Sorry potheads, Jeff Sessions isn’t going anywhere… New White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has Sessions’ back, according to an anonymous ‘senior official’ reported by the Associated Press.
Kelly, who was named chief of staff by Trump on Friday, phoned Sessions on Saturday to reassure him the White House wanted him to remain as head of the Justice Department, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. –Reuters
While Kelly says Trump is still annoyed with Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russian election interference investigation in March, there has apparently been “kind of a thaw” between the President and his Attorney General.
Dissed but not dismissed
Last week, Trump threw Sessions under the bus – calling him “very weak,” and telling the New York Times that if he had known Sessions was going to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, he would have picked someone else to head the Department of Justice.
In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions’s decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. “Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Mr. Trump said.
Vice President Mike Pence sat down with Fox’s Tucker Carlson last Wednesday and defended President Trump for his candor in recent attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions – telling the American public and Cabinet officials alike that they’ll always know where Trump stands.
And as iBankCoin reported earlier, Trump’s attacks on AG Sessions had been intensifying over the last several weeks – with the President now asking why Comey crony Andrew McCabe has been allowed to remain acting FBI director:
Why didn't A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got….
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has claimed his third ‘Bannonite’ scalp on the National Security Council – 31 year old Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a relatively low-level CIA-trained Defense Intel Agency (DIA) officer Mike Flynn brought into the White House to head up the NSC – a role typically chosen by the CIA and filled with seasoned career employees.
Cohen-Watnick met Flynn while training at the Defense Clandestine Service, after which he went on to train at the CIA’s “Farm” (AKA Camp Peary). Cohen-Watnick went on to work for the DIA in Afghanistan with a GS-13 rank, after which he returned to DIA headquarters where he worked closely with Flynn.
From the beginning of the Trump presidency, Cohen-Watnick’s meteoric rise from relatively low-level DIA asset to the head of the NSC – a key interface between the White House and intelligence agencies – infuriated senior members within the U.S. Intelligence community. When H.R. McMaster tried to fire Cohen-Watnick in March following the resignation of Mike Flynn, President Trump personally intervened to save his job.
Trump, Bannon, and Kushner reportedly took a strong liking to Cohen-Watnick after a February meeting in the White House situation room, and Cohen-Watnick in turn proved himself a fierce Trump-loyalist, credited with unmasking unmaskers for the President.
His loyalty to the president ran deep. When Trump claimed, without evidence, that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower in early March, Cohen-Watnick combed through old intelligence intercepts, seemingly in an attempt to vindicate him. He even leaked some of them to a friendly Republican in Congress, Rep. Devin Nunes. –Vox
Cohen-Watnick’s firing comes on the heels of Gen. John Kelly joining the Trump administration as new Chief of Staff, replacing recently fired Reince Priebus. Kelly’s first order of business was to demand that everyone in the White House, sans Trump, report to him. This doesn’t bode well for Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who has reportedly been in an ongoing war with H.R. McMaster for months.
Cohen-Watnick’s firing comes about a week after Derek Harvey, the NSC’s top Middle East official, was dismissed despite sharing Trump’s hawkish views on Iran. It comes less than a month after Rich Higgins, a member of the NSC’s strategic planning office, was dismissed for writing a memo alleging that “Islamists ally with cultural Marxists because, as far back as the 1980s, they properly assessed that the left has a strong chance of reducing Western civilization to its benefit.” –Vox
Former Breitbart Journalist Jordan Schachtel, who is definitely in the Bannon camp, writes a bitter assessment in Conservative Review:
He has been described as an “Iran hawk” who wanted to revamp counter-Iran efforts in the Middle East, and sought to reform the intelligence community to rein in the “deep state” of unaccountable bureaucrats with rogue agendas.
Cohen-Watnick is the latest Trump loyalist to be fired by Gen. McMaster, whose security council continues to be overwhelmingly staffed with Obama holdovers (almost all of whom have retained their positions).
In the past, McMaster has refused to fire the Obama holdovers. Now-fired Middle East NSC director Derek Harvey compiled a list of Obama holdovers and took that list directly to the president, who requested that McMaster follow through with Harvey’s recommendations. McMaster outright refused.
While the firing of Cohen-Watnick has dealt a blow to camp Bannon and the nationalist platform he rode in on, it’s easy to see why he had to go… If Trump wants anything close to a functional relationship with the CIA, the unqualified 31 year old “Iran Hawk” from the DIA – no matter how loyal – had to go.
It is unclear who will fill Cohen-Watnick’s position, however H.R. McMaster interviewed veteran CIA officer Linda Weissgold to fill the role in March after his first attempt at cleaning house.
The White House issued the following statement:
General McMaster appreciates the good work accomplished in the NSC’s Intelligence directorate under Ezra Cohen’s leadership. He has determined that, at this time, a different set of experiences is best-suited to carrying that work forward. General McMaster is confident that Ezra will make many further significant contributions to national security in another position in the administration.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is effectively Putin’s Press Secretary, lashed out against Donald Trump over Twitter today after the U.S. president ‘begrudgingly’ signed a new bill into law placing new sanctions on Russia, while limiting his own power to lift them without Congressional approval. While the bill was passed by an overwhelming ‘veto-proof’ margin, Trump could have refused to sign – but says he did so for the sake of ‘national unity.’
Kind of cucked, no?
The Russian PM said that Trump was ‘fully outwitted’ by the US establishment, and that the signing of the bill “ends hopes for improving our relations,” promising “a few consequences” – followed by some serious shit talking over Facebook.
After Trump signed the bill, he issued a statement through Rex Tillerson noting his disagreement with several parts of the legislation – which also targets Iran and North Korea, saying that the encroachment on presidential authority may have unintended consequences.
“While I favor tough measures to punish and deter aggressive and destabilizing behavior by Iran, North Korea, and Russia, this legislation is significantly flawed,” the statement released by the White House said. And once again, Trump bends the knee to the Russia narrative we all know he doesn’t believe.
Congress, on the other hand, is worried that Trump may inappropriately favor Russia after unsupported whispers of collusion in the 2016 election continue to haunt the President.
Per Bloomberg:
Lawmakers say they want to prevent the president from acting on his own to lift penalties imposed by the previous administration for meddling in last year’s U.S. election and for aggression in Ukraine. House and Senate committees and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are examining possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Russian Fury
In a statement on Facebook, Russia essentially called Trump a bitch on Congress’s leash – stating that the new sanctions are “another way to put Trump in his place,” with the ultimate goal of removing him from power.
“an incompetent player must be eliminated.” (ouch)
Don’t worry Dmitry, once Trump completes his purge of Washington, all these pesky sanctions will go away – I’m sure of it. After all, Trump is playing 6D interplanetary rugby bitches.
(Full Trump statement)
Today, I signed into law the ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,’ which enacts new sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. I favor tough measures to punish and deter bad behavior by the rogue regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang. I also support making clear that America will not tolerate interference in our democratic process, and that we will side with our allies and friends against Russian subversion and destabilization.
That is why, since taking office, I have enacted tough new sanctions on Iran and North Korea, and shored up existing sanctions on Russia.
Since this bill was first introduced, I have expressed my concerns to Congress about the many ways it improperly encroaches on Executive power, disadvantages American companies, and hurts the interests of our European allies.
My Administration has attempted to work with Congress to make this bill better. We have made progress and improved the language to give the Treasury Department greater flexibility in granting routine licenses to American businesses, people, and companies. The improved language also reflects feedback from our European allies – who have been steadfast partners on Russia sanctions – regarding the energy sanctions provided for in the legislation. The new language also ensures our agencies can delay sanctions on the intelligence and defense sectors, because those sanctions could negatively affect American companies and those of our allies.
Still, the bill remains seriously flawed – particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate. Congress could not even negotiate a healthcare bill after seven years of talking. By limiting the Executive’s flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people, and will drive China, Russia, and North Korea much closer together. The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President. This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice.
Yet despite its problems, I am signing this bill for the sake of national unity. It represents the will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States. We hope there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues so that these sanctions will no longer be necessary.
Further, the bill sends a clear message to Iran and North Korea that the American people will not tolerate their dangerous and destabilizing behavior. America will continue to work closely with our friends and allies to check those countries’ malignant activities.
I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.
YouTube recently teamed up with the ultra-liberal Anti Defamation League (ADL) for their ‘Trusted Flaggers Program’ to determine what people should and shouldn’t be allowed to watch, as we continue the march towards a nanny state supported by the technocratic left.
Originally organized to combat anti-Semitism, the ADL – with it’s Soros-linked National director who last worked in the Obama admin, now spouts hyperbolic propaganda against conservatives, while failing to apply the same nebulous standards to the left. For example, their recent push to lump all Trump supporters in with white supremacists, while insulating progressives from far-left organizations such as the anti-Semitic black nationalist hate group New Black Panthers, and the increasingly violent Antifa.
Of late, the ADL has published hit-pieces on several conservatives, including Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, Gavin McInnes, and Lucian Wintrich – offering little to no evidence of any actual wrongdoing aside from milquetoast ‘thought crimes’ deemed beyond the pale by their mollycoddled staff. Shouldn’t liberal bigots Linda Sarsour, Luke Kuhn, the New Black Panthers, and the horse-stabbers of Antifa receive the same treatment for their actual advocacy and participation in violence towards those they disagree with?
And now, the liberal propagandist group has been given free reign to censor content on YouTube – such as politically incorrect University of Toronto professor Jordan B. Peterson, who found himself locked out of his YouTube account yesterday with no explanation (Peterson has since regained access).
To that end, Far Left Watch is out with a another report on more selective Orwellian bias from the ADL…
reprinted with permission
—-
On Tuesday, August 1st, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a press release announcing that they have become a “select contributing member of YouTube’s Trusted Flagger program, created in 2012 to enable organizations to notify the platform of content that violates their community guidelines.” It goes on to say:
“The fight against terrorist use of online resources and cyberhate has become one of the most daunting challenges in modern history,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “Google has been a leader in this area from the beginning. The reality is extremists and terrorists continue to migrate to and exploit various other social media platforms. We hope that those platforms can learn from and emulate what YouTube is doing to proactively identify and remove extremist content.”
What criteria does the ADL use to define “extremism”? Their Center On Extremism (COE) provides this overview of their efforts but does not discuss the process that they use to distinguish “extremism” or “hate” from protected speech:
ADL’s Center on Extremism is the agency’s research and investigative arm, and a clearinghouse of valuable, up-to-the minute information about extremism of all types—from white supremacists to Islamic extremists.
This announcement is especially concerning considering their recent profile on the Alt-Lite and Alt-Right that lumped in several popular mainstream conservatives with actual neo-nazis and white supremacists. As a response, many prominent conservative personalities took to Twitter and YouTube to criticize the ADL’s hypocrisy and point out how they broadly apply terms like “extremist”, “racist”, “bigot”, etc. to people who simply advocate for conservative political positions. So far, much of the focus has been on the people and organizations that the ADL has labeled as extremists. I want to instead highlight a few violent far left organization that they have not reported on.
Redneck Revolt
We recently reported on the far left militia group, Redneck Revolt. They are a self described “above ground militant formation” founded in June of 2016 that claims to have 30+ vetted branches nationwide. Since their inception, Redneck Revolt has been very busy recruiting at gun shows and community events, advocating for class war, contributing to the far left anarchist website It’s Going Down, and conducting armed anti-Trump demonstrations. But what’s most alarming are the resources they provide on their website. They promote several PDFs that endorse “armed struggle” and even offer a 36 page “Mini-Manual Of The Urban Guerrilla” (bottom right of resource page) which pictures left-wing militants using RPGs and outlines tactics for guerrilla warfare including sections on “sabotage”, “kidnapping”, “executions”, “armed propaganda”, and “terrorism”.
Has Redneck Revolt been labeled an extremist organization by the ADL? Has a lengthy profile on their members been circulated through legacy media? Should they worry their YouTube content will be removed as part of YouTube’s Trusted Flagger program? Well, according to the ADL, the answer is no.
Red Guards Austin
Red Guards Austin is an autonomous Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collective based in Austin, TX. Their website contains multiple reports on their confrontational and often armed demonstrations:
They also openly advocate for violent revolution against capitalism:
“we must seriously take up the task not only of self-defense on the personal and community level, but we must also struggle to unite all genuine antifascists behind the necessity of revolution. Revolution means the long fight for communism and nothing less.”
I’ll ask the same questions. Has this organization been labeled an extremist hate group by the ADL? Has a lengthy profile on their members been circulated through legacy media? Should they worry their YouTube content will be removed as part of YouTube’s Trusted Flagger program? The answer again is a resounding no.
It is unclear what criteria the ADL uses to define “extremism” but considering that they include the numbers “11”, “12”, “13”, and “14”, as well as “Pepe the frog memes” in their Online Hate Symbols Database the bar appears to be incredibly low. So why are the violent far left organizations outlined in this article not mentioned by the ADL? Perhaps we should ask them. Please share this article via Twitter, Facebook, etc. and tag the ADL. Maybe they can offer some clarification.
If you have any tips on far left activities please submit them here.
Shares of Snap, Inc. ($SNAP) cratered to fresh lows after a week of carnage, coinciding with the expiration of the employee IPO lockup period, and a disappointing rejection from inclusion into the S&P 500 index due to new rules which exclude companies with multiple share class structures. Sad!
The first wave of insiders began selling locked up shares on Monday, with a broad-scale expiration kicking into gear August 14 – however as Tech Crunch points out, “for many employees who joined in 2015 or later, their shares are underwater and so it wouldn’t make sense for them to sell yet.”
Snap shares have fallen over 43 percent in the last three months, hitting an all time low of $12.52 today – 26% below it’s March IPO price.
Snap will get a chance to prove investors wrong in its quarterly earnings report this month, when Wall Street analysts say they will look for signs that Snap’s user growth is accelerating even as Instagram has users hooked.
Analyst Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital Markets told “Squawk Box” on Monday that competition is “the single biggest risk” for Snap.
“It’s a very hard thing to predict. We do like, though, the ongoing… innovations that we’re seeing in Snapchat. I thought Snap Maps was one of the more interesting features that we’ve seen in the space for a while. They have to continue to do that, and this team seems to have a pretty good track record so far, the stock should work,” Mahaney said
Yesterday, a private investigator in the Seth Rich murder case hired by the family of the slain DNC staffer filed a lawsuit against Fox5 news and GOP financier Ed Butowsky for misrepresenting statements he made in order to”shift the blame from Russia and help put to bed speculation that President Trump colluded with Russia…” because “that is the way the President wanted the article,” the suit alleges.
The plaintiff, former D.C. Police detective Rod Wheeler, also asserts that the Trump administration was directly involved with the story. Butowsky, who paid for Wheeler’s investigation on behalf of the Rich family, arranged a sit-down meeting with former Press Secretary Sean Spicer to brief him on Wheeler’s findings. While Spicer acknowledges the meeting, he told NPR that he only agreed to it as a favor.
Butowsky later boasted to Wheeler that President Trump had personally reviewed the Fox story prior to publication – a statement he now says was a joke.
“Rod Wheeler unfortunately was used as a pawn by Ed Butowsky, Fox News and the Trump administration to try and steer away the attention that was being given about the Russian hacking of the DNC emails,” -Douglas Wigdor, attorney for Rod Wheeler
Fox’s ‘Fabricated’ Quotes
Wheeler asserts that in order to kill the Russian hacking narrative, Fox and the Trump administration fabricated the following quotes for the article:
“My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and Wikileaks”
and
“My investigation shows someone within the DC government Democratic National Committee or Clinton team is blocking the murder investigation from going forward…”
Except Wheeler said Seth did contact WikiLeaks, which is the whole point
In an on-camera interview with Fox5, Wheeler conveyed the exact same sentiments as the allegedly fabricated quotes:
Wheeler: I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer…
Fox5:You have sources at the FBI saying that there is information that could link Seth Rich to Wikileaks?
Wheeler:For sure, absolutely, and that’s confirmed.
Wheeler goes on to claim that the police were told to back off the case:
I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said “Rod, we were told to stand down in this case, and I can’t share any information with you.”
Detective Wheeler backpedaled the next day, calling his on-camera statements a “miscommunication.”
Then, a week after the Fox5 story – Wheeler then sat down and told investigator George Webb “I do believe there was some communication between Seth Rich and Wikileaks.”
Regardless of the other elements in the lawsuit, Rod Wheeler’s findings are on record: Seth Rich directly communicated with WikiLeaks – which, if true, destroys the Russian hacking narrative (notwithstanding any new attempts to smear Seth Rich as a traitor who worked with the Russians).
Aaron Rich
Wheeler also claimed in recently leaked audio that Seth Rich’s brother, Aaron – a Northrup Grumman employee, blocked him from looking at Seth’s computer and stonewalled his investigation.
Wheeler said that brother Aaron Rich tried to block Wheeler from looking at Seth’s computer, even though there could be evidence on it. “He said no, he said I have his computer, meaning him,” Wheeler said. “I said, well can I look at it?…He said, what are you looking for? I said anything that could indicate if Seth was having problems with someone. He said no, I already checked it. Don’t worry about it.”
Aaron also blocked Wheeler from finding out about who was at a party Seth attended the night of the murder.
“All I want you to do is work on the botched robbery theory and that’s it,” Aaron told Wheeler
Leaked phone call with Seymour Hersh destroys Russia narrative
Rod Wheeler’s lawsuit also drags Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh into the Seth Rich fray. Hersh is as legitimate as they come – and is very connected to cloak-and-dagger types, however he drew sharp rebuke in 2011 when he said that the U.S. raid on Bin Laden was “one big lie, not one word of it is true.”
In Wheeler’s lawsuit, Butowsky claims Hersh – who was also investigating the Seth Rich case, told him of a ‘purported FBI report establishing that Seth Rich sent emails to WikiLeaks.”
Hersh denied the claim, telling NPR “I hear gossip… [Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it.”
Not exactly…
While Hersh told NPR on Monday that Butowsky’s claims of an FBI report hold no water, Butowsky taped their conversation – as profanity-laced leaked audio, reported Tuesday by Cassandra Fairbanks of Big League Politics, confirms that according to Hersh, Seth Rich contacted Wikileaks.
What the report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer,” he says. “Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC.”
Hersh explains that it was unclear how the negotiations went, but that WikiLeaks did obtain access to a password protected DropBox where Rich had put the files.
“All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I’m sure dozens of emails, and said ‘I want money.’ Later, WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox,” he said. They got access to the DropBox.”
Hersh also states that Rich had concerns about something happening to him, and had
“The word was passed, according to the NSA report, he also shared this DropBox with a couple of friends, so that ‘if anything happens to me it’s not going to solve your problems,’” he added. “WikiLeaks got access before he was killed.”
Brennan and Russian disinformation
Hersh also told Butowsky that the DNC made up the Russian hacking story as a disinformation campaign – directly pointing a finger at former CIA director John Brennan as the architect.
I have a narrative of how that whole f*cking thing began. It’s a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation, and the fu*kin’ President, at one point, they even started telling the press – they were backfeeding the Press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, fu*king c*cksucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the Russian military intelligence service leaked it.
Listen below, or read the full transcript by Reddit user /u/candylotus:
And with that, Rod Wheeler and Seymour Hersh – in their own words, all but confirmed that Seth Rich directly provided Wikileaks with the emails which were leaked during the election. Moreover, and this can’t be overlooked – Hersh accused the Obama administration, and John Brennan in particular, of fabricating the Russia narrative.
Awan Brothers connection?
In a pair of odd tweets from last week, Wheeler hints that the arrest of DNC IT staffer Imran Awan is somehow connected to the Seth Rich case:
An internal investigation has been opened to find out why D.C Capitol Police sent it’s elite tactical team to Nancy Pelosi’s waterfront condo during the shooting of congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA), according to Bloomberg.
The tactical squad did make it to the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia, where the shooting took place and it’s unclear how much time the unit lost because of the mix-up. It also wasn’t clear whether the squad arrived at Pelosi’s house or was redirected en route. –Bloomberg
Scalise was shot at the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia – while Pelosi’s residence is over seven miles away.
On Monday, Capitol Police spokesperson Eva Malecki stated “The Alexandria incident continues to be an ongoing investigation. We do not comment on ongoing investigations.”
Congressional Republicans were practicing for an annual baseball game vs. Democrats when James Hodgkinson of Belleville, IL showed up with a 9mm handgun and a 7.62 caliber rifle. Hodgkinson reportedly asked passers by where conservatives were practicing, before opening fire on the GOP members. Two officers assignd to Rep. Scalise’s security detail were the first to return fire at the gunman, followed by Alexandria police officers. The shooter was shot dead before the Capitol Police tactical team re-routed from Pelosi’s residence – late to the party.
Scalise was seriously injured in the shooting, undergoing multiple surgeries only to be released last week.
Ben Rhodes, former aide to President Obama, is a “person of interest” in the House Intel Committee’s unmasking investigation, according to Sara Carter of Circa News.
Former Obama White House National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes is now an emerging as a person of interest in the House Intelligence Committee’s unmasking investigation, according to a letter sent Tuesday by the committee to the National Security Agency (NSA). This adds Rhodes to the growing list of top Obama government officials who may have improperly unmasked Americans in communications intercepted overseas by the NSA, Circa has confirmed.
House Intel Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) reportedly sent a letter to the NSA requesting information on the number of ‘unmasking’ requests Rhodes made between Jan 1, 2016 and Jan 20, 2017, and have requested that the information be made available to the committee no later than August 21.
All Rhodes lead to jail
If the unmasking rumors are true, Rhodes – a former deputy national security advisor under Obama, is in deep shit – joining a list of Obama admin officials included in the House Intel Committee probe, along with former CIA director John Brennan, Susan Rice, and former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. A letter sent last week from Nunes to Trump’s director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, suggested that hundreds of unmasking requests were made during the 2016 presidential elections.
Per Circa:
The story, which was first reported by The Hill last week, stated that the requests were made without specific justifications as to why the unmasking was necessary. Rice and Brennan have confirmed they sought the unredacted names of Americans in NSA-sourced intelligence reports but insisted their requests were routine parts of their work and had no nefarious intentions.
Power also has legal authority to unmask officials, though the practice has not reportedly been common for someone in her position.
Last week, the Washington Examiner reported that Ben Rhodes sat down with the House Intelligence Committee, the same day Jared Kushner apparently dazzled them with his performance.
It was already known that Jared Kushner, top adviser and son-in-law to President Trump, on Tuesday spoke with members of the panel, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. CNN’s Manu Raju tweeted Tuesday evening that the network’s chief political analyst Gloria Borger had learned that Rhodes also spoke to the committee.
The Intelligence Committee is investigating intelligence leaks, and Rhodes has become a person of interest for certain Republicans as someone who may be playing a role in the leaking of classified information from the Trump administration to reporters.
This news follows a report that Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) named Ben Rhodes as the creator of an ‘in-house echo chamber’ meant to mislead reporters and the public about President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, stating “Any Obama holdover at any of these agencies, you’ve got to get them out of there because clearly they’re not on the same team and particularly on the [White House] National Security Council,” adding “I think Congress and some members of the Intelligence Committee can call Ben Rhodes to testify . . . He may be able to invoke executive privilege from when Obama was president but he definitely can’t do that in any interactions he’s had since then.” –Washington Free Beacon
Was recently installed White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s stance on human trafficking and drug cartels a factor in President Trump’s decision to promote the man originally picked to head up Homeland Security?
In a revealing 2014 interview, the retired 4-star US Marine Corps general told PRISM magazine that the ‘most concerning’ threat facing the United States comes from international criminal networks trafficking in drugs and sex workers:
These are international criminal networks – everything gets in. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of illicit narcotics. Relatively small amounts are taken out of the flow by our border controls. Tens of thousands of sex workers, in many cases adolescents, come into the United States every year through these networks to serve the sex industry. I spoke at a human rights conference at the University of South Florida, in Tampa. The audience was shocked when I talked about sex workers. –Gen John Kelly
Speaking Trump’s language
Upon taking office, President Trump made the fight against human trafficking and pedophilia a top priority for his administration – kicked off by a human trafficking awareness ad released in early February by the Department of Homeland Security (headed by… General Kelly, 67).
Wow, new DHS / ICE Human Trafficking vid opens with a #Pizzagate ref: "The signs are there, sometimes you just have to take a second look" pic.twitter.com/DgatsUnWzq
That was only the beginning. Five days later on February 9, Trump signed an Executive Order to combat human trafficking (“Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking”).
Then in late February, Trump told a room of advisors and representatives from anti-trafficking organizations that he vowed to fight the ‘epidemic’ of human trafficking, promising to bring the ‘full force and weight‘ of the U.S. government to address the problem. Of note, a record 1500+ arrests of pedophiles or sex traffickers were made during Trump’s first month in office.
And in a June speech at a launch ceremony for the State Department’s 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, Ivanka Trump said that ending human trafficking is in our ‘moral and strategic interests,’ and a top White House priority.
“Ending human trafficking is a major foreign policy priority of the Trump administration,” -Ivanka Trump
Finally, last Friday, President Trump told a group of law enforcement officials on New York that human trafficking is possibly worse ‘than it’s ever been in the history of the world.’
You go back 1,000 years, where you think of human trafficking, you go back 500 years, 200 years, 100 years, human trafficking, they say — think of it, what they do — human trafficking is worse now, maybe, than it’s ever been in the history of this world. -Donald Trump
Map of human trafficking, polarisproject.org
In 2004, the State Department estimated between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across an international border each year – of which 70 percent are thought to be female, and 50 percent minors. According to the Daily Caller: The Polaris Project, a human trafficking-focused NGO, estimates that the issue of human trafficking in the U.S. is getting worse. From 2015 to 2016, reported human trafficking cases jumped by 35 percent; reports of labor trafficking, in particular, jumped by 47 percent from 2015 to 2016.
MS-13
Trump’s February Executive Order was aimed at international cartels dealing in both drugs and human trafficking – and MS-13 has been singled out as a primary threat.
These groups are drivers of crime, corruption, violence, and misery. In particular, the trafficking by cartels of controlled substances has triggered a resurgence in deadly drug abuse and a corresponding rise in violent crime related to drugs. Likewise, the trafficking and smuggling of human beings by transnational criminal groups risks creating a humanitarian crisis.
The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S. We are removing them fast!
In addition to AG Jeff Sessions targeting MS-13 last month, Trump vowed to ‘destroy the vile criminal cartel’ during last Friday’s speech to law enforcement professionals. “[MS-13 has] transformed peaceful parks and beautiful quiet neighborhoods into blood-stained killing fields,” Trump said. “They’re animals. We cannot tolerate as a society the spilling of innocent, young, wonderful vibrant people”
For a brief look into the gang, Tucker Carlson recently traveled to El Salvador for his week-long series “Hunting MS-13,” which includes an interview with a cartel assassin:
To that end, Gen. Kelly also shared his thoughts on cartels in 2014 with PRISM magazine:
These are international criminal networks – everything gets in. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of illicit narcotics. Relatively small amounts are taken out of the flow by our border controls.
“Could someone come in with a weapon of mass destruction, biological weapon travel on this network?” Of course! Last year [2013], this network carried 68,000 children into the United States. We are dealing with a very efficient network, which worries me.
Can you see why Trump chose Kelly from the beginning?
John Kelly is a plain spoken pragmatist who lost his son in President Bush’s ill fated desert wars. He understands crime – both within the United States, and the external elements which fuel the problem. He speaks of democracy and sovereign rights. When asked by PRISM magazine in 2014 about anti-American sentiment brewing in South America, Kelly responded “if they are all functioning democracies – as we understand it with a functioning free press, with functioning human rights protections, with militaries sub-ordinate to civilian control – they have every right to go in any direction they want and choose their alliances.”
In other words, Kelly’s core values are in alignment with the constitution and the ‘law and order’ presidency Trump promised when he was elected. He’s also a disciplinarian, a seasoned voice of reason, and perhaps most importantly – a key player in the shrinking circle of advisors the President can trust.
The first wave of insiders began selling locked up shares on Monday, with a broad-scale expiration kicking into gear August 14 – however as 
