It appears we are about to find out if one of my long-standing theories about surveillance of Michael Flynn is correct.  Flynn was not “unmasked”, because he was the direct target.

For three years the official media account of how the intelligence community gained the transcript of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn talking to Ambassador Sergey Kisliyak on December 29th, 2016, surrounded “incidental collection” as a result of contact with an agent of a foreign power.

Meaning the Flynn call was picked up as the U.S. intelligence apparatus was conducting surveillance on Russian Ambassador Kisliyak.

If this version of events were accurate (it’s not), it would fall under FISA-702 collection: the monitoring of a foreign agent (Kislyak) who has contact with a U.S. person (Flynn).

In order to review the identity of the U.S. person, a process called ‘unmasking’, a 702 submission must be made. As NSA Director Rogers said: that submission, the unmasking, leaves a paper/electronic trail.  However, I do not think that is what happened, here’s why:

Back in 2017 Senator Lindsey Graham questioned former DAG Sally Yates and former DNI James Clapper.  Within the questioning, Sally Yates tipped her hand.  There was never an unmasking of Flynn because Flynn was a target; it was not incidental collection. WATCH:

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Sally Yates doesn’t directly say Flynn was a target, but by now we all know he was a target of the FBI investigation.  As a result of Flynn being the actual target he would be directly identified within the intelligence documents because the investigation would be about him, and not incidental. But there’s more…

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During testimony in June 2017 Admiral Mike Rogers helps to explain what documents would be available to identify who was making unmasking requests. WATCH:

Note: “you must make that request in writing”; which explains the documents Ric Grenell has declassified and the probability that AG Bill Barr will soon release.

ABC News first reported the news but initially said in the title that Grenell was in the process of trying to declassify the list of Obama officials.

A source with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Wire that the list has already been declassified and now it’s on Attorney General William Barr to release the list. (LINK)

FULL BACKGROUND  – However, a strong note of caution.  Sometimes the specificity of the intelligence operation itself means the U.S. target will already be named in the originating intelligence document and would not require an unmasking request.

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Tucker Carlson has Fox host Trey Gowdy appear for an interview to discuss ongoing events and revelations showing the corrupt behavior of the FBI and DOJ.  About mid-way through the interview Carlson takes a passive aggressive tack, shows Gowdy a video of his own comments in May 2018, and asks if he is still willing to stand by them. WATCH:

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So Gowdy waited from January 2017 until three weeks after May 2018 to go look at the direct documents the DOJ and FBI had been concealing?

Not coincidentally; and in direct alignment with the expressed defenses of Gowdy; two months later, July 12, 2018, the DOJ and FBI told the FISA court the underlying predicate for the FISA warrant against Carter Page was still valid….

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Last week it was noted that Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard “Ric” Grenell delivered a satchel of classified documents to AG Bill Barr.  The exact content of the documents was unknown.

Today ABC is reporting that Grenell has requested AG Bill Barr use the declassification authority, granted to him by President Trump in May 2019, to declassify the list of Obama officials who requested unmaskings of Trump campaign and administration officials.

WASHINGTON – Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has sought to declassify a list of former Obama administration officials who were allegedly involved in the so-called “unmasking” of former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his conversations with the former Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, a senior U.S. official tells ABC News.

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FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka interviewed National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on January 24, 2017. According to documents presented in the court case, agent Peter Strzok did the questioning and agent Joe Pientka took most of the notes.

Following the interview agent Pientka then took his hand-written notes and generated an official FD-302; an FBI report of the interview itself.  There has been a great deal of debate over the first draft, the original FD-302 as it was written by Joe Pientka.  In the case against Flynn the DOJ prosecutors never presented the original Pientka 302.

Recent evidence from Brady material turned over to the defense by auditing attorney Jeff Jensen showed FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI Agent Peter Strzok rewriting, editing and shaping the 302 on February 10, 2017, more than two weeks later:

Lisa Page is “pissed off” because Peter Strzok previously edited the 302 and she says he “didn’t even attempt to make this cogent and readable.”

Peter Strzok replies back to Lisa Page that he was “trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save Joe’s voice”, because Joe Pientka was the actual author.

Peter Strzok is re-writing the interview notes of Pientka in order to construct the framework to accuse Flynn of lying. Lisa Page is editing the re-write to make it more cogent and readable.

The question has remained: Where is the original 302 report as written by Pientka?

While the question(s) around the missing original 302 have yet to be reconciled, one possible path to discover its location and a copy of its original content lies in the testimony of Sally Yates.  Former DAG Sally Yates testified to congress that after the Flynn interview DOJ-National Security Division:

“received a detailed readout from the FBI agents who had interviewed Flynn.”  Yates said she felt “it was important to get this information to the White House as quickly as possible.”

Yates is describing the Pientka 302.  The Pientka 302 could have been received at the DOJ-NSD later in the evening of January 24th, or perhaps the morning of the 25th.  Either is possible because Yates was having meetings about the topic. (more…)

Trey Gowdy appears purple-tied on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing DOJ/FBI revelations from document releases related to the Michael Flynn prosecution.

After numerous appearances in 2018 and 2019 proclaiming the integrity of Robert Mueller, IG Horowitz and FBI leadership, Trey Gowdy now holds a divergent perspective. Perhaps because he is now a paid Fox contributor, Ms. Bartiromo never asks Gowdy to reconcile previous assertions against current information.  Additionally, Gowdy says there’s no reason to take the investigation to former President Obama because the current spotlight reaches high enough. WATCH:

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A very interesting dynamic all things considered.  During a recent interview Vice President Mike Pence says he would welcome former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn back into the administration:

“Gen. Michael Flynn is an American patriot,” Pence told Axios in an interview. “And for my part, I’d be happy to see Michael Flynn again.”

And with that in mind, it’s worth taking all the current information and reviewing the fully cited (soup-to-nuts)  background of how the Pence -vs- Flynn ‘lying’ narrative was created.

♦In mid-December 2016 the Obama administration was deploying a full-court-press using their media allies to promote the Russia conspiracy. However, despite their extreme public proclamations DNI Clapper & CIA Brennan were refusing to give any specifics to congress.

The hard narrative was that Russia interfered. That was the specific push from within the Obama intelligence apparatus writ large. All IC officials, sans Mike Rogers (NSA), had a self-interest in pushing this narrative; after all, it was the defensive mechanism to justify their illegal spying operation and block Trump. This was their insurance policy.

The media was doing their part; and using the information leaked to them by those who were part of the 2016 operation(s) began battering the Trump transition team every hour of every day with questions about the Russia hacking narrative; thereby fertilizing the seeds of a collusion conspiracy.  The Trump-Russia narrative was relentless.

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Michael Flynn’s defense counsel Sidney Powell appears on Fox New with Maria Bartiromo to discuss events after the DOJ has decided to withdraw the prosecution and drop the case.

In the background of the document releases Mrs. Powell outlines the sequence of events in early January where DNI James Clapper briefs President Obama on the Flynn call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and that’s the origin of President Obama’s discussion on January 5th with Deputy AG Sally Yates and FBI Director Comey.

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Two years ago CTH first outlined how the classified section in the mysterious Susan Rice memo-to-file was likely because Lt. Gen. Flynn was outlined as a target in the January 5th discussion; the redacted paragraph is specifically about Flynn. Two years later that memo has still not been declassified.

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HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the events of the past week.  Within the interview Nunes discusses the 53 released House transcripts from their Trump-Russia investigation and outlines how the Trump-Russia fraud transfers into the Flynn case.

It’s now May of 2020.  The presidential election is six months from now.  Devin Nunes has confidence the DOJ will take action based on an investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham.  It’s now May of 2020.  CTH remembers James Wolfe.

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Why is former President Obama calling forth all his defensive resources now?  Why did former national security advisor Susan Rice write her cya letter?  Why have republicans in congress not been willing to investigate the true origins of political surveillance?  What is the reason for so much anger, desperation and opposition from a variety of interests?

With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report, the Carter Page FISA and Flynn documents showing FBI activity, there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign in the first place.  Why was Donald Trump considered a threat?

In this outline we hope to provide some fully cited deep source material that will explain the origin; and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community began targeting Trump and using Confidential Human Sources against campaign officials.

During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.

On March 9, 2016, oversight personnel doing a review of FBI system access were alerted to thousands of unauthorized search queries of specific U.S. persons within the NSA database.

NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was made aware.

Subsequently NSA Director Rogers initiated a full compliance review of the system to identify who was doing the searches; & what searches were being conducted.

On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 “about”(17) and “to/from”(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.

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