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No, Russian Bots Didn’t Cause Trump’s Poll Numbers To Increase 1 Percent Per 25K Retweets

Here is an accurate description of a new study‘s conclusions: “As Donald Trump secured greater support from Republicans and as the 2016 general election neared, pro-Trump content produced by a Russian bot got more attention on Twitter.”

The paper compares the popularity of Trump’s candidacy to the popularity of more than 700,000 English-language tweets sent by various accounts linked to the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA). The study’s authors found that every 25,000 retweets of IRA-run Twitter accounts correlated to a 1 percent uptick for Trump in presidential election polls.

Correlated being the key word there. Because if you ignore the distinction between correlation and causation, you might end up drawing a conclusion like this:

Or like this

Those are good ways to fire up the #Resistance, but both are misleading interpretations of the study, which was published today by First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to studying internet phenomena.

The study’s authors themselves point out the limitations inherent in their analysis, which was intended to test “prediction, not causality.” Indeed, they stress that “it seems unlikely that 25,000 re-tweets could influence one percent of the electorate in isolation.

More to the point, they caution that “any correlation established by an observational study could be spurious.” Despite a strong correlation between Trump’s popularity and increased Twitter-based interest in the Russian bot accounts, “There could still be a third variable driving the relationship between IRA Twitter success and U.S. election opinion polls,” they write. “We controlled for one of these—the success of Donald Trump’s personal Twitter account—but there are others that are more difficult to measure; including exposure to the U.S domestic media.”

It would hardly be surprising to learn that more Americans became more engaged in politics as the 2016 election drew nearer, or that there would be a larger audience for pro-Trump content on Twitter as the primaries concluded and inter-GOP opposition to Trump’s candidacy subsided. Indeed, the study find that one major spike in both Trump’s popularity and the attention received by IRA-run Twitter accounts was associated with the 2016 Republican National Convention. Historically, pretty much all presidential candidates have seen an increase in support after being officially nominated.

Now, it’s certainly possible that Russian tweets changed some Americans’ minds about who to support in 2016—though there’s no reason to think those tweets were any more potent than content created by regular Americans or the campaigns themselves.

Blaming Trump’s election on the magical power of Russian Twitter bots is seductive because it gets Americans off the hook for elevating an obviously unqualified candidate to the most powerful office in the world. If understanding Trump’s victory was as simple as adding up the number of retweets on pro-Trump Twitter accounts, we’d be spared the more difficult task of dealing with the political and cultural forces—domestic ones—that put him in the White House.

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GoFundMe For Journalist Beaten By Portland Antifa Hits 300% Of Goal In One Day

A GoFundMe campaign for a conservative journalist who was beaten and robbed by members of Portland’s Antifa cell has raised nearly 300% of its $50,000 goal within 24 hours – currently standing at $149,590 as of this writing.  

Ngo, a journalist and editor at Quillette, was covering a Portland Antifa rally when he was beaten and soaked in liquids which police believe contained quick-drying cement. He was hospitalized after the attack, in which he claims that his GoPro camera was stolen. 

The GoFundMe was set up by conservative author and commentator Michelle Malkin.

 

“There were reports of individuals throwing ‘milkshakes’ with a substance mixed in that was similar to a quick-drying cement. One subject was arrested for throwing a substance during the incident,” according to the Portland police. 

That said, BuzzFeed‘s Joe Bernstein says he did not see any concrete being poured into the milkshakes – which doesn’t discount them pouring it in right before the attack. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LuVFEh Tyler Durden

Surprise Rate Spike In Overnight Repo Stuns Traders

Back on January 2, we showed what was arguably the strangest move that took place on the last trading day of 2018, when the overnight general collateral repo rate shot up from 2.5% to as high as 6.125% on Monday, Dec. 31,  the biggest one day move on record, bringing overnight GC repo to the highest level since January 2001.

To be sure, while violent year-end moves are well-known in the overnight funding markets, the magnitude of the Dec. 31 surge was simply unprecedented, and commenting on the GC Repo surge, Scott Skyrm, EVP at Curvature Securities said that “the cash never came in,” noting that while “funding pressure should be about 50 basis points” and yet what we got was “350 basis points.”

Numerous theories emerged to try and explain this unprecedented move, with most agreeing that this was a case of aggressive quarter and year-end liquidity (mis) management by banks, with Bloomberg pointing out that as banks “tidy their balance sheets at year-end when regulatory surcharges are calculated… As part of their bid to lessen these regulatory imposts, banks tend to pare their exposure to repo, which in turn makes it more expensive for borrowers.” Others also blamed such artifacts of the increasingly broken market as shrinking reserves, regulatory requirements and year-end window dressing.

“It was an atypical but typical year-end, because bank balance sheets were even more scarce than people thought,” TD Securities analyst Gennadiy Goldberg said, adding that it “isn’t a funding issue, it’s balance-sheet scarcity that was worse than expected.”

We bring this up because this morning we saw precisely the same overnight funding spike in the repo market strike again, only this time with a twist.

As repo market expert, Scott Skyrm, once again first noted, about half way through the morning, there was a major back-up in rates. “At first it appeared as though it was a dislocation between collateral sellers and buyers, but quickly it was apparent some cash did not yet return to the market after quarter-end”, Skyrm noted.

No doubt it was a combination of quarter-end carryover, traders on vacation, and the $41 billion in net new issuance settling today. But the magnitude of the move is very surprising.

The chart below shows just how surprising the intraday GC repo surge truly was:

But what was even more surprising than the repo spike which was a carbon copy of the market shock observed on Dec 31, if slightly lower in magnitude, is that unlike back then, the June “quarter-end” cash dislocation did not occur on quarter-end this time around; instead it occurred the day after, sparking even more questions about what caused this delayed aftershock, and confirming that whatever liquidity plumbing and funding issues existed at the turn of the year, they have not gone away.

The good news, according to Skyrm, is that while the market is expecting some continued carry-over pressure with GC priced at 2.55%-2.52% for tomorrow, he expects rates will be back to normal on Wednesday; probably opening at 2.47%-2.45%. In other words, the funding market may be broken, but at least it is so for just one or two days (for now) per year.

And in totally separate news, today’s auction of 3-Month Treasury bills priced at 2.145%, notably higher than the 2.085% previous week. According to Bloomberg, “the backup in yield at Monday’s three-month Treasury bill auction suggests some investors are starting to consider the impending debt-ceiling deadline, since that’s when the Treasury could potentially exhaust its current borrowing authority.”

And so, for those who keep tabs on objects in the market’s wall of worry, they can now add the Technical Default of the US Treasury to the list of catalyst that will keep pushing the S&P well above 3,000 for the next few months.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xhispw Tyler Durden

Deceptive Data Make Georgia’s Film Tax Credit Program Look Less Wasteful

Georgia’s film industry gets some big tax credits from the state government—$800 million’s worth in 2018. Both the government and the movie production companies love to claim that these subsidies bring a huge return. The eye-popping figure you usually see claims that the credits produced $9.5 billion in economic benefits in 2018 alone.

But that number is almost certaily wrong. It includes less than $3 billion in direct spending from the film industry. The rest is supposed to come from the multiplier effect, in which each dollar spent creates more spending throughout the economy. And economists have some serious questions about how valid that estimate is.

J.C. Bradbury of Kennesaw State University has argued that using a more realistic multiplier, the film industry generates, at most, $4.2 billion in annual economic output. Similarly, Bruce Seaman of Georgia State University thinks the film industry is responsible for just $6 billion in economic benefits. The state Department of Economic Development estimates that for every dollar the film industry spends in the state, overall spending increases by $3.57; Seaman argues the real value is closer to $1.87.  

Georgia isn’t the only state to inflate the benefits of film production. 

One especially dubious study of film tax credits, prepared for the New Mexico State Film Office, claimed that tourism alone driven by the filming of No Country for Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Wild Hogs (a forgettable 2007 comedy starring Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, and John Travolta as an over-the-hill biker gang) generated more than $100 million in income for state residents over a four-year span.

In other words, a lot of people supposedly wanted to see where Indiana Jones survived a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge or where John Travolta dressed like this:

Color me skeptical.

Most research on film tax credits show that they don’t have much of an impact on economic growth. A National Bureau of Economic Research study from this June found that film subsidies only have a marginal impact on where TV series are filmed, and that they do not increase feature film location, employment, economic growth, or wages. Studies from Michigan and Massachusetts have found that the average length of a job credited to a film tax incentive program lasts less than a month. 

Subsidies can even hurt a state economy, by shifting economic resources away from productive industries and toward politically connected ones. If it weren’t for the tax subsidies, the money that Georgia directs to film production could instead go to reducing taxes broadly, allowing the people of the state to decide which businesses to support. In the meantime, there’s a good chance production companies would come even without the subsidies. 

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Deceptive Data Make Georgia’s Film Tax Credit Program Look Less Wasteful

Georgia’s film industry gets some big tax credits from the state government—$800 million’s worth in 2018. Both the government and the movie production companies love to claim that these subsidies bring a huge return. The eye-popping figure you usually see claims that the credits produced $9.5 billion in economic benefits in 2018 alone.

But that number is almost certaily wrong. It includes less than $3 billion in direct spending from the film industry. The rest is supposed to come from the multiplier effect, in which each dollar spent creates more spending throughout the economy. And economists have some serious questions about how valid that estimate is.

J.C. Bradbury of Kennesaw State University has argued that using a more realistic multiplier, the film industry generates, at most, $4.2 billion in annual economic output. Similarly, Bruce Seaman of Georgia State University thinks the film industry is responsible for just $6 billion in economic benefits. The state Department of Economic Development estimates that for every dollar the film industry spends in the state, overall spending increases by $3.57; Seaman argues the real value is closer to $1.87.  

Georgia isn’t the only state to inflate the benefits of film production. 

One especially dubious study of film tax credits, prepared for the New Mexico State Film Office, claimed that tourism alone driven by the filming of No Country for Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Wild Hogs (a forgettable 2007 comedy starring Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, and John Travolta as an over-the-hill biker gang) generated more than $100 million in income for state residents over a four-year span.

In other words, a lot of people supposedly wanted to see where Indiana Jones survived a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge or where John Travolta dressed like this:

Color me skeptical.

Most research on film tax credits show that they don’t have much of an impact on economic growth. A National Bureau of Economic Research study from this June found that film subsidies only have a marginal impact on where TV series are filmed, and that they do not increase feature film location, employment, economic growth, or wages. Studies from Michigan and Massachusetts have found that the average length of a job credited to a film tax incentive program lasts less than a month. 

Subsidies can even hurt a state economy, by shifting economic resources away from productive industries and toward politically connected ones. If it weren’t for the tax subsidies, the money that Georgia directs to film production could instead go to reducing taxes broadly, allowing the people of the state to decide which businesses to support. In the meantime, there’s a good chance production companies would come even without the subsidies. 

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Peter Schiff: The Reality On Wall Street

Via SchiffGold.com,

The Dow Jones just had its best June since 1938. Overall, stocks were up around 7% last month. It was also the best first half for stocks in 22 years.

Meanwhile, gold gained about 8% on the month. As Peter pointed out in his latest podcast, while stocks had significant gains in dollar terms, they actually lost value in terms of real money.

And as Peter pointed out, when you look at the recent stock market gains, you have to put them into context.

The only reason that the market has done so well this year is because it got destroyed in the fourth quarter of last year. Remember, we had the worst December since the Great Depression as well.”

In fact, if you factor in the fourth quarter of last year, the Dow is only up one-half percent. The S&P 500 has gained about 1% and the Nasdaq is up .5%. In fact, the Dow Transports are actually down about 9% over the last three quarters, and the Russell 2000 is down 8%.

So, there you get a much better picture of what’s actually going on in the US stock markets than if you just focus on what’s happened in 2019 and ignore what happened in the end of 2018.”

To really put it into perspective, look at the price of gold. Since the end of Q3 2018 the yellow metal is up 18%.

That is a huge move in the price of gold during that period of time. Now, I think that in the future we can see even bigger moves than what we’ve just seen, but that put the rise in the Dow in perspective because it’s not the Dow that’s going up. Gold has gone up, so in gold-terms, the Dow has lost value.”

And why has this happened?

It’s all about the Fed.

The Fed has done a complete 180 on monetary policy and that is what has driven what I believe is a bear market rally in the US stock market.”

And Peter said he thinks the last three quarters are really more indicative of what we’re going to see over the next several years then what we’ve seen over the past few years when investors were delusional. They were operating under the false premise that everything was great and the Federal Reserve could simply unwind its stimulus and normalize interest rates and shrink its balance sheet.

None of that was true. That was a fantasy. And as reality replaces that fantasy, US stocks are going to have a very, very tough time and the dollar is going to have even a tougher time.”

Peter highlighted some more negative economic data that came out last week — specifically weak manufacturing numbers.

All the actual data that we’re getting is indicating that the economy is weakening, which is the only thing that is powering the stock market rally, because the stock market is preparing for a new injection of monetary stimulus. The Fed is going to be cutting interest rates next month and I think the rate cuts are going to be followed by more quantitative easing.”

Peter reiterated that he doesn’t think it’s going to work this time. Nobody really expected the aggressive easy-money policy we got for nearly a decade after the 2008 crash. Now, everybody expects it. They are even begging for it.

When they get what they want, I don’t think it’s going to work because I think it will be more of a buy the rumor sell the fact.”

Peter said he doesn’t think it’s going to have the same effect as it did the last time around. He thinks long-term interest rates will rise despite the Fed’s efforts to suppress them. He thinks consumer prices will rise sharply.

And the political climate could make things even worse – especially if one of these 20 Democratic Party presidential candidates wins the 2020 election.

Peter goes on to break down some of the political dynamics.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NoNtYZ Tyler Durden

Reason Brings Home 4 First-Place Wins at the Southern California Journalism Awards

The Los Angeles Press Club just held its annual awards ceremony to recognize the best journalism produced by media companies headquartered in Southern California. Reason, which is based in Los Angeles, was nominated in 19 categories; we walked away from Sunday night’s gala with four wins, six second-place awards, and two third-place prizes. Our crew is quite pleased, and we hope that our supporters and readers are as well.

First place in humor and satire writing across all platforms: Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg, and Andrew Heaton for “Groundhog Day: 2018”

Judges’ comment: “Tightly written, devastatingly funny and spot on media critique.”

First place in minority and immigration reporting from a print outlet: Shikha Dalmia for “Sanctuary Churches Take in Immigrants and Take on Trump.”

Judges’ comment: “This is the most thorough and complete entry, although it lacks the humanity of the second-place finisher. In fact, this was a toss-up to decide, because each story expertly hit the mark it was aiming for. But given the immigration news of the past year, a deep policy dive might be the more crucial journalism.”

First place for an investigative article in a print magazine: Jacob Sullum for “America’s War on Pain Pills Is Killing Addicts and Leaving Patients in Agony.”

Judges’ comment: “A well-researched poignant story on the impact on the war on pain pills that unwittingly affects patients who really need them.”

First place for an investigative TV or film piece: Jim Epstein for “The $15 Minimum Wage Is Turning Hard Workers Into Black Market Lawbreakers.”

Judge’s comment: “Great story. It goes past the coverage of one event and shows its future effects. Good use of visuals and a strong narrative.”

Second place for obituary/in appreciation across all platforms: Todd Krainin for “Travel Shows Were Boring as F*ck. Then Came Anthony Bourdain.”

Second place for editorials across all print: Katherine Mangu-Ward for “When Fixing the Problem Makes It Worse.”

Second place for a non-entertainment profile or interview in TV or film: Nick Gillespie, Justin Monticello, and Todd Krainin for “Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Cult of Silicon Valley.”

Second place for a soft news feature published online: C.J. Ciaramella for “The Radical Freedom of Dungeons & Dragons.”

Second place for sports commentary published online: Eric Boehm for “Curling Is the Closest the Olympics Ever Get to Anarchy.” 

Second place for magazine columns: J.D. Tuccille for “Embrace the Dirt Nap.” 

Third place for a personality profile in politics/business/arts industries appearing in a magazine: Matt Welch for “Jordan Peterson Is Not the Second Coming.”

Third place for a news feature over five minutes: Zach Weissmueller for “Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build a Foxconn Plant.”

Going through Reason‘s published work from 2018 in order to put together our awards submissions reminded me that this team punches far above its annual budget across platforms and categories. I am deeply grateful to our readers, to our donors, and to our colleagues in the media industry, who judged these awards. They are not the only—and certainly not the most significant—way to measure our reach and impact, but we are nevertheless proud. If you give to Reason or share our work, you should be proud too.

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Traders Sell The Trade-Truce News But S&P Holds Record Highs

A China trade truce, surging chip stocks, and bad (economic) news that must be good ammo for The Fed to cut, BUT stocks faded all the gains – simply put, it’s never enough!!

 

Chinese stocks surged on the trade-truce and while they maintained gains, the afternoon session saw barely any follow-through…

 

European stocks opened dramatically higher (on the trade truce) but faded practically non-stop from the open with Italy ending unch…

German bund yields fell to new record (negative) lows today and Italian yields dropped below 2.00% for the first time since May 2018…

 

Almost from the cash market open, US equities went in only one direction as “sell the news” dominated the nothing-burger truce deal…

 

Stocks managed a pretty good run into the close starting at 3pmET to ensure The S&P closed at a record closing high…

 

The Nasdaq outperformed however, helped by the biggest gap-up opening in SOX (Semis dramatically outperformed) in its history…

 

But notably, Nasdaq Composite failed to make new highs and was down by around 100 points from the highs…

 

Giant short-squeeze at the US cash open – for the 3rd day in a row…

 

Treasury yields were higher on the day by around 2-3bps across the curve (after rallying from the higher yield open to unchanged)…

 

10Y Yields tested down to 2.00% once again (but bounced)…

 

As it seems “sell all the things hit shortly after the US open)

 

The dollar surged (retracing almost the Fib 61.8% of the post-FOMC losses)…

 

Yuan erased almost all of its trade-truce gains…

 

Cryptos extended the weekend’s declines…

 

Led by Bitcoin which tested below $10,000 briefly…

 

As the 2017 analog loses its trajectory…

 

Dollar strength sent commodities broadly lower (even WTI faded despite OPEC+ deal chatter), gold and silver was least hit…

Gold fell back below $1400…

 

Oil price behavior was quite shocking, spiking on hype about an OPEC+ deal (Russia and Saudi agreeing a deal at G-20), then rolling over from the US equity market open, then spiking towards the NYMEX close…

 

And if the trade truce is so awesome, why did copper crap the bed?

 

Finally, more dismal global macro data today, not helped at all by the US…

Seems to confirm bonds have it right…

So for all those buying stocks, do you really feel that lucky?

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Lwz22r Tyler Durden

Reason Brings Home 4 First-Place Wins at the Southern California Journalism Awards

The Los Angeles Press Club just held its annual awards ceremony to recognize the best journalism produced by media companies headquartered in Southern California. Reason, which is based in Los Angeles, was nominated in 19 categories; we walked away from Sunday night’s gala with four wins, six second-place awards, and two third-place prizes. Our crew is quite pleased, and we hope that our supporters and readers are as well.

First place in humor and satire writing across all platforms: Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg, and Andrew Heaton for “Groundhog Day: 2018”

Judges’ comment: “Tightly written, devastatingly funny and spot on media critique.”

First place in minority and immigration reporting from a print outlet: Shikha Dalmia for “Sanctuary Churches Take in Immigrants and Take on Trump.”

Judges’ comment: “This is the most thorough and complete entry, although it lacks the humanity of the second-place finisher. In fact, this was a toss-up to decide, because each story expertly hit the mark it was aiming for. But given the immigration news of the past year, a deep policy dive might be the more crucial journalism.”

First place for an investigative article in a print magazine: Jacob Sullum for “America’s War on Pain Pills Is Killing Addicts and Leaving Patients in Agony.”

Judges’ comment: “A well-researched poignant story on the impact on the war on pain pills that unwittingly affects patients who really need them.”

First place for an investigative TV or film piece: Jim Epstein for “The $15 Minimum Wage Is Turning Hard Workers Into Black Market Lawbreakers.”

Judge’s comment: “Great story. It goes past the coverage of one event and shows its future effects. Good use of visuals and a strong narrative.”

Second place for obituary/in appreciation across all platforms: Todd Krainin for “Travel Shows Were Boring as F*ck. Then Came Anthony Bourdain.”

Second place for editorials across all print: Katherine Mangu-Ward for “When Fixing the Problem Makes It Worse.”

Second place for a non-entertainment profile or interview in TV or film: Nick Gillespie, Justin Monticello, and Todd Krainin for “Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Cult of Silicon Valley.”

Second place for a soft news feature published online: C.J. Ciaramella for “The Radical Freedom of Dungeons & Dragons.”

Second place for sports commentary published online: Eric Boehm for “Curling Is the Closest the Olympics Ever Get to Anarchy.” 

Second place for magazine columns: J.D. Tuccille for “Embrace the Dirt Nap.” 

Third place for a personality profile in politics/business/arts industries appearing in a magazine: Matt Welch for “Jordan Peterson Is Not the Second Coming.”

Third place for a news feature over five minutes: Zach Weissmueller for “Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build a Foxconn Plant.”

Going through Reason‘s published work from 2018 in order to put together our awards submissions reminded me that this team punches far above its annual budget across platforms and categories. I am deeply grateful to our readers, to our donors, and to our colleagues in the media industry, who judged these awards. They are not the only—and certainly not the most significant—way to measure our reach and impact, but we are nevertheless proud. If you give to Reason or share our work, you should be proud too.

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All Is Not Well In ‘Deep-State’ World

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Stagecraft

The playwrights of yore had a neat way of resolving sticky plots: when it seemed all was lost among the confounded mortals on stage, a supernatural figure would descend from the riggings above the proscenium, lowered in a basket on a cable — Moliere liked to use an actor playing Louis XIV, his patron — to resolve, untangle, forgive, and pardon all the complications of the story. This device is known as the Deus ex Machina, God in a machine.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced last week that ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to descend from on-high into the witness chair of Mr. Nadler’s House committee chamber on July 17, presumably to resolve all the conundrums left by his semi-inconclusive RussiaGate report. Remember, in his nine-minute homily on May 29, Mr. Mueller said that if called to testify, he would only answer by referring to the text of his report — hallowed in Wokesterdom until its disappointing release.

Mr. Mueller’s notion of testimony-by-script is at least as unorthodox as his innovation of pronouncing the object of his criminal inquiry “not exonerated,” an unprecedented and certainly extra-legal spin to the prosecutorial standard of finding an indictable offense or not — without added aspersions, insinuations, and defamations. Meanwhile, Mr. Mueller’s standing as a potent God figure has eroded badly. He started out in 2017 as the Avenging Angel in a Brooks Brother’s suit, morphed into Yahweh as the RussiaGate Mob patiently awaited his Last Judgment, and then got demoted to mere Sphinx-hood after his Sacred Text failed its basic task: to oust the Golden Golem of Greatness from his unholy occupation of the White House.

Did Mr. Nadler summon Mr. Mueller from beach or lake-side to just recite chapter and verse from his report? What would be the point of that? Well, perhaps to whip up enough media froth to refresh the public’s memory of how Comrade Trump stole the 2016 election at the bidding of his Russian handlers. Is that all?

Could be.

The problem is that Mr. Nadler’s majority Democrat members are not the only ones who get to ask questions. Did the Chairman forget that? Or did he think the minority — including Reps. Collins, Jordan, Gohmert, and Gaetz — would just lob softballs at the witness?

I can think of a few 90-mph sliders I’d like to pitch to Mr. Mueller, some of them already floated in the press: like,

why did you allow the GI cell phones of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to be destroyed shortly after you were informed about their unprofessional and compromising text exchanges, for which they were fired off your “team?”

When did you learn that international men-of-mystery Stefan Halper and Josef Mifsud, whose operations spurred your prosecutions, were not Russian agents but rather in the employ of US and British government intel agencies?

Your deputy, Andrew Weissmann, was informed by Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr in the summer of 2016, months before your appointment, that the predicating documents for your inquiry, known as the Steele Dossier, amounted to a Clinton campaign oppo research digest — when did he happen to tell you that?

You devoted nearly 20 pages of your report to the Trump Tower meeting between the president’s son, Donald, Jr., and two Russians, lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin. Why did you omit to mention that both Russians were in the employ of Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS company, candidate Clinton’s oppo research contractor, and met with Mr. Simpson both before and after the Trump Tower meeting?

How did it happen that you hired attorney Jeannie Rhee for your team, knowing that she had previously worked as a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation?

Under what legal standard did you pronounce Mr. Trump to be “not exonerated” in the obstruction of justice matter, considering you told the Attorney General, Mr. Barr, that it was not based on findings by the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel concerning presidential immunity from indictment?

The public has been well-distracted by the Democratic Party primary circus, and all reporting about the aftermath of RussiaGate has vanished from the front pages of the news media.

Ostensibly, Hillary Clinton is enjoying her solitary walks in the Chappaqua woods and all seems well in the Deep State world. Yet, consider that wild things lurk in those thickets. The DOJ Inspector General, Mr. Horowitz, is overdue with his own report — perhaps stymied by a lack of cooperation in wringing declassified documents from the hands of the many intel agencies involved… while Mr. Barr and his deputy, John Durham, are at work in the background on their own investigation. There will also be repercussions upcoming in the matter of General Flynn, who switched attorneys recently and may be reconsidering his guilty plea based on Mr., Mueller’s prosecutorial misconduct in withholding exculpatory evidence from Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court.

It’s just possible that Robert Mueller will not be reading chapter and verse from his sacred report, like an old-school Episcopal priest, but rather pleading the Fifth Amendment to avert his own potential prosecution.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FLgAQ5 Tyler Durden