked to verify, find supplemental sourcing, launder the research and present it as a more official looking intelligence product…. The Steele Dossier.

It would just make sense the place where Nellie Ohr would be researching travel would be the FISA database (FBI/NSA).  Where else could she access that information?

Today Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham sends a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting a briefing on the FBI conduct during the raid and arrest of 66-year-old Roger Stone.

However, sorry, I can’t let this go unnoticed. This letter is pure Decepticon politics.

Just yesterday FBI Director Chris Wray gave testimony before the senate for over four hours. If Republicans in the senate were actually concerned about the issue, why didn’t a single senator spend 30 seconds to ask about Wray about it?  I digress…

Roger Stone pleaded not guilty today in DC court. Mr. Stone appears on Laura Ingraham to discuss all the recent events.

Regardless of opinion of Mr. Stone, myself being generally ambivalent, there’s an element of his flamboyant approach and fortitude that seems oddly admirable.  I find myself hoping he’s the guy who can flick a booger on Weissmann.