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2017: State Department Spox: “The Steele Dossier Was Never Used for FISA Application”…

It’s always an interesting exercise to take new and confirmed information and go back to see the claims from the key stakeholders when the initial trail of the information was discovered.  This is one such example from July 2017.

Now that Chairman Devin Nunes, Chuck Grassley and the key players themselves, have discovered and admitted the U.S. State Department was heavily involved in passing along Clinton opposition research to Chris Steele to create the “Clinton-Steele Dossier”, it’s interesting to look at how the former State Department spokesperson -in place during all the events- responded last year when the Clinton-Steele Dossier was thought to be part of the underlying evidence for the DOJ/FBI FISA application.

Former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf, a person in direct and continuous contact with all the principle agents during the 2016 information flow, was confronted in July 2017 and adamantly denied the dossier was part of the FISA application. WATCH:

Looking beyond the transparent lying and subsequent collapse of credibility, the key takeaway here is how State Department officials knew what was going on in 2016, recognized the risk presented by that action in 2017, and were willing to walk the plank because they were certain none of it would ever come to light.

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GOP Members Discuss The FISA Memo…

GOP Membership have put together this video to highlight the key points surrounding how the DOJ and FBI put together a FISA Court application to conduct surveillance on political opposition:

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Additionally, constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz discusses the ongoing issues:

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Big Picture Question: How Do We Know?…

Yesterday the news broke of Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman, Mark Warner, seeking covert contact with ‘Clinton-Steele Dossier’ originating entity Christopher Steele.

Within the March/April 2017 communication, the back-and-forth centered around Chris Steele wanting a written request signed by both the Vice-Chair (Warner) and the Senate Committee Chairman, Richard Burr.

Without that bi-partisan request, Steele was not willing to engage with Warner unilaterally.  If you consider the timing of the attempted communication (March ’17), and you overlay the expressed concerns therein; against the backdrop of the 2016 DC severe ideological effort the push for a special counsel probe based on false pretense against newly-elected President Trump; a picture emerges of Christopher Steele recognizing his endeavors within the enterprise carried considerable risk.

Vice-Chairman Warner didn’t want a ‘paper trail’ and transparently didn’t want the political opposition (republican members), to know of his political intent.  Therefore Warner never asked Chairman Burr for his signature upon the letter requested by Steele. Ultimately Mr. Steele was correct in his suspicions, and prudent in his risk avoidance.

All of that is true, however, very few have stopped to ask: how did we, the viewing public, discover the Warner messaging and communication story in the first place?

How did the story of the Warner text messaging get into the media bloodstream?   Who was the ‘entity’ who investigated, discovered, and eventually released the Warner messaging?

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DOJ National Security Division Official, David Laufman, Quits…

David Laufman was the Department of Justice, National Security Division, Deputy Asst. Attorney General in charge of counterintelligence, cyber security, counterespionage and export controls.
As most people are now aware the epicenter of the DOJ/FBI Clinton-Steele operation against candidate Trump stemmed from a collaborate “small group” effort of Main Justice officials within the National Security Division (John P Carlin – head), and officials within the FBI centered around the Counterintelligence Division (Bill Priestap – head).
According to the Washington Post, David Laufman resigned effective yesterday, Wednesday February 7th:

David Laufman, an experienced federal prosecutor who in 2014 became chief of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, said farewell to colleagues Wednesday. He cited personal reasons.

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Rep. Jim Jordan Summarizes FBI Crew Shaping Clinton Investigation and Starting Trump Investigation…

There is a deluge of information now coming out of months-long parallel investigations by the House (Nunes and Goodlatte), and Senate (Grassley and Johnson), along with DOJ Inspector General Horowitz.  It can be easy to get lost amid the deluge.
Representative Jim Jordan gives a solid summary of how the information intersects amid the “small group” within a corrupt upper-tier of FBI officials.  WATCH:


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BUSTED: Proof DOJ Didn't Care About Bruce Ohr Meeting Chris Steele Until IG Horowitz Found Out…

Proving, once again, this is a well thought-out strategy, Chuck Grassley’s newest partly declassified version of the Graham-Grassley memo highlights the DOJ didn’t care about Bruce Ohr meeting with Christopher Steele until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found out.
Page #5 of the Grassley Memo (pg. 7 pdf), highlights the FBI interviewed DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr on November 22nd, and December 12th, 2016 [FD-302 Interview Notes], yet didn’t take any action about their discoveries until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found out and revealed the interviews on December 7th, 2017.

(pdf link)

The FD-302 (FBI) interviews were conducted with Bruce Ohr on November 22nd and December 12th, 2016. As footnoted above.  However, it wasn’t until Horowitz revealed the information within those interviews (December 7th, 2017) that any action was taken?
Therein the ideology and political motive of the DOJ “small group” gets sunlight:
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President Trump Hosts Law Enforcement Roundtable on MS-13 Gangs and Immigration Issues…

Earlier today President Trump hosted a roundtable discussion with law enforcement, Homeland Security, border security and immigration officials.


[White House] A THREAT TO AMERICAN COMMUNITIES: MS-13 has brought violence, fear, and suffering to communities across the country.

  • MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha, is a violent transnational gang primarily composed of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from El Salvador.
  • MS-13’s motto is “mata, viola, controla” which means “kill, rape, control.”

They commit shocking acts of violence to instill fear, like machete attacks, execution-style murders, gang rape, and human trafficking.
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Chuck Grassley Gives FBI Director Wray Until Tomorrow To Declassify His Memo – (Redacted Memo Included)…

Don’t forget the batting order. Last Friday Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray formally demanding a Mandatory Declassification Review of the classified criminal referral Chairman Lindsey Graham and Chairman Grassley sent to the FBI and Justice Department regarding Christopher Steele’s potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001.  The response date is tomorrow, February 6th, 2018.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents. Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based.

“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.

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President Trump Praises Devin Nunes as "Great American Hero" – Fox and Friends Interview (Video)…

Earlier today House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss the ongoing criticism from Democrats and the media as the HPSCI continues investigating how DOJ and FBI officials corrupted their offices. WATCH:


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(Link To Tweet)

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Chuck Grassley Memo Comes Next – Question Surrounds FBI Knowledge of Steele Shopping Dossier To Media…

Democrats, media, and the aggregate DOJ/FBI intelligence community are finally seeing accountability.  With the HPSCI memo now in the rear-view mirror, and the content in the bloodstream of the U.S. electorate, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is next.

Toward the end of December, the FBI provided the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, with FBI investigative documents (likely FD-302’s) from their contacts with Christopher Steele.  According to most reasonable timing we can discover Steele met with FBI officials sometime around October 1st, 2016.
From the U.K. lawsuit against Christopher Steele (pdf here), Steele admits to having shopped the Clinton-Steele dossier to U.S. media outlets “in person” in late September (New York Times, WaPo, New Yorker and CNN), and mid-October, 2016 (New York Times, WaPo, and Yahoo News), per instructions from Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS):

(Source – Page #8, pdf)

Additionally, in late October, 2016, Christopher Steele briefed Mother Jones via Skype.
According to the released HPSCI intelligence memo, the FBI sought a FISA application based on the Steele Dossier on October 21st, 2016.  From those UK court records at least two briefings with reporters, containing five outlets, took place prior to the FBI using the Clinton-Steele dossier in their FISA application.
The “late September” briefings with the New York Times, Washington Post, Yahoo News, New Yorker and CNN took place prior to Christopher Steele meeting with FBI officials early October.   The implication therein is that the FBI had to know prior to their October 21st, 2016, court application that the information they were presenting to the FISA court was being heavily shopped to media outlets. This would be immediately disqualifying.
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