Back on July 22nd, the day after the July 21st surprise release of the Carter Page FISA Title-1 surveillance application, I wrote: “Oh My, This is Either A Sting -OR- The Most Corrupt U.S. Dept of Justice in History” (link).  The issue surrounded the seemingly transparent connection between the James Wolfe indictment and the FISA application.
Three months later, when James Wolfe accepted a single-count guilty plea offer around lying to federal investigators, the answer seemed obvious, at least to me.  Despite the evidence of leaking “top secret” classified documents within the Wolfe indictment DAG Rosenstein initially charged 3 counts of lying; and offered a lower guilty plea on one count.

Along with tenuous congressional testimony; a refusal to comply with document production; and a never-ending defense of the Mueller investigation; Rosenstein gives all appearances of an administrative state weasel.   However, there are solid and reasonable people who genuinely believe both Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller are doing a good, and fair, job for President Trump.
Jeff Carlson over at Marketswork does solid research and analysis.  His position on Rosenstein is far more favorable than mine; and in the interests of intellectual honesty, he could be correct [Here] and [here] and especially [Here], and  I could be entirely wrong.
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Robert Mueller (the entire team) was put into place by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017.  The specific selection of Robert Mueller was an outcome of recommendations and advice from FBI Chief Legal Counsel, James Baker, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In hindsight; and specifically against the backdrop of known illegal activity [remember, McCabe is under criminal referral] there was a motive of self-interest within Baker and McCabe, specifically to cover for the 2015/2016/2017 DOJ and FBI activity that preceded the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
From the initial perspective of self-interest, Mueller’s role had/has three essential aspects:

♦(1) Create an investigation – Just by creating the investigation it is then used as a shield by any corrupt FBI/DOJ official who would find himself/herself under downstream congressional investigation.  Former officials being deposed/questioned by IG Horowitz or Congress could then say they are unable to answer those questions due to the ongoing special counsel investigation.  In this way Mueller provides cover for officials.
♦(2)  Use the investigation to keep any and all inquiry focused away from the corrupt DOJ and FBI activity that took place in 2016, 2016, 2017.  Keep the media narrative looking somewhere, anywhere, other than directly at the epicenter of the issues. In this way, Mueller provides distraction and talking points against the Trump administration.
♦(3) Use the investigation to suck-up, absorb, any damaging investigative material that might surface as a result of tangentially related inquiry.  Example: control the exposure of evidence against classified leak participants like SSCI Director of Security, James Wolfe. In this way Mueller provides cover for the institutions and the administrative state.
In all of these objectives the Mueller special counsel has been stunningly effective.
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Contextual Background HERE and Background HERE

♦Adverse Action:  On March 15th, 2017 ODNI Dan Coats was confirmed.  On March 16th, 2017 the ODNI instructed the FISA court clerk to provide him with the Carter Page FISA application (not the DOJ file version); which was delivered March 17th, 2017 to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). [It was immediately leaked]

Question: Who would likely be in a position to request, demand or influence the ODNI to produce the FISA application?  Most sensible, valid and likely answer would be: Gang-of-Eight oversight SSCI Chair Richard Burr/Vice-Chair Mark Warner.

♦Countermeasure: On April 26th, 2017, ODNI Dan Coats publicly releases a 99-page FISC opinion on systemic DOJ and FBI FISA-702(16)(17) abuse.

Question: Why?  Why make the Rosemary Collyer report public?  No-one was looking for it, and the statutory oversight of the report is the House Judiciary/House Intelligence.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee has released a lengthy report (full pdf below) containing the investigative material from the senate investigation of the Kavanaugh accusations.
On page #27 of the report the senate committee notes their intent to continue investigating the role of retired FBI Agent Monica Lee McLean, who appears to have been ‘handling‘ accuser and best friend, Christine Blasey-Ford:
It always seemed curious how the Senate committee never redacted the name Monica McLean when first releasing the investigative material containing her involvement.
Always curious…
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Critical – Critical – Critical

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing FISA abuse investigation; the use of Michael Sussmann to act as a go-between for the DNC and FBI; the status of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and his upcoming (10/11) testimony; current visible activity within the DOJ that points to their ongoing corruption; and how all of that relates to the Robert Mueller investigation.
This is a very important interview segment because it dovetails with the much larger issue CTH outlined about: “How Deep Is This Swamp“?  Believe me, you’re going to want to watch this several times to absorb the bigger-big picture that Nunes is careful to explain.

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Working backwards from the interview content is perhaps the best way to discuss.  Nunes cannot say it out loud, but when he outlines what the Mueller investigation *is not* doing, he is highlighting the purpose of Special Counsel placement.
Robert Mueller (the entire team) was put into place, carefully selected by James Baker and Andrew McCabe, specifically to cover for the DOJ and FBI activity that preceded the firing of James Comey.   Mueller’s role has two essential aspects:
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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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Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing declassification of document issues surrounding DAG Rod Rosenstein and fired FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

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British intelligence, apparently seeking to protect Robert Hannigan, the former Director of GCHQ; and Australian intelligence intelligence seeking to protect Alexander Downer, Foreign Affairs Minister and Ambassador to the U.K; have asked President Trump Trump NOT to release un-redacted FISA documents.
Chairman Devin Nunes discusses the involvement of the U.K and Australia, along with the conflict between DAG Rod Rosenstein and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe ‘s attempt at a Coup d’état to impeach President Trump.

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The latest *claim* (defensive positioning) from the camp of Rod Rosentein, is that the Deputy AG enlisted Robert Mueller because Rosenstein viewed McCabe as intent on abusing his office to take down the president.  This inherent risk is the reason team McCabe leaked the damaging information on Rosenstein to the New York Times.
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An interesting panel discussion on Laura Ingraham’s television show.  In this segment Lee Smith (Real Clear Politics Investigations) brilliantly outlines the disparate self-interest of both Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe.  I believe Smith has this spot-on.
The New York Times and Washington Post are both primary outlets for narratives scripted by the political intelligence community.   Against the backdrop of declassification, Team McCabe was advancing an anti-Rosenstein narrative with the NYT.  Team Rosenstein was advancing a defense of Rosenstein within the Washington Post; both narratives surrounded the risks within the declassification directive.
Watch the Lee Smith part which starts at 04:30:

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The declassification is a risk to both McCabe and Rosenstein. Both began constructing a pro-active defense. However, McCabe didn’t know Rosenstein was going to carve out a deal with President Trump (leveraging Horowitz) to protect everyone in the DOJ/FBI by reversing the declassification directive.
Andrew McCabe views his risk as the largest risk, and essentially is saying, through the network which includes media, that if he goes down he’s taking everyone down.
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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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