All. It was just the unheralded release in a court filing of this letter letting the Treasury Department know that some federal employee had come forward and sent an unsolicited communication to the ways and Means Committee in Congress Setting forth what the committee called credible allegations of evidence of possible misconduct. Specifically, potential inappropriate efforts to influence the audit of the president s taxes. That was less than a month ago. Right . This sort of roundabout revelation through Court Filings that trace back to this very quiet, very lowkey committee in congress, that oh, by the way, credible allegations have come forward from inside the government that there have been inappropriate efforts to influence the handling of the president s taxes and his audit at the irs. That seems like a story, right . I mean, i know it is foley to play the, you know, imagine if it was president obama game, but its almost impossible not to play it with this one. Right . Imagi imagine if a committee in congress while president obama was president said they had a whistleblower who had come forward with evidence about somebody interfering in the handling of president obamas taxes. And the auditing of president obamas taxes. Right . The committee has the evidence, the Treasury Department is stonewalling. There are efforts to chase it down. There is a whistleblower be uf were not allowed to know what the whistle blower says. They literally would cancel three consecutive shows on the Fox News Channel to make way for a nightly new threehourlong primetime show on fox that was just about this scandal. Right . Every night. Obama taxes, whistleblowergate, release the evidence. Thats what theyd call the show and run for three hours every night and would have callins when they reran it in the overnight hour. I mean, it would be everything in the conservative media world. In our world, when this, in fact, happens, but its President Trump, its just like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, i think i heard something about that. I wonder what happened to that. Sorry, no time to even chase that one down if we wanted to. Too many other scandals have happened between now and less than a month ago when we first learned about that one. So, we did less than a month ago get a whistleblower claim about the handling of President Trumps taxes and we still dont moe what that claim was. Right . But now, indeed, weve got another one. Another reported whistleblower claim from inside the government and this one is, if anything, more ominous and more worrying than what we got last month in the other whistleblower complaint about his tax. This time according to a late night letter and subpoena from the Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff, this time its somebody we think within the office of the director of National Intelligence, somebody within the Intelligence Community, who has sent a complaint and some sort of evidence or statement to the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community and that Inspector General reviewed this whistleblower complaint and found it credible. Also found it to be matter of urgent concern. Whistleblowers are supposed to have protected lanes of communication. So they can surface their concerns, if they see something going wrong inside government that people ought to know about. So in this case, this is a whistleblower in the Intelligence Community, this person is supposed to take the whistleblower complaint to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. Once this person tells the Inspector General what his or her complaint is, that is supposed to set in motion a very specific series of things that nobodys supposed to have a choice about. Theyre just supposed to happen automatically because of the statute that protects whistleblowers. Right . And in this instance, whats supposed to happen is that the Inspector General, upon receiving that complaint, assessing it to be credible, which the i. G. Did, assessing it to be urgent, which the i. G. Did, well, that Inspector General is then supposed to send the complaint to the head of the relevant agency. In this case, to the director of National Intelligence. That all happened as it is supposed to. I. G. Did his or her part. Right . Then the next thing thats supposed to happen is that that claim from the whistleblower is supposed to be sent within seven days from the director of National Intelligence to the committees, the relevant committees, in congress. So in this case, the director of National Intelligence is supposed to send that urgent, credible, complaint to the Intelligence Committee. Headed by congressman adam schiff in the house. And youve only got seven days to do it and dont have a choice in the matter. Thats the part that just isnt happening. We have an acting director of National Intelligence, appointed recently by President Trump. That acting director of National Intelligence got this whist whistleblower complaint from the Inspector General. Its labeled urgent, its labeled credible. According to adam schiffs office, instead of sending the thing on to the Intelligence Committee, which the law says they must do, and they must do within seven days, they instead consulted with the Justice Department about what they should do with this whistleblower complaint. They then sent adam schiff a letter saying, no, were not giving it to you. Yes, it exists. Youre not getting it. Telling chairman schiff that the complaint wasnt going to his committee, it wasnt going anywhere because in the view of the director of National Intelligence, this complaint is about a person who is outside the Intelligence Community and it involves matters that are privileged. Well, i mean, do the math, right . The only person whos really in the chain of command for the Intelligence Community who isnt in the Intelligence Community is the president , and its not clear who matters of privilege would apply to here except the president. So it kind of seems like this is maybe a complaint about the president. That the director of National Intelligence is holding and not allowing to be released as he is required to do so under law. Heres how adam schiff sums it up, the committee can only conclude based upon this remarkable confluence of factors that the serious misconduct at issue involves the president of the United States and or other senior white house or administration officials. So, somebody has come forward inside the government, weve learned within the past month, somebody has come forward inside the government to say, hey, theres been improper empffortso influence the handling of the president s tax returns and the audit of his taxes. We dont know what happened to that whistleblowers complaint. Someone has also now come forward from inside the government to say he or she has evidence of serious misconduct and the Intelligence Committee believes that it must be an allegation about the president or another Senior Trump Administration official and that complaint is just being sat upon by the newly appointed acting director of National Intelligence. But at least in that case, the acting director of National Intelligence now has a subpoena on his desk telling him that he needs to hand over that complaint in unredacted form tomorrow. He needs to hand it over by tomorrow. And if he isnt willing to hand it over by tomorrow, he should be prepared to testify at an open hearing two days later on thursday of this week. So, watch this space, as they say. We wont be canceling all programming on this network and running a threehour special on this every night until its resolved, but its not like the will isnt there. I would do it. Also, watch capitol hill tomorrow at about 1 00 p. M. Eastern when were expecting open televised testimony by korly lewandowski who was candidate trumps First Campaign manager before he was replaced by the nowimprisoned federal inmate paul manafort. Corey lewandowski will undoubtedly try to make a big spectacle of his televised testimony. He is a trump loyalist. He reportedly wants to run for a u. S. Senate seat, himself, next year from New Hampshire. But what the Judiciary Committee in the house wants to question him about tomorrow is his memorable recurring role in the Mueller Report where Corey Lewandowskis name appears more than 120 times. Including this very hardtomiss subheading in the table of contents. The president asks Corey Lewandowski to deliver a message to attorney general Jeff Sessions to curtail the special counsel investigation. Hes in the table of contents. That section of the Mueller Report has a gajillion references to Corey Lewandowskis interviews with the fbi about the president telling them that he should tell Jeff Sessions to end the special counsels investigation, that he needed to stop looking at trump and his campaign. Theres details in there about lewandowski sort of confessing to the fbi that he locked up his notes from that conversation with the president in a safe. Theres notes from his conversations with the fbi about the president telling Corey Lewandowski that he should go ahead and tell the attorney general that the attorney general was fired if he didnt go along with this plan and Corey Lewandowski is, like, how do i fire the attorney general . I dont even work for the government. I can fire him . Again, Corey Lewandowski should be testifying in open session tomorrow at 1 00 p. M. Eastern. The Judiciary Committee in the house. Rick dearborn, a former deputy chief of staff who was also involved in this fire Jeff Sessions mishigas, also rob porter who was fired as white house staff secretary when he couldnt get a security clearance because of the multiple Domestic Violence claims from both of his exwives. He was also involved in this mishigas. Dearborn and porter were also subpoenaed to testify tomorrow alongside Corey Lewandowski. Were starting to think that neither of them will show up. We have letters from their lawyers tonight indicating that their are not going to show up because of the president s assertion that anybody who has ever worked in the white house is absolutely immune from ever having to testify. That said, Corey Lewandowski is definitely expected to testify tomorrow even though he never worked in the white house. The thing about this is weird is that tonight, the white house is saying that dearborn and porter wont show up at all, but the white house is saying that even with Corey Lewandowski who didnt work in the white house at all, who has never been a government employee, the white house is nevertheless asserting tonight that they have advised mr. Lewandowski to limit his testimony. And not talk about his conversations with the president. Right . It is unclear on what authority the white house might be trying to limit lewandowskis testimony, again, he doesnt work for the white house, doesnt work for the government, never has in any capacity. They should have no authority as to what he does and doesnt say. Particularly, when hes there under subpoena. But well see how that evolves tomorrow. Again, we do expect lewandowski to be there, so if hes going to show up and say im not going to testify, and hes going to try to assert some sort of privilege and hes never been a government employee, it should be fireworks at the least. And you know, if the scandalt e churwheel never stops spinning these days, hard to keep up with whats the scandal now, i have to tell you because it turns out the chore wheel of scandal in this administration is a flywheel, like, its weighted and it never stops. I mean, they will spin out new scandals every single day they are in office. So even with all of that already happening, naturally today, theres word of yet another investigation into yet another Trump Administration scandal. The New York Times first to report today that the House Oversight committee has told the Trump Administrations secretary of transportation, elaine chao, she needs to hand over documents related to her familys shipping company. Elaine chao is the transportation secretary for the u. S. Government, but see the visual here, thats her, thats her dad. See what theyre sitting in front of . She has made a habit of doing events with her father who runs her familys shipping company. Shes made a habit of her doing events as secretary of transportation sitting next to her father while the two of them sit in front of, like, the flags and the seals of the u. S. Department of transportation. Making it seem like maybe he works there, too. Or hes officially sponsored by them somehow . She has also brought her father onto air force one. She has talked in interviews about her father and President Trump having such a good relationship, which is nice, you know, ah, its her dad, but its also been awesome and very highly capitalized on by the Family Business that her dad runs. As they have been trying to project their international reach, their apparent endorsement by the u. S. Government, theyve been turning that into their own business interests. Elaine chao at one point reportedly tried to arrange for her family members to meet with Chinese Government officials on her own planned official u. S. Trip to china as transportation secretary. It was only when the state Department Personnel in china who were asked to set up these meetings for elaine chaos family, its only when they squawked in protest that she backed off the request that her family members should be in on those meetings and the trip, itself, was ultimately canceled. Its also worth noting that as elaine chao has used her public position to boost her familys business over the past few years, her family has also reportedly given millions of dollars to her and her husband. The republican leader of the u. S. Senate, Mitch Mcconnell. Which means that if she has been using her public position to boost the fortunes of her Family Business, well, her familys fortune has been in an immediate sense turned right around and parse ld out to her and her husband while she has been doing that. Elijah cummings and the Oversight Committee are now demanding documents and communications from the Transportation Department and from elaine chao and because she is a member of the Trump Administration, presumably, the Transportation Department and elaine chao refuse entirely to hand anything over then well start another big long legal saga on this scandal, too. Oh, and state prosecutors in new york have just issued subpoenas to obtain eight years of federal and state tax returns for the president and for his business. Starting in 2011 and through to this year. This will open the one gazillionth new legal fight for the president s tax returns but as a point of interest on this one, these are the same prosecutors who within the past few weeks reportedly went up to the federal prison in otisville, new york, to meet with the president s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. In those conversations with prosecutors, cohen reportedly made a proffer agreement which means he may have offered information to these new york state prosecutors in exchange for some sort of grant of immunity for himself in the event that state charges are brought involving the president and or his business. We now know that state Prosecutors Office opened a criminal investigation to the president and his business, related in part to the hush money payments that sent Mi