RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/11/article/weak-consumer-economic-slump-could-sink-trump-re-election-bid/

US President Donald Trump’s case for re-election in 2020 comes down to his economic record. New forecasts from two Federal Reserve banks, though, warn of near-recession conditions just as the presidential election campaign is getting underway.

Both the New York Federal Reserve “Nowcast” model and the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s “GDPNow” model predict that US economic growth will slow to barely above zero during 2019’s fourth quarter. Both models translate the latest data releases from government agencies into overall GDP growth. The NY Fed’s forecast stands at 0.4% annualized GDP growth and the Atlanta Fed model shows just 0.3%. This degree of convergence is rare, and the dip from an estimated 1.9% growth rate during the third quarter to 0.3%-0.4% is alarming.

Eighteen months ago the Trump Administration advertised the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s forecast as proof of its success. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told CNBC in June 2018, “The Atlanta Fed is projecting 4.7% [GDP growth]. I have no idea whether it will be that high. But a year ago, people were laughing when we talked about 3% GDP. We have an economy that’s here because of the president’s tax plan and the president’s regulatory relief.”

The administration isn’t bragging about the Atlanta Fed’s present forecast of just 0.3% annualized GDP growth.

Since then GDP growth has fallen below 2%, as businesses cancel capital investment plans in response to uncertainty about global supply chains, following the Trump Administration tariff war on China and threatened bans on technology exports to Chinese companies. Consumer spending kept the economy growing despite shrinking CapEx and a manufacturing recession that is now in its third quarter. At just 12% of GDP, the manufacturing recession isn’t enough to tip the overall economy into recession.

https://nypost.com/2019/11/21/fiona-hill-and-dems-ignore-the-serious-evidence-of-ukrainian-2016-meddling/

In her testimony before the House impeachment inquiry, Fiona Hill, formerly of the National Security Council, took great pride in telling lawmakers she was a nonpartisan intelligence professional. She then labored mightily in service of a Democratic political narrative.

Specifically, Hill conflated two separate theories of Ukrainian collusion in the 2016 election. One of these is discredited, the other is quite viable. Hill helped the Democrats suggest that they have both been debunked.

Hill is too smart not to have grasped the effect of her testimony. This is exactly the kind of cynicism that fuels concerns about the unaccountable “deep state.”

To be sure, President Trump is largely to blame for propagating the discredited Ukraine theory. It holds that, somehow, it was Ukraine, rather than Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election by cyber-espionage against Democratic email accounts.

This is such a loopy theory, it defies clear explanation. Suffice it to say that it involves suspicions that a hacked DNC server is hidden in Ukraine. Perhaps, the speculation runs, it was Ukrainian operatives, not Russian ones, who were the culprits.

It is a fringe theory. No one who has closely followed the collusion caper puts any stock in it. Regrettably, the president is a hospitable audience for frivolous theories that cast doubt on Russia’s culpability, which he wrongly fears casts doubt on his legitimacy.

In his July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump appears to have pressed this theory about the server. He wanted Kiev to look into it, even though it is the consensus of American intelligence agencies that Moscow was behind the cyber hijinks.

In her testimony, Hill observed that Russia, which she rightly regards as our strategic rival, is delighted by the promotion of this debunked server theory. Anything that could undermine ties between Washington and Kiev promotes Moscow’s interest — putting in doubt our support for a former Soviet captive state that revanchist Russia has under siege.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/politics/fbi-fisa-russia-investigation/index.html?ofs=

Washington (CNN)A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.

The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.
The finding is expected to be part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s review of the FBI’s effort to obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide. Horowitz will release the report next month.
Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham’s criminal probe.

It’s unknown how significant a role the altered document played in the FBI’s investigation of Page and whether the FISA warrant would have been approved without the document. The alterations were significant enough to have shifted the document’s meaning and came up during a part of Horowitz’s FISA review where details were classified, according to the sources.

DOJ watchdog finds security risks in FBI handling of confidential sources

Some witnesses who have been interviewed in Horowitz’s investigation have said they expect the inspector general to find mistakes in the FBI’s handling of the FISA process, but that those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI’s investigation.