With media reporting that U.S. Attorney John Durham has expanded the timeline and scope of his investigation into U.S. government and intelligence community activity during the 2016 election, there’s an interesting quote from NBC:

…”Justice Department officials have said that Durham has found something significant, and that critics should be careful.”…

The expanded investigative timeline is now into May 2017 when Mueller was appointed special counsel, and would mean all of the preceding (and surrounding) activity leading up to Mueller would be reviewed.   With that carefully in mind….
During the 2016 effort to weaponize the institutions of government against the outside candidacy of Donald Trump, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) was headed by Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein.  After the 2016 election Senator Feinstein abdicated her vice-chair position to Senator Mark Warner in January 2017.
While the SSCI was engaged in their part of the 2016 effort Vice-Chair Feinstein’s lead staffer was a man named Daniel Jones. Dan Jones was the contact point between the SSCI and Fusion-GPS.
After the election, and after Feinstein abdicated, Dan Jones left the committee to continue paying Fusion-GPS (Glenn Simpson) for ongoing efforts toward the impeachment insurance policy angle.
Feinstein appears to have left because she didn’t want to deal with the consequences of a President Trump, IF he discovered the SSCI involvement. Dan Jones left because with a Trump presidency the SSCI, now co-chaired by Senator Mark Warner, needed arms-length plausible deniability amid their 2017 operations to continue the removal effort (soft coup).
The trail for this plausible deniability process and ongoing soft-coup effort first surfaces with Dan Jones appearing in the early 2017 text messages between Senator Warner and the liaison for Christopher Steele, lawyer and lobbyist Adam Waldman:
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Nancy Pelosi continues to mislead her ‘impeachment’ constituents.  Unfortunately the compliant media is refusing to hold her accountable.  House Democrat leadership has taken a climate assessment of democrat House members and Speaker Pelosi announced they will not hold a House impeachment authorization vote.   As a direct and specific consequence all committee subpoenas do not carry a penalty for non-compliance.

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“Lawful subpoenas”, literally require an enforcement mechanism; that’s the “poena” part of the word.  The enforcement mechanism is a judicial penalty, and that penalty can only be created if the House votes to authorize an impeachment inquiry.
Absent a vote to authorize, the Legislative Branch has not established compulsion authority (aka judicial enforcement authority), as they attempt to work through their quasi-constitutional “impeachment inquiry” process.
Instead of subpoenas, Adam Schiff (House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence); and Chairman Eliot L. Engel (House Committee on Foreign Affairs) can only send out request letters. The compliance is discretionary based on the outlook of the recipient.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss ongoing politics in Washington DC.
McCarthy discusses the meeting between Speaker Pelosi and President Trump and the ongoing fiasco with Pelosi’s “official impeachment inquiry” by decree.

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White House chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney appears on Fox News Sunday with swamp gatekeeper Chris Wallace.   As customary Wallace uses the Share Blue talking points, one example:  Notice how Wallace says “a statement from a senior justice department official”, then puts up an “anonymous” quote. Official statements from the DOJ are not anonymous.

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The background context has already been outlined –SEE HERE– so we won’t repeat.  Instead, we look at today’s defensive narrative engineering from the New York Times with a similar perspective, but a different set of reminders.
Content and distribution tells us this information is from the DOJ and FBI faction of the “Small Group“.  Not accidentally, and VERY importantly, this is the same faction under the microscope of Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his pending IG report.  Additionally, and again very importantly, the principles within the IG report have already had an opportunity to review the part of the upcoming report that highlights their conduct.

So this New York Times reporting, from conversations with the DOJ and FBI small group participants, is coming out in advance of the IG report and with their review in mind.
Here’s the article, emphasis mine:

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation have asked witnesses pointed questions about any anti-Trump bias among former F.B.I. officials who are frequent targets of President Trump and about the earliest steps they took in the Russia inquiry, according to former officials and other people familiar with the review.

[Note “prosecutors” is plural; more than one.  “prosecutors” also implies a shift from investigative review, to a likelihood of criminal conduct.  The media presentation of John Durham has gone from a single U.S. Attorney with a mandate from his boss, to a group of people, ‘prosecutors’, working with the U.S. Attorney.]
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Within today’s reporting from the New York Times and NBC, a key aspect is how CIA analysts are worried about explaining and/or justifying the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).  As such it is well worth remembering information about John Durham’s originating focus from June, 2019:
Against the backdrop of the DOJ admitting FBI investigators never had access to the DNC servers to verify a Russian hack; and with new information about the FBI receiving partial and redacted analysis from Crowdstrike; the review by U.S. Attorney John Durham toward the downstream assessment/claims of the CIA takes on new meaning.
CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.
The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.
The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. While the majority of content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique “insurance policy” interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017.  NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.
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Despite the abject nuttery, there is good news here.  Former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is accusing current Democrat Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard of being a secret Russian agent:

“[Tulsi Gabbard is] the favorite of the Russians, and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset. She’s a Russian asset! I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate.” (link)

The insufferable Mrs. Clinton re-initiated her vast Russian conspiracy theory during an interview with former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.  Yes, THAT David Plouffe.
However, Clinton nuttery aside, this level of political quackery -as expressed- is not all bad news.  Clinton’s tendency to make herself stupid and small is a strong indicator: (A) she’s not stable; (B) she’s not viable; and (C) she knows she could never re-enter the race.
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Great job by Senator Rand Paul. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to bring the anti-Trump House resolution to the floor.  However, because the procedure for a single senator to bring vote to the Senate Chamber requires unanimous consent, the maneuver can also be blocked by a single senator.
Today, Rand Paul stood up and would not allow Chuck Schumer to advance a Senate vote on the House resolution condemning Trump.

(Washington DC) […] Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) tried to get consent Thursday to bring up the resolution, arguing that “we’re in real trouble.”
“The most important thing we can do right now is send President Trump a message that Congress, the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans, demand he reverse course,” Schumer said.
The resolution passed the House on Wednesday by a wide margin in 354-60 vote. All 60 votes against the resolution came from Republicans.

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Jumpin’ ju-ju bones, this could be the biggest rally so far this year.  Tonight President Donald Trump is holding a massive MAGA-KAG rally at the American Airlines Center in Dallas Texas.  The President is expected to speak at 7:00pm CDT / 8:00pm EDT.
RSBN Livestream Link – Fox News Livestream Link – Global News Livestream Link

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Oh man, almost too much winning.  President Trump Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney brings the cold-fish slapper to a White House presser and pummels the narrative engineers.  Cold-Fish Slapping is like whac-a-mole, only instead of a hammer you use a slightly unfrozen fish; and instead of mole-heads popping up, you get reporters stupid questions.
First, Mr. Mulvaney announces the 2020 G7 will be held at Trump Doral Resort in Miami Florida, June 10th – 12th 2020.  The pearl-clutching media begin to quiver uncontrollably. Slap. Slap. Slap.  More spontaneous ‘splodey heads…. more cold-fish-slapping.  Repeat.
Then Mulvaney takes questions on Muh Ukraine and Muh Impeach-We-Much, and it becomes necessary for double-handed cold-fish-slapping.  This is really good. WATCH:

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The White House using Trump Doral-Miami for the G7, just because it is the best place to host the G7 is epic Trump. The media go bonkers… Trump shrugs and says: when you’re done with that, fetch me a Diet Coke. LOL.
[Transcript] – MR. MULVANEY: Hey, guys. How are you all?

First thing’s first: I want to comment very briefly on Mr. Cummings’s passing. For those of you who know, I was in Congress for a couple years with Mr. Cummings, and — on the committee with him. I had a chance to work with him on a day in, day out basis. And he will be missed. He was — he was a classy guy, and I enjoyed much working with him. And the condolences from my family and all of the White House group to his family today. He will be — he will be sorely missed.

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