House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes appears on Fox News to discuss the current status of investigations/inquiry into corrupt DOJ and FBI activity in the 2016 election.
U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr gives his first media interview since taking office. Bill Hemmer interviews AG Barr in El Salvador on a wide variety of topics. Fox News has packaged the broadcast interview to begin with questions to the AG about the ongoing “review” of FBI and DOJ conduct in the election, ie “SpyGate”.
The Attorney General explains how the primary aspects under review were conducted by a “small group” at the top of the institutions, and he was surprised to discover no-one had valid answers to his initial inquiry. The lack of cogent explanation furthered his concerns and led to his decision to appoint a prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John H Durham, to conduct a more thorough review.
Fox News correspondent Bill Hemmer interviewed U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr in El Salvador during a visit to address the crisis on the U.S-Mexico border, MS-13, drug trafficking and human trafficking.
During the interview Bill Hemmer asked about AG Barr’s ongoing review of DOJ and FBI activity during the 2016 election.
BARR: “I’ve been trying to get answers to the questions and I’ve found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate and some of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together, in a sense I have more questions today than when I first started.”
HEMMER: “What doesn’t hang together?”
BARR: “Some of the explanations of what occurred.”
HEMMER: “Why does that matter?”
BARR: “People have to find out what the government was doing during that period. If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale.”
Things are going to get interesting in the Michael Flynn sentencing review; not because of the recently release documents [Here – and Here – and Here] but rather because it appears Judge Sullivan suspects what we’ve previously outlined.
In addition to the documents, Judge Sullivan is asking the DOJ to provide the transcript of the 12/29/16 call between Mike Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak.
Why is this important? Because it appears Judge Sullivan suspects the transcript of the phone call will match statements from Flynn to the FBI. Ergo Flynn did not lie to the FBI.
Since reviewing the November 30th, 2017, pleading we’ve been pointing out how the FBI admits to intercepting the Flynn-Kislyak call, but the FBI never put a factual transcript in the court record. Why not?
It’s a long, but necessary, story.
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Apparently, Italian media are reporting that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conté has requested the resignations of several top Italian intelligence officials. The move is being interpreted as the Conte’ government responding to the previous governments’ coordinated activity with U.S. intelligence officials during the 2016 U.S. election surrounding “Spygate”.
Prime Minister Conté visited with President Trump in June 2018 at the White House; and reflects a more nationalistic outlook in Italy. Conte’ has high approval in the country; however, it appears the socialists (including media) are outraged at the challenge to the intelligence apparatus…
[Via Google Translate] The senator of the Pd Luigi Zanda presented an urgent question to the President of the Council after the news appeared today in the newspaper La Repubblica about a presumed request for the resignation of the four deputy directors of the departments of the Italian secret services.
On her television show Laura Ingraham reported her ‘sources’ inform her President Trump will execute the declassification directive next week. [Video Tweet Link] If accurate, the timing –in advance of the OIG draft report– makes sense.
The declassification of documents central to previous congressional inquiry, that also encompasses the Inspector General review of the Carter Page FISA application, is the subject of great interest and speculation. However, it would make sense for President Trump to authorize the declassification of documents in advance of the IG report release.
Likely Inspector General Michael Horowitz has reviewed all of the documents in question. If Horowitz wants to include the classified content in his draft report for principle review; and later within the final report; those documents would need to be declassified or else they would be held back, footnoted and outlined in a classified appendix.
If the DOJ and President Trump want the information more broadly available to the public and media, it would make sense to declassify the documents – pending the review and approval of the participating intelligence agencies (DOJ, DOJ-NSD, CIA, NSA, State Dept., FBI, ODNI, DoD, etc.)
♦ The process without controversy – First, each of the executive branch intelligence agencies will have to sign-off on the declassification request, and/or explain to the Chief Executive (that’s Trump), through the ODNI, why their specific intelligence product should not be made public.
Generally speaking, now that the Mueller investigation is complete; and if there is no substantive risk to national security; the intelligence agencies will adhere/defer to the request of the executive. This is where the alignment and support from U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr is critically important.
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Devin Nunes appears on Fox News to discuss why the origin of the Russia narrative is important. The scale and scope of the fraudulent construct is now a strongly enmeshed narrative, toxic to the systems of cohesive government:
Trey Gowdy appears on Fox News to discuss the current ‘investigative’ status and reports of Brennan -vs- Comey on the use of the Steele Dossier within the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment or ICA.
Gowdy is one of the few people, along with John Ratcliffe, who has seen the full and unredacted FISA application used against Carter Page.
The exit door begins to close. According to the latest leak provided to John Solomon the State Department information -deconstructing Chris Steele- was presented to FBI Agent Peter Strzok a week before they used Steele’s sketchy dossier to prop up the FBI FISA application on Carter Page.
John Solomon – […] The officials declined to say what the FBI did with the information about Steele after it reached Strzok’s team, or what the email specifically revealed. A publicly disclosed version of the email has been heavily redacted in the name of national security.
While much remains to be answered, the email exchange means FBI supervisors knew Steele had contact with State and had reason to inquire what he was saying before they sought the warrant. If they had inquired, agents would have learned Steele had admitted to Kavalec he had been leaking to the news media, had a political deadline of Election Day to get his information public and had provided demonstrably false intelligence in one case, as I reported last week. (read more)
It’s almost guaranteed the reason Kavelec’s email to the FBI was redacted is specifically because Ms. Kavelec used her State Dept. portal to check on travel records and noted the “Michael Cohen in Prague” story was false. Kavalec would have easy access to State Dept. travel records.
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Against the backdrop of media reports surrounding U.S. Attorney John Durham, and an investigation into potentially corrupt 2016 investigators, perhaps it’s worthwhile to pause, evaluate, reset the outlook and review the backstories.
There’s room for cautious optimism, but there’s also reason to temper expectations. First within the latest Fox News report, the following is noted:
Fox News – […] Durham, known as a “hard-charging, bulldog” prosecutor, according to a source, will focus on the period before Nov. 7, 2016—including the use and assignments of FBI informants, as well as alleged improper issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants. Durham was asked to help Barr to “ensure that intelligence collection activities by the U.S. Government related to the Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign were lawful and appropriate.”