Last night news broke that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras “has been recused” from the case overseeing the prosecution of General Mike Flynn. Details are vague. According to Reuters, both the judge and the Flynn legal team have yet to comment.
Additionally, there is no concrete answer as to whether the recusal was done by the judge himself or was forced upon him. While the reasoning is the key, the difference between the two options adds another layer of consequence within the rest of this outline.  Reuters News Service puts it this way:

(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.
According to a court filing, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras, who presided over a Dec. 1 hearing where Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russia, will no longer handle the case.
Court spokeswoman Lisa Klem did not say why Contreras was recused, and added that the case was randomly reassigned. Reuters could not immediately learn the reason for the recusal, or reach Contreras. An attorney for Flynn declined to comment. (Link)

Obviously, the customary reason for recusal is when there is a conflict of interest between the case as assigned and the judge overseeing it.  However, as you can clearly see, in this case it’s rather odd that if a conflict existed the judge would have even begun to oversee the case at the prior hearing.  Why wait until six days after the first hearing?
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Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself from the case surrounding Michael Flynn, and people are wondering why.  There’s one very distinct possibility.

POLITICO – President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, will face a different judge to be sentenced than the one who took Flynn’s guilty plea to a felony false statement charge last week, court records show.
Judge Emmet Sullivan was randomly assigned to take over the case after Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself. (more)

As soon as CTH saw the name Judge Rudolph Contreras our spidey sense alarm bells began ringing.  You know why?…
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Senator Al Franken used the legal immunity provided within the venue of the Senate Chamber to avoid libel suits for his accusations against President Trump and Senate Candidate Roy Moore, while also stating he will likely resign from his office at some point in the future.
WASHINGTON DC – Calling it “the worst day of his political life,” Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken said Thursday he will resign from the U.S. Senate following a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against him that ranged from groping to forcibly trying to kiss women.

Franken, who said that some of the complaints against him were “simply not true” and that he remembers others “differently,” also took a parting shot at President Trump.
“There is some irony in the fact that I am leaving office while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full supoort of his party,” Franken said, referring to Trump and Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama.

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Identity politics driven to new lows in the Alabama Senate race. According to an Alabama Voter the democrats have decided to play the race-card against Roy Moore with a racially driven mailer:

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President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence met earlier today with congressional leadership: House Speaker Paul Ryan, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
[Video and Transcript of remarks below]  When Nancy Pelosi began talking the look on VP Pence’s face is, well, priceless. Additionally, anticipating Pelosi and Schumer are going to hold up the budget by threatening military spending, the ever-strategic Trump invited General Mattis into the discussion so the Democrat leadership could tell him to his face why they would be willing to put American military lives at risk.  Epic.

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[ Transcript] 3:08 P.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. We’re all here as a very friendly, well-unified group. It’s a well-knit-together group of people. And we hope that we’re going to make some great progress for our country. I think that will happen, and we appreciate it very much.
And, Chuck, Nancy, would you say anything — like to say anything? Chuck?
LEADER SCHUMER: Well, we hope we can come to an agreement. Funding the government is extremely important, helping our soldiers is very important, and helping average citizens is very important.
So we’re here in the spirit of: let’s get it done.
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“The Predicate”

FBI Director Christopher Wray appears before the House Judiciary Committee today to answer questions about the ongoing mission objectives of the FBI.  However, the opportunity for Wray’s appearance is being used to further investigate and unravel the ongoing issues surrounding the politicization of the FBI under the former leadership of Director James Comey.  Specifically how the FBI was weaponized against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump to the benefit of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In the questioning segment below Ohio Representative Jim Jordan questions Director Wray about the role of FBI Deputy Head of Counterintelligence, FBI Agent Peter Strzok. Jim Jordan outlines the role of Strzok -as it is currently known- and asks if Agent Strzok then took information from Christopher Steele (author of the ‘Steele Russian Dossier’) and used that dossier as the predicate to organize the FISA application that began the surveillance of people associated with the Trump campaign:

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This line of questioning is critical because when combined with a year of investigation by the Dept of Justice, Office of Inspector General, the sunlight takes a two-pronged approach:
♦The IG is working from the inside to investigate the politicization, a more apt term is ‘weaponization‘, of the FBI and DOJ within those organizations.  The IG is then identifying specific people and specific behavior.
♦The oversight committees (Judiciary, Intelligence) are working from the outside of the organizations to spotlight the consequences from those people and from that behavior.
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It appears the DNC (Perez) gender plan for the political aspirations of elected Democrats is continuing.  In a coordinated and strategically timed roll-out today, DNC Chairman Tom Perez and a host of top level Democrats began demanding Senator Al Franken resign from his Senate seat.
Senator Franken is inside the famous Democrat cross-fire ‘kill zone’.  His likelihood of re-election is very low, and simultaneously his ouster feeds a scripted useful narrative. Hence, he’s a goner…

WASHINGTON DC – […] Starting around 11:30 a.m. ET, the senators posted statements in a coordinated effort, one after the other, on social media, saying the Minnesota Democrat should step down.
Some comments were elaborate, lengthy and loaded with a moral message. Others, like that of Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, were straight to the point. “Al Franken should resign,” she simply tweeted.
Within the next 90 minutes, 16 Democrats — 10 of them women — and one Republican senator — Susan Collins of Maine — had publicly urged their colleague to vacate his seat.

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A rather interesting New York Times article describes life in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) now that interim Director Mick Mulvaney is leading the agency. Actually, one of the more interesting aspects is how congressional defenders of the CFPB have claimed the workforce is non-partisan, yet for some mysterious reason the mostly Millenials are described as using coded messaging.

Keep in mind, these are presumably college educated young professionals:

New York Times […] Some employees, including a few of the bureau’s top officials, have welcomed their new leader. Others, pointing to Mr. Mulvaney’s earlier hostility toward the agency and its mission, are quietly resisting. One small group calls itself “Dumbledore’s Army,” according to two of the people who were familiar with their discussions. The name is a reference to a secret resistance force in the “Harry Potter” books.
An atmosphere of intense anxiety has taken hold, several employees said. In some cases, conversations between staff that used to take place by phone or text now happen almost exclusively in person or through encrypted messaging apps.

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Facing increased scrutiny for his financial settlements with harassment accusers, Democrat Representative John Conyers states he is retiring from congress.  According to lawyers speaking on behalf of Conyers, his retirement is effective immediately.
(Via CBS) [John Conyers (D-MI)] has announced Tuesday that he is retiring and has endorsed his son, John Conyers III to run for his seat. Conyers’ lawyer confirmed that the retirement is effective immediately.
“My legacy can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now. This too shall pass,” said Conyers on a local Michigan radio station Tuesday morning.
He added, “I want you to know that my legacy will continue through my children. I have a great family here and especially in my oldest boy, John Conyers III who incidentally I endorsed to replace me in my seat in Congress.”
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OK, before going further, we need to step back and take a look at how deeply enmeshed Deputy Head of Counterintelligence FBI Agent Peter Strzok was to this entire FBI investigative enterprise.

•Peter Strzok was the lead FBI agent in charge of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. •Agent Peter Strzok was one of a small group who interviewed Hillary Clinton. •Agent Strzok was also the FBI contact person to receive the Russian Dossier and interview the author Christopher Steele.  [Remember, Hillary Clinton’s team paid Christopher Steele (via Fusion GPS) to create the dossier.] •Agent Strzok was the primary counterintelligence investigator for the ‘vast Russian conspiracy’, narrative.  •Agent Strzok was then hired by Robert Mueller to lead the FBI investigative efforts into  the “Russian Election Collusion/Conspiracy.”  •Agent Strzok was removed from the Mueller Team after the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton content of his internal communications were discovered by the current Inspector General investigation….

…and today we discover that Deputy Head of Counterintelligence, FBI Agent Peter Strzok was the person who interviewed National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn on January 24th, 2017.  An interview, that blindsided Flynn because there was no advanced notification…. And an interview that was the basis for the recent Robert Mueller charging of Flynn.
Good grief, it’s no wonder why the FBI desperately tried to control a pending IG release by advance-scripting a narrative, via leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post.
If FBI Agent Strzok can be shown to have conflicting political and institutional bias, then every aspect of the investigation he was involved in comes into question… and Agent Strzok is at the EPICENTER of every angle, within every aspect, of EVERY investigation.

SARA CARTER – A supervisory special agent who is now under scrutiny after being removed from Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office for alleged bias against President Trump also oversaw the bureau’s interviews of embattled former National Security advisor Michael Flynn, this reporter has learned.

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