What a week! The 2016 and 2020 plots against Trump are now confirmed; the Supreme Court is finally acting to restore judicial integrity; and the ballooning welfare state finally is punctured.

Dirty Deeds Done Down Low

The perfidious acts of then-CIA director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI director James Wray could not be hidden forever, and this week much more was detailed in a CIA review released by its director Jon Ratcliffe and in a congressional hearing.

A bombshell new CIA review of the Obama administration’s spy agencies’ assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump was deliberately corrupted by then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who were “excessively involved” in its drafting, and rushed its completion in a “chaotic,” “atypical” and “markedly unconventional” process that raised questions of a “potential political motive.” 

Further, Brennan’s decision to include the discredited Steele dossier, over the objections of the CIA’s most senior Russia experts, “undermined the credibility” of the assessment.

The “Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] on Russian Election Interference” was conducted by career professionals at the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis and was commissioned by CIA Director John Ratcliffe in May. 

Rasmussen polls confirms that the Trump Collusion concoction “fabricated by Obama’s functionaries” benefited the Democrats in the 2018 midterms.

If that wasn’t discrediting enough of Obama’s minions, the story about the FBI’s covering up Chinese efforts to interfere with the 2020 election should place the role of the then-heads of these agencies in the sociopathic hall of fame. 

The FBI had uncovered a Chinese conspiracy to influence the election in favor of then-President Joe Biden, including the creation of false driver’s licenses. Wray denied that such efforts were occurring and the FBI reportedly proceeded to effectively bury the report.

Agents had found that the Chinese manufactured fake driver’s licenses and shipped them to the U.S. in a scheme to help Biden. That not only contradicted the narrative of the election, but Wray’s testimony.

Wray testified before Congress that the FBI had not seen any coordinated voter fraud ahead of the 2020 election: “We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it is by mail or otherwise.”

That does not appear to be true, however, the FBI “recalled” the reporting after his testimony “in order to re-interview the source.” It also directed “recipients” of the original report to “destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings.”

In a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa), Assistant FBI Director Marshall Yates stated that “Although the source was reengaged and provided additional context to support the initial IIR, FBI Headquarters maintained its position not to republish the report.”

The damaging role of these people was magnified by a reliable handmaid, the Washington Post.

The newly released CIA document confirming the fraudulent nature of the Intelligence Community Assessment notes that on December 9, 2016, the Washington Post claimed to know the outcome of the assessment before the work had even begun. But that’s only half the story. Around noon that day, the Washington Post published a routine article announcing that the Intelligence Community Assessment was just getting underway. A few hours later, without notice, they quietly edited not just the headline but the entire article, including the bylines. Suddenly, the revised piece asserted as fact that Vladimir Putin had orchestrated Trump’s election. It is almost certain that corrupt intelligence officials were dissatisfied with the original reporting which wasn't tailored to the narrative. They needed to preemptively sabotage Trump’s presidency, so they told the Washington Post to publish a version that reflected the Intelligence Community’s preferred narrative. To this day, no one has been held accountable for this fraud -- neither at the Washington Post, which later won Pulitzers for their lies, nor within the Intelligence Community, which orchestrated the deception.

Judicial Ping Pong

There are so many judicial balls in the air, litigation designed to impede the exercise of presidential powers, that I honestly can’t keep track of them all. Luckily, Professor Margot Cleveland of the Federalist can, and you can check with her on X to find out the status and number of these cases. One case, however, signals that the Supreme Court has yanked the reins on this judicial overreaching. Legal Insurrection and Shipwreckedcrew discuss in depth a case which most resembled a ping-pong match and which incidentally reveals that justices Sotomayor and Jackson have earned the low regard of all seven their colleagues. Immigration law “allows the DHS to send deported individuals whose home countries deny their return to any third country willing to take them.” In recent years, the government has not availed itself of that option and simply allowed them to remain here.

The underlying facts are these: A district court judge in Massachusetts decided that removal proceedings weren’t enough and issued a preliminary injunction demanding yet another immigration court hearing of eight men, “all have violent criminal histories and served prison time in the U.S. -- murder, rape, child sex abuse etc.” Each had received final orders of removal and were being shipped to South Sudan. The men were by then transit and the plane was halted in Djibouti to comply with the court order that they be kept in custody until they received that hearing or were returned to the U.S. The Supreme Court stayed that order “over the violent objection of Sotomayor.” After the government filed its appeal but before the Supreme Court acted, the district court judge ruled that as to six of the men the government had violated his injunction, (His order, by the way “applied to any illegal alien being removed to any third country -- it was universal.”) How outrageous was the sloppy obstructive effort by the D.C. District Court? This outrageous: “The only authority it cited was the [Sotomayor] dissent from the stay order [of the Supreme Court].” The Supreme Court stay should have ended the matter, but the judge remained undaunted and issued a new order, claiming it differed from the one the Supreme Court had stayed. DHS sought clarification from the Supreme Court, and the court made clear the lower court was in serious error. In part, it held:

Assuming as we do that the District Court will now conform its order to our previous stay and cease enforcing the April 18 injunction through the May 21 remedial order, we have no occasion to reach the Government’s other requests for relief… If the Government wishes to seek additional relief in aid of the execution of our mandate, it may do so through mandamus.

(Mandamus is an extraordinary writ compelling a government official to perform or cease a particular act.)

The Court was very specific and Sotomayor dissented, joined only by Jackson this time, dissented. Kagan abandoned the two of them this round.

Our June 23 order stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction in full. The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable.

Despite the dissent’s provocative language, see post, at 6 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.), a claim that a lower court has failed to give effect to an order of this Court is properly addressed here….

 SCOTUS: We expect the district court will NOW obey us but if not then use mandamus. 

Still, that was not the end of the matter. Under a different theory the plaintiffs sought relief -- this time in the District Court for the District of Columbia. After granting an administrative delay to allow the government to respond, that court transferred the case back to the original judge Brian Murphy who on July 4th held: Phan et al v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al “This Court interprets these Supreme Court orders as binding on this new petition, as Petitioners are now raising substantially similar claims, and therefore Petitioners motion is denied.”

The Big Beautiful Bill

The Bill was signed into law on July 4 with military planes overflying the White House and a justifiably triumphant Commander in Chief.

As Jeff Childers details, it “deconstructs the welfare state.” His is a very well-constructed analysis that I can only summarize. It’s worth reading in its entirety:

And it’s political genius, because the states must now shoulder the blame for cuts. The biggest reason nobody ever cut federal Medicaid before was to avoid being blamed.

In other words, Trump offloaded the political cost. The feds pulled back the money hose, but left the governors holding the empty bucket. Governors now have to decide exactly what programs to cut. [snip]

In reality, he detonated a $1 trillion cut to federal transfer payments. [snip] The OBBBA piles on top of cuts the Administration was already making without needing a law change. “[snip]

Since the affected programs include Medicaid subsidies, states must decide whether they want to cut coverage, cut provider reimbursement rates, or backfill the shortfall with new taxes raised from their own overtaxed citizens.

 The cuts are so steep, so foundational, that key progressive figures aren’t just objecting to the pain -- they’re mourning it as though it were a philosophical defeat. “What’s happening in Washington, D.C., is undermining everything we’ve been working on,” grieved Governor Laura Kelly (D-Kansas).

Governor Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) called it “the worst piece of legislation I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Adding insult to injury, the OBBBA smartly shifts the burden of administering the modified programs onto the states, so that the new OBBBA provisions didn’t add any federal costs to the law. For example, food stamps (SNAP) now have a work requirement, but the states must enforce the new federal requirement, or lose subsidies. Same with the Obamacare exchanges; states must take over more of the paperwork and begin enforcing new eligibility criteria. [snip]

First of all, and most deeply encouraging, “the bill would expand the tax on endowments.” Finally! These university hedge funds-with-classrooms have been hoarding tens of billions in tax-sheltered wealth, while jacking up tuition and peddling cheap Chinese grievance studies. The OBBBA flips the board. It tells Harvard and Stanford: fine, if you want to operate like a hedge fund, we’ll tax you like one. [snip]

But zoom out further. There’s a deeper pattern emerging: the OBBBA systematically cuts funding pipelines to key progressive power centers, like state welfare transfers, universities, climate lobbies, and left-leaning nonprofits masquerading as energy startups.

These sectors weren’t just bloated -- they were financial laundromats, funneling taxpayer money into ideological projects and washing part of it right back into Democrat coffers via consulting fees, campaign donations, and cushy board seats.

The OBBBA doesn’t just cut spending -- it cuts the hose. And right in time to start the 2026 midterms fundraising cycle.

We’ve been promised more reconciliation bills and a recission bill. The latter would cancel previously authorized spending. 

Coming up Highlights of the week:

“ITEM 6: next, the Rescissions Act. It will need 60 votes to clear the Senate.

My money is on Trump pulling it off.”

I’d put my money on that, too.