Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer met privately with AG nominee William Barr earlier today.  At the conclusion of the meeting Senator Schumer addresses the media.
Schumer appears conflicted and confused as to how to describe his own highly political desires with the answers he received from Mr. Barr.  It does not appear Schumer was pleased with his overall inability to leverage control over the nominee; and that comes out in the early part of his statement.  That’s a good sign.  Watch:

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The issue of how Mr. Barr would produce a summary document about the completed Mueller investigation is an aspect that deserves some clarity and discussion.
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Another day, another leaked congressional transcript.  This time George Papadopoulos.

(You Can Read Here)

Once again the actual transcript is not released, only the Epoch Times authors’ interpretations of the content of the leaked transcript. *Note* the author, Ivan Pentchoukov, does not reveal the name of the “alleged spy”.
Previous leaked transcripts from:

1. Lisa Page
2. Andrew McCabe
3. Bruce Ohr

Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts.  HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018).  Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by DOJ/FBI officials within the current administration. So each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
 

President Trump’s AG nominee William Barr testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his legal views and perspectives.  Overall post-testimonial punditry converges on the outlook Mr. Barr will be easily confirmed with broad bipartisan support.
Rather than agree or disagree with various opinions CTH is providing a full video of the Barr hearing below with a recap video as presented by Global News:

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My own personal view is that William Barr will likely reset the DOJ ‘status quo‘ to the institutional construct that existed prior to the Obama DOJ (Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch) era. That is to say: Barr will attempt to remove obvious weaponization and overt political motives behind every action taken by the U.S. Justice Department.
However, it also appears the most purposeful goal for Mr. Barr, in direct alignment with his close personal friend Robert Mueller, will be the preservation of the DOJ institution as a historic apparatus. That “preserve-the-institution” at all costs means Barr will necessarily have to bury any/all systemic corruption to achieve a larger institutional goal.
I Do not anticipate Barr will deliver any sunlight to expose how badly corrupted the DOJ has become. Instead he’ll likely apply bondo to cover the rot and apply a fresh coat of paint.
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Well, here we are again; another leaked transcript, this time from DOJ Official Bruce Ohr. And as with the prior two transcript leaks, we don’t get the raw information.  So let me first, necessarily, reassert our CTH position on these “leaks”.
Leaking is bad, period; in all directions. Because *leaking* is simply a method, a mechanism, to direct and control the focus of sunlight upon illicit action. Regardless of whether you support or oppose the message within any individual leak; the leak itself does not expose corruption…. only full and unfiltered information can expose corruption.  That means we need the actual raw transcripts to make determinations for ourselves.
As a factual standard for honesty and sunlight, CTH would never describe a transcript where we could not provide the reader with the raw and underlying material.  We have held this standard for many years; most of you know that. The truth has no agenda.

That said, someone is leaking congressional transcripts and a current tug-of-war exists between two opposing narrative engineers.  The heavily promoted New York Times article last Friday, was based on leaks of James Baker Transcripts, from sources who were responding to the leaks from other sources that were given to the Epoch Times.   Each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts.  HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018).  Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by corrupt cabinet members within the current administration.
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There’s a vastly different opinion amid some who review the action of Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller.  CTH has noted a common corrupt theme amid the DOJ and FBI that crosses both the Obama and Trump administrations: A priority to preserve the institution; regardless of how corrupt the institution is; and regardless of how much collateral damage those system administrators will create in their effort toward that preservation goal.

Within the larger discussion, sometimes comments hit the proverbial nail. I think this one does exactly that:

RTLW – “Not ALL FBI Agents are moral pariahs. 60% are good American patriots who joined the Agency in good faith expecting to serve their Country and put bad people behind bars.

The other 40% are Peter Strozk and Lisa Page. ALL of FBI HQ is populated by the Strozk/Page types. Recruitment of this type of Agent started under Mueller and continued under Comey. Mueller drove out all of the old school “Brick Agents” shortly after he became Director.

Mueller implemented an “up or out” policy where all SSAs were required to move to DC and do Headquarters time or lose their GS 14 pay grade. This policy change by Mueller purposely targeted the most senior Agents in the FBI who had finally earned the right to move their family to a medium sized office in fly over country, had teenage kids and were living a comfortable life.

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The creep vibe on this interview with U.S. Democrat Senator Mark Warner is off-the-charts.   The only thing more disturbing than the background possibility of three teenage boys tied up in his basement is the structural way he can blatantly lie to the camera; and how the perpetually furrowed brow of Jake Tapper doesn’t call him out on it.
Warner begins by saying: “I’m not going to to talk about what we may have been briefed in the gang-of-eight when these investigations opened.”  Well, um, duh.  You see, as Warner continued: “that throughout that whole summer [of 2016]”etc…. senator Mark Warner wasn’t a gang-of-eight member.
Senator Mark Warner didn’t become a Go8 member until Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her Senate Intelligence Chair position in January 2017.   Kinda hard to talk about briefings he never participated in…. It’s all made up from there.  Watch:

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The gang of eight in 2015 and 2016 was: Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein.
I think even the perpetually perplexed Tapper knew Warner was talking from inside the manufactured rabbit hole because furrowed-brow followed up with questions about the counterintelligence origination [July 2016] he knew Warner was not a part of.
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Against the backdrop of a New York Times article attempting to justify the FBI opening a counterintelligence operation against Donald Trump the current narrative du-jour is to claim the investigation was considered as an outcome of the firing of James Comey in 2017.  This is factually false.
FBI Director James Comey outlined the specifics of when the counterintelligence operation began during his March 20, 2017 testimony. Pay close attention. FBI Director James Comey -together with NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers- testified to congress specifically about the timing and notification (first three minutes of the video):

Rep. Stefanik: [01:12] …”when did you notify the White House, the DNI or congressional leadership”?
James Comey: …”good question. Congressional leadership, sometime recently they were briefed on the nature of the investigation, as I said. Obviously the department of justice has been aware of it all along”…

Watch the first 3 minutes of that video. Notice the discomfort etc. We have previously outlined why THAT is such a big deal –SEE HERE– Comey is discussing the notification to congress that took place approximately a week earlier. Prior to that congressional notification FBI Director Comey admits to keeping congress in the dark “because of the sensitivity of the matter” from July 2016 through March 2017.
The issue of the counterintelligence timing becomes an even bigger deal when contrast with the recently exposed testimony from FBI attorney Lisa Page.  Pay attention to Lisa Page and then contrast it against CIA Director Brennan’s testimony:
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Suspicious cat sparks are flying as Maria Bartiromo questions Connecticut Democrat Rep. Jim Himes about the intents and purposes of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in the upcoming investigative sessions.
HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff is closely coordinating with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler on the pre-established impeachment road map.
Preliminary oversight subpoenas and witness testimony kicks-off immediately after the Superbowl with a February 7th hearing for Michael Cohen and Lanny Davis.

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Andrew McCarthy has a great common sense Op-Ed written today [SEE HERE].  One of the key points McCarthy makes is akin to a bull licking a NYT journalist on the face.
The NYT wrote their article about the FBI opening an investigation on President Trump ‘as if‘ that was some big revelation; however, McCarthy points out the FBI believed the Steele Dossier and used it as evidence in their FISA applications.  The Steele Dossier was only about Donald Trump, no-one else.  The fact that the FBI would believe and use the Steele Dossier is proof alone their investigation was always and only about Donald Trump.

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In October 2015 the DOJ announced it was dropping the investigation into the IRS, Lois Lerner, and the unlawful sharing of taxpayer data in the IRS targeting investigation surrounding True The Vote et al.

As a direct consequence of the DOJ decision, congressional inquiry into the IRS targeting matter seemingly dropped from the radar.
However, if you draw a line from the original intent of the entire enterprise, the post-2010 mid-term “shellacking”/”secret research project“, forward to the 2016 election cycle an interested observer might still be left asking:

“why did the IRS, through Lois Lerner, deliver the 1+ million pages of tax filings, to include the entire donor list of Tea Party and patriot groups, through 21 CD-ROMs and not by electronic data transfer. Information that was specifically sent to Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice”?

This is an obvious question which, despite the numerous congressional hearings on the matter, was never asked – nor answered.
The entire scheme is riddled with complexity; almost too complex for the average person to understand, and seriously difficult to summarize. However, when you boil it down here’s the essential components that are no longer suspicion or supposition, but factually provable: (more…)