The FBI seized Republican Senator Burr's phone.

Senator Richard Burr is in deep trouble. This helps Trump get out of it.

F-16 Jet puts up diversion flairs

Burr's stock trades and Trump's re-election are connected. 

Obama! Look at Obama!

Richard Burr has a problem with his stock trades. He is Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He got a classified briefing about the coronavirus in early February which reported that the virus was a much bigger deal than Trump was saying. Watch out, it's coming, he learned. 

Shortly after hearing this Burr did two things which, especially together, gets him in legal and political trouble.

     

     1. He co-authored an Op-Ed saying that the the US government had the virus handled, that it was no big problem and that the economy was great.

     2. He promptly sold out his stock position at what turns out to be the top of the market, prior to a 30% drop when people learned that virus was a big problem, after all.

Burr is a Republican but the Intelligence Committee has traditionally been bi-partisan in nature, built around the notion that external threats to the US are of bipartisan national interest. Partisanship supposedly ends at the ocean shore, and foreign policy has typically had buy-in from the minority party. So, this committee cooperated with the Mueller investigation and has generally taken the position that our own CIA and FBI are working in the national interest. Burr's Committee treated our national defense intelligence services as the "good guys." They were loyal, professionals working in the national interest, not Deep State enemies.

Meanwhile, Trump has a problem with the economy and the virus. That becomes relevant to Senator Burr because Trump is doing what he does: creating a distraction with accusations. Forget the virus. Old news. Look at Obama! Treason! And look at Biden!

Fox: All in

Senator Grassley picked up the theme on the floor of the Senate asked, "What did Joe Biden know, and when did he know it." 

Trump, with the help of his Justice Department under Barr, Senators McConnell and others, plus Fox News, are hammering away at the story. There was no Russian interference in the election, after all. The Trump message is that the FBI and CIA investigations were filled with corrupt Trump-haters, and Russian interference in the 2016 election, with investigation of contacts between Russians and members of the Trump orbit, were posited on inadequate information and partisan malice. General Flynn pled guilty to lying about contacts with Russian, but he shouldn't have, because he shouldn't have been asked about his Russian contacts. The crime was the investigation of Russian interference, not the fact of it. 

 FBI shouldn't have looked for Russian collusion

Fox News is all in on this.  MSNBC and CNN and the broadcast networks can talk about the virus; Fox News has the real story taking place in America: Obama's treason.

How is this connected to Senator Burr?

The FBI would never subpoena the cell phone of a sitting US Senator, without an OK from the highest levels of the Justice Department: Barr. McConnell wants Burr out of his Chairmanship. The very fact the investigation of Burr has gone this far--regardless of what they find--puts Burr's Chairmanship at risk.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has to change, and Burr's removal allows it. To carry out the Trump diversion strategy It can no longer act like a bi-partisan committee, with a premise that our intelligence services are loyal to the nation and that past and present efforts to investigate Russian and Ukrainian interferences are legitimate. There is a new premise. The FBI are the bad guys, and they are the new targets, along with Obama, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. NOT Russia, not the 2016 election and not 2020 either.

Senator Burr is a lame duck, planning to retire at year end. He is discredited politically by his stock trades. But worse for him, he is inconvenient. He runs a bi-partisan committee and Trump needs a partisan one.

Trump and McConnell want a Senate Intelligence Committee that will focus on Obama and Biden. This blog has predicted that by election day the top of mind source of political corruption in America will be Biden. Biden, Biden, Biden. Watch.