In the second segment with Maria Bartiromo, Senator Lindsey Graham discusses the 2016 surveillance and spying operations against candidate Trump, president-elect Trump, and finally President Trump in 2017.
As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham outlines his approach toward inquiry of the DOJ and FBI.

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During a rather innocuous podcast discussion panel yesterday, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers Jay Sekulow mentioned the FBI had three FISA applications denied by the FISA court in 2016. [Podcast Here – Note comment at 25:05]   The denials were always suspected; however, until now no-one in/around the administration has ever confirmed.
Jay Sekulow did not expand on his statement and did not explain where the information was derived from; however, if accurate this may explain the backstory to why FISA Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused.  This issue has been nagging many people since the recusal notation in December 2017.

On November 30th, 2017, Mike Flynn signed a guilty plea; ostensibly admitting lying to investigators.  The plea was accepted by Judge Rudolph Contreras; who is also a FISA court judge.  Six days later, December 7th, 2017, Judge Contreras “was recused” from the case without explanation.

(Reuters) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday.  (read more)

The only two significant things that happened between the initial Mike Flynn plea hearing and the recusal from Judge Contreras was:

#1) The stories about anti-Trump FBI Agent Peter Strzok and his involvement with Fusion-GPS and Christopher Steele (keep this in mind as it pertains to FISC presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer); and

#2) FBI Director Chris Wray appearing before the House Judicial Committee and hearing Representative Jim Jordan demand to see the 2016 FISA application.

In fact, Judge Contreras was recused only a few hours after that House Judicial Committee hearing. The story was memory-holed into the concentric whirlpool of nothingness.  However, if what Jay Sekulow describes is true, and one of the denied FISA applications was against Mike Flynn, some of the issues reconcile.
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Finally…. F.i.n.a.l.l.y, Devin Nunes outlines the origin of the spying operation as it began in 2015 and extended into 2016.  During an interview to discuss his criminal referrals to Attorney General Barr [see here] Devin Nunes outlines the big picture.  WATCH:

[Transcript @02:08] Devin Nunes:  “Well Sean, let’s just, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Okay, and now, thank God, we have an attorney general who calls spying for what it is.”
“In late 2015, early 2016, spying began on the Trump campaign.”
“That information leaked; that led to, what they consider to be, “legal spying” that began, that they’ve acknowledged that they started doing in the end of July; you just had Carter Page on; they considered that all “legal spying.”

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In the Day #2 transcript released today FBI chief legal counsel James Baker was asked about a specific series of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages on the evening President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
Comey was fired on May 9th, 2017.  Later that night Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had the following text conversation:

5/9/17 8:14pm And we need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting.
5/10/17 05:29am We need to lock in [REDACTED] in a formal chargeable way. Soon.
5/10/17 05:30am I agree. I’ve been pushing and will reemphasize with Bill [Priestap].

(link to texts)

FBI chief legal counsel James Baker’s response to questions about this text message exchange indicates that President Trump (‘Trump’ or ‘POTUS’) was the name under the redaction.
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With the Mueller probe complete; with AG Barr announcing a focus to review the intelligence operation in 2016; with Devin Nunes submitting criminal referrals; with Lindsey Graham probing CIA, DOJ and FBI conduct; with Doug Collins releasing ‘Spygate’ transcripts; with Inspector General Michael Horowitz closing in on the final stages of his FISA abuse investigation; and with President Trump contemplating declassification of documents applying sunlight on the Russia collusion/conspiracy hoax; there is an outrage trap which must be avoided….

The issue(s) surround President Obama and high-ranking Obama intelligence officials, notably: John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper and Sally Yates intentionally lying and/or misrepresenting issues to president-elect Donald Trump and the transition team in/around the transition period and shortly after the January 20, 2017, inauguration.
Some of the misinformation stems from intelligence officials telling direct lies (ex. telling President-elect, and President Trump he was not under investigation). Other aspects were lies of omission surrounding the Steele Dossier during the January 6th, 2017, intelligence briefing session with the President-elect in Trump Tower.
In essence, there were many misleading and false statements, with varying scales of severity, during the period from November 9th, 2016, through mid-May 2017 when President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
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Attorney General William Barr delivered stunning, albeit obviously honest, remarks during congressional testimony today in response to Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen about his intent to review prior intelligence activities in targeting the Trump campaign.
Before getting to the video and transcript, it is important to note how this line of questioning surfaces.  The professional political apparatus, primarily Democrats – but also Republicans, who participated in the ‘soft coup’ effort are attempting to gauge the landscape of their risk by identifying AG Barr’s intention.  This line of questioning is NOT organic or random; it is deeply purposeful and scripted. You can smell the fear.
Shaheen is being asked by allies within the Administrative state, including interests no longer holding political office, to do advanced query…. this is political reconnaissance intended to give corrupt officials and media allies the background to: (a) scale their risk; and (b) plan their defense narrative.  They are nervous now. Very nervous.

Here’s the important transcript, (all emphasis mine):

Senator Shaheen: News just broke, today, that you have a special team looking into why the FBI opened an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. I wonder if you can share with this committee: who is on that team; why you felt the need to form that kind of a team; and what you intend to be the scope of their investigation?

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Something is coming… something delicious.  How can we tell?  Well, whenever a bombshell is about to drop on the corrupt Intelligence Community, the New York Times does a quick narrative dump to get out ahead of the story.

All the way down, buried deep, in a NYT story about Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA investigation and AG Barr’s review of DOJ and FBI activity… they drop the following two paragraphs (emphasis mine):

[…] The inspector general is also scrutinizing another early source of information for the Russia investigation, the people said: Mr. Horowitz’s investigators have been asking questions about the role of Stefan A. Halper, another F.B.I. informant, and his prior work for the bureau.

Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper, an American academic who teaches in Britain, to gather information on Mr. Page and George Papadopoulos, another former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. (read more)

Oh?  NYT now saying FBI agents asked help from intelligence asset Stefan Halper to go gather information on Carter Page and George Papadopoulos?
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Attorney General William Barr was questioned today by republican lawmaker Robert Aderholt about potentially fraudulent DOJ and FBI submissions to the FISA court – to gain a Title-One surveillance warrant against U.S. Person Carter Page.
In a deliberate response AG Barr stated: “The Office of the Inspector General has a pending investigation of the FISA process in the Russia investigation. I expect that will be complete in probably May or June, I am told.  More generally, I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016.”

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The response would indicate AG Barr is taking personal interest in the events behind the July 31st, 2016, origination of the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence operation. Additionally, this approach indicates AG Barr’s review is going much further than Inspector General Horowitz; taking the review all the way to the origin of the intelligence community operation.

UPDATE: Bloomberg Reports: Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by Justice Department and FBI officials, including actions taken during the probe of the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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A late day submission to DC Circuit Court in a FOIA case previously discussed, reveals the content of Mueller’s probe & use of multiple, previously unknown, James Comey memos. Additionally, within the filing we discover how Comey documented multiple events, meetings and information surrounding the FBI investigation of Donald Trump.
The documents surface as part of the FOIA case [Backstory Here] where DC Court Judge James E. Boasberg -an Obama appointee and also a FISA judge- asked the FBI to file an opinion about the release of Comey memos to the public.  There are two issues: (1) can the memos be released? and (2) can prior sealed FBI filings, arguing to keep the memos hidden, be released?

In a very revealing filing last night (full pdf below) the lead FBI investigator for the Mueller special counsel, David W. Archey, informs the court that with the ending of the special counsel some of the memo material can be released, such as their existence; however, Archey also states much of the memo content and sealed background material from the FBI must continue to remain sealed and redacted.

The FBI will file a further declaration on or before April 15, 2019, to explain why the remaining redactions to the Third Archey Declaration continue to be necessary. (page 2)

Within the filing we discover the lead FBI agent was David W. Archey (background here). Archey was selected by Robert Mueller when the special counsel took over the counterintelligence investigation from Special Agent Peter Strzok. According to ABC: “Agent David Archey is described by colleagues as a utility man of sorts within the FBI”. However, until now his exact role was not known.
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Every narrative needs a foundation; every investigation, false or genuine, needs a predicate upon which to launch.  Remove the predicate and everything is exposed.
The predicate is the reason why so much effort was put forth by the conspiring Obama administration; and corrupt intelligence officials; and all political operatives; and the entirety of the mainstream media; to drumbeat that “Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election.”
Without that predicate forming the motive for all subsequent action, the house-of-cards collapses; everything is exposed.
There is no amount of hindsight manipulation that can cover for a fraudulent basis of origination.  This is one of the reasons why voices like Diana West are so important.  Question the underlying assumption and the entire dynamic changes.
By now the intellectually honest reviewers of information all accept there was no effort from the Trump campaign to collude or conspire with ‘Russians’.  That narrative was always false; even Robert Mueller’s team of lawyers and FBI investigators have conceded their inability to substantiate those Trump-Russia assertions.  There never was any ‘there’ there.  All effort was instead trying to set up the obstruction case.
But further back in the narrative construct, those Trump-Russia assertions are predicated on there actually being some grand conspiratorial attempt by Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.  Without a factual basis for that claim, none of the CIA, FBI and DOJ-NSD operations hold any validity.
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