Tag Archives: Decepticons

Feb 9 2026

Sunday Talks – Senate Intel Vice-Chairman Mark Warner Apoplectic About DNI Tulsi Gabbard Election Review


Posted originally on CTH on February 8, 2026 | Sundance 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice-Chairman, Mark Warner, a man of exceptionally dubious intelligence, appears on Face the Nation for a pre-scripted interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan.  The video and transcript are below.

From his position on the SSCI, Senator Warner was one of the key players in the deployment of the Intelligence Community against President Trump’s first term in office, including his background conversations with Chris Steele and his leaking of the Carter Page FISA warrant to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy claim and stimulate the appointment of a DOJ special counsel.

Within President Trump’s second term in office, Warner’s primary concern is having a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who doesn’t conform to the goals and objectives of the Fourth Branch of government, the intelligence apparatus.  In reality, DNI Tulsi Gabbard appears to be methodically taking apart the intelligence community weaponization system.  This, when combined with Gabbard’s review of election integrity issues, has triggered the deep concern of Warner, one of the IC’s primary enablers. WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face the Nation.’ We begin this morning with the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Virginia’s Mark Warner. Good to have you here.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Thank you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk about elections and security. Back on January 28, the FBI went to Fulton County, Georgia and seized ballots and 2020 voting records linked to the presidential election. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, then was spotted outside the elections office, and she argued that her presence there had been personally requested by the president of the United States, and she had broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security. What would justify her involvement? Is there any foreign nexus that you have been informed of?

SEN. WARNER: We have not been informed of any foreign nexus. The job of the director of national intelligence is to be outward facing about foreigners, not about Americans, and remember, many of the reforms that were put in place actually took place after the Watergate scandal under President Nixon, where a president was directly involved in certain domestic criminal activities and appeared with the Watergate break-in. And my fear in this case is it almost seems Nixonian. If the president asked Gabbard to show up down in Georgia on a domestic political investigation- first of all, how would he know about the search warrant even being issued? That’s not his job. And then to have the irector of national intelligence down there, which is totally against her rules, unless there is a foreign nexus, and she has not indicated any foreign nexus to us to date.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s been no communication with the committee whatsoever on this issue?

SEN. WARNER: We have asked. We then subsequently found that this was not the first time she was involved in domestic activities. She went down and seized some voting machines in Puerto Rico earlier in the year. Again, we had no knowledge of that. And then the question of what she was doing in Georgia. There’s been three or four different stories since it broke. First, she said the president asked, then the president said he didn’t ask her. Then he said it was Pam Bondi, the attorney general. So we don’t have the slightest idea other than the fact that the whole thing stinks to high heaven, and the fact is, Donald Trump cannot get over the fact that he lost Georgia in 2020 that he lost the election in 2020. My fear is now he sees the political winds turning against him, and he’s going to try to interfere in the 2026 election, something a year ago I didn’t think would be possible.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a tremendous statement. But just to clarify here, it was Reuters that first reported that Gabbard went to Puerto Rico back in the spring to seize voting machines. Was Congress informed at all? Did you learn about it in the press?

SEN. WARNER: I believe the first we ever heard about this was from the press itself.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Wow. So the- you’ve laid out that the intelligence agencies usually focus overseas, but the White House is arguing that the director was there for good reason, and that federal law, they argue, assigns a DNI statutory responsibility to lead counter intelligence matters related to election security, election voting system risk, software, voter registration databases. You’re concerned, but are your fellow Republicans on the committee concerned?

SEN. WARNER: Here’s the ironic thing, Margaret, many of the protections for our election system were put in place during the first Trump administration. We set up CISA, the cybersecurity agency, to help work with state and local elections. There was an FBI center set up for foreign malign influence, foreign influence. And then we put into law something called the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Director of National Intelligence office. All of those entities have been basically disbanded. CISA cut by a third. The FBI center cut back. The ODNI center cut back, which we think is, frankly, counter to the law. But it all- in terms the ODNI has to be involved, of foreign involvement, there has been no evidence of that to date.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Where is Chair Cotton on this, though?

SEN. WARNER: We have jointly been making sure that we get updates on election security, and I think we see more of that to come, because this is critical. And my concern is that when we see artificial intelligence tools and others- it was almost child’s play. What happened in 2016 China, Russia, Iran others could be interfering. We’ve not seen evidence to date. Gabbard, if she’s got any evidence, should have provided it to the Congress. I think this was an effort where Donald Trump can’t get over the fact that he lost Georgia so obsessed. And it begs the question is, what was Gabbard doing there? And it frankly, begs the question is- question is, why was the president even aware of this investigation before the search warrant was issued?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we would, we would love to put those questions to the director, and have asked to do so. But now that you are here, can you just button this up for me? Because we’re talking about 2020, and that’s what Fulton County. The focus was about but you also said, you think in 2026 there’s an effort to interfere. What evidence do you have of that?

SEN. WARNER: This was what I’m seeing from the president’s own comments about nationalizing elections and putting Republicans in charge, counter to the constitution. We’ve seen these activities in Georgia, where could there be some effort that suddenly gives him an excuse to try to take some of these federalization efforts we’ve seen ICE. We focused a lot of this activity on ICE in terms of they’re going rogue in Minneapolis. But there is a very real threat, without reforms at ICE, that you could have ICE patrols around polling stations, and people would say, “well, why would that matter?” If they’re all American citizens–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Noncitizens cannot vote.

SEN. WARNER: –Because we’ve seen ice discriminate against Latinos families. We’ve seen as well mixed families where someone may be legal and others not. And candidly, you don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting, and we’ve more recently seen ICE starting to use technology where they can get information about Americans. Recently, there was an individual in Minnesota that got denied a global entry card to get through TSA quicker because he or she appeared at a protest rally. Do we really want ICE having that information?–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is that what DHS said?

SEN. WARNER: Hypothetically- that was what happened in Minnesota. Hypothetically, if ICE is getting information, and you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, would you go vote if you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, thinking that an ICE patrol might be at a polling station, this is uncharted territory, and yet you’ve got the president’s own words, in many ways, raising concerns, because he says, well, gosh, we Republicans ought to take over elections in 15 states.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re going to talk about some of that and the operations at the local level with David Becker, our elections expert ahead in the show, and the immigration reform. But I want to ask you about what’s going on with Director Gabbard, because there was a whistleblower who filed a complaint against her personally and offered to come to Congress to share the information. According to the attorney for this whistleblower, this is about a complaint that two inspectors general, one of them Biden-era, concluded had a non-credible nature. You’ve viewed a redacted version of the complaint as I understand it. Do you accept their conclusions?

SEN. WARNER: Well, first of all, the previous Inspector General, who’d been a long term professional, viewed it as credible. The new–

MARGARET BRENNAN: — Which of the two complaints?

SEN. WARNER: The original- I can’t talk about the contents of the complaint. I’m old fashioned. It’s classified, and the complaint is so redacted, it’s hard to get to the bottom up, I got additional questions. My concern- what the director did, is that this information was not relayed to Congress. There is a process, and we didn’t even- we, and I mean, we the Gang of Eight, didn’t even hear about the complaint until November. We only saw it in February, and we’ve got this complete contradiction where the then lawyer for Director Gabbard said she shared the responsibility she had to share this with Congress in June, the legal responsibility. She later stated that she was not aware of her responsibility. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse if you’re the Director of National Intelligence.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, as I understand it, because when it’s deemed non-credible, it is not necessarily an urgent concern that would —

SEN. WARNER : — There was a ruling of urgency by the first inspector general. That was contradicted by the Trump Inspector General, but the process was still ongoing. The fact that this sat out there for 6,7,8 months now, and we are only seeing it now, raises huge concerns in and of itself.

MARGARET BRENNAN

Well, I know you said you will not share what the intercept and the intelligence was about, or the complaint itself, but CBS has been told by a senior intelligence official the whistleblower complaint included reference to an intelligence intercept between two foreign nationals in which they mentioned someone close to President Donald Trump. US intelligence did not verify whether the conversation itself was more than just gossip. Will you be able to speak to the whistleblower? Will you be able to see this underlying intelligence?

SEN. WARNER: My understanding is the whistleblower has been waiting for guidance, legal guidance, on how to approach the committee.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does the whistleblower still work for the US government?

SEN. WARNER: I don’t have any idea.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Will you be able to view the intelligence, the intercept itself that she’s accused of not sharing?

SEN. WARNER: My question is- we are trying to get both the redactions and the underlying intelligence, and that’s- that is in process. I’m not going to talk to the content itself, but this whole question, remember, this whistleblower came forward in May. It’s now February of the following year, and we’re still asking questions.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Tom Cotton, the chair, says he’s- he’s comfortable with- with the process to date, but on the–

SEN. WARNER: — I’m- I’m not comfortable with the process, the timing, and I can’t make a judgment about the credibility or the veracity, because it’s been so heavily redacted.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the director is frustrated with you personally and issued this really long blistering statement saying you’ve repeatedly lied to the American people, that the media also lies, and that that she never had the whistleblower complaint in her possession and saw it for the first time two weeks ago. I guess, the actual hard copy. So, do you care to respond to this accusation that you were lying?

SEN. WARNER: I would respond that I do not believe that Director Gabbard is competent for her position. I don’t believe that she is making America safer by not following the rules and procedures on getting whistleblower complaints to the Congress in a timely fashion. I believe she has been totally inappropriate showing up on a domestic criminal investigation in Georgia around voting machines. I think she has not been appropriate or competent in terms of, frankly, cutting back on investigations into foreign malign influence, literally dismembering the foreign line influence center that’s at the Director of National Intelligence, and we are going to agree to disagree about who’s telling the truth, and I believe her own general counsel, who’s now her deputy general counsel, testified this week that he shared with Director Gabbard, in June her legal obligations.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the NSA has released a statement saying that they are abiding by the law. We do invite Director Gabbard on this program. Before I let you go, I have to ask you about Iran. There have been a number of think tanks who have published photos of what they believe is evidence of Iran reconstituting and rebuilding its nuclear program that the US bombed eight months ago. Are they rebuilding?

SEN. WARNER: When we struck Iranians nuclear capabilities, our military did a great job. It was not totally obliterated. So, that standard that the President himself set and Iran has been indicated in public documents, is trying to reconstitute. What I fear is that we don’t have the ability to bring the full power of pressure against Iran. A few weeks back, when the Iranian people bravely were in the streets, and there might have been a moment, we couldn’t strike, because the aircraft carrier that was usually in the Mediterranean was off the coast of Venezuela, doing the blockade there. On top of that- on top of that as well, we were unable to bring the full force of pressure of our allies in Europe against Iran, because at that very same moment, President Trump was disrupting NATO with his Greenland play. We are stronger when we use our allies, when we have our full military capabilities in region, and that military is getting stretched, as good as we are, as the President gets engaged in activities all over the world.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You support the diplomacy underway now?

SEN. WARNER: I support the diplomacy. Absolutely.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Senator. Mark Warner, thank you for your time today, Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Feb 6 2026

Senate Intel Chair Tom Cotton Reviews IC “Whistleblower Complaint” Against DNI Tulsi Gabbard and Finds it “Not Credible”


Posted originally on CTH on February 5, 2026 | Sundance 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, Tom Cotton, outlines via his X account that he has reviewed the intelligence community whistleblower complaint being used in a ridiculous effort to impeach DNI Tulsi Gabbard and finds it “not credible.”

[SOURCE]

The entire construct of this CIA-NIC ‘whistleblower’ operation is transparent.  We have outlined the basic parameters of the entire fiasco {GO DEEP}. The intelligence community/Lawfare operation is a replay of the 2019 intelligence community/Lawfare operation used to frame Donald Trump during the 2019 impeachment effort.

Even setting aside the insufferable politics of it all, our national enemies must be laughing at us and how easy it is to identify the background of the super-secret, classified and “highly sensitive” national security information regarding Venezuela that underpins the baseline for the CIA-NIC effort.

If a simple website can put it together, then certainly our enemies know our own intelligence community is leveraging the rules and regulations around CIA assets to frame domestic political lawfare operations.

It is stunningly embarrassing on a national level.

As a result, I have tried to inform SSCI Chairman Tom Cotton via X with the following message:

Dear Senator Tom Cotton, you are Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. You are a member of the Gang of Eight. You have all the clearances.

Please take a few hours and go to the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) scif; sit down with the October 2019 deposition from ICIG Michael Atkinson and read it.

Access should not be a problem with HPSCI Chairman, Representative Rick Crawford, also being a fellow Arkansan.

Read how then ICIG Atkinson gained authority to change the CIA whistleblower rules to facilitate the false claim by CIA National Intelligence Council, Russia desk analyst Eric Ciaramella.

Look at how Ciaramella coordinated with then HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff, while former AAG of the NSD, Mary McCord, was working as staff on the background structure of the Trump impeachment operation.

Remind yourself of the context. In 2019, ICIG Atkinson was Mary’s former office counsel in the NSD (2016). They worked together on the Trump surveillance in 2016 (Page FISA) and then again in 2019 on the pathway to create an anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint.

What you will notice from that 2019 deposition is the similarity to the whistleblower complaint pathway and IC operation you just reviewed today.

Ciaramella was one of the key authors of the 2017 ICA from his office desk inside the CIA (per Brennan’s instructions to the NIC). Ciaramella was also the anonymous CIA whistleblower in the Trump impeachment 2019. See the issue?

Then ask yourself, if we the ordinary American people can see this stuff and put it together… then what exactly does that say about the SSCI role in oversight?

Warmest best,

A Frustrated American

[CC: DNI Tulsi Gabbard, SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner, HPSCI Chair Rick Crawford]

¹The Whole Backstory is Here

¹WARNING: The backstory outline reveals highly classified TSCI national security information, derived through research and common sense.

Feb 2 2026

Warner


Posted originally on CTH on February 1, 2026 | Sundance 

In January of 2017 California Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her position as Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  Upon the initiation of a new congress, and two weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Virginia Senator Mark Warner took the SSCI Vice-Chair seat…. and that’s how things get started.

Amid a concerted effort to resist the incoming administration the Russia Collusion Conspiracy was launched.  Politicians, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and DC beltway media united in common purpose to push a Trump-Russia narrative.

Within the early days of that effort, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence initiated an investigation into Russian interference with the election.  Chairman Richard Burr and Vice-Chair Warner were toasted throughout DC as an example of bipartisan oversight against what House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called a “fraudulent president.”

Sometime in late February/early March 2017 Senator Warner requested a copy of the top secret FISA application used against Carter Page, falsely accusing him of being “an agent of a foreign power.”  Simultaneous to this the FBI was trying to track down the details of dozens of classified intelligence leaks to the media from within the DC system.   FBI Special Agent, Washington DC Field Office, Brian Dugan appears to have been tasked with tracking and identifying intelligence leakers.  Dugan saw an opportunity.

On March 17, 2017, in order to fulfill the request of SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, Agent Dugan goes to the FISA Court and picks up a copy of the FISA application.  At the time there were only two components: The original application (Oct ’16), and the first renewal (Jan ’17).   The next renewal did not come until April and then again in June.

NOTE:  The FBI did not go to the DOJ-NSD to pick up a copy.  Why?

You’ll see.

The FBI went to FISA Court for their copy.  The FISA Clerk stamped the copy with the Date March 17, 2017, and Dugan returned to the Washington Field Office of the FBI.

We know this was the process, because Dugan later writes the copy was “an FBI equity”, meaning the origination of the leaked document came from the FBI.  Not the DOJ-NSD or the FISA Court directly (the two other possible sources).

When SSA Dugan returned to the FBI office he changed the dates (by one day) on the application and first renewal, presumably as a leak tracer, and prepared them for release.

Throughout this process DOJ Main Justice appears purposefully unaware. The Washington Field Office FBI were limiting information in order to track classified leaks.

This exclusion process narrows the possibility.

Later in the afternoon of March 17, 2017, the WFO delivered the FISA application to SSCI Security Director James Wolfe.  [Wolfe indictment page 6 – Line 17, 18]

Shortly after 4:00pm Mark Warner arrives at the SSCI Sensitive Comparmented Information Facility, or SCIF.  We discover this exact timeframe from text messages belonging to Chris Steele’s U.S. Attorney, Adam Waldman.  More on that in a minute.

Before, during or after Senator Warner’s review of the FISA application, SSCI Security Director James Wolfe leaked the FISA application content to his allied media cohort, a journalist at Buzzfeed, Ali Watkins.

Additional material later released puts the most likely sequence for Wolfe’s leak coming after Warner’s review.

The leak was accomplished by a series of picture texts.  The original FISA application is 83 pages in total with one intentionally blank page [Ali Watkins is “Reporter #2”]:

James Wolfe took a photograph of each of the pages and then sent those 82 image texts to Ms. Ali Watkins.  At this moment, March 17, 2017, Ms. Watkins now holds a copy of the unredacted original FISA application.  However, the copy also carries the leak tracer.

After reporting of Carter Page (Male 1) appears in Buzzfeed written by Watkins; and after both the New York Times and Washington Post publish articles about the FISA application using the leak trace information; the FBI now knows the leak came from the SSCI.

Over the next several months physical surveillance on Wolfe is conducted.   The FBI must have been able to gather very credible evidence that Wolfe was the leaker to Watkins because eventually a DC judge granted the FBI a search warrant for Ms. Watkins records.

It is very difficult to get a warrant on a journalist.  There are tight legal protocols for doing so. The evidence gathered must have been very overwhelming.  The court granted the search warrant.   Ms. Watkins is unaware.  Additionally, and importantly, it appears Main Justice now occupied by the Mueller investigation, is also unaware. [Doc Link]

The search warrant runs from Feb 1, 2017 to July 31, 2017.  This specific leak of the FISA application is March 17, 2017.

Somewhere in/around this mid-late summer timeframe the Washington Field Office FBI also retrieved text messages from Lawyer and registered Lobbyist Adam Waldman.

We know the text messages are from Waldman’s side of the conversation from the attached screenshots later released.  We also know the date of the capture was similar to Ms. Ali Watkins.  Feb 15, 2017 to May 15, 2017.  Again the Wolfe leak was March 17th.

The telephone communication of both SSCI Vice-Chairman Senator Warner and Journalist Ali Watkins were captured.   This indicates both were suspects in the investigation.  Thus, it seems likely the Wolfe pictures were sent *after* Mark Warner reviewed them, not before.

It would be very tenuous for the FBI to capture texts messages from the sitting Vice-Chair of the SSCI.  This is not something the Washington Field Office of the FBI would do lightly.  That aspect also explains why the texts were captured from the Waldman side of the conversation.  Much easier to get the texts of a lobbyist than a sitting SSCI member.

In October 2017 the FBI first approached Wolfe with an fyi on the leak investigation to see how he would respond.  [Indictment Here] By mid December 2017 Wolfe is confronted.  He lied repeatedly, until shown the evidence, then he admitted, and admitted he lied.

James Wolfe was quietly removed from the SSCI immediately after, and was in a state of suspension until his indictment was unsealed June 8th.  However, it’s the story between December 2017 and June 8th where things are very interesting.

As you can see from above, Mueller and the 17 resistance members that took over Main Justice had no idea any of this FBI investigation was happening, UNTIL the FBI investigative files were transferred to seat a grand jury to hear the evidence.

It appears FBI SSA Brian Dugan finished his investigation immediately after Wolfe left the SSCI; or soon thereafter.  Somewhere around the end of January, to first week of February, all reports and FBI evidence would be submitted.

That transfer included: the March 17, 2017, FISA application with leak tracers; the Ali Watkins phone records; the Adam Waldman/Mark Warner phone records; and all the subsequent interview notes with James Wolfe and other parties (FD-302’s etc).

Keep in mind, every investigation that touched on Trump-Russia became proprietary to the Robert Mueller Special Counsel.  This FBI investigation centered around the FISA application which was at the center of the special counsel probe.

This means the Mueller special counsel took ownership and control over the FBI evidence in the totality of the Wolfe investigation.

The evidence did not go to a grand jury.

On February 9, 2018, the evidentiary text messages capturing Mark Warner’s involvement with James Wolfe were sent back to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

In essence, Senator Mark Warner was given a head’s up.  Or put another way, time to clean up any sticky issues and narrate a justification.

Four days later, February 13, 2018, the DOJ notified Ali Watkins, and the New York Times, that all of her communications were intercepted as part of the investigation.  By now Wolfe was two months removed from his position; undoubtedly Watkins knew.

In essence to the New York Times, who had been using the FISA application as part of its false reporting, were also given a legal head’s up.

The Wolfe Grand Jury was not seated until May 3, 2018; and the indictment unsealed on June 8, 2018.  [link]  All the work that SSA Brian Dugan put into catching an intelligence leaker was ignored.  Wolfe was only indicted for lying to the FBI because it appears the grand jury never saw the evidence of his leaking the FISA application.

Why not?  Because an admission of the FISA leak would have been toxic to special counsel Robert Mueller in 2018.  It would have also been toxic to the SSCI and specifically Senator Mark Warner. The leak would have outlined how the Senate was involved in the targeting of Trump.

In 2018 Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann were in control of Main Justice for everything surrounding the Trump-Russia information. It appears the evidence file against James Wolfe went into Main Justice with clear and overwhelming evidence of Wolfe leaking the FISA, only to have it return to DC US attorney Jessie Liu for presentation to a grand jury with the evidence of that core element removed.  Ergo, Wolfe was only charged with lying to the FBI.

However, it appears FBI Special Agent Brian Dugan didn’t relent.  In a sentencing attachment on December 14th 2018, well after the plea agreement was concluded, Dugan swears under oath that James Wolfe leaked the FISA application:

“In this case, because the known disclosure of classified information – the FISA application– involved an FBI equity, the FBI devoted substantial agent and intelligence analyst resources”…

The evidence is irrefutable that Wolfe leaked the FISA application on March 17, 2017.

Once that point is established…. then the reason why the special counsel released the FISA application under the premise of a FOIA application, July 21, 2018, starts to have much more significance.

However, let’s just stop there.

The Top Secret FISA application was leaked March 17, 2017, by James Wolfe.

Why wasn’t he prosecuted for it?

Additionally, despite the evidence above, no media outlet has ever admitted James Wolfe leaked the FISA application.

Why not?

Jan 26 2026

Sunday Talks – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Discusses Trade Conflict with Canada and Greenland


Posted originally on CTH on January 25, 2026 | Sundance 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on ABC News with narrative engineer Jonathan Karl to discuss the outcomes of the Davos assembly, the Canadian trade conflict and the U.S-NATO deal over Greenland.  Video and Transcript Below:

[Transcript] – KARL: I’m joined now exclusively by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is just back from Davos and joins us here in the studio.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary. Let me start with the threat that the president made just yesterday to Canada. He said, if Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a one hundred percent tariffs against all Canadian goods. Why is Donald Trump threatening Canada again with another trade war?

SCOTT BESSENT, (R) UNITED STATES TREASURY SECRETARY: Well, Jonathan, good to be with you. And look, Prime Minister Carney went to — went to China, came back, dropped some industry specific tariffs on Chinese goods, and we have a highly integrated market with Canada, sometimes in autos, which he dropped the E.V. tariff, I believe, from a hundred percent to six percent.

The goods can cross across the border during the manufacturing process six times. And we can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S. We have a USMCA agreement, but based on — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.

I don’t think he’s doing the best job for the Canadian people.

KARL: But there’s confusion from President Trump on this. I mean, we heard from him just — I think it was nine days ago, eight or nine days ago. He had this to say about Canada negotiating with China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: How do you see the deals — Canada and China just signed trade deals between the two partners?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, that’s OK. That’s what he should be doing. I mean, it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, he should do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: OK. So, he gives a green light to a deal with China just after they do it. And then nine days later, he’s saying that’s it, hundred percent tariffs.

BESSENT: Well, no, there’s possibility of hundred percent tariffs if they do a free trade deal. So, what —

KARL: So, it’s not now? It’s — this is if they go further than what’s already happening?

BESSENT: Well, it’s — if they go further, if we see that the Canadians are allowing the Chinese to dump goods. And Jonathan, just to be clear that the Canadians, a few months ago, joined the U.S. in putting high steel tariffs on China because the Chinese are dumping. The Europeans also have done the same thing. And it looks like that Prime Minister Carney may have done some kind of about-face.

KARL: You’ve got tariffs that have been in place since April. And the idea is to bring back manufacturing jobs, but in fact, every month, according to the data from the Fed, every month since April, we’ve actually had a decline in manufacturing jobs in the country.

BESSENT: Well, that — those are the manufacturing jobs. What we’re seeing is a burst in construction jobs because we’re seeing record number of factories construction. I was just in my home state of South Carolina a couple of months ago. There’s a rare earth magnets factory, 800 construction jobs. It could morph into 3,000 factory jobs.

I was just at the Boeing plant in Charleston. Thanks to President Trump’s constant push during the trade deals to sell more aircraft, Boeing is expanding their capacity there by fifty percent. So those will be construction jobs that morph into factory jobs. So, I could not be more upbeat about the prospects for manufacturing, for the economy in 2026.

KARL: And how do you explain what happened with Greenland? I mean, the president goes into Davos, not ruling out military force, talking about imposing tariffs on the Europeans who oppose us retaking Greenland. And now, suddenly, he’s OK with essentially, it seems like the same agreement that’s been in place since the ’50s.

BESSENT: Well, I think you haven’t seen the full agreement. Secretary General, Mark Rutte was a very good interlocutor between the Europeans and between President Trump. But look, a lot — a lot of things have changed up in Greenland. Jonathan, do you know what the Istanbul Bridge is?

KARL: Tell me.

BESSENT: A Chinese freight ship that, for the first time in October, came across the Arctic into the U.K. They are shortening their travel time. So, the Arctic is changing. Very important strategically for the U.S. to help control that.

KARL: OK. But again, it seems like we’re going to basically have the — I mean, Greenland’s not going to become part of the United States. We’re going to have the same access that we’ve had.

(CROSSTALK)

BESSENT: I promise you, the deal is not what we had before.

KARL: OK.

BESSENT: It is much more fulsome for the United States. And again, Jon, just to be clear, for 150 years, American presidents have had their eye on Greenland. We administered Greenland during World War II after the Danish were invaded by the Nazis.

KARL: Let me — let me ask you. Let me show you a photo that was posted by the French Defense Ministry yesterday showing coffins of French soldiers who died fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan. And we also heard from the Italian prime minister, a good supporter of Donald Trump, Prime Minister Meloni, reacted to what the president had to say about European troops serving in Afghanistan, saying that she was astonished, and noted that 53 Italian service members were killed, more than 700 were wounded.

Does the president regret what he said about our NATO allies and their service in Afghanistan?

BESSENT: Jon, I was traveling. I haven’t seen any of that, but I can tell you that the president values NATO, and since his first term, he has worked hard to make sure that our NATO allies are pulling their fair share.

Just to be clear, since 1980, since 1980, the U.S. has spent $22 trillion more on defense than NATO. And now by President Trump getting our NATO allies, including Canada, who was very deficient in the funding, NATO is going to be stronger than ever.

KARL: But this is about sacrifice. Let’s play President Trump’s words so you understand exactly what they were talking about, what I’m talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that, and they did. They stayed a little back little off the front lines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: I mean, do you understand why our European allies, the ones you’re negotiating with, are insulted by that?

BESSENT: Again, I think President Trump is laser-focused on the strongest NATO possible, that he has worked to negotiate a settlement on Russia-Ukraine. The U.S. has made much bigger sacrifices than the European has — Europeans have. We have put 25 percent tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India.

They — and just to be clear again, the Russian oil goes into India. The refined products come out, and the Europeans buy the refined products. They are financing the war against themselves. So, President Trump’s leadership, we will eventually end this Ukraine-Russia war.

KARL: And before you go, I know this is not your lane, but I got to ask you about what’s happened in Minneapolis. As a member of the — of the Trump cabinet, are you concerned to see another American citizen ends up dead, shot by federal law enforcement?

BESSENT: Jonathan, it’s a tragedy when anyone dies, but I can tell you the situation on the ground there is being stirred up by Governor Walz. I was out there two weeks ago. Governor Walz declined to provide a security detail for me to go into the Minnesota capital with the state police. So, he is fomenting the — he is fomenting chaos because there is substantial waste, fraud and abuse.

My job as Treasury secretary is to investigate that, and I think that, you know, this chaos that’s going on out there, and again, I am sorry that this gentleman is dead, but he did bring a nine-millimeter semi-automatic weapon with two cartridges to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. I think that there are a lot of paid agitators who are ginning things up, and the governor has not done a good job of tamping this down.

KARL: Yes. I mean, as you know, he was an ICU nurse, worked for the Veterans Administration, and there’s no evidence that he brandished the gun whatsoever. In fact, it appears that —

BESSENT: He brought a gun.

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: He’d been disarmed before he was —

(CROSSTALK)

BESSENT: He brought a gun. Have you ever gone to a protest, Jonathan?

KARL: I mean, we do have a Second Amendment in this country that —

BESSENT: Jonathan, have you ever gone to a protest?

KARL: I mean —

BESSENT: Have you gone to a protest?

KARL: I mean, I’ve — no, actually, as a reporter covering it.

BESSENT: OK. I’ve been to a protest.

KARL: Yes.

BESSENT: Guess what? I didn’t bring a gun. I brought a billboard.

KARL: OK. Secretary Bessent, thank you for joining us.

Coming up, we’ll have the latest on the massive winter storm sweeping the country. We’re back in a moment.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Jan 24 2026

Harriet Hageman Questions Jack Smith – Finds Trail of Deleted J6 Committee Evidence


Posted originally on CTH on January 23, 2026 | Sundance

Many of you may remember back in 2024 I strongly urged President Trump to consider appointing Harriet Hageman as CIA Director for very specific reasons and intents. Watch this video below and you will see why she was my preferred choice.

Representative Hageman has just found an important trail to discover the missing documents, recordings and transcripts that were destroyed by the January 6 Committee. WATCH:

Keep in mind that former AAG Mary McCord was working for the J6 Committee at the time period being discussed. When the J6 Committee closed, McCord went to work directly with Jack Smith.

McCord was inside the J6 Committee feeding information to the DOJ and Jack Smith.  McCord then went to work for Jack Smith.

Always scheming, organizing and planning in the background of Washington DC, Mary McCord was conducting surveillance of an Oathkeeper chat room and sending information to the FBI following the November 2020 election, and in the runup to the January 6, 2021, protest.

[SOURCE]

This is interesting on a variety of levels, because we have documented Mary McCord working on the Trump-Russia fabrication [FISA warrant], the CIA [Ukraine] impeachment fabrication [as key staff], the January 6th Committee fabrication [again staff], and the Jack Smith fabrication.  Now we see Mary McCord actively setting up the “insurrection narrative” ahead of the J6 protests.

It appears Mrs. McCord then forwarded the email to someone [REDACTED], likely within the J6 Committee or Jack Smith investigation on Sept 24, 2021.

There’s a reason why the J6 Committee deleted the records of their activity, an angle missed by most.  When you understand what they hid, and why they did it, you then understand why current Speaker of The House Mike Johnson will not go near the subject.

The J6 targets were identified through a collaboration between the legislative research group and the FBI. [That’s unlawful by the way – but that’s another matter]. The FBI contracted Palantir to identify the targets using facial recognition software and private sector databases.

Once identified, the targets were then searched in the NSA database for a fulsome context of identity. All subsequent electronic metadata of the targets was retrieved and utilized in prosecution; however, no one ever discovered this was the collaborative method. That has not come out yet.

Ultimately, the J6 Committee hiding and deleting their files and operational techniques was due to several issues. They really didn’t have a choice, given the unknowns of an incoming Republican majority.

First, the collaboration with the FBI is unconstitutional. Legislative officers are not law enforcement officers. There is a separation of powers issue.

Second, ultimately – and most consequentially – all of the participants did not want the American public aware of the mass surveillance techniques that were carried out as part of the ’round up.’  That’s where FBI operation Arctic Frost appears in the conversation.

The House Subcommittee on Oversight released a report, [SEE HERE] and overview [SEE HERE], highlighting just how political the J6 Committee was.  The report outlines how Nancy Pelosi structured the J6 Committee for political intents, and the longer report showcases the evidence of how Liz Cheney assisted.

WASHINGTON– Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) released his “Initial Findings Report” on the events of January 6, 2021 as well as his investigation into the politicization of the January 6th Select Committee. (more)

[SOURCE]

The last bullet point has a name.  The “Select Committee staff”, who met with Fani Willis, was likely Mary McCord.

If there is one corrupt DC player who has escaped scrutiny for her corrupt endeavors, it would be Mary McCord.

More than any other Lawfare operative, within Main Justice, Mary McCord sits at the center of every table in the manufacturing of cases against Donald Trump. {GO DEEP} Mary McCord’s husband is Sheldon Snook; he was the right hand to the legal counsel of Chief Justice John Roberts.

When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’).  That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important.  It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.

When the application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin.  Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016, just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016).  John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.

♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents.  The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.

♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson.  In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ.  Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.

♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump, for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission.  Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint.  It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules.  Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General?  Michael Atkinson.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to?  Mary McCord.

Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment.   As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

KEY: Michael Atkinson was forced to testify to the joint House impeachment committee about the CIA whistleblower rule change and the process he authorized and participated in as the Intelligence Community Inspector General.  Adam Schiff sealed that deposition, and no one has ever discussed what Atkinson said when questioned.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (Legislative Branch) can unseal and release that testimony to the CIA or ODNI (Executive Branch), and Tulsi Gabbard who is in charge of the ICIG can declassify Michael Atkinson’s deposition.  However, Speaker Mike Johnson has to transfer it from the legislative to the executive, and unfortunately it does not appear that Speaker Johnson wants to open that can-of-worms – at least, not willingly.

Moving on…

♦ During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’), which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith.  Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.

When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.

♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith.  In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith, and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome.  Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.

As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI, in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.

Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus?  Mary McCord.

♦ SUMMARY:  Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier.  Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn.  Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee.  Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.

You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.

What happened next….

November 3, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)

Yes, that is correct.  After seeding and guiding all of the Lawfare attacks against candidate Donald Trump, then President-Elect Donald Trump, then President Donald Trump, Mary McCord took up a key legal position inside the J6 Committee to continue the Lawfare against President Trump after he left office.

But wait…. remember the stories of the J6 investigative staff going to work for Jack Smith on the investigation of Donald Trump, that included the raid on Mar-a-Lago?  Well, Mary McCord was a member of that team [citation]; all indications are that her efforts continued as a quiet member of the Special Counsel team

That’s the context; now I want to go back a little.

First, when did Mary McCord become “amicus” to the FISA court?  ANSWER: When the court (Boasberg) discovered IG Michael Horowitz was investigating the fraudulent FISA application.  In essence, the FISA Court appointed the person who submitted the fraudulent filing, to advise on any ramifications from the fraudulent filing.  See how that works?

Now, let’s go deeper….

When Mary McCord went to the White House, with Sally Yates, to talk to White House Counsel Don McGhan, about the Flynn call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, and the subsequent CBS interview with VP Pence, where Pence’s denial of any wrongdoing took place, the background narrative in the attack against Flynn was the Logan Act.

The construct of the Logan Act narrative was pure Lawfare, and DAG Sally Yates with Acting NSD AAG Mary McCord were the architects.

Why was the DOJ National Security Division concerned with a conflict between what Pence said on CBS and what Flynn said about his conversations with Kislyak?

This is where a big mental reset is needed.

Flynn did nothing wrong. The incoming National Security Advisor can say anything he wants with the Russian ambassador, short of giving away classified details of any national security issue.  In December of 2016, if Michael Flynn wanted to say Obama was an a**hole, and the Trump administration disagreed with everything he ever did, the incoming NSA was free to do so.  There was simply nothing wrong with that conversation – regardless of content.

So, why were McCord and Yates so determined to make an issue in media and in confrontation with the White House?

Why did the DOJ-NSD even care?  This is the part that people overlooked when the media narrative was driving the news cycle.  People got too stuck in the weeds and didn’t ask the right questions.

Some entity, we discover later was the FBI counterintelligence division, was monitoring Flynn’s calls.  They transcribed a copy of the call between Flynn and Kislyak, and that became known as the “Flynn Cuts”, as described within internal documents and later statements.

After the Flynn/Kislyak conversation was leaked to the media, Obama asked ODNI Clapper how that call got leaked.  Clapper went to the FBI on 1/4/17 and asked FBI Director James Comey.  Comey gave Clapper a copy of the Flynn Cuts which Clapper then took back to the White House to explain to Obama.

Obama’s White House counsel went bananas, because Clapper had just walked directly into the Oval Office with proof the Obama administration was monitoring the incoming National Security Advisor.  Obama’s plausible deniability of the surveillance was lost as soon as Clapper walked in with the written transcript.

That was the motive for the 1/5/17 Susan Rice memo, and the reason for Obama to emphasize “by the book” three times.

It wasn’t that Obama didn’t know already; it was that a document trail now existed (likely a CYA from Comey) that took away Obama’s plausible deniability of knowledge.  The entire January 5th meeting was organized to mitigate this issue.

Knowing the Flynn Cuts were created simultaneously with the phone call, and knowing how it was quickly decided to use the Logan Act as a narrative against Flynn and Trump, we can be very sure both McCord and Yates had read that transcript before they went to the White House.  [Again, this is the entire purpose of them going to the White House to confront McGhan with their manufactured concerns.]

So, when it comes to ‘who leaked’ the reality of the Flynn/Kislyak call to the media, the entire predicate for the Logan Act violation – in hindsight – I would bet a donut it was Mary McCord.

But wait, there’s more…. 

Now we go back to McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook.

Sheldon was working for the counsel to John Roberts.  The counsel to the Chief Justice has one job – to review the legal implications of issues before the court and advise Justice John Roberts.  The counsel to the Chief Justice knows everything happening in the court, and is the sounding board for any legal issues impacting the Supreme Court.

In his position as the right hand of the counsel to the chief justice, Sheldon Snook would know everything happening inside the court.

At the time, there was nothing bigger inside the court than the Alito opinion known as the Dobb’s Decision – the returning of abortion law to the states.  Without any doubt, the counsel to Chief Justice Roberts would have that decision at the forefront of his advice and counsel.  By extension, this puts the actual written Alito opinion in the orbit of Sheldon Snook.

After the Supreme Court launched a heavily publicized internal investigation into the leaking of the Dobbs decision (Alito opinion), something interesting happened.  Sheldon Snook left his position.   If you look at the timing of the leak, the investigation and the Sheldon Snook exit, the circumstantial evidence looms large.

Of course, given the extremely high stakes, the institutional crisis with the public discovering the office of the legal counsel to the Chief Justice likely leaked the decision, such an outcome would be catastrophic for the institutional credibility.  In essence, it would be Robert’s office who leaked the opinion to the media.

If you were Chief Justice John Roberts, and desperately needed to protect the integrity of the court, making sure such a thermonuclear discovery was never identified would be paramount.  Under the auspices of motive, Sheldon Snook would exit quietly.  Which is exactly what happened.

The timeline holds the key.

BACK TO MARY in 2025 – During the question session for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s nomination, Adam Schiff asked Mary McCord about whether AG Bondi should recuse herself from investigating Adam Schiff and Mary McCord. It’s a little funny if you understand the background.

I prompted the video to the part at 01:36:14 when Schiff asks McCord, and Mrs. McCord responds with “yes, Pam Bondi should recuse.” WATCH:

Mary McCord says Pam Bondi must recuse herself from any investigative outcome related to the first impeachment effort.

Who was the lead staff working for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler on the first impeachment effort?

Mary McCord.

Now, triggering that first impeachment effort… Who worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to change the CIA whistleblower regulations permitting an anonymous complaint?

Yep, that would be the same Mary McCord.

In essence, the woman who organized, structured, led and coordinated the first impeachment effort, says Pam Bondi must recuse herself from investigating the organization, structure, leadership and coordination of the first impeachment effort.

If all that seems overwhelming, here’s a short recap:

♦ McCord submitted the fraudulent FISA application to spy on Trump campaign.

♦ McCord helped create the “Logan Act” claim used against Michael Flynn and then went with Sally Yates to confront the White House.

♦ McCord then left the DOJ and went to work for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler on Impeachment Committee.

♦ McCord organized the CIA rule changes with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

♦ McCord led and organized the impeachment effort, in the background, using the evidence she helped create.

♦ McCord joined the FISA Court to protect against DOJ IG Michael Horowitz newly gained NSD oversight and FISA review.

♦ McCord joined the J6 Committee helping to create all the lawfare angles they deployed.

♦ McCord then coordinated with DA Fani Willis in Georgia.

♦ McCord was working with Special Counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump.

♦ McCord is now coordinating outside Lawfare attacks against Donald Trump in term #2

♦ McCord also testified that AG Pam Bondi must recuse herself from investigating McCord.

♦ Joe Biden then pardoned Mary McCord.

[SOURCE]

Now, if you’re wondering why I spend so much time and attention on the Mary McCord issue, the information today about her sending the FBI information about the Oathkeepers chat group might clarify things.

When I look at that activity by Mary McCord, and I consider the duplicity of the FBI in conducting the Arctic Frost investigation, I also consider that I was personally targeted by the J6 team of McCord and the FBI.

It all tracks, and Mary McCord is in the very center of all of it.

So no, I am not letting it go.

Jan 17 2026

Homan on Minnesota Unrest: “Justice is Coming” … “You Should Hear Something, Real Soon”


Posted originally on CTH on January 16, 2026 | Sundance

During an interview with Fox News, Border Czar Tom Homan notes the Trump administration is looking carefully at who is funding the organized anti-ICE protests throughout the Minneapolis, Minnesota region. Homan’s remarks are seemingly in alignment with what Treasury Secretary and IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent has noted about his investigative group, further stating that investigations will likely reveal who is funding the street protests against ICE and Border Patrol officials.

Specific to the ongoing investigations, Homan notes, “justice is coming” against those who are coordinating the violence, and information about that activity is likely to be revealed “real soon.” WATCH:

.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are understandably frustrated with the lack of forceful arrests and prosecution of those who are antagonizing officials and creating civil unrest.

Homan says during the interview, DHS is currently processing the identities of those who have stepped beyond protesting and are now involved in violence against law enforcement officials.  According to Homan the names, faces and identities of those who are participating will be uploaded to a website for sharing with the larger American public.

Jan 16 2026

President Trump Identifies the Roadblock to a Ceasefire Between Ukraine and Russia


Posted originally on CTH on January 15, 2026 | Sundance


In an interview with Reuters, President Trump was asked why the Russia/Ukraine negotiations appear to have stalled.  President Trump responded with one word, “Zelenskyy.”

WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters that Ukraine – not Russia – is holding up a potential peace deal, rhetoric that stands in marked contrast to that of European allies, who have consistently argued Moscow has little interest in ending its war in Ukraine.

In an exclusive interview in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to wrap up his nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskiy, the U.S. president said, was more reticent.

“I think he’s ready to make a deal,” Trump said of the Russian president. “I think Ukraine is less ready to make a deal.”

Asked why U.S.-led negotiations had not yet resolved Europe’s largest land conflict since World War Two, Trump responded: “Zelenskiy.”

[…] Trump told Reuters he was not aware of a potential upcoming trip to Moscow by Witkoff and Kushner, which Bloomberg reported earlier on Wednesday.

Asked if he would meet Zelenskiy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, Trump said he would but implied no plans were set. “I would – if he’s there,” Trump said. “I’m going to be there.”

Asked why he believed Zelenskiy was holding back on negotiations, Trump did not elaborate, saying only: “I just think he’s, you know, having a hard time getting there.” (read more)

Well folks, there’s the confirmation.

What President Trump indicates in that direct response is exactly the sense that has been visible for several months.

The U.K, Germany, France and European Union have established their zero-sum position against Russia using the proxy that Zelenskyy represents.  At the same time these same EU leaders are demanding that President Trump guarantee the security structures the EU is putting together.  It is a ridiculous situation. {GO DEEP}

Keep in mind this is happening at the same time Zelenskyy has selected former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as the lead on his economic development team.  If there was one signal Zelenskyy could send that would trigger President Trump to reevaluate everything, the appointment of Freeland was it.  Donald Trump knows Chrystia Freeland.

The economic development recovery and reinvestment plan for Ukraine was in the portfolio of Jared Kushner.  Kushner was also a big part of the USMCA negotiations with Mexico.  Chrystia Freeland was a major antagonist in the USMCA trade deal.  Both Donald Trump and Jared Kushner know the globalist and corrupt Freeland very well.

The U.K, France and Germany support Zelenskyy’s position that he is not going to concede any territory to the Russian Federation, specifically the 30% of the Donbas area in Eastern Ukraine currently at the heart of the physical conflict.

The 30% issue surrounds the Donetsk region in Ukraine, which includes the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Russia is currently pushing deep into fortified Ukraine resistance in this region with a population of around 100,000. Zelenskyy claims losing this area would allow Putin to invade the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions.

Historically, this Donbas area was part of a brutal long-term Ukraine civil war between the pro-Russia eastern Ukrainian citizens and the pro-EU western aligned Ukrainian army. Russia’s current position is for Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas to Russia as part of the ceasefire agreement, or Russia will continue forward conflict military operations until successful.

Seeing things through the pragmatic prism of inevitability, President Trump’s view appears to be that this Donbas area will be lost to Russia one way or the other. So, the best scenario to stop the killing is for Ukraine to give up this territory as part of the ceasefire terms. Zelenskyy, with support of the EU, France, Germany and U.K says a firm “no.”

That’s where things stand.

Jan 4 2026

Monday Should Be Really Interesting – And Other Random Stuff


My grandpa, and later my father, used to say something at particular moments that generally annoyed me but turned out to be entirely accurate, much to my youthful angst… “Well, hang around a one-legged group long enough, and you’re eventually going to end up limping.”

Yup, I learned to hate that lesson because the truth of it was always annoying.

This is perhaps the first time in memory when I look forward to Donald J Trump getting out of the Mar-a-Lago bubble and back to Washington DC.  Good grief, just typing that I can’t believe I’m saying it.  Here’s why:

Having followed and written about the optimal solution approach within the Trump Doctrine, a process that assigns responsibility to regional actors, then exits while providing support but not direct involvement [the delegation metric of high-support/low-direction], perhaps that is unfolding again in the background.  However, it seems like Trump is accepting the annoying Iran monkey problem on our behalf. [REF: How to Make The Monkey Jump]

To be clear in my personal position, charity begins at home.  (1) I don’t want conflict with Iran, nor do I really care about their internal political struggles; most of my day-to-day contacts feel the same. (2) At the same time, yes, I can imagine a scenario where Venezuela represents a threat to our continental objectives and national security, but would prefer to see them isolated from the outside.  Embargo them, stuff them inside an economic confinement zone (if needed), tell them why, then let the internal mess work itself out; most of my day-to-day contacts seem to feel the same.

Granting President Trump the long view of support; I mean, we don’t know what he is aware of; I sure hope all of this Iran stuff has a direct connection to American strategic interests.

Simultaneously, I can certainly see where deconflicting the USA, vis-a-vis Ukraine (literally London and the EU) from friction with Russia, has a strategic interest and factual bearing on the dollar-based trade system.  Attention on the Ukraine vs Russia stuff does have direct, albeit complicated outcomes attached to the economic standing of the average American.  Iran less so.

Pictured Center: a one-legged man.

Pictured Center: a one-legged man.

Looking at it from a geopolitically logical approach…. President Trump and Marco Rubio need Syria to remain stable.

Secretary Rubio has explained this aspect very well when he summarized the reason for President Trump lifting the sanctions against Syria.  I get that part.  But is this “locked and loaded” simply a brush back pitch against Iran to stop them from disrupting Trump’s Gaza objective.  Maybe so, it does make sense; thus, we extend the benefit of doubt.

If Syria destabilizes the tenuous Israel/Gaza stuff gets more complicated.  Iran can destabilize Syria. Therefore, putting pressure on the Iranian regime while simultaneously telling Israel to cool it over their Turkish opposition to the Gaza assist again does make sense.

Benjamin Netanyahu dislikes Recep Erdogan immensely and doesn’t trust him an inch.  I get that part also, but Turkey is a weird place held together by Erdogan’s very specific brand of Muslim Brotherhood patriotism.

In very direct ways keeping Syria stable helps Turkey and by extension the EU.

If Syria erupts, the refugee exodus heads north, and cunning Erdogan – a tenuous NATO member  seemingly never giving up on his Ottoman Empire rebuild – will play his “I can only absorb so much” card, thereby opening the gates for more authentic Islam travel further north into Europe.

[Our solid contacts in Istanbul have confirmed around 5 million Syrians have repatriated since President Ahmed al-Sharaa started his agenda to stabilize the region. The busy former al-Qaeda guy, 43-years-old, is also a bridge between Trump and Putin. So, there’s that.]

Keeping Syria stable also permits Trump’s Arab state coalition to deal with Gaza/Hamas in a constructive way. Trump told Netanyahu this publicly during the recent visit, essentially rebuking Israel’s justification for more IDF military action in Gaza.  Again, President Trump is dancing through the minefield here with the long game to get us the f**k out of it, while Netanyahu is hugging Trump to pull the USA deeper into it.

If you understand the Iranian tentacles that still remain in Syria (see recent ISIS attacks), confronting Iran makes Israel very happy; however, it’s not Netanyahu’s happiness that stands behind Trump’s motive for the confrontation.  Ultimately, the motive is Syria’s stability, Turkish Gaza support and the Arab money/engagement needed for the Mideast mess.

If our suspicions are correct, we should see Team Trump leaning toward Recep Erdogan, toward the Arab coalition and toward Syria at the same time he is managing Iran, managing Israel and managing a U.S. congress.

If the Ayatollahs are busy tamping down street protests, they are less likely to be poking Syria.

All of that is giving President Trump the maximum benefit of the doubt combined with the application of common sense.

♦ Meanwhile inside Russia, you might not hear about it from western media, but Ukraine and NATO are striking non-military targets, civilian areas, throughout Russia currently focusing heavy drone fire at Kazan, Russia’s third largest city.

STATE DEPT: “There have been drone attacks and explosions near the border with Ukraine, and in Moscow, Kazan, St. Petersburg, and other large cities.

Russian citizens are now very familiar with the sound of air raid sirens as increased drone attacks from Ukraine are extending into Russia.  This noticeable increase in activity is happening in combination with U.S/Ukraine strategic discussions on an EU created ceasefire agreement.

The Rubio state department has now updated the Russia advisory summary warning all Americans of the danger in traveling throughout Russia.

The update is also timed with the increased drone attacks into Russia’s main population centers and is likely due to concern that Americans would be street targets for angered Russian nationalists.

If President Trump walks away from the EU/Ukraine peace agreement construct, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin will likely increase retaliatory attacks against Ukraine by significant levels.   One of my good contacts shared, “if Trump walks away, Kiev will now be leveled.”

Apparently, despite the incoming fire increasing, Putin is holding back his response to give Trump room to operate, while still carefully managing the Kremlin politics and striking into Ukraine to appease those in Russian government who want the full weight of the Russian military to come down hard on Zelenskyy.

…”If Trump walks away, Kiev will now be leveled.” 

Jan 2 2026

Anonymous U.S. Officials Say Ukraine Didn’t Target Putin with Drone Attack – Russian Officials Say They Have Drone Flight Plan From Navigation Unit


Posted originally on CTH on January 1, 2026 | Sundance |

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Ukraine did not target the personal residence of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, “according to U.S. officials.”   However, Russia captured one of the drones intact and have said they were able to “extract a file containing a flight plan from the navigation unit” which they plan to share with the Trump administration through established channels. {LINK}

WSJ – WASHINGTON—U.S. national-security officials said Wednesday that Ukraine didn’t target Russian President Vladimir Putin or one of his residences in an alleged drone operation, challenging Moscow’s assertion that Kyiv sought to kill the Russian leader.

That conclusion is supported by a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that found no attempted attack against Putin had occurred, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence. The CIA declined to comment.

The U.S. found that Ukraine had been seeking to strike a military target located in the same region as Putin’s country residence but not close by, the official said.  (read more)

Who are we going to believe, Russian “special service” operations or anonymous “U.S. Intelligence Officials”?

Unfortunately, this question is no longer easy to answer given the history of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and yes, that includes the current embedded IC officials within the National Security Council, DNI and CIA even with Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe in position.

I would be very surprised if the U.S. Intelligence Community would be honest with President Trump on this issue if, and that is a big “if”, they even factually had any specific intelligence about it. [This WSJ narrative could be fake news]

Again, CTH will also assert the likelihood that Volodymyr Zelenskyy likely didn’t carry out the attack; everything about the timing of it during his meeting with President Trump just doesn’t fit.  Instead, it is more likely British intelligence, specifically MI6 carried out the attack, timed specifically for the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting.

In context, there have been several attacks against Russia timed with negotiations.  CTH has noted that each instance of closer agreement during Russia/Ukraine negotiations (Turkey) or U.S/Ukraine negotiations (Turkey and Paris) there have been attacks into Russia that seemed to carry a motive from an external third party.

U.S. media have said the attack on Putin may be a lie; however, with physical evidence from the defense operation, it is less likely Russia just made up the attack.  At this moment in the conflict, Putin doesn’t need domestic propaganda.

CONTEXT: British intelligence previously confirmed their participation in the successful Ukraine drone attack against long-range Russian bombers.  That operation, highly controversial at the time, was previously confirmed by President Trump saying the U.S. was not informed in advance.

The “coalition of the willing” has also expanded.  Outside the Ukraine regime, the current group making up the “coalition of the willing” includes: the U.K, France, Germany, Canada and Australia.  It is worth noting the additions are part of the British commonwealth (Canada, Australia).

Most observers note that Ukraine President Zelenskyy is not an independent actor in the warfare decisions as carried out from within Ukraine itself. In fact, British intelligence has now replaced U.S. intelligence for providing the majority of the satellite guidance systems, targeted systems and missile operations.  German and French intelligence have been closely coordinating with the U.K. on behalf of European Union stakeholders.

Europe, specifically the British MI6 intelligence service, have recently espoused their #1 priority is to defeat Russia using the proxy that Ukraine provides.

The newly appointed head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli (pictured right), formerly known by her position as “Q”, is literally the granddaughter of factual Ukraine Nazi, Constantine Dobrowolski.

As head of MI6, Metreweli has specifically stated the U.K wants war with Russia. Metreweli’s entire family has Ukraine roots.

So, with full context applied it is entirely likely that both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are not lying.  Putin was attacked, but Ukraine -as defined as Zelenskyy- didn’t do it.

The most likely scenario is that U.K intelligence elements inside Ukraine again used the opportunity of the Trump-Zelenskyy negotiation meeting to carry out the attack against Russian President Putin.  The motive is obvious.

Beyond the ideological component, the economies of the U.K/EU are now increasingly dependent on their defense spending as was recognized with the severe contraction of the German economy in almost all sectors except those supported by defense spending.

An end to the Russia/Ukraine conflict is against the interests of the “coalition of the willing.”   Additionally, an ancillary motive for both the U.K and U.S. group who support the EU effort is to keep President Trump bogged down.

I still strongly suspect the British did it, and the CIA doesn’t factually have any concrete intelligence to prove or dismiss this strongest motivational likelihood.

[MORE CONTEXT IN VIDEO]

Jan 2 2026

Here We Go – First Day of 2026, First Discussion of FISA-702 Reauthorization Surfaces


Posted originally on CTH on January 1, 2026 | Sundance 

The tenuous legal theory permitting the U.S. government to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizen data (emails, texts, phone calls, messages etc.) rests on the unconstitutional ability of the government to intercept your “private papers” with the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, specifically FISA-702.  The “702” aspect is the term for U.S. citizen intercepted.

The authority for the United States government to capture the electronic records of all Americans without warrant falls under the auspices of FISA-702.  The current authority expires in April of 2026.  The 702 authorities have been abused to conduct political surveillance for just about everything in Washington DC.  Millions of unauthorized searches have been identified; it is unconstitutional.

Politico, an outlet for the concerns of the administrative state, begins the new year by noting there is increased resistance to the reauthorization.  However, in order to carry out the domestic national security agenda of the Trump administration, the Deep State considers JD Vance, Marco Rubio and others as likely supporters for reauthorization.

(Politico) – […] During the last reauthorization debate in 2024, then-candidate Trump urged Congress to “kill” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the larger spy law that Section 702 is nested under. Trump’s decision frustrated supporters of the program — in part because they believe he conflated the foreign-target spy program with the broader surveillance law that was not up for reauthorization.

A crucial Biggs-sponsored House amendment that would have added a warrant requirement for any communications involving Americans failed on a 212-212 tie, with Speaker Mike Johnson casting a rare and decisive vote to kill it.

Now the spy powers fight is a major headache for Johnson, who infuriated privacy hawks with his 2024 amendment vote after having advocated for more surveillance guardrails as a former member of the Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Committee Republicans — led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a close Trump ally — have started discussing how to approach the reauthorization during their weekly meetings. Jordan said in an interview he is again hoping to impose a warrant requirement for searches involving Americans as well as a ban on data brokers selling consumer information to law enforcement.

He said he has “had some discussions over this past year with some members of the administration” on this issue and plans to meet alongside House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) with White House officials on the matter early next year.

Lawmakers on both sides of the debate are carefully watching Crawford, who opposed the warrant requirement in 2024 — along with every other House Intelligence Committee Republican. But Johnson has since added five Republicans to the panel who each voted for the Biggs amendment.

A committee spokesperson said Crawford is working with House leadership, Jordan, the Senate and the administration “to determine the best way forward to extend 702 authority.”

There are still, however, a majority of Intelligence Committee Republicans who are working to extend the program without adding a warrant requirement — and they are hoping administration officials whom they view as allies, including Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will be able to sway Trump. (read more)

Some administrative state defenders will argue this issue with me. However, having researched almost every aspect to the construct, and the argument, I am confident FISA-702 authority underpins the much bigger, quasi-constitutional justification for the wholesale collection of U.S. citizen metadata.  Without the 702 authority, the legal justification for the apparatus of surveillance no longer exists.  It really is that simple.

The only way the government can justify the capture of U.S. Citizen data is if there is some quasi-constitutional or national security reason for it.  That’s where FISA-702 comes in.

Take away “702” search authority, and the data collection argument collapses; ANY “incidental” search of the database then loses any plausible legal justification.  702 is the camel’s nose under the tent that forms the baseline for all data records to be intercepted, stored and ultimately available for review.

This is a very key component to fully understand.  Most practical applications of surveillance are contingent upon the capture of electronic records for tracking.  Ex. – if domestic travel records are considered private papers (never argued yet), then government agencies have no right to exploit them without a valid search warrant underpinned by a national security justification.  The government, not private sector – government, tracking people becomes more difficult if privacy rules are applied.

The legal aspect runs through the 4th Amendment, which -while historically undefined in the modern era- likely stirs in the background of the recent TSA decision to provide a $45 opt-out, for the use of REAL ID in domestic transit (interstate commerce application notwithstanding).

The Fourth Amendment aspect to the ‘warrantless’ government capture of American citizen records has never been fully argued in court; the modern definitions are opaque, and the govt has a vested interest in retaining the untested status quo.

The Intelligence Community (IC) has told Congress, particularly the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, that all hell will break loose if they don’t reauthorize full electronic surveillance of Americans.

Congress has historically been scared of the “seven ways from Sunday” IC.  However, now Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is attempting to change things; specifically change things as they pertain to the domestic use of the intelligence agencies.

As the counterargument is made, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and all of the key participants, are siloed from understanding that 702 has nothing to do with incidental collection of American data, whilst the honorable IC were doing foreign intercepts.

According to intelligence experts, Speaker Johnson and most Republicans believe the IC justification, and perhaps many of them pretend not to know the alternatives.  I do not buy this argument, because too much recent evidence exists to sell the story that Congress is unknowing of how this metadata capture is being continually exploited.

The only way to really test congressional knowledge is to question them.  No one is questioning them.

In my opinion, the politicians and their key staff pretend they cannot fathom how the FBI, DOJ, NSD, DHS and contractors use this database to conduct political and “other” (think corporate espionage for sale) surveillance.  When you engage with them, you realize they really do put on a great show proclaiming the IC is full of honorable rank-and-file, trying to walk a fine line between the 4th Amendment and exploitation.  The counter position is akin to them living in a DC bubble.

The IC argument is now something akin to how we have let thousands of terrorists into the country through the southern border crisis.  They say: “My god, we need to monitor the terrorists, and if you take away the 702, the foreign terror cells will activate and start killing us all.  Do you want that blood on your hands?”   You cannot take away surveillance tools.

Then you overlay the FISA 702 reauthorization argument, as used as a bargaining chip by the same people who don’t want to get caught up in the surveillance.

The DC conversations end up like, “Ok, we’ll reauthorize it, but you cannot use it against us – and all the sex parties and perverted stuff we do when no one is around; you must promise to keep our secrets hidden“…  Then, just like the 2024 reauthorization change, they exempt themselves.

The IC agree to accept a reauthorization that exempts Congress.   The IC keep the process – just promise not to use it against Congress.   This outlook is what we see visible in the CR bill extension that included forbidding the FBI from seeking search warrants against Senator’s telecommunications, and this outlook is highlighted by Elise Stefanik demanding that Congress be notified if any federal candidate for office is under investigation.   The Big Club protects the Big Club.

Unfortunately, ‘We The People’ do not have many friends in DC on this issue, other than a very small group in/around Tulsi Gabbard’s office, and they are constantly under attack.

The DC UniParty will attempt to reauthorize 702 to continue exploiting their surveillance authority. Do not forget, now we have over 10,000 log-in portals with access to the NSA database exist, including the workstation at Perkins Coie that tied into the NSA database {GO DEEP}.

After spending several years asking every representative of consequence why they support the FISA-702 process, I can tell you every one of them says they believe it is needed, because the IC tells them there are just too many domestic terror threats that need to be monitored.

It is almost impossible to find a person in DC who will forcefully try to stop FISA-702 reauthorization.

If you ask me why in hindsight, I now take the position that FISA-702 is the gateway to the massive surveillance system currently being put into place using Real ID and the AI facial recognition software provided by Palantir (CIA exploit).  In essence, the gateway that allows the full-scale surveillance state, is opened by the prior authorization of FISA-702 that negates any 4th Amendment protection.

BIG Why? Because all of the surveillance mechanisms within the network being updated and enhanced by AI search and capture, comes from the IC being allowed to exploit the NSA database.  That same database access allowance is the targeting mechanism for FISA-702.  If warrantless searches of the NSA database were stopped, the Palantir/IC and Tech Bro collaboration could hit a brick wall.

The significance of this FISA-702 issue is much bigger than most can appreciate.

This surveillance underpinning also reconciles many of the puzzled faces when it comes to who is permitted nomination and who is not.  The DC Deep State confirmed both Kash Patel to be Donald Trump’s FBI Director (SSCI), and Pam Bondi to be U.S. Attorney General (SJC).  Both Bondi and Patel are expressed believers in the value of FISA-702.

You might even remember this odd question from October of 2025 that came out of nowhere.  Attorney General Bondi literally read a script on the issue that was prepared for her.  WATCH:

Additionally, the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence was initially opposed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), until she acquiesced and agreed there was value in the FISA-702 process.

We have a few weeks before things get really ugly, but they will get ugly.

Deals will be cut.  Offers will be made. Corruption throughout this argument will run amok.

In the background of every headline, that will surface over the next two months, this issue will enmesh.

We need to watch closely how National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President JD Vance respond to the surfacing issues.

All of the modern surveillance mechanisms, within the U.S. government network currently being updated and enhanced by AI search and capture, come from the gateway of 702; ie. govt being allowed to exploit the NSA database against Americans.

If warrantless searches of the NSA database are legally stopped, or no longer authorized, the gate closes and the DHS, Palantir/IC and Tech Bro surveillance collaboration hit a brick wall.

This is my hill!