In order to present an accurate record of events, it is important to remain focused on specifics.  During the period from May, 2017, through April of 2019, Main Justice in Washington DC was split into two divisions.

In one division there was the Special Counsel Robert Mueller team in control of everything related to DOJ and FBI activity around the 2016 election, with emphasis on the Trump-Russia headlines.  This division handled 100% of everything that was sucking up the oxygen in Washington DC.  Andrew Weissmann was in charge of this division.

In the second division, there was everything else the DOJ was doing, which is to say not much. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was heading this division.

The liaison between both divisions was Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who generally didn’t know what was going on inside the Mueller/Weissmann operation; but, as he later testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee [June 2020 link], Rosenstein had the job of signing off and authorizing everything Weissmann et al were doing.  Rosenstein authorized every request and not a single ‘ask’ from the Mueller team was ever denied – including expanding the scope of the Mueller investigation, twice.

Why does this matter?  It matters because everything happening in Main Justice from May ’17 to April ’19, activity that was grabbing every scintilla of media attention, was being done by the Mueller/Weissmann team.  Key word ‘everything.’

There was not a single action from Main Justice that was not controlled by Andrew Weissman and company.  This action includes the recent revelations of staff and congressional members from the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) having subpoenas for their private emails, phone records, text message and communication.

Andrew Weissmann sent over 2,800 subpoenas for records [See 156-Pages of Examples Here].  Some of those subpoenas were sent to various telecommunications and social media platforms so they could monitor what congress was doing.

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The timing of stuff and the context of the historic reference points matter when looking at any story involving the DOJ.  Failing to understand the background context leads to mistaken impressions, false assumptions, corrupt hidden actors getting away with prior misconduct and generally flawed analysis.  That is the accurate takeaway from a story that seems to have gained attention amid the professionally republican class of punditry.

Here at CTH we have dropped the pretending, focus on the evidence and call the baby ugly when warranted.

Today’s outrage du jour surrounds Kash Patel sharing documents with John Solomon about a subpoena dated November 20, 2017, targeting investigative staff from the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  [Article Here] Dates matter. Redactions matter.

[Document Source]

Who redacted this document?…  Kash Patel?  John Solomon? or the DOJ?  It matters.

In November of 2017, everything related to the Trump-Russia operation was being handled at the Dept of Justice by lead DOJ Special Counsel official Andrew Weissmann under the auspices of what is commonly called the Mueller probe or ‘Mueller investigation‘.  On November 20, 2017, the main focus of Weissmann was the guilty plea of Michael Flynn which was at its apex and was later signed November 30, 2017.

The public battle on Capitol Hill November 2017, was between HPSCI and Main Justice.  Nunes -vs- Schiff -vs- FBI -vs- Main Justice -vs- White House -vs- Special Counsel.  Each entity competing for the public and political narrative.

In his later (June 2020) Senate testimony, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein testified that Weissmann/Mueller were in charge of everything at Main Justice and he was used as a go-between liaison between congress, the White House and the DOJ.  Rosenstein gave Weissmann/Mueller full autonomy, full authority, and never once questioned a request from them.  Put simply, Rosenstein said Mueller and Weissmann called every shot in the DOJ that had anything even remotely associated with Trump-Russia, which was essentially everything at Main Justice for two years.

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Twitter file release #7 comes from Michael Shellenberger and focuses on how the FBI specifically engaged with Twitter before, during and after the Hunter Biden Laptop story surfaced.  [RELEASE HERE]

There are some interesting facets to the Shellenberger outline including his naming of the communications method, “Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter, ” and Shellenberger’s identification of payments from the FBI to Twitter in order to cover the expenses related to the censorship they requested.

As Shellenberger notes on paragraph 46, “The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time. “I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.”

[Twitter File #7 Release Here]

Overall, the Twitter file 7 release shows the FBI being well aware of the Hunter Biden laptop issue long before the fall of 2020 and taking specific action to mitigate any potential damage to the Biden campaign.   The FBI was aware of the laptop in December of 2019, and the engagements with the social media platform were transparently proactive measures with political intentions.

The story weaves in and out of Washington DC and transfers the action items from DC to the San Francisco field office of the FBI where Elvis Chan was in charge of coordinating control over the content of the Twitter platform.

Factually, a solid argument could be made that this specific release shows how the FBI Russiagate effort against Trump needed to exit Washington DC following the 2016 election, and so the majority of FBI’s anti-Trump activity for 2020 shifted to San Francisco.

Washington DC DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community efforts focused on protecting itself from discovery of their activity in 2015 and 2016, while San Francisco became the headquarters for FBI anti-Trump efforts targeting 2020.  This location shift aligns with the datapoint of Russiagate FBI Agent Joseph Pientka transferring from DC to San Francisco; with Elvis Chan taking the place of Pientka as the targeting focused on social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, etc).

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The J6 Committee has announced they have found President Trump guilty of four counts of campaigning against their Democrat candidates and attempting to disrupt the DC system of governing and financial graft.   The committee formally announced their intent today for political referrals to the Biden-Obama justice department.

In addition to holding other scandalous political conversations, President Trump is accused of: (1) “aiding and comforting” disgruntled voters; (2) obstructing Congress’ Jan. 6 joint session by holding a political rally in DC; (3) conspiring with some unknown entity to make false claims to the bureaucrats in the National Archives about his private papers; and ultimately, (4) conspiring to defraud the United States and deprive Washington DC of its business model.

The J6 Committee has released a 160-page “executive summary” of a report they will release soon [READ HERE], and will now refer President Trump to Lisa Monaco, Deputy Attorney General and former White House counsel for President Obama, to be prosecuted in Washington DC for heinous crimes and insurrection.

The goal is to fulfill President Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe’s promise to destroy President Trump and block him from holding office again.

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Matt Taibbi files a supplemental thread to his review of DHS/FBI instructions, through the still undisclosed portal.  [Twitter File Supplemental Here]

Just a reminder… how the ‘asks’ actually took place is still a mystery, Taibbi & Weiss et al are only privy to the internal actions and discussions after the inbound requests arrive.  Put another way, we are blind to the method of the DHS/FBI portal into the network.  I do not believe that secrecy is accidental.

[Twitter File Supplemental Here]

The essence of Taibbi’s supplemental report is based on a few internal emails amid the group following DHS/FBI and ODNI officials telling the Twitter rulers they were not cracking down hard enough on the platform content.

As Taibbi notes, “The questionnaire authors seem displeased with Twitter for implying, in a July 20th “DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing,” that “you indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform.”

Twitter official Yoel Roth then responded to the U.S intelligence community in a series of back-and-forth conversations, and internally to the Twitter censorship group.

As noted by Taibbi, “[Roth] was not “comfortable with the Bureau (and by extension the IC) demanding written answers.”  Taibbi then seems to pull out the pretending not to know things card and ponders, “the idea of the FBI acting as conduit for the Intelligence Community is interesting, given that many agencies are barred from domestic operations.”

Gee, ya think?  Go figure.

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On one hand I’m thankful incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is willing to explain who he intends to call before congress to answer questions. On the other hand, my appreciation is tempered knowing open discussion of the intended investigative approach assists Lawfare operatives in their preparation.

The republican led House Judiciary Committee will be opposed by the White House, the Senate including the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intel, DHS, FBI, ODNI, DOJ-NSD, Main Justice, the Lawfare group, corporate media, Big Tech social media oligarchs and the entirety of the national security state apparatus.  Navigating through this minefield of opposition will take a brutally confrontational approach.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan discusses the landscape as he currently sees it. {Direct Rumble Link} The last point about Mitch McConnell running blocker for the Democrats in relationship to the budget is a good example of the opposition the Republican House will face. – WATCH:

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During my trip to DC in the summer of 2020 there were a myriad of disconcerting datapoints assembled; revelations that made sense of the madness and disappointments found everywhere. However, one of the key notations for future reference was to watch the political evolution of DHS and spot the jump where the ideological outlook turns into specific government action.

With the DHS/FBI portal within Twitter, and likely within all social media, now being openly discussed and mainstreamed, it’s worth revisiting an August 2021 tripwire crossed by DHS and then contemplating how that was influenced by a much larger ideological agenda.

The United States Department of Homeland Security made a quiet and alarming announcement on August 13, 2021, creating the official position of the United States Government under the Joe Biden regime. [SEE DHS STATEMENT HERE]  According to the statement if you questioned the orthodoxy of government mandates, or COVID-19 responses from the U.S. government, you were -effective immediately- considered a “terrorist”, specifically a “Domestic Violent Extremist” (DVE).

Most people missed this remarkable development, yet it seemed to underpin a tenuous, unstable and fragile disposition of the current administration.  Within this continuation of the Obama-era initiatives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seemed rather paranoid in their need to label anyone who would question the COVID-19 response.

Considering the polling at the time, more than half the country would be defined as dissidents and domestic terrorists within our homeland.  Think about that.

DHS – The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin regarding the current heightened threat environment across the United States. […] These threats include those posed by domestic terrorists, individuals and groups engaged in grievance-based violence. […] Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions. (read more)

Notice the wording of that introductory paragraph.  The government-imposed mandates, mask and vaccination requirements were only “perceived government restrictions.”

The chains that bound your expressions of liberty and freedom were essentially being defined as mere figments of your imagination.  The rules and denials of activity that we are forced to live by, under the auspices of “public health and safety measures“, were described as perceived demands.

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Independent journalist Matt Taibbi has released the sixth installment after review of more Twitter File data [SEE HERE].  Keep in mind, the research group containing Mr. Taibbi are only seeing the consequences side of the content removal process.  What specifically happened in/around the portal of information flowing into Twitter HQ is a different division.  Taibbi et al are only seeing the consequences from the requests that entered the Twitter system.

[Twitter Release #6, Here]

The first section of Taibbi’s analysis is the most interesting.  Having tracked the issue for several years, I would modify some of the descriptive language Taibbi presents yet agree with the overall context of his presentation.

Taibbi begins by noting, “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.”  I would safely take that a step further, yes there is a subsidiary relationship; however, as years of government involvement continued by 2016 Twitter became the subsidiary of DHS, not vice-versa.  This dynamic within the relationship explains some of the more curious elements that Taibbi struggles to fully understand.

Notice the timing of escalation by DHS/FBI: “The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”

As we have noted from the lead into and out of the 2016 election, the surveillance state took action specifically to protect itself from President Trump.   This activity included the NSA, FISA court, FBI, DOJ-NSD, CIA, ODNI while specifically and purposefully enmeshing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

Protecting Washington DC from the risk President Trump represented was a whole of government approach.  The executive and legislative branches worked together and weaponized national security claims to involve the judicial branches in the effort.  In the aftermath of the 2016 election outcome, now we see social media being pulled further into the approach.

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Knowing what we know now about how the U.S. intelligence community operates to control just about everything, I think our nation is more awake than ever before.

Tonight, Tucker Carlson takes the context of the current revelations about the U.S. intelligence community and reopens the discussion about the CIA involvement in the assassination of President John F Kennedy.  {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH:

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During a podcast Matt Taibbi describes the big picture takeaway of the data they have been permitted to review so far. {Direct Rumble Link}

Interestingly, Taibbi notes the silo effect within Twitter as the division in charge of taking action on requests is not necessarily the division that receives the requests.  There is an inflection point between two silos. Taibbi notes the current data set does not include access to the inbound requests and instructions from government officials, they are limited to only seeing what happens after the request is received.

They are also limited in only seeing the activity that is taken within the action division where the accounts are restricted.  The division within Twitter that was in the process of amplifying or boosting accounts, is a different silo.

Additionally, as Taibbi also notes, if the scale of what they are seeing in Twitter is representative of outside contacts to other social media platforms, then he is sure Facebook, YouTube, Google, Microsoft, Instagram, Apple etc. also have a process to receive and act upon these inbound DHS/FBI instructions.  WATCH:

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In essence, everything Taibbi is seeing is fully in line with Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.

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