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.

In response to media inquiry and FOIA demands, the government of Australia formally admitted today to the role of High Commissioner Alexander Downer and his engagements with George Papadopoulos in 2016.  The timing coincides with the Mueller Report (released today), which states it was information about this engagement from Alexander Downer that opened the FBI counterintelligence investigation in July 2016.
The Australian government cited the conclusion of the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation as the background for their willingness to comply with an 15-month-old FOIA request from Buzzfeed News.

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In 2015 the DOJ-OIG (office of inspector general) requested oversight of the DOJ National Security Division.  It was Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58 page legal explanation saying, essentially, ‘nope – not allowed.’ (PDF HERE) All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the DOJ-NSD.
When John Carlin resigned as Asst. Attorney General in charge of the DOJ National Security Division in October 2016 he was replaced by Principal Deputy Asst. Attorney General and Chief of Staff, Mary McCord.  After President Trump took office on January 20th, 2017, Sally Yates was Acting AG and Mary McCord was in charge of the DOJ-NSD.
Yates and McCord were the two Main Justice officials who then engaged with White House Counsel Don McGahn on January 26th, 2017, regarding the General Flynn FBI interview conducted on January 24th.  The Trump-Russia Collusion Conspiracy was the headline.

On January 30th, 2017, Sally Yates was fired for refusing to defend the Trump travel ban from extremist countries.  Yates was replaced on January 31st by the U.S. Attorney from the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), Dana Boente.
With his shift to Main Justice Dana Boente was Acting Attorney General, and Mary McCord was Asst. AG in charge of the DOJ-NSD.  Boente was in the Acting AG position from Jan 31st, 2017, until Jeff Sessions was confirmed on February 8th, 2017.
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Representative Mark Meadows and ¹Byron York had a podcast discussion yesterday that contains some interesting information. [Podcast Available Here]  Much like Byron York himself the hour long conversation targets the DC crustless triangle sandwich & white wine spritzer audience, where York is most comfortable.  That said, Meadows made some interesting comments that flew right over Yorks’ head.

♦ First, Representative Meadows discussed five witness interviews the House did not get to before they lost the majority.  Two of the five people were FBI Agent Joe Pientka, and former FBI Asst. Director for Public Relations Mike Kortan; the other three were unnamed.
Meadows stated Kortan and Pientka were interviewed by Inspector General Horowitz; which is slightly remarkable because: (1) Kortan quit the FBI February 8th, 2018; and (2) Kortan was unlikely to have been much use in the FISA angle of investigation…. Unless Horowitz is going deeper.  Regardless, let’s hope this interview with Kortan did take place.
FBI Asst. Director Kortan is important because he was in the middle of the conversations when media leaks were being strategically deployed to assist Strzok and Team.  Kortan was the guy responsible for leaking information to the media so the FBI could recapture those media reports as evidence in their investigation; ie. the circular investigative material.
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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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Georgia Congressman Doug Collins releases transcripts of day #2 testimony from former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker (full pdf below).  Baker was the legal advisor to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe during the investigation candidate Donald Trump; a key FBI small group insider during the soft-coup construct.
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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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Representative Doug Collins has released the transcript from former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker during his first day of testimony to congress on October 3rd, 2018. (full pdf below)
Baker was part of the FBI small group who claimed to be somewhat skeptical of the manner in which the FBI investigation was taking place. James Baker told Congress during his testimony the investigation was “highly unusual.”
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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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