Another Inspector General Michael Horowitz report; ..another exercise in futility.

The DOJ Office of Inspector General has filed a 35-page report (full pdf below) outlining the issues with recovery of text messages from devices belonging to FBI attorney Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok.
Page and Strzok transferred to the special counsel team when Robert Mueller took over the counterintelligence investigation, ie. “muh Russia”.  Within the report the IG notes that after the special counsels office was notified of the biased text messaging identified by Strzok and Page; and after Mueller removed them from the investigative team; the phones issued to Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok were reset removing any communication during their time on the special counsel team from discovery.  Here’s the pertinent part:
The full IG report is below.
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After two years of fake news, narrative engineering and coordinated resistance efforts from an adversarial media, President Trump cancelled the indulgent White House Christmas Party for media.  Good.

WASHINGTON DC –  President Trump has canceled the White House holiday party for the media, making the decades-old tradition a victim of his increasingly contentious relationship with major news organizations.

The annual Christmas-season gathering was a significant perk for those covering the White House, as well as other Washington reporters, anchors and commentators, and New York media executives would regularly fly in for the occasion. At its peak, the invitation-only soirees grew so large that there were two back-to-back events, one for broadcast outlets and one for print organizations.

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Earlier today First Lady Melania Trump visited Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Joint Base Langley-Eustis and the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. Continuing to blaze her own trail, our First Lady actually flew on a v-22 Osprey.

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Earlier today President Trump signed an executive order establishing the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. The Council will be chaired by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, and comprised of 13 Federal agencies.
The goal of the council will be to stop the redundancy and duplication within the federal bureaucracy, and focus on actual delivery of results to specific economic empowerment zones.

[Transcript] 2:37 P.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Hello everybody. Good, Tim. It’s a big day.
SENATOR SCOTT: Yes, sir.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks to the media following his presentation to the U.N. surrounding ongoing issues with Iran, the failed JCPOA and the updated U.S. sanction policy.

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[Transcript] SECRETARY POMPEO: Good afternoon, everyone. We had a productive Security Council meeting where the United States made clear that Iran’s ballistic missile activity is out of control and that they are defying the UN Security Council 2231 in numerous ways.
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I apologize in advance for my shortcomings in trying to de-wonk multinational economics and the financial constructs that impact, at the core, the U.S. worker and consumer.  It’s a big issue to tackle in digestible portions.  However, that said some inflationary statistics are presenting an opportunity for expanded discussion.
Reuters has an article out today highlighting inflationary data as released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) [DATA HERE]. The overall summary is the Consumer Price Index is stable or flat reflecting low inflation on measured goods; however, that’s not the part that bears emphasis.   Instead I would direct attention to this:

The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the core PCE price index excluding food and energy, increased 1.8 percent year-on-year in October, the smallest gain since February, after rising 1.9 percent the prior month. It hit the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent target in March for the first time since April 2012.

At the heart of the controlled monetary system; at the epicenter of the multinational global control mechanisms; inside the offices of the global economic elites; there is a system of financial manipulation with tentacles that reach into your pocket.  This system seems hard to understand, but it is critical to do so… so we need to try and understand it.
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Did you get your yellow vest yet?  The recently elected New York Attorney General, Letitia James, makes a public declaration that she intends to fully weaponize her office to target the Trump family.
On the bright side, democrats can no longer claim their preferred approach of weaponizing their offices for direct targeting of their political opposition as a “right-wing conspiracy theory”; they are specifically outlining their intent to do exactly that.

New York – New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James says she plans to launch sweeping investigations into President Donald Trump, his family and “anyone” in his circle who may have violated the law once she settles into her new job next month.

“We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well,” James, a Democrat, told NBC News in her first extensive interview since she was elected last month.

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The defense team for Michael Flynn presents their sentencing memo [see here] to support the special counsel recommendation.  However, within the memo the Flynn team smartly uses pre-approved (by Special Counsel) language to highlight how the FBI structured the set up  Yes, Flynn’s lawyers had to get permission to write this:

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The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a 35-page sentencing memo (full pdf below) recommending a two-year prison term for busted Senate Intelligence Committee Director of Security, James Wolfe.   The DOJ is seeking a term of imprisonment above the guidelines for the plea of lying to federal investigators.

The DOJ sentencing recommendation outlines the events surrounding the FBI investigation of Wolfe, and provides a more fulsome picture of the issues faced when a top-tier staff member of the legislative branch is suspected of leaking classified intelligence.
The DOJ notes the challenge presented when the executive branch is investigating a critical internal office of the legislative branch.   While James Wolfe was never actually charged with leaking classified documents, the type of leaks he participated in and the resulting media reports which drew from his information network – certainly implies there was classified documentary evidence leaked; the DOJ claims they cannot prove it.
Given the direct evidence of corrupt and politically motivated conduct by officials within the DOJ and FBI the sentencing memo is an interesting read with multiple facets for consideration.
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The CFO of Huawei has been released on bail pending her extradition hearing to the United States. Ms. Meng will have to wear and ankle monitor and travel with security agents until her next hearing on February 6th.

(Via NBC) A Vancouver judge set a $10 million CAD bail ($7.5 million U.S.) for Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou Tuesday, capping a week of increasing trade tensions and strong market reactions around the dispute between the Department of Justice and one of China’s largest hardware companies.
The United States had asked the Vancouver court to deny bail for Meng, whose father is a billionaire and a founder of Huawei, calling her a flight risk. Canada has been expected to extradite Meng to the United States over charges that the company improperly took payments from Iran in violation of sanctions against the country.

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