Don’t be so blinded by the tripwire flares you fail to see the obvious.  Within the statement from Attorney General Sessions hopefully you’ll note: “Including Under Oath”

The IG doesn’t place the internal investigative target “under oath”.  An outside prosecutor who is assisting the IG does.  Hence Attorney General Jeff Sessions is telling us what is going on – SEE HERE – Just like he did before:

… I have appointed a person outside of Washington, many years in the Department of Justice to look at all the allegations that the House Judiciary Committee members sent to us; and we’re conducting that investigation. (read more)

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Beyond the thirst for clicks, ratings and perpetual outrage there’s an aspect to the Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Rudolph Contreras story that deserves some attention.

♦First, the DOJ wasn’t withholding anything from congress. The DOJ told congress they (or their staff) could review any of the documents, including Strzok and Page texts, at the DOJ in their totality; as a consequence of the ongoing oversight.

However, if congress -or their staff- wanted to take possession of the documents, they would only be allowed to *remove* redacted copies.

The outrage machine shouts “cover up“, etc.

No. Not quite.

Why?

Because the IG investigative documents, in addition to being part of an internal review, are also evidence within an ongoing criminal investigation. Hence, the earlier statement by AG Jeff Sessions.  The statement everyone, sucked-into and/or participating within the outrage machine, loves to ignore.

Again, before grabbing your Sean Hannity branded pitchfork, think.

With a dual track within the IG investigative findings: ¹“internal wrongdoing” and ²“potential criminal conduct”, you realize that evidence collected by the IG -that may have prosecutorial value- will be closely protected by the investigative unit, including the Sessions assigned prosecutor, and not released.

It is not hard to see the “why” when you set aside emotion and ignore the outrage machine.

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It is going to take a heck of a lot of deep-weed education to cut through the economic gaslighting of the multinational corporations, Wall Street and their purchased institutional media.  However, I give the White House team (Secretary Ross, Secretary Mnuchin, Ambassador Lighthizer and Adviser Peter Navarro) a measure of strong credit for beginning:

WHITE HOUSE:  Measurement of trade flows is usually an uncontroversial topic relegated to macroeconomic classrooms and government technocrats. Recent debates about trade policy have brought the topic out of the shadows, and we hope to clarify how economists measure trade.

Every day there are international transactions for tens of thousands of different products. Physical goods, interchangeably called merchandise, are what usually comes to mind first. However, an increasing share of international trade is in services that are not physically transported between countries—think about financial insurance, licensing of trademarks, or services like consulting.

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For those following the increasingly curious case against General Mike Flynn, events take another unusual turn today.  Congressional investigators have shared a set of unredacted text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strzok and his cohort DOJ Attorney Lisa Page which reveal a personal friendship between Agent Strzok and Flynn’s initial presiding judge Rudolph Contreras.

On November 30th, 2017, Mike Flynn signed a guilty plea; ostensibly admitting lying to investigators.  The plea was accepted by Judge Rudolph Contreras; who is also a FISA court judge.  Six days later, December 7th, 2017, Judge Contreras “was recused” from the case without explanation.

The case was reassigned to DC District Judge Emmet Sullivan.  The Contreras recusal always seemed sketchy. The key question was: if the conflict existed on December 7th, wouldn’t that same conflict have existed on November 30th, 2017?

Today questions about the conflict seem to have been answered. Text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page reveal the FBI agent and Judge Contreras were close personal friends.  –SEE HERE–

Apparently DOJ lawyer Lisa Page was unaware that “Rudy” was a FISA court judge until July 25th, 2016, when she posited a question to her small group co-conspirator FBI agent Peter Strzok.

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivers the White House press briefing for Friday March 16th.  Anticipated start time 2:00pm

UPDATE: Video added

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears on Fox News at Night to discuss the ending of the Trump-Russian investigation and the continuance of the ongoing FISA abuse and FBI/DOJ corruption investigations.

Part of the interview surrounds the new request by Senator Chuck Grassley for a second special counsel. As Nunes notes the Grassley request is almost identical to his own.

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Chairman Chuck Grassley along with republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are formally requesting a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and DOJ involvement in the Clinton-Steele Dossier.

The republicans asked Office of the Inspector General to explore the FBI and DOJ’s handling of dossier in February; but now they are requesting Attorney General Jeff Sessions and DAG Rod Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel (full pdf below) because the IG does not have the ability to obtain testimony from witnesses who are not DOJ employees. This is the same motive of request from HPSCI Chairman Nunes and Trey Gowdy.

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The leaks are real; the news is fake. That’s the underlying dynamic behind ‘Black Hat Hunting’.

The PR Firm for the corrupt U.S. intelligence apparatus known as The Washington Post, runs a story about H.R. McMaster being fired tonight.

The Washington Post quotes “five people with knowledge of the plans”.

Except there’s a problem, there are no plans.

No plans except to entrap staff and intelligence community leakers; likely those five ‘leakers’ are in/around the National Security Council, and they just got caught.

WaPo – President Trump has decided to remove H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser and is actively discussing potential replacements, according to five people with knowledge of the plans, preparing to deliver yet another jolt to the senior ranks of his administration.

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Earlier today President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcomed Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar to the White House.  Part of the festivities included the presentation of a Shamrock Bowl by the Prime Minister to the American people.

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Interestingly Reuters is continuing the McCabe narrative with an article quoting an unnamed FBI official who urges Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to fire Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Given the rather expansive wealth of McCabe the angle of preserving his pension seems more than a little odd.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who stepped down in January after criticism from President Donald Trump, met on Thursday with a U.S. Justice Department official in an effort to preserve his pension, according to a source familiar with the matter.

McCabe planned to retire on Sunday with full benefits, but some or all of his pension could be at risk after the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommended firing him for misleading Justice Department investigators about his supervision of probes into Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presidential opponent, said the source, who requested anonymity.

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