Well, well, well.  This is likely to be quickly brushed under the proverbial rug.  If you have followed the case against SSCI Security Director James Wolfe you will note the original indictment against him outlined, obliquely, how Wolfe took custody of the Carter Page FISA application and then leaked it to his concubine at Buzzfeed Ms. Ali Watkins.
The leak of the FISA application was a rather explosive issue not readily identified when Wolfe’s indictment was first presented (June ’18).  It was only possible to connect the dots after the FISA application was released (July ’18) and a comparison on specific dates, times, contacts and chain-of-custody, was possible.

In response to his indictment, Wolfe’s lawyers said they would force Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) members to participate and testify in any trial.  This was a rather stunning approach.  A few months passed and a plea bargain was struck.  Wolfe would plead guilty only to one count of lying to FBI investigators.  The charges of the leaking “top secret and classified” intelligence were dropped.
Wolfe was not ultimately charged with leaking the FISA application.  We sniffed a quid-pro-quo.  We suspected Wolfe was instructed by at least one senator, likely  SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, to leak the information.  This would explain Wolfe’s extraordinary defense position – and the DOJ response therein.
Think about it.  A gang-of-eight member (Warner), who happened -as a consequence of the jaw dropping implications- to be one of only TWO SSCI members who was notified by the FBI that Wolfe was compromised. The ramifications cannot be overstated.
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Forget the unmentioned brutally obvious political motives and intents behind the operation against Donald Trump for a moment; and focus on the collective Obama activity as if they actually believed the claims they have since presented…
The counterintelligence investigation into candidate, president-elect, and president Donald Trump was predicated on the Obama’s intelligence community believing that campaign officials were colluding, conspiring and otherwise coordinating to take over the office of the presidency, with help from a foreign government.  So why wouldn’t the intelligence services of the United States government conduct wiretaps and full blown surveillance upon that incoming administration?

The John Brennan CIA presented a classified electronic communication, “ec”, origination memo (we are not allowed to see) to ODNI (Clapper) and FBI (Comey); who then opened a full-blown counterintelligence operation against officials within the Trump campaign.
We know this operation was political, but again, ignore that aspect and just look at the issues, details and activity while accepting -at face value- their demonstrably dubious claims.
Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn provided the opening for operational surveillance of the Trump team. We can argue about how they were framed in that regard; however, it is factual that FISA-Title-One surveillance is all encompassing.
The target is validated and defined by the FBI as “an agent of a foreign government”. This legal distinction permits full surveillance: electronic, physical, the works.  Everything is on the table, no limits or boundaries.
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The curious case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn gets even more curious as Robert Mueller doesn’t deliver the FBI notes (FD-302) from the January 2017 interview of Flynn, as requested by Judge Emmet Sullivan, and instead submits notes from an internal July 19th, 2017, interview with FBI agent Peter Strzok.
The filing by the special counsel team (full pdf below) is a must read.
The special counsel begins their filing by criticizing the approach taken by the Flynn defense in the defense sentencing memo; and attempts to validate/justify their charges against the accused.   The details in their response to the judge’s request tell quite a story.

The attachments are very interesting.  They begin with notes by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe outlining the contacts with Michael Flynn prior to the FBI interview on January 24, 2017.  McCabe did not inform main justice, Sally Yates, until after FBI agents were dispatched.  The documents reveal Yates was not happy with McCabe’s decision.
FBI agent Peter Strzok and agent Joe Pientka were sent to the White House to interview Flynn only a few minutes after McCabe called Flynn. There was obviously a plan in place.
From the second attachment we discover that agent Strzok did all the questioning and agent Pientka took all the notes (screen-grab below).  Those FD-302 interview notes, written by Pientka on January 24th, 2017, are part of the what Judge Sullivan ordered to be submitted.  However, those notes are not included in the responsive Mueller filing.
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Tick-tock-bombshell club member John Solomon drops an explosive statement on Sean Hannity.  Oddly, there’s a factual part of his statement CTH agrees with; and a structural part of the background that is almost certain never to reach sunlight.  First, the substance:

(Transcript) […] “In May of 2017 there was a document identified to a small number of people in the United States government. It’s in the possession of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  For eighteen months there’s been an effort to resist declassifying that document; I know that that document contains extraordinary exculpatory information about General Flynn. I don’t believe the president has ever been told about the existence of this document.  One lawmaker discovered it, but was thwarted by the Defense Intelligence Agency in his efforts to disclose it. I think we should all ask for that declassification; get that out; it may enlighten the judge; it will certainly enlighten the American public.”

From the time-frame disclosed we can reasonably infer what this document is; at least what background surrounds it.
♦“In May of 2017”… The document is likely part of an intelligence product that was produced for President Obama’s Daily Briefing (PDB), and contains unmasking information (likely done by Susan Rice) on Michael Flynn as a surveillance target.
♦“One Lawmaker discovered it”… You might remember way back in March 2017 when HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes was taken to the White House SCIF by then white house official Ezra Cohen-Watnick; and that began a series of cascading events.
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The transcript from the first James Comey interview with the joint house committee is rather revealing for several measures.  One of the more interesting aspects surrounds Comey claiming the FBI never investigated the Trump campaign; and yet also claiming four Trump campaign officials had FBI investigative files opened on them simultaneously.
Apparently, Comey wants everyone to believe it was a coincidence or something.
Additionally, within his ‘interview’ Comey confirmed our previous hunch on a very specific redaction within the Nunes memo:

Chuck Ross expands: The FBI opened counterintelligence investigations into four Trump campaign associates in late July 2016, earlier than previously known, former FBI Director James Comey told Congress Friday.

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Representative Jim Jordan discusses his perspectives on the closed-door testimony of former FBI Director James Comey.

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Here’s the transcript (full pdf below) of the December 7th, 2018, deposition of former FBI Director James Comey to the joint house committee headed by Trey Gowdy and Bob Goodlatte:
[scribd id=395239462 key=key-mrRcuymxydLx1G9aSbLV mode=scroll]

(Oversight pdf link – scribd pdf link)

This is breaking.  CTH analysis to follow…

Former FBI Director James Comey gives a brief press conference following his testimony before a joint congressional committee.  Notably, Comey references the importance of saving the ‘institutions’ (and all the corrupt interests within it) above all other aspects.
When the institutions are corrupt; and the officials within the institutions are corrupt; and there is inquiry into the corrupt activity of the officials within the institutions; then retaining the institutions is the priority.  It’s that simple.  If you take down the institution you run the risk of exposing the corruption…. So anyone associated simply demands another coat of paint.

Additionally, Comey seems to infer that the removal of Jeff Sessions is now part of the Mueller/Rosenstein/Democrat approach to frame obstruction against President Trump.  Quite simply, any action by Trump to expose the previously described corruption is viewed as unlawful obstruction.  That’s their plan, and the approach has worked so far.
Comey is scheduled to return for more testimony on December 17th. Transcripts of today’s hearing should be available soon.
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We shared a discussion thread several months ago about how the media are enmeshed within the story of the DOJ and FBI corruption. The media engagements with the parties swirling around the FBI, DOJ and Clinton-Steele Dossier are so pervasive they cannot reasonably report on any aspect of the story without exposing their own duplicity.
As more and more information surfaces about corrupt DOJ and FBI activity, it’s worth remembering the media’s complicit role.  Here’s an updated review for context:

Michael Isikoff highlighted that level of how enmeshed media is with the story in February when he admitted his reporting was being used by the DOJ and FBI to advance the political objectives of the intelligence community. Additionally, FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page were 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–
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was busted by the Inspector General leaking stories to the media and then lying about it to INSD and IG investigators. FBI Director James Comey admitted to leaking stories to the New York Times, and even hired his friend Andrew Richman (off-the-books), gave him access to FBI and NSA databases, and then leaked information to Richman along with another friend Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare blog.
Lest we forget, the IG report on how the FBI handled the Clinton investigation revealed that dozens of FBI officials were actually taking bribes from the media for information:

IG REPORT – We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. Attached to this report as Attachments E and F are two link charts that reflect the volume of communications that we identified between FBI employees and media representatives in April/May and October 2016. We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review.

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The entire MSM apparatus were breathlessly waiting for the Michael Flynn sentencing memo in the hopes they could glean some information as to the nature and substance of the details within Flynn’s engagement with the special counsel.  It is unlikely anyone will be awaiting the sentencing memo for former SSCI Director of Security, except us.  The DOJ sentencing memo is due Tuesday, December 11th, at 5:00pm.

It will be really interesting to see the details of James Wolfe’s sentencing memo, because some (not us) have speculated Wolfe’s minimal charges were due to cooperation with the DOJ on larger constructs.   According to the original indictment, James Wolfe leaked “classified” and “top secret” information from the Senate Intelligence Committee to the media.  However, Wolfe was only charged with one count of lying to the FBI.
CTH suspects the reason for the minimal charges, is specifically because the corrupt DOJ (Rosenstein) is providing cover to the corrupt SSCI (Warner/Feinstein/Burr); and Wolfe has not been a cooperating witness – because he was never asked to cooperate in an investigation the DOJ never intended to pursue.
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