We shared a discussion thread a few weeks ago about how the media are enmeshed within the entire story of the DOJ and FBI corruption.  The media engagements with the parties swirling around the Clinton-Steele Dossier and DOJ corruption are so pervasive they cannot currently report on the story without exposing their own duplicity.  Michael Isikoff found that reality yesterday when he discovered his reporting was being used by the FBI.
FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page have been shown in their text messages to be leaking stories from the Clinton Investigation, the Trump investigation and the Mueller investigation to journalists at Politico, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. –SEE HERE–

(Source Link – pdf Page #5) 

Additionally, Christopher Steele has stated in U.K. court records the person in charge of the Clinton Campaign’s opposition research firm, Glenn Simpson from Fusion GPS,  arranged and coordinated for Mr. Steele to talk to several journalists (CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News and Mother Jones) while Mr. Steele was also the primary source of information for the FBI investigators (including Strzok and Page):
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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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Fox News host Brett Baier interviews Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes after the release of the House Intelligence Committee memo:

THE WHITE HOUSE – WASHINGTON – February 2, 2018
The Honorable Devin Nunes Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence
United States Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
On January 29,2018, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (hereinafter “the Committee”) voted to disclose publicly a memorandum containing classified information provided to the Committee in connection with its oversight activities (the “Memorandum,” which is attached to this letter). As provided by clause II(g) of Rule X of the House of Representatives, the Committee has forwarded this Memorandum to the President based on its determination that the release of the Memorandum would serve the public interest.
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There continue to be questions about the substance behind the pending release of the House Intelligence Committee memo.  With that release in mind, today it is worthwhile remembering this is the beginning of exposing the corruption within the DOJ not the end.

For several years the U.S. justice department has maintained an attitude of non-accountability within its ranks.  The Obama years elevated that attitude and provided multiple examples of a DOJ gone rogue.
A complicit media enables that attitude by engineering a false narrative the U.S. Justice Department was/is an independent fourth branch of government; unaccountable to congress and entirely separate from the executive branch.
The House Intelligence Memo is simply using the example of currently known FISA abuse to open the door and show the U.S. electorate how corrupt this unaccountable institution has become.  Behind that door are very uncomfortable realities for all of those who constructed the weaponized agency; and also those who have benefited from it.
Consider:
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It was announced this afternoon the lawyers representing, Rick Gates, the business partner of Paul Manafort, have withdrawn from the case.  The judicial notification is HERE, and details of withdrawal were filed under seal.
Amid the news cycle of the HPSCI memo release, and considering there could be ripple effects therein, lots of media speculations follows:

WASHINGTON DC – Three attorneys representing Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday they are immediately withdrawing as counsel for the former Donald Trump campaign aide, who is fighting special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of him on money laundering and other charges.
Lawyers Shanlon Wu, Walter Mack and Annemarie McAvoy said in a two-page motion that they would explain the reasons for their abrupt move in documents filed under seal with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (read more)

There is possibility the three lawyers could be withdrawing after discovery of the length of time the DOJ was investigating Manafort and Gates; and that might just dovetail into the FISA702 abuse story and the 2016 counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump. I’ll try to explain.
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Congressional representative Matt Gaetz appears with Neil Cavuto and Martha MacCallum to discuss the House Intelligence Memo and the pending release…
Martha MacCallum Interview:

The Memo team have done a great job utilizing the media reporting to draw in interest to the content of the House Intelligence Memo on DOJ/FBI FISA abuse.  During a joint House and Senate  leadership press conference today, Speaker Paul Ryan again clarified the process and procedures.  [Video @08:28 Prompted]
Remember, what is contained in the full story of this DOJ and FBI activity, directly strikes to the heart of the two biggest and most defended people within the Democrat party: former President Obama, and former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The media are losing their minds over this, because of the consequential nature of the facts and what they represent.
https://youtu.be/27UyIehXN9M?t=8m30s
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If the apparent Nunes, Grassley, Goodlatte and Horowitz timing remains as previously evidenced, today should be Memo Release Day.
The White House having allowed a full 36 hours of media discussion time to talk through the SotU address, is poised to permit the Executive Branch declassification approval of the Legislative Branch intelligence work product.

In a last minute effort to block the executive approvals, Minority Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, claimed last night there were changes to the legislative work product.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes shared with Adam Schiff some minor edits to the drafted memo that resulted from the executive branch (FBI Director Wray) making a request upon initial review:
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Gotta love the professionally obtuse former DNI James Clapper.
As much as he is a stuttering doofus, and therein showcases his political value for the former administration; and to the extent that Clapper has previously stated there was no attempt by the DOJ/FBI to gain a FISA authorized approval for surveillance on any Trump campaign officials: “none that I’m aware of“; …it is always valuable to listen to Clapper because he has a tendency to, well, to let slip stuff that makes the black hats cringe.
Cue the audio visual “slippage.”  Inside tonight’s interview by Jake Tapper, former DNI James Clapper now unwittingly refutes his previous assertion of “no Trump FISA warrant“, and simultaneously lets it slip out that the Clinton/Steele dossier was not used in gaining origination authority for FISA-702 surveillance, but rather for an “extension” of a previous application for FISA-702 surveillance.  WATCH:

06:48 ..”as I understand it, this was simply an extension of uh, the original, uh, FISA request.  Meaning that, or implying, that apparently, there was information that was considered, uh, ‘valuable’, that was being obtained, via the initial FISA request.”
“FISA’s have, uh, finite dates. Uh, in other words they have deadlines; they aren’t indefinite… So when the time was up for the initial FISA report, FISA request, then it was time to get an extension. So on its face, I don’t know that the dossier played, very much, in this at all”…

Well, that’s interesting.  I wonder who gave Clapper the “as I understand it” part? Now let’s go back to March 5th 2017 and review what DNI James Clapper said about the Department of Justice getting FISA-702 surveillance authority on Trump campaign officials.
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