First, the explanation from former CIA Director, current U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo:
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Does this “escalation” have a familiar feel about it?
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First, the explanation from former CIA Director, current U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo:

President Trump responds to the domestic and foreign alignment of provocations.

President Trump doesn’t have too many options here. However, he’s a much more cunning adversary than the Deep State has faced previously. Strategically a good decision to head-off those carrying the banners in the war parade. Secretary Pompeo, Secretary Asper, Joint Chiefs’ Milley have an alignment of domestic interests well organized.
Resounding applause will be heard from The State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, John Bolton, Tom Cotton, Adam Kinzinger, Mark Levin, Mitt Romney and a host of well positioned senators, soon to be jurists….
The domestic warning was akin to ‘we can create a Benghazi, watch‘. POTUS takes the energy from the threat, uses a little judo adding his own energy, and controls the outcome.
“Happy New Year” is akin to “Relax, I got this“…. So now we watch.

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The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) holds confirmation authority over leaders appointed to the intelligence community. Chairman Burr and Vice-Chairman Warner participated in the IC effort to target and remove President Trump from office.
You might remember recently how Burr and Warner would not support Rep. John Ratcliffe for Director of National intelligence under the auspices of Ratcliffe not having enough “experience” within intelligence operations. However, those same “experience” concerns were absent when they approved dirty ICIG nominee Michael Atkinson.

Reminding ourselves how ICIG Atkinson manipulated the ‘whistle-blower’ regulations to permit hearsay from CIA operative Eric Ciaramella; and knowing the primary concern of Senator Warner was to cover his own involvement in the soft coup effort in 2017; it is interesting to go back to the 2018 confirmation hearing of Atkinson and review the focus:
Senator Mark Warner […] You’re also aware that this Committee is leading the review into the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. During this hearing I want to hear assurances from both of you that you will fully cooperate with this review and provide this Committee with all the information requested in a timely fashion.
Mr. Atkinson, as the Inspector General of the Intel Community your job is especially critical because of the nature of the material that they handle every day, whistleblowers within the IC generally can’t go public to expose misbehavior and misuse of official resources. We the Congress and the American people will depend upon you as an independent agent of accountability for the Office of the DNI and, for that matter, for the whole intel community.
Logical thought is antithetical to the interests of the coup-plotters. Nuance and obfuscation are their shields; that’s why they, writ large, will not release the classified documents. A common sense American Thinker article cuts through the chaff and countermeasures for many interests:
[…] The implications of intercepting the communications of a U.S. citizen who is associated with the political campaign of a candidate seeking the presidency rings nearly every “bell” in the FBIs and Attorney General’s Guidelines for sensitive investigations. As discussed in the IG report, by regulation, these cases cannot be initiated without the written approval of the Director and the Attorney General.
In addition to the approval obviously granted by the Director and AG, the IGs report identified the following additional high level officials who reviewed and approved the Page FISA affidavit: “NSD’s Acting Assistant Attorney General, NSD’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight over 01, 01’s Operations Section Chief and Deputy Section Chief, the DAG, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Associate Deputy Attorney General responsible for ODAG’s national security portfolio.”
The suggestion that somehow, seventeen significant errors, omissions of fact, falsehoods, or deliberate misrepresentations made their way into a FISA affidavit/s (accidentally, at the hand of an anonymous case agent) and then were not immediately noted and corrected throughout the course of this exceptional review process is simply not believable. ~ Continue Reading
Natasha Bertrand is the stenographer for Fusion-GPS smear activities with a reputation for egregious lying and narrative engineering. As a result it doesn’t come as a surprise to see Bertrand writing a collaborative article in Politico taking swipes on behalf of a thoroughly corrupted intelligence community.

Consider this paragraph using another vile creature from the political swamp:
[…] When it comes to Durham, Haspel is likely “confident there has been no serious wrongdoing, and will therefore find a means to cooperate” with the investigation, said John Sipher, a 28-year CIA veteran.
Too funny. The spooks and scribes live a life so deeply enmeshed in the world of fraud and lying they cannot even see themselves exposing their own character. Put another way: ‘if Haspel was confident of serious wrongdoing, she wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation’.
See, they just can’t help exposing themselves. If it wasn’t serious, it would be funny. These inherently vile liars cannot stop themselves from exposing their nature…. it just flows out.
The good news in the article; and there is a lot of accidentally placed good news within it for those who follow closely; comes from these paragraphs:
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An interesting CTH discussion on Carter Page is worth expansion. Factually I have not spent much time thinking about Mr. Page because he always seemed irrelevant. However, some people have put a great deal of smart thought into how Page plays into the larger SpyGate dynamic. That analysis is interesting & the various possibilities are a good read.

From the initial CTH review of Page he always seemed to be a tool. Something akin to a disposable syringe. The viral agent in the syringe is important; the motives of those using the syringe obviously important; but Page himself seemed disposable to the sharps bag.
Maybe that’s the wrong way to look at him.
Having not spent much time thinking about him, it’s very interesting to read Treeper comments about him and the various possibilities his appearance in 2016 might represent. So please use this thread to discuss your own opinion(s).
What role do you think Mr. Carter Page played in the larger objectives of the coup crew?
I’m not sure exactly who they are, and there’s a possibility they might just be one person; however, it appears there are three distinct FBI officials engaged in an overall investigative capacity, attempting to break the truth through the corrupt machinery.
Each individual is noted within a specific event or outcome. Hopefully AG Bill Barr has tasked his deputy James Rosen to hold an honest ‘climate assessment‘ discussion with these individuals.
♦The first honorable FBI Agent is the FBI official who enhanced the DOJ sentencing memo for James Wolfe. The DOJ prosecution, namely DC U.S. Attorney Jessie K Liu -possibly following instructions from Rod Rosenstein- was trying to cover-up the classified intelligence leak of SSCI Security Director James Wolfe in order to protect powerful Senators.
One FBI agent was obviously not happy with that DOJ leadership decision and seeded the DOJ ‘sentencing memo’ with a key sentence that exposed the cover-up:

For him or her we are thankful. That sunlight, though unsuccessful in stopping the corrupt cover-up, provided just enough undeniable evidence to highlight the severity of a cover-up initiated by those running the DOJ in 2018.
We note everyone associated with that decision has since been removed.
♦The second FBI official to note, might actually be a key top-level DOJ official – though that seems less likely. The second FBI official is however high ranking. The high ranking FBI position is likely because the top level security clearance was needed for this FBI agent to travel to CIA headquarters and review the CIA operational file on Carter Page.
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CTH was always curious why one specific member of the Trump campaign and transition team was abruptly departed (Nov 15, 2016) immediately after the visit by NSA Director Mike Rogers was scheduled, and two-days prior to their meeting. It’s a weedy question, likely only considered by those who were watching closely at the time…
However, perhaps Inspector General Michael Horowitz has provided some background on the move. [Page 336, 337, fn #474]

Based on the arc of the post-election timeline described in the segment of the report that touches upon “non-tasked” Confidential Human Sources (CHSs), beginning page 336; and based on other information in/around the specific CHS described; there’s a very strong likelihood we can identify this one.
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Joe diGenova radio interview discussing his perspective on revelations that former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers has been working with U.S. Attorney John Durham:

BACKGROUND – With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.The New York Times has a curious article posited today surrounding U.S. Attorney John Durham who is doing the deep investigation into DOJ, FBI, CIA and intelligence community political espionage in the 2016 election and early Trump presidency.
CTH readers are very familiar with the granular details of what’s commonly referred to as “spygate”; the unofficial weaponization of the intelligence apparatus against candidate Donald Trump, president-elect Trump, and later President Trump.
The Times posts their article about Durham’s investigation against the backdrop of the completed inspector general report on DOJ/FBI misconduct in their FISA exploits.
While the majority of the narrative engineering is oddly irrelevant; and it doesn’t take a long review to notice the Times scribes have a motive to frame Durham’s eventual outcome as adverse to their own political interests; there is one particular paragraph that seems exceptionally curious:
[…] The inspector general’s report makes no substantive reference to Mr. Durham’s investigation. But before the report’s release, Mr. Durham got into a sharp dispute with Mr. Horowitz’s team over a footnote in a draft of the report that seemed to imply that Mr. Durham agreed with all of Mr. Horowitz’s conclusions, which he did not, according to people familiar with the matter. The footnote did not appear in the final version of the report. (link)