Former FBI Director James Comey appeared December 17th, 2018, for a second round of questions by a joint House committee oversight probe into the DOJ and FBI conduct during the 2016 presidential election and incoming Trump administration.
The Joint House Committee just released the transcript (full pdf below):
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This was just released.  Analysis to follow.

Without cameras in the courtroom we are constrained to understand the Flynn sentencing hearing today through the perspectives of others. The Daily Caller has an article [See Here] and a thread on the events [is Here] and a great video recap of the events by Will Chamberlain [is HERE].
That said, there is much speculation and punditry delivered opinion on what took place; and how the hearing ended with Judge Emmet Sullivan delaying the sentencing of Michael Flynn for 90-days. While we await the transcript from the court, here’s my view.

Last night, while contemplating the possible outcomes of the hearing, there was a strong likelihood of exactly what happened today…. but only if Judge Sullivan was aware of the conflicted position of Michael Flynn, and approached the hearing from that perspective.
Flynn took the guilty plea of lying to investigators to avoid Mueller charging him over the Turkish lobbying issues (FARA).
Happily, it appears Judge Sullivan is well aware of this very specific dynamic and the issues therein. Special Counsel Robert Mueller used the unregistered foreign lobbying charges, and -more importantly- the devastating narrative that can be drawn from those FARA violations, as leverage over Flynn. Based on the comments from Judge Sullivan, it is clear he is aware of this dynamic.
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Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack filed a cover letter attempting to explain the reason for the Flynn interview on January 24th, and the official filing of the interview notes (FD-302) on February 15th, and then again on May 31st.  To explain the delay, he claims the report “inadvertently” had a header saying “DRAFT DOCUMENT/DELIBERATIVE MATERIAL”  (screen grab)

What the special counsel appears to be obfuscating to the court is that there was factually a process of deliberation within the investigative unit, headed by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, surrounding the specific wording of the 302 report on the interview.
Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack is attempting to hide the length of the small group deliberations. It seems he doesn’t want the court to know Andrew McCabe was involved in shaping how the fd-302 was written.
We know there was a deliberative process in place, seemingly all about how to best position the narrative, because we can see the deliberations in text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:  See below (note the dates):

The text message conversation above is February 14th, 2017.   The Michael Flynn FD-302 was officially entered into the record on February 15th, 2017, per the report:
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This is interesting.  On the eve of Michael Flynn’s sentencing hearing tomorrow, judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered Robert Mueller’s office to publicly file a redacted version of  the original 302 (interview notes) that FBI Agent Joe Pientka prepared after Flynn’s Jan. 24, 2017 interview (full pdf below).

(Source Link)

  The FD-302 that is submitted by the Mueller team in response to the Sullivan order is here.  Written by FBI Agents Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok:
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[Cloud Link to pdf – SCRIBD link to pdf]

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Former FBI Director James Comey speaks to the media at the conclusion of his second day of testimony before a joint House committee conducting DOJ and FBI oversight.

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By prior agreement the transcript of the hearing will be made public within 24 hours.  So we should be able to read the testimony sometime tomorrow.
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There’s a rather extensive backstory to the Turkish lobbying efforts that involved Michael Flynn.  [BACKSTORY HERE] Much of the Flynn issue was before the election of 2016 {Go Deep} and recent events align exactly as we would expect {Go Deep}. As CTH predicted the day after the original Flynn plea, the Turkish lobbying was used by Mueller as leverage.

It would appear, as CTH has predicted for well over a year, that Flynn brokered a deal with Robert Mueller to admit to misleading statements to the FBI in exchange for Mueller agreeing not to prosecute Flynn for FARA (lobbying) violations.
As CTH warned in November of 2016 Flynn was involved in lobbying efforts on behalf of the Turkish government via Bijan Rafiekian, aka Bijan Kian, 66, of San Juan Capistrano, California, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 41, of Istanbul. The financial constructs surrounding the payments to Flynn were sketchy, very sketchy.
In 2016 CTH anticipated this sketchy behavior would come back to bite Flynn and -by extension- could be an issue for the White House if he took a high level position.  None of that had anything whatsoever to do with the fictitious vast Russian conspiracy story.
It is increasingly clear that Mueller used the sketchy financial arrangement between Turkey and Flynn -specifically how Flynn maneuvered the money- as the leverage in the unrelated Russian conspiracy investigation.
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Michael Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow by Judge Emmet Sullivan.  Former constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz discusses his opinion on the possibility that Judge Sullivan could throw out the case.

Mr. Dershowitz has an opinion piece today at THE HILL going over this issue – SEE HERE –

The media is asking the wrong question about the Michael Flynn case. They are asking whether Flynn lied or the FBI acted improperly, as if the answers to those two questions are mutually exclusive. The possibility that both are true, in that Flynn did not tell the truth and that the FBI acted improperly, is not considered in our hyper partisan world where everyone, including the media, chooses a side and refuses to consider the chance that their side is not perfectly right and the other side not perfectly evil. Read More

House Permanent Sub Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Devin Nunes appears on with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the current state of issues with Michael Flynn.
Chairman Nunes draws attention to the latest documents (released Friday). One of the documents is written by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe who noted that Flynn was aware the FBI had the content of a phone call between himself and Russian Ambassador Kislyak, prior to the FBI interview. Therefore it is highly unlikely Flynn would lie about the content of that Kislyak phone call.

Most people forget the background of how the Mueller probe was constructed. FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI chief legal counsel James Baker selected most of the special counsel investigators; those two then recommended to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein that he hire Robert Mueller as special counsel lead.
Comey was fired. The remaining ‘at-risk’ corrupt FBI leadership (McCabe and Baker), positioning to defend their own interests, selected the “small group”; then Mueller was selected and brought on his additional team members. The entire  purpose of the special counsel operation was to cover-up the DOJ/FBI activity.
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Congressman Darryl Issa appears for an interview with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the sketchy Mueller case against Michael Flynn; the likelihood that someone in the administration is going to have to talk to the FISA court about likely DOJ abuse; and the second round of questions for James Comey scheduled for tomorrow.

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It is hard to believe this was written a year ago; time flies.  However, we are repeating a FISA-702 explanation thread below because as the year has evolved; and understanding FISA-702 process abuse is now the specific focus of Inspector General Michael Horowitz; there is an aspect to the FISA-gate story that must be expanded.
The United States intelligence community, writ large, will likely never allow the structural abuse of the FISA-702 system by the Obama administration to surface.  Consider it a third rail of unspoken agreement. A similar motive for the DIA to keep the Flynn file under wraps.  However, before going into the complexities of the FISA conundrum, which would also envelop any Horowitz report, it is important to revisit the basics.

We’ll break down the term: “ FISA-702(16)(17) ” into the elements that will help make sense of this story in the future.

• FISA – Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
• 702 – An American caught up in the process of Foreign Surveillance
• (16) – A search query based on “TO” and/or “FROM”
• (17) – A search query based on “ABOUT” (now removed)

Again, to repeat, there are differing FISA rules for use of the NSA or FBI database depending on the originating intelligence compartment.
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