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21 State Attorneys General Submit Legal Brief – Urging Senate to Reject Articles of Impeachment…

It is not a process argument, but rather a matter of constitutional preservation.
Twenty-one State Attorneys’ General submit a brief to the Senate (full pdf below) in support of complete rejection for the House articles of impeachment.

…”If not expressly repudiated by the Senate, the theories animating both Articles will set a precedent that is entirely contrary to the Framers’ design and ruinous to the most important governmental structure protections contained in our Constitution: the separation of powers”…

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson along with twenty additional State AG’s, submit a 14-page briefing (download here) to the United States Senate warning of the danger of not rejecting a purely partisan political impeachment effort. The Attorneys’ General note the current impeachment proceedings are “fundamentally flawed as a matter of constitutional law.” Their concerns are echo points starting to be realized by Senators.
During a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, South Carolina AG Alan Wilson said the group was urging the Senate to “reject these articles” as a matter of constitutional law. WATCH:


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UPDATE – First Schumer Rules Amendment Defeated – House Managers Attempt To Rectify Inherent Impeachment Flaws…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is attempting to rescue two legally and structurally deficient articles of impeachment rushed from the Lawfare community in the House of representatives.   However, in his first effort to introduce new documents and force the Trump administration to hand over new executive branch information, related to President Trump foreign policy decisions and delayed foreign aid to Ukraine, the Schumer amendment was defeated.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to table the amendment, dismissing the request, and won a floor vote as all republican senators stayed united 53-47.

It is anticipated that Schumer will next move for another amendment making the same request for new State Department documents the House committees did not seek.
The primary reason Chuck Schumer has to make this ridiculous effort for more evidence, is how the House never established their ability to enforce subpoenas via “Judicial Enforcement Authority”.  The failure of a full House vote to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to pursue evidence -via enforceable subpoenas- was a defect by design of Nancy Pelosi’s decision to initiate an impeachment inquiry by her decree, not an authorizing vote.
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Rudy Giuliani Responds to Media Claims by Lev Parnas…

President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani says he was ‘misled’ by Lev Parnas who Giuliani identifies as an egregious liar.  During the interview on Fox News and Laura Ingraham Rudy Giuliani says Mr. Parnas motive to tell false statements is identical to the reason for Michael Cohen to lie; he is trying to get a plea deal with New York prosecutors.


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DOJ Filing – Former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein Admits to Authorizing Release of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok Text Messages…

It has always been a curious question about who released the controversial text messages between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI Supervisory Agent Peter Strzok.  In a DOJ court brief (full pdf below) in support of a motion to dismiss the lawsuit of Peter Strzok, former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein explains how and why he authorized the release:
It would have been a little more interesting if Rosenstein could have narrowed down the timing of OIG notification from “in the summer of 2017”, as it would outline specifically when Rosenstein became aware of the controversial issue.  Before or after he joined the crew in authorizing -and signing- a false FISA application?….
Obviously, at least in my opinion, the lack of specificity here is evidence of Rosenstein’s CYA motive.  If Rosenstein was aware of the texts from inside the key participants of the Crossfire Hurricane team, prior to authorizing the third FISA renewal… he was either a complete doofus, or complicit and willfully blind.   I digress.
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Chaff and Countermeasures? – Timed During Impeachment, Another Report of Former FBI Director James Comey Under Investigation…

Another New York Times report of James Comey under investigation for unscrupulous, potentially illegal, leaks surrounding the FBI Clinton investigation. However, a note of caution: is this simply chaff and countermeasures intended to keep the heat off corruption monitors Bill Barr and John Durham?

In 2018 congressman Jim Jordan noted James Comey had a special employee on assignment ‘off-the-books’.  People started asking questions and Fox News Catherine Herridge detailed how Daniel Richman held special access privileges to the FBI, as an outcome of former FBI Director James Comey authorizing his friend as a “Special Government Employee” or SGE.
According to The Times the current issues surround media leaks from James Comey to his “special FBI employee” friend Daniel Richman related to the Clinton investigation:

(VIA NYT) […] The latest investigation involves material that Dutch intelligence operatives siphoned off Russian computers and provided to the United States government. The information included a Russian analysis of what appeared to be an email exchange during the 2016 presidential campaign between Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida who was also the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee at the time, and Leonard Benardo, an official with the Open Society Foundations, a democracy-promoting organization whose founder, George Soros, has long been a target of the far right.

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Flynn Update – Judge Sullivan Grants Continuance, Requests Briefs and Sets Hearing Date…

Judge Emmet Sullivan has granted the Flynn motion for continuance and established a briefing schedule for consideration on the Flynn motion to withdraw his guilty plea.  Judge Sullivan has set February 27th, 2020, as the next date for a hearing in his courtroom.

It will be interesting to watch how the Bill Barr DOJ responds to Flynn’s request to withdraw his guilty plea. UPDATE: Flynn brief in support of motion to withdraw:
[scribd id=443238798 key=key-mDWOFQ2jzxhol0p0OJzl mode=scroll]

Sketchy Changes to IG FISA Report Cover-Up Major Discrepancy in First Version…

There was a major discrepancy in the Inspector General report on FISA abuse, that appears to have been overlooked and casts a considerable cloud upon the DOJ Office of Inspector General and Michael Horowitz.
In chapter ten of the report, on page #312 you will find the following information.  The claim is that no-one in the FBI initiated any use of “Confidential Human Sources” into the campaign prior to opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  Read Carefully:

(Page #312 – pdf link)

“In our review, we did not find any evidence that the FBI used CHSs or UCEs to interact with members of the Trump campaign prior to the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”…

However, in the very next chapter (#11, page #400), in the original IG report as released on December 9th, 2019, you will find the following statement:
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Michael Flynn Withdraws Guilty Plea – Cites DOJ "bad faith, vindictiveness and breach of plea agreement"…

Moments ago, citing prosecutorial vindictiveness and the DOJ changing their position on sentencing, lawyers for Lt. General Michael Flynn filed a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. (pdf linkPDF embed link below)
This is good news.  Withdrawing the plea will now force the government to prove its case.

(link to cloud pdf)

Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack knowingly sought to induce false statements from Flynn relating to his FARA registration.  When Michael Flynn refused to lie about the FARA registration and other material matters related to his business partner Bijan Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group), the government retaliated against Mr. Flynn.

“Only after new counsel appeared, did the government for the first time demand an admission and testimony from Mr. Flynn that he knew and intended when he signed the FARA registration form that it contained several material false statements.  Not only was that demanded testimony a lie, but also, the prosecutors knew it was false, and would induce a breach.”
[…] “The government’s stunning and vindictive reversal of its earlier representations to this Court are incredible, vindictive, in bad faith, and breach the plea agreement.”

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Former Senior Treasury Financial Crimes Official Pleads Guilty To Leaking Records of Cohen, Manafort, Gates, Butina and More…

As you review this story keep in the back of your mind that U.S. DC Attorney Jessie Liu has been recently moved to head the Financial Crimes Division of the Treasury Department.
CTH noted last year when John Fry, an intelligence analyst with the IRS’s law enforcement arm, was arrested that something more was happening in the background of his case and the DOJ case against Natalie Sours-Edwards.   Today Ms. Sours-Edwards pleads guilty to downloading & distributing the financial records of people connected to the Trump orbit.
You might remember back in May 2018 when sketchy porn lawyer Michael Avenetti was releasing U.S. Treasury notifications on Michael Cohen received from an unknown source within the Treasury Department [See Here].  You might also remember when New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow wrote a sympathetic article after talking to the leaking treasury official [See Here].  As a result the Treasury Inspector General began an investigation.

(VIA DOJ) Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards Illegally Repeatedly Transmitted SARs and Other Sensitive Government Information To A Reporter Resulting In Approximately 12 News Articles Over 1-Year Period.
Ms. Sours-Edwards, a former senior adviser at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), pled guilty today to conspiring to unlawfully disclose Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”).
Beginning in approximately October 2017, and lasting until her arrest in October 2018, EDWARDS agreed to and did unlawfully disclose numerous SARs to a reporter (“Reporter-1”), the substance of which were published over the course of approximately 12 articles by a news organization for which Reporter-1 worked (“News Organization-1”).

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FISA Court Selecting Surveillance State Advocate, David Kris, Shouldn't Be a Surprise…

This is a little weedy, but it’s important….

In the second half of Devin Nunes interview with Maria Bartiromo today he was asked his thoughts about the FISA Court selecting David Kris as an FBI surveillance and compliance monitor.  The issue is quite important because the FBI FISA reforms and promises are essentially meaningless without some form of structural review process.
However, the new 2020 FISC Presiding Judge James Boasberg selecting David Kris has been noted by several people as a rather weak effort on behalf of the court.

As an outcome of our former FISA-702 reviews CTH has an entirely different reason for questioning the selection of Kris; there’s much more substantive reasons to be alarmed about it; but first here’s the general consensus opposition:

WASHINGTON – The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has stunned court-watchers by selecting David Kris — a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and written extensively in support of the FBI’s surveillance practices on the left-wing blog Lawfare — to oversee the FBI’s implementation of reforms in the wake of a damning Department of Justice inspector general report last year.
[…]  “Of all the people in the swamp … this is the guy that you come up with?” Nunes asked. “The guy that was accusing me of federal crimes? The guy that was defending the dirty cops at the FBI? … The court must be trying to abolish itself. There is long-term damage.”

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