A report in the New York Times, transparently timed and placed by officials within the intelligence apparatus trying to get out ahead of internal investigations, outlines how the FBI sent counterintelligence spies to engage with Trump campaign officials in 2016.
In a stunning admission The New York Times describes how the FBI enlisted a female agent to work the “operation” in the U.K. during August-September 2016 posing as an aide for U.S. intelligence asset/FBI informant Stefan Halper.
Halper was an FBI operative and  Cambridge professor who set up meetings with Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.  The female agent used a fake name, Azra Turk, and presented herself as an assistant to Stefan Halper; however, she was actually an undercover intelligence operative of the FBI.

NYT […] The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it “Spygate.”

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Former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, says any investigation of prior administration “will find nothing” that shows former President Obama or White House staff had any “involvement” in the origins of the surveillance of Trump campaign and Russia collusion investigation.

Prior to March 9th, 2016, the Obama-era political surveillance and spy operations consisted of using the FBI and NSA database to track/monitor their opposition. However, once the NSA compliance officer began initiating an internal review of who was accessing the system, the CIA and FBI moved to create ex post facto justification for their endeavors. [Full Backstory] Everything after March 9, 2016, became a cover-story.
Looking at White House engagement in the last half of 2016, The War Economy has done some excellent research on this period to contrast the reference of Ben Rhodes:

[Via TWE] […] On July 31, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ran by Director James Comey, opened an investigation into the Trump campaign titled “Crossfire Hurricane”, named after the Rolling Stones documentary of the same name. It focused on the actions of four members of the Trump campaign:

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President Trump gave an extensive interview to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday evening.  The President made several stunning comments about the Mueller investigation, previous wiretaps, the upcoming inspector general report, the deep state, and his firm plans to declassify a significant amount of background documents.
For the first time President Trump used the terms “attempted coup” and “overthrow” to discuss the coordinated effort against his administration by the previous administration including James Clapper (ODNI), John Brennan (CIA), James Comey (FBI), and lower level officials within the intelligence apparatus.

Background Reports referenced by Hannity:

• Ukraine Report from John Solomon 
• Catherine Herridge Story – Grassley/Johnson Letter
• Sara Carter Column. Pence Chief-of-staff/Strzok Staffer

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A great panel segment delivered by Mike Huckabee tonight as Rudy Giuliani, Robert Ray and particularly Joe diGenova discuss the origin of the 2016 Russia conspiracy narrative, the FISA court and specifically the abuses of the NSA database. [Background]
Mr. diGenova outlines the nature of how the FISA-702(16)(17) database searches were weaponized for political spy operations.  Quite good:
[The panel segment starts at 10:09 prompted, just hit play]
https://youtu.be/4_yMcVq6-ak?t=10m9s
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Responding to criticisms made by Hillary Clinton, President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani discusses the political landscape after the Weissmann/Mueller report; including the sketchy Ukrainian connections to the origin of the fiasco.

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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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Ranking member of the HPSCI Devin Nunes appears on Fox News to announce a $150 million lawsuit against the McClatchy News Group for their part in a conspiracy to derail and manipulate the Clinton and Russia probes. –Details Here–

“The attacks on Nunes were pre-planned, calculated, orchestrated and undertaken by multiple individuals acting in concert, over a continuous period of time throughout 2018. The full scope of the conspiracy, including the names of all participants and the level of involvement of any agents or instrumentalities of foreign governments, is unknown at this time and will be the subject of discovery in this action.” (more)

It’s always important to remember when Nunes was Chairman of the HPSCI he successfully won a lawsuit against Fusion-GPS to gain access to their bank records.
There’s a distinct possibility Devin Nunes knows which reporters and media outlets were paid by Fusion (via Glenn Simpson) for their collaborative efforts. Was McClatchy paid by Fusion-GPS for participation in an organized smear effort? Stay tuned…
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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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Not A Tick Tock

Everything about last year’s headline story just two-weeks before the mid-term election was weird; including the refusal of the FBI to state what ‘specifically’ was the material suspect Cesar Sayoc was accused of using to create his Acme-looking pipe bombs. [Full Indictment Here]
You might remember: FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined during his remarks that the devices consisted of PVC pipe, clocks, batteries, wiring and “energetic material that can become combustible when subjected to heat or friction”.

The FBI director went out of his way to state: “these were not hoax devices.”  The DOJ case, which has taken places in New York’s Southern District (SDNY) then moved to seal all court filings and the case against the nut continued behind the curtain of ‘national security’.  Suspect Cesar Sayoc was scheduled to go on trial this summer on charges relating to the pipe bombs.  However, on March 21st, he entered a guilty plea before a federal judge in New York.
In a new development Cesar Sayoc has written a letter to the judge (full pdf below) trying to walk-back the statements put before him by lawyers in his guilty plea.  Obviously Mr. Sayoc is a person of unstable disposition, but his written statements speak to the nature of issues which have always seemed rather odd.
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