After spending a reasonable amount of time looking at the recent CNN Fake News story surrounding Donald Trump Jr; and accepting the leak that spurred that fake news story stemmed from inside the House Intelligence Committee; and after applying a reasonable amount of common sense to how it occurred; CTH believes Adam Schiff was the most likely source of the leak to CNN’s Congressional Correspondant, Manu Raju, that led to the fraudulent story.  Today’s discussion with Jake Tapper confirms that assertion:

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CNN’s ‘Vast Russian Conspiracy‘ sellers and their cast of leakers below.
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“The Predicate”

FBI Director Christopher Wray appears before the House Judiciary Committee today to answer questions about the ongoing mission objectives of the FBI.  However, the opportunity for Wray’s appearance is being used to further investigate and unravel the ongoing issues surrounding the politicization of the FBI under the former leadership of Director James Comey.  Specifically how the FBI was weaponized against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump to the benefit of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In the questioning segment below Ohio Representative Jim Jordan questions Director Wray about the role of FBI Deputy Head of Counterintelligence, FBI Agent Peter Strzok. Jim Jordan outlines the role of Strzok -as it is currently known- and asks if Agent Strzok then took information from Christopher Steele (author of the ‘Steele Russian Dossier’) and used that dossier as the predicate to organize the FISA application that began the surveillance of people associated with the Trump campaign:

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This line of questioning is critical because when combined with a year of investigation by the Dept of Justice, Office of Inspector General, the sunlight takes a two-pronged approach:
♦The IG is working from the inside to investigate the politicization, a more apt term is ‘weaponization‘, of the FBI and DOJ within those organizations.  The IG is then identifying specific people and specific behavior.
♦The oversight committees (Judiciary, Intelligence) are working from the outside of the organizations to spotlight the consequences from those people and from that behavior.
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Deputy Head of Counterintelligence – FBI Agent Peter Strzok is either the hardest working politically-biased FBI investigator in the history of the agency, or he’s being set-up as a scapegoat.
Consider:  •Peter Strzok was the lead FBI agent in charge of the 2015/2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation. •Agent Strzok was one of a small group who actually interviewed Hillary Clinton. •Agent Strzok was also the person who interviewed Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, granting them immunity. •Agent Strzok created the wording for the Comey/Clinton exoneration
•Strzok was the counterintelligence investigator for the 2016 ‘vast Russian conspiracy’, narrative. •Agent Strzok was also the FBI contact person to receive the Russian Dossier and interview the author Christopher Steele.
•Agent Peter Strzok was then hired by Robert Mueller to lead the FBI investigative efforts into  the “Russian Election Collusion/Conspiracy.” •Agent Strzok was the person who interviewed National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
•Agent Strzok was then removed from the Mueller Team after the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton content of his internal communications were discovered by the ongoing Inspector General investigation.
The structure of this narrative surrounding Peter Strzok is discussed by Tucker Carlson:
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Swamp Guardian and Fox News primary Decepticon, Brett Baier, interviews former Obama CIA Director Leon Panetta and President Trump’s current CIA Director Mike Pompeo during a Reagan Defense Forum summit at the Reagan Library.
Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton worked hand in hand over the horrific policy execution in Libya and Syria.  The joint CIA/DoS mission, Operation Zero Footprint, was an outcome of President Obama’s finding memo authorizing the covert mission in Libya.
Panetta is 100% full-on Deep State/Deep Swamp.  Current CIA Director Mike Pompeo is a bridge leading away from the larger Deep State apparatus. The distinction between the two comes out in buckets.

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For those who use Twitter DaveNYiii has a great thread on the discussion – SEE HERE
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President Trump sends antagonistic media into spastic fits, and pearl-clutching circle-running, with a single tweet about Michael Flynn.  Epic:

Praetorian professional punditry immediately jump into their “he can’t” routine, filled with protestations about poor judgement and the risk of commenting on an on-going investigation, and such… blah, blah, blah…  However, what seemingly never crosses their mind is that: A) Everything asserted is 100% factual; and B) When there’s nothing to hide, there’s no risk.  D’oh, dummies.
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the President-Elect’s Transition Team talking to any foreign government, or any official within any foreign government. Ever. Period.  Actually, that’s exactly what transition teams are supposed to do; they reach out and receive information from foreign government officials as the starting point to communication with a new administration.
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You might remember ABC’s Brian Ross for previously making the absurd on-air claim that Colorado mass shooter James Holmes was a Tea Party member.  He completely made up the story, and later apologized.
Well, today ABC News Brian Ross again appeared directly on ABC World News to break a story claiming that candidate Donald Trump told campaign adviser Michael Flynn to make contact with Russians.
Watch, and note specifically what Brian Ross reports:

…”as a candidate, Donald Trump ordered him, directed him, to contact the the Russians.”

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Except this statement is entirely false.  Nothing about Brian Ross’s claim is accurate at all. That claim is entirely fake news; and now ABC is in damage control mode trying to walk-back the Brian Ross statement.
However, this is a perfect example of how ridiculous “fake news” lies get spread in the media. Watch what happens when Joy Behar gets the Brian Ross, breaking news story, live-on-air and repeats it to her audience. WATCH.
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Former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to a process crime of lying to FBI investigators about the content of a December 29th phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. The conversation occurred the same day that then-president Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election.
This is the same misleading information that led to the White House firing Michael Flynn.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged Flynn (full pdf below) with falsely telling FBI agents that he did not ask the ambassador “to refrain from escalating the situation” in response to the sanctions.
According to the plea, while being questioned by FBI agents on January 24, 2017, Flynn also lied when he claimed he could not recall a subsequent conversation with Kislyak, in which the ambassador told Flynn that the Putin regime had “chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of [Flynn’s] request.”
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CTH has been looking, unsuccessfully, for China SME’s who have insight on the DC lobbying angle by Chinese foreign nationals and the hidden story of how the Trump administration might be confronting that aspect.
Gordon Chang briefly touches on that note during a discussion segment on the overall outcome of President Trump’s 12-day visit to Asia.
Apparently, if Chang’s sources are accurate (likely they are), the notification by POTUS Trump toward Chairman Xi Jinping, of the lobbyist warning did take place [Video 02:25].

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The foreign influence lobbying is a critical element for us domestically in the larger geopolitical strategy.  Chinese nationals pay our congressional representatives millions of dollars to purchase U.S. foreign policy.  CTH is cautiously optimistic this is a key element of Robert Mueller.
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The New York Times reporters are outlining another silly story to squeeze out the final drips of usefulness within the vast Russian conspiracy narrative.   Comey’s leak recipient Michael Schmidt, and the narrative engineer with a Phd in passive aggressive writing, Maggie Haberman, collaborate.
The outline is that lawyers for Michael Flynn are no longer sharing information with lawyers from the Trump team.  Obviously the intended premise of this engineering feat is infer that Flynn is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller to the detriment of President Trump.  Key word for narrative building here is: ‘infer’.  The years’-long media Russian conspiracy script relies heavily on ‘inference’.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, notified the president’s legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, according to four people involved in the case — an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating a deal.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

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Yesterday while exiting the White House, President Trump told reporters he had just finished a 90 minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin:

“We had a great call with President Putin. We’re talking about peace in Syria — very important. We’re talking about North Korea. We had a call that lasted almost an hour and a half. We’ve just put out a release on the call. But we’re talking very strongly about bringing peace for Syria. We’re talking about very strongly about North Korea and Ukraine.” (transcript)

Important to note that conversation was longer than would have been possible at any of the Bilat’s (Bilateral Discussion) during the ASEAN Summit or APEC Meeting in Asia.  A further review of the White House readout:
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