Tag Archives: #NeverTrump

Apr 6 2017

President Trump -vs- Deep State, Big Club and U.S. Media…


Re-Posted From Conservative Tree House on April 5, 2017 by

The term: “for domestic consumption” is a term generally familiar to political observers who are accustomed to filtering out and separating ‘noise’ from ‘action’ when reviewing remarks made by international leaders outside the U.S.

However, in modern U.S. geo-political review it becomes important to apply the same cognitive transparency toward U.S. President Trump as he faces the three-headed swamp guardian, Cerberus.

The three heads of the modern Cerberus we identify as: •Deep State (foreign policy adversaries), •Big Club (domestic economic adversaries) and •U.S. Media.

All three oppositional entities view the insurgent Presidency of Donald Trump as adversarial to their long-term globalist interests.

Against the backdrop of Jordans King Abdullah II visiting President Trump in the White House; and knowing Jordan has approximately 2.8 million Syrian refugees, most of whom oppose Syrian President Bashir Assad; and in the aftermath of a “chemical agent” attack in Syria – President Trump was in a precarious position. The Deep Globalist State had laid their trap.

Within the 30,000 foot review, and against the historic backdrop of precedent for this type of action, we find the motive. However, it’s a motive that is virtually impossible to discuss from the office of the presidency while the adversarial U.S. media is also poised to strike.

Knowing King Abdullah is an ideological ally in the quest for the longer goal of peace, President Trump takes an outward approach (two-nation domestic consumption) to blame Syria’s Bashir Assad. This strategic approach deflects the fangs of Deep State, inoculates against a follow-up attack by MSM, and protects the domestic position of Abdullah.

The prudent President Trump approach also allows the freedom alliance of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), King Abdullah II (Jordan), King Salman (Saudi Arabia), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), and Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian Authority) to move forward toward a much larger, more stable and more significant geo-political alignment. King Abdullah publicly signaled these intentions today during remarks with President Trump at the White House.

The back-channeling signals and conversations with Vladimir Putin (Russia), and Bashir Assad (Syria) become more important than the public optics for ‘domestic consumption’. Actions speak louder than words. Knowing the rather extensive ground work that has already taken place, there’s no immediate reason to believe Putin and Assad do not recognize President Trump’s larger strategy.

♦ Immediately following his inauguration, President Trump spoke to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and gained his ideological and financial support for building a safe zone for Syrian’s as they rebuild.

♦ A week later, President Trump spoke at length to Egypt’s Fattah al-Sisi about their efforts.

♦ At the beginning of February – King Abdullah III of Jordan traveled to Washington to meet with Vice-President Mike Pence and discuss aide and assistance for regional security.   Previously, in November 2016, King Abdullah spoke to President-elect Trump

♦ A week later – Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington DC for a very warm and optimistic meeting with President Trump for talks on regional security.

♦ At the beginning of March – Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry visited Washington, met with members of Congress and held a long discussion with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,

♦ Mid-March Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with an envoy from President Trump and told him that a peace deal is possible under the new president.

♦  On Monday – Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to the White House for an official state visit, and a very warm greeting by President Trump.

♦  Today – Jordan’s King Abdullah II follows al-Sisi with a visit to the White House and receives another very warm greeting by the U.S. President

Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s Fattah al-Sisi have a very close regional relationship.

Egyptian President al-Sisi previously secured most of the Sinai border region.  The current challenge, for all regional interests, is to keep the extremist elements in check and undermine their destabilizing efforts.  A big part of that stability includes Syria, Russia and the U.S. defeating the remnants of ISIS.

Under-reported in Western media, during the fall/winter of 2014 and spring/summer of 2015 al-Sisi removed every Hamas tunnel and relocated thousands of homes to create a miles-wide buffer zone no longer useful by terrorists.

gaza border sinai 2

gaza border sinai

Netanyahu-and-General-el-Sisi-of-Egypt-333-x-248The scope of what Egypt did to secure the Southern and Eastern border of Israel/Gaza is quite remarkable, and they have paid a high price battling extremists every inch of the way.

Simultaneously, as his Egyptian forces were removing the most significant security threat, al-Sisi brokered a peace deal between Abbas and Netanyahu and forced the Palestinian Authority to speak with one voice.   That’s why Egypt was so furious when John Kerry insisted on poking his nose into the agreement.

After the peace deal, and after he constructed the border security zone, Fattah al-Sisi then set up the construct for a Joint Arab Intervention Force.

We have continued to express optimism for a confluence of events, people and activity that is happening quietly, and could stun the geo-political world.  The timing is right, because we view these activities through a different prism.  We review against the backdrop of President Obama’s mid-east failure, equitable misery.

The reality of President Obama’s expressed foreign policy of regime change -regardless of cost or consequence- has left millions of Mid-East communities in peril; far worse off today than they were nine years ago.  In an odd and accidental way, President Obama created equitable misery.

• The Egyptian people, in no way a populist entity favorable to Israel, suffered through two years of brutal dictatorship from the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsi.  Their very survival only due to a successful return of cultural and economic stability at the hands of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

• The Syrian people, again holding no favorable disposition toward Israel writ large, only just now coming out of the shadows of a horrific five-year civil war and seeing sunlight for the first time in half a decade.  Breathing room.

• The Libyan people, caught amid an ongoing crisis of regional and tribal strife suffering through ongoing extremist violence that has taken them into the depths of economic and social chaos.  And before the fighting is even over, Europe is outlining demands of the North African gates.

• The Jordanian people, again a tenuous and precarious Muslim nation, who has watched the most barbaric and horrific consequences from extremist violence in their lifetimes.  The Jordanians are aiding more than 2.8 million refugees from the civil war in Syria.

The end result of almost all far-left policies when carried out to their natural conclusion is equitable misery.  At no moment in recent history has the choking consequence of a decade-long ideological war left a larger population of people so exhausted than at this very moment.

Think of the nationalist possibility.  ♦ Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), ♦ King Abdullah II (Jordan), ♦ Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), ♦ Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian Authority), ♦ King Salman and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Saudi Arabia), and ♦ U.S. President Donald Trump.  Together they have a remarkable canvas.

Apr 6 2017

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The NSC Meeting…


Re-Posted From Conservative Tree House on April 5, 2017 by

The anti-Trump media jumped into a level of gleeful frenzy today amid a required security filing noticing that Senior Trump Adviser Steve Bannon was no longer a member of the “principals committee” on the National Security Council.

The hilarity cemented itself when competing media outlets were arguing about Steve Bannon being on the NSC, or being kicked-off the NSC, while Bannon walked past them en route to today’s NSC meeting.  Wait, wha… huh?   Yeah -{Insert Laugh Track HERE}-

Nothing ever happens in a vacuum, and today is no exception.   No, Steve Bannon is not being removed from the Senior advisory role to President Trump and will attend NSC meetings with the President.  Bannon’s security clearance therein remains unchanged.

However, Bannon is removing himself from the Principal’s Committee of the H.R. McMaster NSC (*note* he never attended the committee meetings, well, that is, he did, once), now that the political weaponization of NSC intelligence operations has been removed; and McMaster has recalibrated the incoming intelligence agencies to remove the political intelligence they were previously used to sending.

What does that prior paragraph mean?

Start by reminding yourself of the current headlines about National Security Adviser Susan Rice requesting raw intelligence to the NSC based on Obama’s political agendas’, not national security.

HR McMaster, the current National Security Adviser of President Trump, had to reset and re-instruct each of the heads of the intelligence agencies who provide intelligence to the NSC to remove the political intelligence.

McMaster needed to visit with each agency, CIA, NSA, State Department and Defense to reorient them on what national intelligence the Trump administration wishes to receive within the National Security Council.

President Trump doesn’t want the national intelligence agencies sending him updates on what Senator Schumer had for lunch, where and who he dined with.  Instead President Trump prefers the intelligence agencies focus on global security issues that are actually vital to the national security interests of the country.

H.R McMasters instructions toward he intelligence agencies has just freed up thousands of hours of operational intelligence (spying and analysis) to focus on real threats unrelated to domestic politics.  Subsequently with the new direction established, Steve Bannon doesn’t need to be a pre-filter for NSC raw intel any longer.   Bannon can now be a consumer of that intelligence, just like President Trump.

White House Chief Legal Counsel Don McGahn’s job also just got a lot less stressful.

Secondly, with the anticipation of President Obama’s Nat Sec Adviser Susan Rice remaining in the headlines as more is discovered about her role in the weaponization of intelligence for political use, there’s no better time for political Bannon to exit the NSC Principals Committee than right now.

It would be a little sketchy for Rice’s political weaponization of the NSC to be exposed in the media headlines while Steve Bannon, painted as a pure political partisan, sat on the Principals Committee of the Trump NSC.

Apr 6 2017

Report: Rice Unmasking Requests Were for Surveillance of “Daily Lives” of Trump Officials…


Re-Posted From Conservative Tree House on April 5, 2017 by

CTH Susan Rice Back Story:

Today, Catherine Herridge is reporting the unmasking requests made by former National Security Adviser were requests for details of daily surveillance of President Trump’s transition team regarding their daily life activity.

(New York) The intelligence reports at the center of the Susan Rice unmasking controversy were detailed, and almost resembled a private investigator’s file, according to a Republican congressman familiar with the documents.

“This is information about their everyday lives,” Rep. Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence committee said. “Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on.”

On the House Intelligence Committee, only the Republican chairman, Devin Nunes of California, and the ranking Democrat Adam Schiff, also of California, have personally reviewed the intelligence reports. Some members were given broad outlines.

Nunes has consistently stated that the files caused him deep concern because the unmasking went beyond the former national security adviser Mike Flynn, and the information was not related to Moscow. (read more)

Apr 4 2017

How to Fix Government in 30 days or less & Why do Smart People Avoid Government


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption

Re-Posted Apr 4, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

capitol-bldg

QUESTION:  You once said you could fix the mess in 30 days or less but they would assassinate you. How can you ever make our politicians responsible? My second question is, why are the really smart people not running government?

KW

ANSWER: The term limits are mandatory, but you have to cut off the incentive as well. No pension or salary after one term. People want to run for Congress and you are taken care of for life if you served even just one day. As for taking a cabinet position like Secretary of the Treasury, well you have to sell all your stock in whatever bank you are leaving and because you MUST do this, you get to sell everything tax free. They have rules to exempt themselves from everything.

Eliminate all special perks. Social Security should be for all as should the healthcare. Why should they get benefits we cannot even buy? If you limit the terms to one-time-and-out, eliminate pensions, and you subject everyone to the same benefits even while in office, then you will see things shape up. Drug Companies lobby the most. Politicians need money for re-election. If you make it one-term-and-out, you eliminate the lobbying since there is no re-election and you subject them to the same healthcare we have. Then they will not vote for things that will deprive themselves.

This is basic human nature.

Hunt MoneyAs to why really smart people are not in government? That is simple. Knowledge comes from ONLY experience. I was asked if I would take the position as Chief Economic Advisor in the Bush, Jr. White House. I laughed. First, I had a real company. I could not put that in some blind trust. Then, could you image a confirmation hearing in the Senate? I would have been accused by the Democrats or helping the Japanese and German auto manufactures against GM. They would have had a field day turning that into some sort of treason. On top of that, the only way to gain experience is doing something and that means we must make mistakes in order to learn. Do you keep putting your wet finger in a light socket assuming one time you will not get socked if you just keep it up?

Nobody I know who would be qualified to do anything in banking or the economy would EVER take such a job. Who needs that sort of magnification of every aspect of your entire life? There are only two types of people who will take such jobs. Either you do it for the perks, or you do it because you want to be remembered. You are better off with someone like Trump on that score for he cannot be bribed with money. They either have it and do it for the ego or they do it to get money and status like the Clintons. There really seems to be no in between these days.

Apr 4 2017

Susan Rice Confirms Her “Unmasking Requests” Were for President Obama’s Daily Briefing (PDB)…


Re-Posted From Conservative Tree House Posted on April 4, 2017 by

With a general set of narrative ‘talking points’ in hand President Obama’s Former National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, appeared this morning on MSNBC for an interview with Andrea Mitchell.  This is the ‘We-Have-To-Respond-phase‘,  which necessitates the optic.

Andrea Mitchell is considered a trustworthy ally of the Clinton/Obama political networks; as such, it is not a surprise to see Mitchell selected as the interviewer.  Mitchell’s use of wording carefully guides Susan Rice through the narrow path of self-incrimination by providing plausible deniability for verbal missteps.

You already know the routine.  MSNBC is the favorable proprietary venue. Mitchell plays the role of media-legal-adviser, her client is Susan Rice.  Live interviews are always the greatest risk (see: Evelyn Farkas)  The full interview is below:

However, that said, there are some interesting aspects to the interview:

Susan Rice @00:51 – …”Let me explain how this works.  I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country.  That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.; and every morning, to enable us to do that, we receive – from the intelligence community – a compilation of intelligence reports that the IC, the intelligence community, has selected for us –on a daily basis– to give us the best information as to what’s going on around the world.”

[Note, Susan Rice is describing the PDB]

“I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to.  Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and asses it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.”

OK, so right there, in the very beginning of the forward narrative, Susan Rice is confirming the “unmasking” request(s) which can be pinned upon her, are directly related to her need to understand -on behalf of President Obama- intelligence for the President’s Daily Briefing (the PDB).  This was a previous question now answered.

Remember, the President’s Daily Brief under President Obama went to almost everyone at top levels in his administration.  Regarding the Obama PDB:

[…]  But while through most of its history the document has been marked “For the President’s Eyes Only,” the PDB has never gone to the president alone. The most restricted dissemination was in the early 1970s, when the book went only to President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who was dual-hatted as national security adviser and secretary of state.

In other administrations, the circle of readers has also included the vice president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with additional White House staffers.

By 2013, Obama’s PDB was making its way to more than 30 recipients, including the president’s top strategic communications aide and speechwriter, and deputy secretaries of national security departments. (link)

 

If you know how concentric circle political safety is constructed, you will notice that Susan Rice is now hugging the security of the Presidency.   No space.  To take Rice down, means to take down President Obama – safe play on her part.

Reverse the safety.   No-one in media or congress is going to allow President Obama to be taken down; ergo, everyone will protect Susan Rice.  They have no choice.

[Also note how when shifting from rehearsed talking point (script) to cognitive explanation of Rices’ point , the noun shifts from “U.S. Person” to “U.S. Official”.]

“I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to.  Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and asses it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.”

It’s subtle (like a Freudian slip), but Rice accidentally outlines her filter, her psychological trigger, for when to request the unmasking.  She’s looking for the politics behind the intelligence.  She’s looking for “U.S. Officials” in masked intelligence reports.

Mrs. Rice then follows up with a “hypothetical example” that is ridiculous as she describes.  The example provided (a sketchy dude in mom’s basement) would NEVER reach the level of PDB; it would be pre-filtered, researched and reviewed for value.  The PDB NEVER contains such banal information as Rice describes.

The interview goes much further.  There is a lot of news in this interview.  There is also a tremendous amount of double-speak and self-contradiction; in some cases between sentences that follow each other.

Notice how Susan Rice contradicts herself about what the intelligence community puts into the PDB.  Remember, Rice considers the PDB intel community to be very specific:  James Clapper (DNI), John Brennan (CIA) and Defense Department (which would be the Pentagon and NSA Mike Rogers).  And she states they would never send the President innocuous things unworthy of review….

.

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Apr 4 2017

House Intel Panel Asks Susan Rice To Testify


Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Re-Posted From ZERO HEDGE Apr 4, 2017 3:43 PM

If former National Security Advisor Susan Rice though she could get away from the current furore over the Trump “unmasking” scandal with just one MSNBC interview in which Andrea Mitchell did not even ask her why she lied two weeks ago to PBS, she will be disappointed as moments ago Dow Jones reported that the House Intelligence Panel has asked Susan Rice to testify, supposedly under oath.

  • HOUSE INTELLIGENCE PANEL ASKS SUSAN RICE TO TESTIFY, DJ SAYS

The next question on everyone’s lips: will she plead the Fifth?

As a reminder, earlier in the day, the MSNBC anchor asked Susan Rice if she would testify before congress as Rand Paul requested, Rice responded by changing the subject to Russia.

“Rand Paul is suggesting that you be subpoenaed to testify. Would you be willing to go to Capitol Hill?” Mitchell aske

“You know, Andrea, let’s, let’s… see what comes,” she said. “Umm, I’m not going, ahh, you know, sit here and prejudge, but what I will say is that the investigations that are underway as to the Russian involvement in our electoral process are very important and they’re very serious. Every American ought to have an interest in those investigations going wherever the evidence indicates they should.”

 

Her decision may have been made for her

Apr 4 2017

Obamagate = the new Watergate? Confidence in Gov’t & Press to Decline further


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption

Re-Posted Apr 4, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Rice Susan

Clapper-1Things are going to get interesting. Of course mainstream media will say this brewing scandal is fake news. Nevertheless, my sources have been talking about this for months now. The Daily Caller now is reporting that former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova is talking saying that Susan Rice ordered the spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of all legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president. This is likely to be a new Watergate and it seems to fit with our computer forecasts and (1) 2015.75 was the peak in government and from that point onward, it would be all downhill. Yet (2), that the Democratic Party appears to have reached the tipping point. They lost more than 1,000 seats nationwide. They knew they were in serious trouble and thus unleashed the NSA head to go after Trump pretending this had to do with Russians. This is why it may have been the reason Clapper resigned rather than work for Trump.

Joseph diGenova told the Daily Caller: “What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals.”

Senate-House Combined 2017

This is going to get real nasty going forward. You can easily see that the combined Senate-House seats as a percentage reflect that the Democrats are in a serious downward spiral. Since the Great Depression, the Democrats have been making lower highs and lower lows. That is the definition of a bear market. This is why we are looking at Obamagate unfolding – desperate times call for desperate measures.

Since the Republicans have effectively been taken-over by an outsider, even their politics has not been as usual. Things are going to change in a very big way moving forward and this scandal is just feeding into the trend. What this will expose is how corrupt the press is as they desperately try to hide the truth and defend the Democrats at all costs.

Apr 4 2017

Tucker Carlson: ‘Our Laws Provide No Serious Protection From Being Spied Upon for Political Reasons’


The_Real_Fly's picture
by The_Real_Fly
Re-Posted from ZERO HEDGE Apr 3, 2017 10:23 PM

Tucker Carlson tackled the subject of Susan Rice and privacy this evening — drawing a red line in the sand — proclaiming that ‘our laws provided no serious protections from being spied on for political reasons.’

Can anyone make an argument proving this to be a false statement?

All too often, lazy thinkers conclude that it is the right of government to spy on its citizens. Perhaps that is the case in Saudi Arabia or Canada, but it’s not supposed to be that way here. Either the promotional propaganda that lauds America’s democracy as being the ideal for representative forms of government are true or they aren’t. Providing the latter prevails, as it is now, no one will ever believe in the dream that was democracy — thanks to a cadre of corrupt mountebanks who’ve abused the goodwill of the American people and its systems for purposes of self-aggrandizement and a prevailing bias that wantonly eschews the liberty of its citizens — superseded only by a craven and insatiable appetite for power.

Content originally published at iBankCoin.co

Apr 4 2017

In Aggressive Push, Trump Seeks Friday Passage Of Revised Healthcare Bill


Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Re-posted from ZERO HEDGE Apr 4, 2017 7:14 AM

Will second time be the charm for Trump?

Just over a week after the Republicans’ embarrassing failure to repeal Obamacare as a result of infighting with both conservative and moderate factions, on Monday White House officials led by the vice president met the same opposing Republicans in the House of Representatives, in an aggressive effort to revive the passage of the Republican Obamacare deal, potentially voting as soon as the end of the this week.

As Reported by Reuters and other newswires, members of the Trump administration led by Vice President Mike Pence, invited a group of moderate Republicans known as the “Tuesday Group” to the White House. Pence then went to Capitol Hill to meet the Freedom Caucus, who have recently clashed with Trump over their insistence to block the bill in its current format. The revised deal as presented by Pence had two key components:

  • Granting a waver to States from some, if not all, Obamacare insurance rules including the minimum benefits, the amount of medical expenses that insurers have to cover, and the rule preventing insurers from charging higher rates to sick people, per Axios.
  • A $115 billion “stability fund” for the states would be narrowed to be spent specifically on high-risk pools, which many Republicans think is a better way to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

The Freedom caucus had a favorable first reaction: Pence and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus laid out the administration’s revised healthcare plan during a 40-minute meeting with Freedom Caucus members, said Congressman Mark Meadows, the leader of the conservative group. Meadows said he was “intrigued” by the new plan, which would allow states to opt out of some of Obamacare’s mandates, possibly by obtaining waivers.

“We’re encouraged … but would certainly need a whole lot more information before we can take any action either in support or in opposition,” Meadows told reporters. He expected to see a detailed draft of the proposal within 24 hours, he said.

Meanwhile, the moderates also were pleasantly surprised: in an earlier meeting with the moderate Tuesday Group, Pence said the new plan would preserve Obamacare’s essential health benefits clause, or services and care that insurers must cover, but states could apply for a waiver if they could show it would improve coverage and reduce costs, according to Collins. Trump aides also discussed directing funds from the $115 billion stability fund for states into high-risk pools for people with pre-existing health conditions to better ensure insurance premiums come down in cost.

What is most notable about the recent attempt to reach out is the timing: the White House would like to see a revised bill come up for a vote as early as week’s end, before the House breaks for a spring recess, and the text of the new proposal could be ready some time on Tuesday, lawmakers said.

“It was clear the president would be very happy come Friday to have this passed,” said U.S. Representative Chris Collins, a member of the Tuesday Group and a Trump ally and added that “It’s an acknowledgement that they were chasing votes with the Freedom Caucus and the Far Right and then ended up losing votes with those of us who are typically the most reliable votes.”

The clincher may have been Trump’s weekend golf game with Rand Paul: after golfing with the president on Sunday, Reuters reports that the Republican Senator, a sharp critic of the Republicans’ previous healthcare bill, also expressed renewed hope the healthcare bill could be revised in a way that picked up support from the conservative and moderate factions of the Republican Party.

Paul told reporters he was “very optimistic that we are getting closer and closer to an agreement repealing Obamacare.”

“This could move fairly quickly,” Collins said.

If so, it would provide a much needed victory for Trump whose series of political missteps in recent weeks have seen his approval rating tumble even with Republicans, dropping to the lowest on record for a new president according to various polls.

Apr 4 2017

Confirmed: Susan Rice “Unmasked” Trump Team


Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Re-Posted From ZERO HEDGE Apr 4, 2017 5:30 AM

Once again it appears that Trump was right: the conspiracy theory that a close Obama associate worked to “unmask” the Trump team, resulting in the ongoing media spectacle over “collusion” between Trump and the Kremlin, has been confirmed, first by Mike Cernovich, and now by Bloomberg itself.

As noted last night, Journalist and author Mike Cernovich dropped an exclusive bombshell – naming Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice as the official responsible for the ‘unmasking’ of the incoming Trump team during ‘incidental’ surveillance. This was apparently discovered after the White House Counsel’s office reviewed Rice’s document log requests:

The reports Rice requested to see are kept under tightly-controlled conditions. Each person must log her name before being granted access to them.

Upon learning of Rice’s actions, [National Security Advisor] H. R. McMaster dispatched his close aide Derek Harvey to Capitol Hill to brief Chairman Nunes.

Cernovich pointed out, as revealed in an article by Circa, that President Obama began loosening the rules regarding “incidental intercepts” starting in 2011 – making it easier for the US Government to spy on individuals who are not the primary target(s) of a surveillance operation.

As his presidency drew to a close, Barack Obama’s top aides routinely reviewed intelligence reports gleaned from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad, taking advantage of rules their boss relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats

And guess who had authorization to unmask individuals who were ‘incidentally’ surveilled? Former CIA Director John Brennan, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Obama’s National Security advisor Susan Rice. Also of note is the claim that New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman has been sitting on the Susan Rice story for at least two days:

This reporter has been informed that Maggie Haberman has had this story about Susan Rice for at least 48 hours, and has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the reputation of former President Barack Obama.

Fox News anchor Adam Housley tweeted on Friday that the surveillance that led to the unmasking began before Trump was the GOP nominee, and that the person who did the unmasking is a “very senior” and “very well known” person in the surveillance community – and not someone in the FBI. As ZeroPointNow noted, “this of course begs the question of whether or not President Obama would have ordered Rice to perform the unmasking.”

* * *

Until this morning, the Cernovich report was unconfirmed, with many in the “legacy media” accusing Cernovich, who recently was profiled on 60 Minutes for being a prominent member of the “fake news” dissemination team for being – what else – fake news. However, moments ago Bloomberg’s Eli Lake confirmed that it was indeed Susan Rice who was responsible for the repeatedly “unmasking” multiple members of the Trump team, in what may be dubbed yet another “conspiracy” to delegitimize the current US president.

From Eli Lake:

White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The pattern of Rice’s requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government’s policy on “unmasking” the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like “U.S. Person One.”

As Lake adds, the National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice’s multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel’s office, who reviewed more of Rice’s requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.

The intelligence reports were summaries of monitored conversations — primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.

Rice has not yet responded to a Bloomberg email seeking comment on Monday morning. Her role in requesting the identities of Trump transition officials adds an important element to the dueling investigations surrounding the Trump White House since the president’s inauguration.

Making matters worse, Rice appears to have lied: while she has not spoken directly on the issue of unmasking, last month when she was asked on the “PBS NewsHour” about reports that Trump transition officials, including Trump himself, were swept up in incidental intelligence collection, Rice said: “I know nothing about this,” adding, “I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today.”

Ironically, it’s the same Susan Rice who two weeks ago tweeted the following:

Lies aside, according to the Bloomberg reports, “Rice’s multiple requests to learn the identities of Trump officials discussed in intelligence reports during the transition period does highlight a longstanding concern for civil liberties advocates about U.S. surveillance programs. The standard for senior officials to learn the names of U.S. persons incidentally collected is that it must have some foreign intelligence value, a standard that can apply to almost anything. This suggests Rice’s unmasking requests were likely within the law.”

Perhaps, but they also served a key political purpose: to create a media firestorm of controversy involving the Trump team, and to delegitimize Donald Trump as much as possible.

Furthermore, the news about Rice also may explain what Bloomberg dubs the “strange behavior of Nunes in the last two weeks.”

It emerged last week that he traveled to the White House last month, the night before he made an explosive allegation about Trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance. At the time he said he needed to go to the White House because the reports were only on a database for the executive branch. It now appears that he needed to view computer systems within the National Security Council that would include the logs of Rice’s requests to unmask U.S. persons.

The ranking Democrat on the committee Nunes chairs, Representative Adam Schiff, viewed these reports on Friday. In comments to the press over the weekend he declined to discuss the contents of these reports, but also said it was highly unusual for the reports to be shown only to Nunes and not himself and other members of the committee.

In a tacit admission by Lake that Rice may have crossed numerous boundaries, the Bloomberg reporter adds “much about this is highly unusual: if not how the surveillance was collected, then certainly how and why it was disseminated.”

However the real question goes back to square one: did Obama order the unmasking, and if so, to what political purpose?