Proving, once again, this is a well thought-out strategy, Chuck Grassley’s newest partly declassified version of the Graham-Grassley memo highlights the DOJ didn’t care about Bruce Ohr meeting with Christopher Steele until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found out.
Page #5 of the Grassley Memo (pg. 7 pdf), highlights the FBI interviewed DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr on November 22nd, and December 12th, 2016 [FD-302 Interview Notes], yet didn’t take any action about their discoveries until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found out and revealed the interviews on December 7th, 2017.

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The FD-302 (FBI) interviews were conducted with Bruce Ohr on November 22nd and December 12th, 2016. As footnoted above.  However, it wasn’t until Horowitz revealed the information within those interviews (December 7th, 2017) that any action was taken?
Therein the ideology and political motive of the DOJ “small group” gets sunlight:
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Coming off one of the greatest political maneuvers in the last decade, where President Trump managed to bait Democrats to shut down the government while demanding open borders, POTUS Trump now positions Democrats as U.S. Military haters.
The U.S. military is one of the most beloved representative institutions.  However, in a brilliant use of TDS, President Trump baits his political opposition into publicly espousing the exact opposite position:

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If the history of President Trump’s success in this arena holds true, Democrats and anti-Trump media will now begin pushing a narrative to boycott Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Veterans Day….
Why?
Because, Trump.
Brilliant.
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Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes appears on Fox News for an professional interruption session with Sean Hannity.   Chairman Nunes was able to slip in a few points between Hannity shuffling his papers to tell the audience how much his sources know about the papers he is shuffling, and how those sources outline Chairman Nunes memo content.
After Hannity was able to locate his place amid his papers, he tells his audience what his sources said about Chairman Nunes memo, he then asked Nunes to confirm his sources were correct. Seemingly oblivious to the fact when he actually has Nunes in front of him he can ask direct questions, and not have to list what his sources say, and then frame questions about sources making claims of what Nunes said in his memo.  Very weird interview technique.  WATCH:

Don’t forget the batting order. Last Friday Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray formally demanding a Mandatory Declassification Review of the classified criminal referral Chairman Lindsey Graham and Chairman Grassley sent to the FBI and Justice Department regarding Christopher Steele’s potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001.  The response date is tomorrow, February 6th, 2018.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents. Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based.

“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.

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The media are pointing out that a Federal District Court Judge, has ruled against the release of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote to himself while acting head of the FBI.  However, one little thing they fail to notice:

WASHINGTON DC – A federal judge has rejected requests from news organizations to release memos of former FBI Director James Comey’s conversations with President Donald Trump, adding that publicizing the documents could harm special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Friday sided with the Department of Justice after multiple news organizations, including CNN and USA Today, sued for the public release of Comey’s memos after their Freedom of Information Act requests were denied. (read more)

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There continue to be questions about the substance behind the pending release of the House Intelligence Committee memo.  With that release in mind, today it is worthwhile remembering this is the beginning of exposing the corruption within the DOJ not the end.

For several years the U.S. justice department has maintained an attitude of non-accountability within its ranks.  The Obama years elevated that attitude and provided multiple examples of a DOJ gone rogue.
A complicit media enables that attitude by engineering a false narrative the U.S. Justice Department was/is an independent fourth branch of government; unaccountable to congress and entirely separate from the executive branch.
The House Intelligence Memo is simply using the example of currently known FISA abuse to open the door and show the U.S. electorate how corrupt this unaccountable institution has become.  Behind that door are very uncomfortable realities for all of those who constructed the weaponized agency; and also those who have benefited from it.
Consider:
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It was announced this afternoon the lawyers representing, Rick Gates, the business partner of Paul Manafort, have withdrawn from the case.  The judicial notification is HERE, and details of withdrawal were filed under seal.
Amid the news cycle of the HPSCI memo release, and considering there could be ripple effects therein, lots of media speculations follows:

WASHINGTON DC – Three attorneys representing Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday they are immediately withdrawing as counsel for the former Donald Trump campaign aide, who is fighting special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of him on money laundering and other charges.
Lawyers Shanlon Wu, Walter Mack and Annemarie McAvoy said in a two-page motion that they would explain the reasons for their abrupt move in documents filed under seal with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (read more)

There is possibility the three lawyers could be withdrawing after discovery of the length of time the DOJ was investigating Manafort and Gates; and that might just dovetail into the FISA702 abuse story and the 2016 counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump. I’ll try to explain.
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If the apparent Nunes, Grassley, Goodlatte and Horowitz timing remains as previously evidenced, today should be Memo Release Day.
The White House having allowed a full 36 hours of media discussion time to talk through the SotU address, is poised to permit the Executive Branch declassification approval of the Legislative Branch intelligence work product.

In a last minute effort to block the executive approvals, Minority Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, claimed last night there were changes to the legislative work product.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes shared with Adam Schiff some minor edits to the drafted memo that resulted from the executive branch (FBI Director Wray) making a request upon initial review:
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Gotta love the professionally obtuse former DNI James Clapper.
As much as he is a stuttering doofus, and therein showcases his political value for the former administration; and to the extent that Clapper has previously stated there was no attempt by the DOJ/FBI to gain a FISA authorized approval for surveillance on any Trump campaign officials: “none that I’m aware of“; …it is always valuable to listen to Clapper because he has a tendency to, well, to let slip stuff that makes the black hats cringe.
Cue the audio visual “slippage.”  Inside tonight’s interview by Jake Tapper, former DNI James Clapper now unwittingly refutes his previous assertion of “no Trump FISA warrant“, and simultaneously lets it slip out that the Clinton/Steele dossier was not used in gaining origination authority for FISA-702 surveillance, but rather for an “extension” of a previous application for FISA-702 surveillance.  WATCH:

06:48 ..”as I understand it, this was simply an extension of uh, the original, uh, FISA request.  Meaning that, or implying, that apparently, there was information that was considered, uh, ‘valuable’, that was being obtained, via the initial FISA request.”
“FISA’s have, uh, finite dates. Uh, in other words they have deadlines; they aren’t indefinite… So when the time was up for the initial FISA report, FISA request, then it was time to get an extension. So on its face, I don’t know that the dossier played, very much, in this at all”…

Well, that’s interesting.  I wonder who gave Clapper the “as I understand it” part? Now let’s go back to March 5th 2017 and review what DNI James Clapper said about the Department of Justice getting FISA-702 surveillance authority on Trump campaign officials.
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Former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino appeared on Tucker Carlson TV show tonight to discuss the release of Chairman Devin Nunes intelligence memo.
During the segment Mr. Bongino highlighted his theory that Chairman Nunes memo not only holds references to the DOJ and FBI use of fraudulent FISA702 application evidence, but that the memo also contains compartmented intelligence exclusive to former President Obama’s Presidential Daily Briefings (PDB’s).  WATCH: