Happy Friday Morning!
I’m traveling today so here’s a truncated version of your Morning Briefing.
Here’s what’s on the President’s agenda today:
- In the morning, President Trump will meet with National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster and National Economic Director Gary Cohn.
- In the afternoon, the President will meet with Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.
Rosenstein to be questioned
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been invited to brief the Senate next week.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will be invited to an all-senators briefing next week to discuss his role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed Thursday that he is working on scheduling the meeting.
“Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been meeting with members and has made himself available to the leadership as well,” said Don Stewart, the Kentucky Republican’s spokesman. “So the Leader is working on scheduling a briefing for members from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Once we have more information we’ll be sure to make an announcement.”
Rosenstein, along with AG Jeff Sessions, recommended that Jim Comey be fired from his job as FBI director. Senate Minority Leader Schumer sent a letter with dozens of questions to Rosenstein asking for more information about the Comey firing.
Additionally, Schumer has been grandstanding about Sessions’ involvement in Comey’s firing, making the claim that Sessions had recused himself from any investigation involving the Russian involvement in the 2016 election.
“My caucus still believes that Attorney General Sessions must be made available to the Senate in a similar capacity, given his reported role in firing Director Comey and helping to select his replacement,” Schumer said “Considering his recusal from the Russia investigation, his close involvement in these events warrants the Senate’s questioning as well.”
Here’s a new flash for Russia-truther Schumer: Sessions didn’t recuse himself from personnel matters. Don’t buy into the left’s narrative: Comey’s termination did not have anything to do with the Russia investigation, of which we still have no proof. None.
Narrative go BOOM
During a Senate hearing yesterday, acting Director McCabe exploded several of the narratives floated by the media and the left about Comey’s firing. We were told by our media betters that President Trump fired Comey to stop the agency’s investigation into Russia’s involvement and Russian “collusion” with the Trump campaign. We were told that Comey had asked for more money and the investigation was “heating up” so Trump had to get rid of him.
McCabe testified otherwise.
“Simply put, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing,” McCabe assured the Senate Intelligence Committee. “We don’t curtail our activities. We continue to focus on our mission to get the job done.”
Although various officials, including Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., have said that Comey had requested additional resources for the Russia inquiry, McCabe said he was not aware of such a request. “I believe we have the the adequate resources to do it,” McCabe said. “I can assure you we are covered.”
I guess we’ve put that speculation to bed. Just kidding! We’ll still be hearing this as if McCabe never testified.
Is Trump a subject of the FBI’s Russia investigation?
Yet another lie being shoved down our throats and repeated obsessively is that Trump is a subject of the FBI’s Russia investigation. ABC News has chosen this headline for its news story: Associates skeptical Comey cleared Trump in Russia investigation.
When Comey was asked specifically about this issue during his testimony to the Senate last week, he said:
“I don’t want people to over-interpret this answer. I am not going to comment on anyone in particular because that puts me down a slope, because if I say no to that then I have to answer succeeding questions. So, what we’ve done is we’ve briefed the chair and ranking on who the U.S. persons are that we’ve opened investigations on and that’s as far as we are going to go at this point.”
He was pushed by lefty Senator Richard Blumenthal, desperate for some material for sound bites for the “news.”
“So potentially, the President of the United States could be a target of your investigation into the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russian interference in our election, correct?”
Comey responded: “I just worry, I don’t want to answer that, that seems to me unfair speculation, we will follow the evidence, we will try and find as much as we can and we’ll follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
Since the FBI doesn’t confirm, deny or comments about ongoing investigations, a smart senator would have asked McCabe if Blumenthal was the subject of an FBI investigation into Russian influence in our election.
Similar questioning was put to McCabe yesterday, to which he responded: “We do not typically answer that question.”
But Senator Chuck Grassley had the Democrats’ number and blew the left’s innuendo up.
“Shortly after Director Comey briefed us, I tweeted that he should be transparent. I said he should tell the public what he told Senator Feinstein and me about whether the FBI is or is not investigating the President,” Grassley said.
Trump fired Comey on Tuesday. In a letter to Comey, Trump claimed that the newly fired FBI chief had told him on three separate occasions that he was not a target of the bureau’s probe.
“On Tuesday, the President’s letter said that Director Comey told him he was not under investigation. Senator Feinstein and I heard nothing that contradicted the President’s statement.”
And Senator DiFi confirmed what Grassley said.
“Thanks very much Mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate what you said and it’s very accurate. We were briefed, and the nature of the briefing was a counterintelligence and criminal investigation that the FBI who is carrying out and more than that, I will not say either,” she said.
Expect this to be ignored.
Final Morsels
Copenhagen imam accused of calling for killing of Jews
ICE arrests 1,378 suspected gang members in largest sweep to date
Trump put a voter ID hawk in charge of his ‘Election Integrity’ group
Study: 89% of colleges reported zero campus rapes in 2015
Saudis paid U.S. veterans to lobby against law allowing 9/11 families to sue kingdom
Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown Convicted Of Stealing From Phony Charity
MSNBC Freak Out: Trump Is ‘Over,’ Guilty of ‘Cover-Up’
Stained, missing surgical equipment at DC VA halts surgery, prompts warning
Now go beat back the angry mob!
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