During a press conference with the media yesterday, President Trump was asked about the vetting and selection process for the next Director of National Intelligence to replace outgoing DNI Dan Coats.
President Trump said the White House was working with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Admiral — as you know, Maguire — Admiral Maguire is a very talented man. He’s a great leader. As an Admiral, was always a great leader. He is a man who is respected by everybody, and he’s going to be there for a period of time. Who knows? Maybe he gets the job. But he’ll be there for a period of time — maybe a longer period of time than we think. We’ll see.

We’re dealing with Senator Burr. We’re dealing with the committee. We’re dealing with probably 9 or 10 people that want the job very much. You know the name of almost every one of them. They’re truly outstanding. Everybody wants DNI. Everybody wants it.
And I will say that the Admiral is such a great choice from the standpoint of now. And maybe he goes further. We’ll see what happens. But we’re dealing with the committee and Senator Burr. We have people, all of whom you know — highly respected people. We’ll be making a decision in the not-too-distant future. (link)

One of the troubling aspects to President Trump’s answer is the implication of the White House relying on the SSCI to approve the next Director of National Intelligence.
That process is troubling because the SSCI, specifically Chairman Richard Burr and Vice-Chair Mark Warner, have a vested interest in steering the selection. The SSCI was at the epicenter of the Legislative Branch coup effort to impeach the head of the Executive Branch, President Trump.
During the 2016 effort to weaponize the institutions of government against the outside candidacy of Donald Trump, the SSCI was headed by Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein; after the election Senator Feinstein abdicated her vice-chair position to Senator Mark Warner in January 2017.
While the SSCI was engaged in their part of the 2016 effort Vice-Chair Feinstein’s lead staffer was a man named Daniel Jones.  Dan Jones was the contact point between the SSCI and Fusion-GPS.
After the election, and after Feinstein abdicated, Dan Jones left the committee to continue paying Fusion-GPS (Glenn Simpson) for ongoing efforts toward the impeachment insurance policy angle.
Feinstein left because she didn’t want to deal with the consequences of a President Trump, IF he discovered the SSCI involvement.  Dan Jones left because with a Trump presidency the SSCI, now co-chaired by Senator Mark Warner, needed arms-length plausible deniability amid their 2017 operations to continue the removal effort (soft coup).
The blueprint for this plausible deniability process surfaces with Dan Jones appearing in the 2017 text messages between Senator Warner and the liaison for Christopher Steele, lawyer and lobbyist Adam Waldman:

In those March 2017 text message you can see Senator Warner attempting to set up covert “no paper trail” communication with dossier author Christopher Steele.  Adam Waldman represented Chris Steele and Steele’s employer, Oleg Deripaska.
Less than a month later you can see within the text messages that Christopher Steele is in direct contact with Dan Jones.  “[Chris] said Dan Jones is coming to see you” etc.

(Text Messages Between Feinstein’s replacement, Mark Warner, and Chris Steele’s lawyer/lobbyist, Adam Waldman, noting the importance of Dan Jones)

Dan Jones talking to Christopher Steele in 2017 is critical to understanding what was going on after Trump won the election.
Jones raised $50 million from those who were behind the 2016 stop Trump effort, and the purpose was now the 2017 impeachment effort [SEE LINK].  Jones having left the SSCI (now outside govt.) then paid Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS to keep up their efforts.   As you can see from the texts, Jones was now talking in person (“coming to see you”) to SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner in April 2017.
[Side-Bar:  The role of Fusion-GPS in 2017 shifted, and was now weighted toward feeding a specific media narrative that would aid impeachment (through the FBI, Weissmann and Mueller obstruction angle).  Fusion-GPS was now the conduit for arms-length media leaks from the usurping small group still inside the DOJ and FBI.  Dan Jones was paying Fusion on behalf of those with larger interests. Fusion was feeding the media.]
So you can clearly see the SSCI was heavily involved in the impeachment effort after the election.  Secondary documentation of the connection between the DOJ, FBI, Fusion, and Dan Jones shows up in the FBI investigative 302 notes of Bruce Ohr, just released by Judicial Watch.  [Pay attention to the May 8th, 2017, interview – pg 18, 19 of pdf]

The highlighted bottom portion of page 18 (May 8, 2017, interview) shows a heavily redacted text, but holds enough material to overlay with other research.
This is where Bruce Ohr is talking about Dan Jones efforts as they were currently aligned with Fusion GPS: “and had been on the staff of the [Senate Intelligence Committee]”…. “At the time of the interview [Jones] was working with the [Vice Chairman of the Committee Mark Warner]”… etc.
This part is heavily redacted because the corrupt agents within the current DOJ and FBI once again don’t want people to piece together what was happening.
This is not sources and methods being redacted. This is not national security being redacted.  This is the trail of the connective tissue in/around the small group plotting that is being hidden.
At the top of page 19, the investigative notes of Ohr’s discussion continues.

Bruce Ohr is telling the FBI investigator, likely Agent Joe Pientka, about Glenn Simpson and Dan Jones visiting Christopher Steele sometime after May 8, 2017, and they were in the process of “lawyering up”.
Now before I go even deeper in the SSCI weeds, let me just pause for a moment and explain a more specific part of why the FBI is interviewing Bruce Ohr about Chris Steele and what was going on in/around early 2017.
Chris Steele wasn’t alone in the dossier; heck, much of the purpose for the FBI engaging with Steele was the laundry value of having an intelligence officer validate political opposition research which the FBI could use against Trump.   Most of the raw material and research inside the dossier was from Glenn Simpson and Nellie Ohr at Fusion GPS.
Everyone carrying out this operation, all of the corrupt entities within it, knew material from Chris Steele was essentially political opposition research.  Many of those same people weaponized the research into the FISA application to give it higher import and value.
That set’s up early 2017 – where the FBI was evaluating the extent to which Chris Steele was willing to remain on public record to support a false framework about the dossier itself.   This was a key issue because the corrupt DOJ and FBI officials were about to hand-off the dossier to Special Counsel Robert Mueller (figurehead only) as the basis for the ‘small group’ and him to launch the special counsel aspect of an ongoing operation.
If Chris Steele suddenly walked away from the dossier, and/or admitted publicly the dossier was political opposition research primarily from Glenn Simpson and Nellie Ohr, the FBI would have a shit-storm on it’s hands…. and they needed to evaluate the position of Steele.  That’s the driving purpose behind all of this “re-engagement” with Steele through Bruce Ohr.
The small group in the DOJ and FBI planned to continue, pass-off and modify the Trump investigation by shifting it to a special counsel.  The centerpiece of that investigation would be using the dossier as justification for a need to investigate Trump as a Russian risk.  The DOJ/FBI small group needed Glenn Simpson and Chris Steele to stand by the false narrative all of the players had assembled over the prior year.
The wildcard to retain the false story was Chris Steele… Steele was an outside participant, albeit aligned with the ideology and the purpose.  Evaluating Steele’s willful participation in keeping the narrative as assembled was the reason for their urgent talks; however, the “small group” couldn’t run the risk of direct talks in the same way that Mark Warner couldn’t risk of a paper trail.
Adam Waldman and Dan Jones were facilitating a plausibly deniable information pipeline from Chris Steele to Senator Mark Warner.  Bruce Ohr was facilitating a plausibly deniable information pipeline from Chris Steele to the FBI/DOJ small group. The purposes were the same, everyone needed assurances Steele wasn’t going to back-out.
That’s what the current DOJ officials are hiding behind the Bruce Ohr 302 redactions.

Someone warn President Trump not to rely on the advice and counsel from the SSCI.  Those Senators are at the heart of the impeachment effort against him.
[*Note: more information to follow]

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