It was announced this afternoon the lawyers representing, Rick Gates, the business partner of Paul Manafort, have withdrawn from the case.  The judicial notification is HERE, and details of withdrawal were filed under seal.
Amid the news cycle of the HPSCI memo release, and considering there could be ripple effects therein, lots of media speculations follows:

WASHINGTON DC – Three attorneys representing Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday they are immediately withdrawing as counsel for the former Donald Trump campaign aide, who is fighting special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of him on money laundering and other charges.
Lawyers Shanlon Wu, Walter Mack and Annemarie McAvoy said in a two-page motion that they would explain the reasons for their abrupt move in documents filed under seal with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (read more)

There is possibility the three lawyers could be withdrawing after discovery of the length of time the DOJ was investigating Manafort and Gates; and that might just dovetail into the FISA702 abuse story and the 2016 counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump. I’ll try to explain.
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Congressional representative Matt Gaetz appears with Neil Cavuto and Martha MacCallum to discuss the House Intelligence Memo and the pending release…
Martha MacCallum Interview:

As anticipated, the Executive Branch, having completed a full review, has approved the declassification request from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and will deliver the Intelligence Memo, without redactions, back to the HPSCI for public release.

WASHINGTON DC – According to a Thursday afternoon pool report, a White House official confirmed upon arrival to West Virginia that the president “has read the memo.”
Trump will declassify the controversial four-page memo that reportedly details surveillance abuses by the Department of Justice and FBI, and send it back to House Intelligence for a Friday morning release.

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The Memo team have done a great job utilizing the media reporting to draw in interest to the content of the House Intelligence Memo on DOJ/FBI FISA abuse.  During a joint House and Senate  leadership press conference today, Speaker Paul Ryan again clarified the process and procedures.  [Video @08:28 Prompted]
Remember, what is contained in the full story of this DOJ and FBI activity, directly strikes to the heart of the two biggest and most defended people within the Democrat party: former President Obama, and former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The media are losing their minds over this, because of the consequential nature of the facts and what they represent.
https://youtu.be/27UyIehXN9M?t=8m30s
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If the apparent Nunes, Grassley, Goodlatte and Horowitz timing remains as previously evidenced, today should be Memo Release Day.
The White House having allowed a full 36 hours of media discussion time to talk through the SotU address, is poised to permit the Executive Branch declassification approval of the Legislative Branch intelligence work product.

In a last minute effort to block the executive approvals, Minority Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, claimed last night there were changes to the legislative work product.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes shared with Adam Schiff some minor edits to the drafted memo that resulted from the executive branch (FBI Director Wray) making a request upon initial review:
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Representative Mark Meadows appears on Lou Dobbs last night to discuss the four-page House Intelligence Committee FISA abuse memo currently under executive branch review. The HPSCI of the Legislative Branch has created a classified work product (the memo) and is requesting executive branch declassification.
After invited (executive) review by Christopher Wray on Sunday night, and two officials on Monday, the HPSCI voted to release to the executive.  The remaining executive branch (NSC, OLC, WH legal, CoS, etc.) is currently reviewing. Lou Dobbs is concerned about five FBI officials visiting the White House (w/ Chief-of-Staff Kelly).

Gotta love the professionally obtuse former DNI James Clapper.
As much as he is a stuttering doofus, and therein showcases his political value for the former administration; and to the extent that Clapper has previously stated there was no attempt by the DOJ/FBI to gain a FISA authorized approval for surveillance on any Trump campaign officials: “none that I’m aware of“; …it is always valuable to listen to Clapper because he has a tendency to, well, to let slip stuff that makes the black hats cringe.
Cue the audio visual “slippage.”  Inside tonight’s interview by Jake Tapper, former DNI James Clapper now unwittingly refutes his previous assertion of “no Trump FISA warrant“, and simultaneously lets it slip out that the Clinton/Steele dossier was not used in gaining origination authority for FISA-702 surveillance, but rather for an “extension” of a previous application for FISA-702 surveillance.  WATCH:

06:48 ..”as I understand it, this was simply an extension of uh, the original, uh, FISA request.  Meaning that, or implying, that apparently, there was information that was considered, uh, ‘valuable’, that was being obtained, via the initial FISA request.”
“FISA’s have, uh, finite dates. Uh, in other words they have deadlines; they aren’t indefinite… So when the time was up for the initial FISA report, FISA request, then it was time to get an extension. So on its face, I don’t know that the dossier played, very much, in this at all”…

Well, that’s interesting.  I wonder who gave Clapper the “as I understand it” part? Now let’s go back to March 5th 2017 and review what DNI James Clapper said about the Department of Justice getting FISA-702 surveillance authority on Trump campaign officials.
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On Monday night January 29th, 2018, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence met to discuss the release of a classified committee memo that outlined corruption within the U.S. Justice Department, and how the DOJ/FBI used fraudulent material to apply for FISA surveillance warrants on American citizens.
Below is the committee transcript from that meeting. Democrats (minority) opposed the release of the Intelligence Memo; Republicans (majority) supported it. The minority wanted to distribute a memo of their own; the majority supported the request of the minority so long as they followed the same process as previous.  (link to pdf)
[scribd id=370457752 key=key-ZxrY7RlW83UobxTBpOnN mode=scroll]
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Against a newly discovered likelihood the Robert Mueller investigation began under false pretenses; and against the backdrop that FBI surveillance and wiretaps were obtained through materially (intentionally) false representations to the FISA court; and against the backdrop the original Flynn plea judge (Contrereas) was also the approving FISA judge; and that judge ‘was summarily recused’ from the case; and against increasing evidence that Mike Flynn was set up by a terminal animus, and politically-motivated investigative rogue unit, operating within the FBI; and against surfacing IG Horowitz evidence that FBI investigators manipulated (lied on) their FD-302 interrogation documents; and understanding those falsified 302’s were used in the Mueller/Flynn charging document…
…Special Counsel Robert Mueller now asks for postponement of sentencing:

(pdf link)

Both parties did not ‘request‘ a postponement; both parties ‘agreed‘ to a postponement.  The motive for the request (Mueller) is entirely divergent from, yet complimentary to, the motive to agree to the request (Flynn).
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There are multiple corrupt officials inside the U.S. Department of Justice.  This has never been in doubt since DOJ and FBI officials made direct admissions to the FISA court that they intentionally manipulated the court system for political purposes (April ’17 FISC pdf).
After the material admissions to the court; and against revelations from sunlight upon the activity showing the DOJ and FBI manipulated the FISC to gain surveillance authority to spy on Donald Trump campaign officials; the issue shifted toward disclosure of the activity, evidence of scale of abuse and ultimately, accountability.
Accountability for the weaponization of intelligence has been the ongoing goal of House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes.  Explaining what took place leads to Chairman Nunes creating the intelligence memo.  However, it is the underlying classified information behind the memo where evidence of ‘how’ the apparatus was weaponized will be found.

Current and former officials within the Department of Justice (national security division) and FBI (counterintelligence division) are at the heart of the malfeasance.  Those officials have a vested interest in trying to stop the public from seeing what took place.  They are aided by a political media apparatus who are attempting to shield the corrupt officials due to aligned political opposition against the current President.
The corrupt FBI officials -remaining inside the DOJ/FBI- know they can rely on their media allies to assist them in keeping what took place hidden from public review.  Today, those FBI entities attempt to cloud the Nunes memo and shape a narrative.  Their release:
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