After initially stating a DNC lawyer was a source of information to the FBI for use in their counterintelligence operations against the Trump campaign, the name of the lawyer from the DNC law firm of Perkins Coie has now been revealed as Michael Sussmann.

According to Catherine Herridge reporting  testimony from former FBI legal counsel James Baker revealed that Michael Susmann, representing the Clinton team, was feeding information to the FBI for use against the trump campaign.  While this is an explosive confirmation, it is not necessarily surprising.
In March and April 2016, around the same time when NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was shutting down “contractor access” to FBI and NSA databases [an effort to stop the frequent FISA-702(16)(17) search abuses that were taking place], Michael Sussmann met with FBI Counsel James Baker – Global Privacy Summit, April 5th, 2016.
Researcher TWE put a lot of the details of how Sussmann lines-up within the larger story on a twitter thread – SEE HERE –  With his former DOJ national security credentials Michael Sussmann integrated himself with the DNC’s cyber security team; and following the DNC ‘hack’ (aka Seth Rich leak) Sussmann introduced the DNC to CrowdStrike.   The DNC goal was to identify the intrusion and the extent of the compromise.
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The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Bob Goodlatte, tweeted today their intention to immediately subpoena the memos written by fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.   The memos were part of an article presented by the New York Times citing evidence of Rod Rosenstein making statements about President Trump.

The House Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that it intends to subpoena memos from former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe detailing reported comments made by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in which he proposed secretly taping conversations with President Trump and initiating a process to remove the president by invoking the 25th Amendment.  (read more)

However, the subpoena alone that’s not the revelation-angle within the story. There’s a bigger story as noted by judiciary committee Representative Jim Jordan: “Mr. Rosenstein, give Congress the McCabe memos that we asked for in July and all the other documents we’ve requested so we can all judge for ourselves.”
The bigger revelation here is how someone, some unknown FBI officials, kept the McCabe  memos from congress and subsequently from a previous internal INSD investigation of McCabe.
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I’ve probably reviewed thousands of congressional letters, and intelligence committee letters from oversight, along with even more executive agency responses.  In fact, CTH has shared hundreds of outlines covering granular details within many of the internal memos and correspondences.  However, I have never seen anything like this before.
The combination of arrogance, hubris and desperation within a letter (pdf here) from the four Democrats on the intelligence oversight Gang of Eight, is palpable even in text format.
Legislative branch members: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff and Mark Warner write a letter today to Director  of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, demanding the executive branch cabinet members withhold information from the White House.
Perhaps more stunningly, and extra-constitutionally (meaning outside the framework of constitutional separation of power), within the jaw-dropping letter the four Democrats outline previous verbal conversations and current agreements with Coats, Rosenstein and Wray where the Cabinet officers agreed to keep information away from the White House Chief Executive, the President.
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Beyond the narrative engineering, NBC’s Ken Dilanian is reporting from his mutually aligned sources inside the DOJ and FBI.  The basic outline is the embed officials within the DOJ, FBI and larger intelligence community, are not happy about the White House declassification directive.  Why would they be?….
These are the same DOJ and FBI officials who, without justification, redacted the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages.

First, the article:

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials, blindsided by President Donald Trump’s order that they make public highly sensitive files in the Russia investigation, are hoping the White House will allow them to conduct a formal declassification review and damage assessment before they are forced to release the documents, current and former officials tell NBC News.
Senior executives at the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the Director of National intelligence were scrambling Tuesday to respond after being taken by surprise by a White House press release Monday directing them to release classified material they had previously determined should not be made public. (more)

The biggest mistake people make is not accepting the influence of the worker-bee career officials, operating under the leadership structure, within the bureaucracy.
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Special counsel Robert Mueller really, really, r.e.a.l.l.y doesn’t want to sentence former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn for lying prior to the release of the of the unredacted text messages and the IG Report on FISA abuse.
Nothing would be more devastating for Mueller’s political objectives than to sentence General Flynn – and then have the nature of an entrapment scheme exposed.  Hence yet another incredulous delay (this is the fifth delay):

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Many column inches and media discussions surround the recently released “NEW” text messages and emails attributed to FBI Agent Peter Strzok.  “NEW” revelations that show how the FBI was coordinating a “media leak strategy”; which essentially further evidences the level of corruption within the DOJ and FBI & weaponization for political motives.

However, there is a particular pattern and familiarity to these releases for those who follow the Administrative State, aka “Deep State”, within Washington DC closely.  According to Sean Hannity (Friday broadcast) next week there will be several thousand more of these “NEW” messages released. [Up to 50,000]
Amid these latest developments is where we find the all-too-familiar pattern. Where exactly were these “NEW” emails for the past sixteen months? Who is releasing these “NEW” messages? Why? And why now?
According to Joe diGenova, there’s a seated grand jury ready to pounce on Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Peter Strzok and all the corrupt elements associated within “spygate” and “fisa-gate”.   As the diGenova story is told, former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker has “turned states evidence”, and is now testifying to the grand scheme, etc. Exposing all those who participated. (Prompted – Just Hit Play)
https://youtu.be/KQDSdTM3kus?t=4m57s
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Perhaps diGenova is right; perhaps all of those wonderful things are about to happen.  However, I’m of a generally more cynical disposition after years of following these creeps.  I hope diGenova is correct, but I fear he is fraught with misplaced optimism and/or bad information.  Here’s why:
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Lee Smith has an excellent article for Real Clear Investigations where he outlines two strategic phases of the media and FBI/DOJ officials collaborating to create, and later defend, the ‘Trump Russia Narrative’.   It is well worth reading:

[Via Lee Smith] … RCI has found that the anti-Trump leaks fall into two broad categories, or phases. Initially the leaking was an offensive operation aimed at disrupting Trump’s agenda, especially through leaks alleging connections between his campaign and the Russians. Its early successes included leaks of highly classified material that led to the firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions from overseeing that probe.

The second phase – which began roughly a year into the Trump administration – has been more defensive, pushing back against congressional oversight committees that had uncovered irregularities in the FBI’s investigation of Trump. This phase has been marked by the willingness of press outlets to run stories backing off earlier reported leaks that proved to be deeply misleading – including the roots of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and the relationship between Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and the opposition research firm that produced a central document of that probe, the largely discredited “Steele dossier.” Continue reading

Representative Jim Jordan, member of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, appears on Fox News to discuss revelations about how the FBI used the media to support their investigative purposes.  In essence this “Media Leak Strategy” issue lies at the heart of the controversy behind the redacted “Sources and Methods” the FBI continues to hide.
The “sources and methods” within the FBI investigative material (now classified) reflects intentional leaks by the FBI to media, and journalists writing articles to bolster the investigation which were then cited as supportive material to continue the investigation.

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Frustratingly, what no-one seems to mention -during these debates- is how the Inspector General has already outlined the FBI ‘media leak strategy’ when he published his report on FBI conduct. There are two chapters of the IG report dedicated to outlining how grossly negligent FBI officials were collaborating with the media.
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Today is likely to be a very busy news day.  President Trump will appear on Fox and Friends at the same time the Bureau of Labor and Statistics releases the August jobs report. RESULTS: Total employment increased by 201,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.9 percent (data here)
Additionally, there’s the congressional requests (legislative branch) for President Trump (executive branch) to declassify redacted portions of the DOJ/FBI FISA application.  So it is worthwhile discussing the “declassification conundrum” beginning with this interview:

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The congressional request is for President Trump to declassify and release the Carter Page FISA applications (including specifically pages 10-12 and 17-34 and relevant footnotes), all of the Bruce Ohr 302s and other relevant documents, including exculpatory evidence regarding Carter Page and others, that were presented to the Gang of Eight, but not presented to the FISA Court.
At first glance it appears to be a simple request right? However, it is anything but simple for a lot of reasons.
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There are some interesting overlays amid a Washington Post report just published which outlines that a Grand Jury is hearing witness testimony in a criminal probe of former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
You might remember it was April 19th, 2018, when the initial criminal referral from the Office of Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, was first made public.  The actual timing of the referral, to a “D.C. U.S.Attorney” took place some time prior to April 19th.

The original IG referral to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office was after the inspector general concluded McCabe had lied to investigators and possibly his own boss, then-FBI Director James B. Comey, on four occasions, three of them under oath.   The details were outlined in the first IG report into the conduct of Andrew McCabe [See Here]
Within today’s Washington Post report they specify a grand jury has been hearing from witnesses surrounding that referral and potentially other matters, in an effort to “lock down” witness statements.

WaPo – Federal prosecutors have for months been using a grand jury to investigate former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — an indication the probe into whether he misled officials exploring his role in a controversial media disclosure has intensified, two people familiar with the matter said.

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