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For a Successful Second Term, Trump Will Need a New Strategy in Senate Primaries

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When the president and his administration help Senate RINOs, they are helping senators who are sandbagging his campaign agenda.

The AP obtained a copy of an invitation to an event sponsored by President Trump’s campaign committee and the RNC to a joint fundraiser with Vice President Mike Pence and North Carolina’s junior senator, Thom Tillis, next week in Greensboro. Local media is reporting this as a signal of support from the White House for Tillis’ re-election.

Hasn’t the president learned his lesson of supporting RINOs only to have them bite him on every issue he campaigned on?

Senate Republicans are more liberal than ever before. Even if Republicans win back the House and Trump is re-elected, he will be no closer to passing any of his priorities on immigration, spending, or health care than he was during his first two years of trifecta control, because there are very few Republicans in the Senate who truly believe in his campaign promises.

Confirming conservative judges was one of the few unifying ideals of Senate Republicans, yet Mitt Romney voted against a well-qualified district judge nominee yesterday because he felt the nominee said mean things about Obama. But Trump endorsed Romney in the primary last year, thereby ending any attempt to challenge him.

This has been a broader point of frustration during Trump’s first term. He continuously endorses the very RINOs whom his party’s voters elected him to vanquish and then complains about the Senate undermining his campaign promises. Trump’s endorsement has the singular power to catapult struggling primary challengers into the lead against liberal Republican incumbents. At the very least, if Trump would remain neutral in the primaries, some challengers might have a fighting change, especially in North Carolina, where Tillis is now vulnerable to a challenge. But if Trump supports an incumbent, that is the kiss of death for any primary challenger.

Take a look at the Senate landscape this cycle. There are a number of open seats or incumbents in states where Trump won, often by large margins, in 2016.

Trump has the power to create for himself a more conservative Senate that will push for market-based health care, pass his budget proposals, back an America-first foreign policy, and codify his immigration priorities. Yet if he reflexively endorses incumbents and establishment picks, he is consigning his second term to complete doom.

Tillis has a 38% Liberty Score and is not a conservative on a single issue – social, fiscal, or national security. He has promoted amnesty from the day he set foot in the Senate. Tillis initially opposed Trump’s emergency declaration but changed course after he realized he’d face primary challengers.

At a time when House Democrats are trying to push back against Trump by codifying transgenderism into civil rights, Tillis is being honored by a “Republican” transgender group.

If you remember, Tillis refused to stand up for his former colleagues in the North Carolina legislature when they were combatting liberal cities that were allowing men into private female dressing rooms.

We are seeing the same thing with Lindsey Graham. Just because he is talking tough on Mueller and the FBI Hillary email scandal doesn’t mean he is suddenly a conservative on policy. Just because he is rhetorically cozying up to Trump doesn’t mean that the minute he is safe from a primary challenge, he will not give Trump hell on immigration and on his realist vision on foreign policy, especially since Graham is a shill for Qatar. Indeed, he is cozying up to Trump only for the purpose of avoiding a primary challenge. In fact, just yesterday, he had the nerve to say that “we need a conversation about the 11 million [illegal aliens already here]” at a time when his own policies have incentivized the current overwhelming flow.

The reality is that every Republican will come to Trump in a time of need. But they will not be there for him when he needs support in the Senate. Just the opposite: They will sandbag him with media virtue-signaling at every turn.

Every piece of leverage the president has is enmeshed in the budget process. Yet during every single budget battle since January 2017, McConnell and company have worked to give the Democrats everything they wanted on both spending and immigration. They are in the process of once again moving Trump to the Left on the disaster bill and on the budget caps and debt ceiling in September.

The president needs to think long and hard what his second term will look like if he continues supporting Republicans like Mitt Romney, Thom Tillis, and Lindsey Graham. But changing course in Senate electoral strategy will likely require a change in White House personnel. (For more from the author of “For a Successful Second Term, Trump Will Need a New Strategy in Senate Primaries” please click HER)

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GOP Voters Reveal What Trump’s ‘Top Priority’ Should Be For 2020

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By Breitbart. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Republican voters say President Trump’s top priorities ought to be building a wall along the United States-Mexico border and reducing all immigration to the country.

The latest Harvard/Harris Poll finds that when Republican voters are asked to rank the issues which should be Trump’s biggest priorities, building a wall at the southern border and reducing all immigration top the list.

Ranking as the top priority for Republicans, conservatives, and Trump supporters, 22 to 25 percent of these voters said building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border should be the president’s number one goal today. . .

Even among all U.S. voters, building a border wall and reducing all immigration to the country ranks as the fourth top priority. For swing voters, building a border wall and reducing all immigration are the third and fourth top priorities, following stimulating jobs and passing an infrastructure bill.

Recent polls found similar popularity for reducing all immigration to the U.S. among GOP voters and conservatives. In a Reuters/Ipsos Poll last month, GOP voters called immigration the “most important problem” facing the nation and a Harvard Institute of Politics poll found that young GOP voters were the most skeptical of immigration. (Read more from “GOP Voters Reveal What Trump’s ‘Top Priority’ Should Be” HERE)

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Defense chief’s border visit will highlight Trump priority

By Fox News. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is making his second trip to the U.S.-Mexican border to highlight what President Donald Trump calls a national emergency, after freeing up $1.5 billion more in Pentagon money to support wall construction.

Shanahan was flying to the Texas border town of McAllen on Saturday with the acting chief of Homeland Security Department, Kevin McAleenan, for a trip that demonstrates Shanahan’s attention to border security, a top Trump priority, amid questions from some in Congress about whether the border mission is an appropriate and wise use of military resources.

As a prelude to the trip, the White House on Thursday announced that Trump intends to nominate Shanahan as defense secretary, ending months of speculation about Pentagon leadership. He has served in an interim capacity since Jan. 1, an unprecedented period of uncertainty at the helm of the Pentagon.

Shanahan has supported the use of active-duty troops, in addition to the National Guard, to bolster Customs and Border Protection efforts to handle surging numbers of Central American migrants seeking to cross the border. But recently he has hinted at impatience with the lack of a long-term strategy for ensuring border security, which is the responsibility of DHS. (Read more from “Defense chief’s border visit will highlight Trump priority” HERE)

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Trump Wants America to Get to Mars

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President Trump on Monday announced a series of updates to his proposed budget for fiscal 2020, including funding amounts for the Special Olympics and the country’s space exploration program.

Trump fired off four tweets over a 10-minute stretch early Monday evening specifying the budget updates, several of which had been announced previously without dollar amounts. The president’s budget typically represents priorities for the administration and is rarely passed by Congress without changes. . .

The president also said his updated budget would include an additional $1.6 billion for NASA to focus on space exploration. Trump said the country is “going back to the Moon, then Mars.”

Vice President Pence said earlier this year that the Trump administration is committed to landing U.S. astronauts on the moon within the next five years. No human has landed on Mars.

The president on Monday also shared two environmental budget updates.

(Read more from “Trump Wants America to Get to Mars” HERE)

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Democrats Escalate Battle Over President Trump’s Taxes — Here’s What They Just Did

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By The Blaze. The House Ways and Means Committee issued subpoenas to obtain six years of President Donald Trump’s taxes after Treasury Secretary Mnuchin denied their request on Monday.

Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) issued a subpoena to Mnuchin and also to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig.

Mnuchin had first denied the request by saying he was going to ask for guidance from the Department of Justice, and then said that the committee’s request did not have the proper rationale for a “legitimate legislative purpose.”

Critics of Mnuchin say that he’s thumbing his nose at the oversight duty of Congress, while others say Democrats are overstepping their bounds with a politically motivated demand. (Read more from “Democrats Escalate Battle Over President Trump’s Taxes — Here’s What They Just Did” HERE)

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Key House Democrat Issues Subpoenas for Trump’s Tax Returns

By CNN. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal has issued subpoenas for President Donald Trump’s tax returns, the committee told CNN on Friday, an escalation in the fight for the President’s personal financial records and the latest step this week in Democrats’ battle for information from the Trump administration.

Neal sent subpoenas to both IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. A Treasury spokesman confirmed to CNN it has received Neal’s subpoena request.

Neal, who has unilateral subpoena power, took the step days after the Treasury Department formally denied Neal’s request for six years of the President’s personal and business tax returns earlier this week.

While Neal did not need a subpoena to eventually move to court, he issued the subpoenas on the advice of House counsel whom he consulted throughout the process about how to build the strongest legal case. (Read more from “Key House Democrat Issues Subpoenas for Trump’s Tax Returns” HERE)

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Dems Going After Major First Amendment SCOTUS Decision

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This week, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) resuscitated an old Democratic Party political enemy: The First Amendment-affirming 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In Citizens United, the Court held that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment generally prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by corporations, labor unions, and other similarly situated associations. The relevant statute, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, had prohibited any corporation from making an “electioneering communication” within 30 days of a primary election or within 60 days of a general election. The Citizens United decision, although well-grounded in the original understanding of the political speech-centric Free Speech Clause, has consistently been lambasted by the Left ever since it was handed down. Many on the Left criticize the “dark money” from corporations that the decision has allegedly allowed to flow out in the open.

Now, Schiff wants to bring back an effort to overturn the decision via constitutional amendment. CNN reports:

Rep. Adam Schiff on Wednesday introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which helped usher in a new era of big money in American elections.

“Our democracy is not for sale. We must stop the flood of dark money from drowning out the voices of everyday citizens,” the California Democrat said in a statement on Twitter. He said such an amendment would “restore power to the American people.”

By a 5-4 ruling, the high court in 2010 swept aside a ban on independent spending by corporations and unions in candidate elections, saying the restrictions amounted to censorship. Outside spending in federal elections has soared from $338 million in 2008, the last presidential election before the ruling, to $1.4 billion in 2016, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

(Read more from “Dems Going After Major First Amendment SCOTUS Decision” HERE)

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Pentagon Approves More Funds for Border Wall

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By Townhall. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has approved an additional $1.5 billion to build 80 more miles of President Trump’s border wall.

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(Read more from “Pentagon Approves More Funds for Border Wall” HERE)

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Pentagon Approves Plan to Shift $1.5B for Wall Along U.S.-Mexico Border

By Fox News. The Pentagon has approved a plan to spend an additional $1.5 billion to build 80 more miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News Friday.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan approved the re-allocation of funds, which were originally earmarked for support of Afghan security forces and other projects, to help pay for the wall along the southern border. . .

In March, Shanahan approved the first transfer of Defense Department dollars and redirected $1 billion to help build nearly 60 miles of wall in Yuma, Ariz. and El Paso, Texas.

The combined total of $2.5 billion is in response to President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border.

But the plan to divert Pentagon funding has sparked criticism from congressional Democrats, who accused Shanahan of not seeking approval to “reprogram” the funds without congressional authority. Shanahan and other senior defense officials claimed in response they did not have to get permission from Congress despite the objections from Democratic lawmakers. (Read more from “Pentagon Approves Plan to Shift $1.5B for Wall Along U.S.-Mexico Border” HERE)

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Trump Is Right to Oppose More ‘Disaster’ or Puerto Rico Spending – It’s Bloated Pork

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If Republicans merely got through their tenures without increasing net spending, it would be an unprecedented victory. Thankfully, President Trump is finally putting his foot down on yet another $17.3 billion disaster package winding its way through Congress.

In April, Republicans were ready to throw another $13.5 billion in disaster aid at the gods of political pork. Thankfully, they were stopped by the intransigence of the Left. Democrats felt that the $600 million earmarked for nutrition assistance for Puerto Rico wasn’t enough, even though they have already appropriated $40 billion in disaster aid and Puerto Rico has already received a quasi-bailout for its culture of debt.

But given how sensitive Republicans are to the identity politics inherent in squabbles over funding for Puerto Rico, they were on their way to pursuing their favorite pastime – caving to the Democrats on their spending demands – until President Trump stepped in and demanded an end to all new aid for the mismanaged island.

Today, House Democrats will vote on their $17.3 billion version (H.R. 2157) of disaster aid in the face of the looming veto threat from the president. While it’s not news that Democrats will pass this bill, what should be alarming is that Senate Republicans are planning to follow suit. Republicans continue to move to the Democrat position, begging them to accept even more money for Puerto Rico rather than holding their ground.

Agreeing to the entire premise of the Democrats that Puerto Rico is a national emergency instead of our border, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, “We’re open to additional Puerto Rican assistance” and, “We need to pass it out of the Senate before the Memorial Day recess.”

Here’s the reality. Under regular spending, all of the relevant agencies and departments receiving funding under this supplemental spending bill, particularly the Department of Transportation and HUD, have record high budgets thanks to huge spending over the past few years. Spending is now 13.7 percent higher than under Obama’s final year, and that is with the economy doing much better. On top of that, over the past few years, Congress already passed $117.5 billion in disaster spending in 2017 and included numerous disaster relief provisions in the appropriations bills of the past two fiscal years.

Additionally, much of the disaster aid has nothing to do with immediate emergency needs, but with filling the already bloated coffers of liberal HUD and Department of Agriculture programs. Much as with any package that is titled “children,” any bill titled “disaster relief” is beyond reproach, circumspection, or any verification of the need for each line item. Given that so much money has already been appropriated, no new funds should be appropriated in a rush without any oversight unless they are clearly urgent needs, not long-term policies.

This bill throws more money at the Community Development Block Grant program. The CDBG has long been a wasteful welfare program for low-income housing assistance and other local parochial projects that should have been shouldered by local governments long before any natural disasters hit. Trump’s OMB suggested eliminating it altogether, and even the Obama administration proposed cuts in fiscal year 2012 because, in their words, the program lacked a “focused impact,” making “the demonstration of outcomes difficult to measure and evaluate.” But the hurricanes provided liberals with a good opportunity for those always looking to expand this program to do so under the veneer of emergency spending, even though Congress already grew its budget by 88 percent in the budget deal last year.

While this bill covers long-term spending, not just emergency needs, it doesn’t offer long-term reforms that should accompany any immediate bailouts. Congress already enacted yet another $16 billion bailout of the flood insurance program without any desire to reform the government’s monopoly over flood insurance that has induced people to build in flood zones in the first place. This bill contains yet another extension of the program.

Perhaps the most egregious element is another $3 billion thrown at farm aid. Congress just passed a $900 billion farm bill in December, doubling down on massive subsidies for corporate farms and landowners who aren’t even farmers, while guaranteeing all protection from even “shallow loss” of revenue. This is the problem with Congress’ modus operandi of double- and triple-dipping. They embed endless individual and corporate welfare into the regular appropriations bills and then step on the gas pedal to raise the spending levels as quickly as possible. Then, when there is a disaster, they come back for more in supplemental disaster bills, as if they never spent money on these very programs before.

Then there is the issue of Puerto Rico. It’s terribly tragic that it was pummeled with a direct hit from Hurricane Maria, resulting in the death of thousands of island residents. But the hurricane was not the primary driver of Puerto Rico’s economic problems. The desire for more funding beyond the existing $40 billion aid package is coming more from the long-term fallout of its Venezuela-like Marxist economic system than from the immediate effects of the hurricane.

Puerto Rico managed to rack up more debt than its economic output long before Hurricane Maria. A huge 43 percent of its residents received food stamps long before Hurricane Maria. And 26 percent of Puerto Rican workers were employed by government and also receiving 30 days of vacation long before Hurricane Maria.

The bottom line is that there is no reason why the American people should be on the hook for throwing good money after bad money before Puerto Rico cleans up the systemic government corruption and socialism that existed before the natural disasters. Ideally, Puerto Rico should be given its independence, so it can prosper without any interference but also not rely on American welfare like a security blanket.

In the meantime, Congress should help Puerto Rico by repealing the 1920 Jones Act, which requires ships sailing within the United States to be built, owned, and managed by U.S. companies. It has hampered trade and imports for Puerto Rico by often doubling the cost of shipping.

Finally, there is the issue of the border. The true emergency we have is the invasion at our border, and neither party in Congress cares much about it. Not only does this bill fail to deal with that crisis, it explicitly bars the use of any defense funding for the border. Certainly, the GOP’s competing bill in the Senate will not contain this provision, but nor will Republicans push any legislation to fix the crisis by hiring more ICE agents, building more border infrastructure, or punishing sanctuary cities. Why is there no hell-fire rush from Mitch McConnell to treat that issue as a “must pass” before Memorial Day?

Many conservatives were concerned that President Trump would make the GOP the party of big spending. Turns out, for someone who is not known as a fiscal conservative, he sure is willing to cut spending more than GOP leaders in Congress. (For more from the author of “Trump Is Right to Oppose More ‘Disaster’ or Puerto Rico Spending – It’s Bloated Pork” please click HERE)

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This Is the Bill New York Passed to Try and Trash the Trump Administration

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With President Donald Trump not playing the Democrats’ impeachment games (and rightfully so), states have done their part in fighting this administration. Washington State and New Jersey have passed laws keeping presidential candidates off the ballot if they don’t release their taxes. Well, it’s not like any Republican candidate was going to win those states anyway, but it’s all part of the two-year long temper tantrum over Hillary Clinton’s shocking election loss in 2016.

Taxes remain another front in the ongoing crusade to impeach Trump. Democrats don’t have Russian collusion anymore; that was nuked by the Mueller report. They’re still clinging to obstruction of justice, but there’s not enough evidence to pursue charges, as determined by Attorney General William Barr and soon-to-be-ex Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The only evidence in the affirmative is that liberal CNN pundits think this happened because…they don’t like Trump. Belief is not evidence. And excuse me if I don’t care what a horde of former Obama officials have to say on this matter. With the Treasury Department refusing to turn over information on Trump’s finances, New York State is making legislative moves to make that happen, passing a bill that would allow them to turn over such documents if asked by Congress. Yet, this will only apply to state income taxes (via NBC News):

The New York State Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would make it easier for Congress to obtain President Donald Trump’s state tax returns, a measure that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he will sign if it reaches his desk.

The bill, called the TRUST Act, passed by a 39-to-21 vote. It would amend state law to permit the commissioner of the state Department of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax return requested by the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation for any “specific and legitimate legislative purpose.” Existing laws generally prohibit such a release.

Those congressional committees could file a request with the state only after efforts to gain access to federal tax filings through the U.S. Treasury Department failed.

(Read more from “This Is the Bill New York Passed to Try and Trash the Trump Administration” HERE)

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Trump Defends National Emergency Declaration, Reveals the BIG Immigration Problem With Dems

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By Fox News. President Trump again described the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border as a “national emergency” at a Florida campaign rally Wednesday, saying the caravans headed to the United States were an “invasion” and voicing his concerns against human and drug trafficking.

“No nation can tolerate a massive organized violation of its immigration laws. And no one should run for office without an ironclad pledge to protect and defend America’s borders,” Trump told the Panama City Beach crowd. “Shouldn’t be allowed to run. And to confront this crisis — you saw that! It was a big deal two months ago. I declared a national emergency, which is what it is. This is an invasion!”

Trump said Democrats “don’t mind crime” and spoke about caravans heading through Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“When you see these caravans starting out with 20,000 people, that’s an invasion. I was badly criticized for using the word ‘invasion.’ It’s an invasion!” Trump said, defending his rhetoric. (Read more from “Trump Defends National Emergency Declaration, Reveals the Problem With Dems” HERE)

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Trump Briefs Republican Senators on Emerging U.S. Immigration Plan

By Reuters. President Donald Trump and aides on Tuesday briefed a group of Republican senators on a merit-based immigration plan that would let more highly-skilled workers into the United States and fewer low-skilled workers, a senior administration official said.

The overall effect of the plan, the official told a group of reporters, would be to leave the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States at about the same.

“We want to encourage immigration. But it’s got to be through the legal system,” the official said.

Separately, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, whose committee would have to shepherd such legislation through the Senate, described the effort to reporters as “a merit-based immigration proposal that deals with increases in work visas and decreases family visas.” The latter refers to visas for relatives of immigrants already in the United States. (Read more from “Trump Briefs Republican Senators on Emerging U.S. Immigration Plan” HERE)

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Obama’s Spy Czar Nukes Assertion That Trump Campaign Wasn’t Spied On

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The cat is out of the bag. You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube. It seems like the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. The only thing left is figuring out the final cast of characters. James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, and some other familiar faces should be yanked back onto the Hill to discuss everything. From this apparent spy operation against the Trump campaign to FISA abuses, there are rumblings that the impending IG report on these abuses will be “scorching.” So, is there panic? There might be, especially after former Director of National Intelligence under Obama, James Clapper, nuked the FBI’s position that no spying occurred against the Trump team in 2016. The New York Times reported that some woman named Azra Turk was sent over by the FBI (or CIA) to oversee the spying operation, which also included longtime CIA operative Stefan Halper trying to infiltrate the campaign. Ms. Turk reportedly was a “honeypot” trying to pump information out of George Papadopoulos, who said he has no gripes with the Times’ piece other than he thought Turk was CIA. Yeah, former CIA director under Obama, John Brennan, is also on the list of people who need to get the hell back to the Hill to answer questions.

Yet, Michael Goodwin of the NY Post also noted how it’s a bit disturbing that the liberal media takes all of this at face value. How do we know this wasn’t a plot to stop Trump from being elected? How do we know nothing illegal occurred? All should be answered in due time. With Attorney General William Barr at the helm at DOJ, I have confidence that this will happen.

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But Clapper had already come in like a wrecking ball, saying what happened to the Trump campaign fits the dictionary definition of—wait for it—spying. Of course, he also spun it to make it seem less pernicious, but it’s becoming clear that some unprecedented operation was executed against a rival presidential campaign (via Free Beacon):

James Clapper, a CNN contributor and former Director of National Intelligence, admitted last Friday that what the Obama administration did to the Trump campaign “meets the dictionary definition of spying.”

(Read more from “Obama’s Spy Czar Nukes Assertion That Trump Campaign Wasn’t Spied On” HERE)

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