With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report on the Carter Page FISA, there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign.  In this outline we hope to provide some deep source material that will explain the origin, and specifically why the those inside the Intelligence Community began using Confidential Human Sources.

During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.

On March 9, 2016, oversight personnel doing a review of FBI system access were alerted to thousands of unauthorized search queries of specific U.S. persons within the NSA database.

NSA Director Mike Rogers was made aware.

Subsequently NSA Director Rogers initiated a full compliance review of the system to identify who was doing the searches; & what searches were being conducted.

On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 “about”(17) and “to/from”(16) search queries were being done without authorization.  Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.

When you compile the timeline with the people involved; and the specific wording of the resulting review, which was then delivered to the FISA court; and overlay the activity that was taking place in the GOP primary; what we discover is a process where the metadata collected by the NSA was being searched for political opposition research and surveillance.

Additionally, tens-of-thousands of searches were identified by the FISA court as likely extending much further than the compliance review period: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of the non compliant queries since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 period coincided with an unusually high error rate”.

In short, during the Obama administration the NSA database was continually used to conduct surveillance.  This is the critical point that leads to understanding the origin of “Spygate”, as it unfolded in the Spring and Summer of 2016.

It was the discovery of the database exploitation and the removal of access as a surveillance tool that created their initial problem.  Here’s how we can tell.

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Laura Ingraham broadcasts the second part of her interview with AG Bill Barr (majority transcribed below).  In this segment we can get a sense of where the DOJ is going with the ongoing investigations by U.S. Attorney John Durham into spygate and the current status of FISA against the backdrop of the prior administration abuse.

AG Bill Barr notes John Durham will bring criminal charges against those in the previous administration: “he is looking to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses if he can show that there were criminal violations; and that’s what the focus is on.” WATCH

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[@2:49 of video] INGRAHAM – John Brennan was smashing the President’s firing of Inspector General Michael Atkinson, let’s listen:

BRENNAN – “By removing Mr. Atkinson, and I think also sending a signal to others, Mr. Trump continues to show his insecurity in terms of trying to stop anybody who was going to expose, again the lawlessness, that I think he not only has allowed to continue, but also that he abets.”

BARR – “I think the president did the right thing in removing Atkinson. From the vantage point of the Dept. of Justice, he had interpreted his statute; which is a fairly narrow statute that gave him jurisdiction over wrong-doing by intelligence people; and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government, and immediately report it to congress without letting the executive branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem.  He was told this in a letter from the department of justice, and he is obliged to follow the interpretation of the department of justice, and he ignored it. So I think the President was correct in firing him.”

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It has been so long since the original 2018 congressional request that many people have forgotten what was included in the “Bucket Five” declassification request.

Bucket Five – Intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all exculpatory intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court.

Bucket Five includes transcripts of the FBI wiretap operations using confidential human sources that were run against members of the Trump campaign; including George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

One of those transcripts, from the operation against Papadopoulos was declassified on April 1st, and released last night and today.

Before getting into the transcript, it is also important to see the bigger context and the bigger landscape as it is visible.  Recent moves by the Trump administration highlight much more context and color… some may be interpreted as positive signs, and some are worth a note of caution.

Richard “Ric” Grenell was moved into the position as Acting Director of National Intelligence.  Together with a new staff within the ODNI Grenell is now in position to assist in any declassification effort.  Thus we also see the apoplexy by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff, as Grenell is positioned to bring a lot of sunlight on the overall FISA-gate and Spygate operations.   The corrupt intelligence community operators are not happy with Grenell holding such power.  Keep this in mind.

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Lawyers representing Michael Flynn presented a strong argument today (pdf below) in reply to the governments’ continued efforts to refute prosecutorial wrongdoing.
Within the reply motion Sidney Powell highlights the conduct of prosecutor Brandon Van Grack and hypocrisy within the government arguments: “Mr. Van Grack’s contention that he satisfied the government’s obligations by providing this information before Mr. Flynn’s sentencing now proves the point that he suppressed it when it was most important to Mr. Flynn: before his guilty plea on December 1, 2017, and before what was scheduled to be his sentencing on December 18, 2018.”

Prosecutor Van Grack suppressed evidence to protect… “the prosecutors, his team, and the cadre of malfeasant FBI agents from the discovery of their negligence, crimes, and wrongs.”

The tone of the reply motion reads like the Flynn defense is chomping at the bit to take this case to trial. Perhaps that is a strategy to add weight to their dismissal argument; or perhaps that is a reflection of defense confidence they can highlight all of the abuses at trial.
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the Russia and Ukraine hoaxes.  Rep. Nunes is optimistic Attorney General Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham will get to the bottom of the weaponization of government; however, Nunes puts the majority of blame for promoting the hoaxes upon a duplicitous mainstream media in cahoots with Democrats in DC.

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Additionally, it seems quite noteworthy – with the current urgency amid the media to rehabilitate the image of the Democrat apparatus writ large –  there’s a conspicuous absence of Adam Schiff.
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President Trump asks: “Are these “dirty cops” going to pay a big price for the fraud they committed?” 

However, the only person who can honestly answer that question is the person in the mirror when President Trump brushes his teeth.   Perhaps forgotten…
In the spring of 2018 a group of congressional reps led by Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Lee Zeldin and Bob Goodlatte, asked President Trump to declassify a series of documents so the public could see how former officials in the DOJ & FBI abused their offices and conducted political surveillance.
In September of 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked President Trump not to declassify those same documents until after the Mueller probe was complete.  Rosenstein informed the President (confirmed in later POTUS interviews) that declassifying the material could be interpreted as impeding the Mueller investigation.
Two months later, in November 2018, the mid-term election took place.  Republicans lost the House and their committee chairs.  Many people suspected (I concur) the mid-term election was the real motive for the Sept. 2018 request from Rosenstein.  Four months after the mid-term, March 2019, the Mueller investigation of President Trump ended.
Two months after the Mueller probe ended U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, a profoundly supportive voice for DAG Rosenstein, asked President Trump to grant him unilateral declassification authority to assist the purposes and intents of his DOJ effort.  President Trump granted U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr with the authority to declassify on May 23rd, 2019; granting access to the same documents requested by congress a year earlier.
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Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham appears on SMF with Maria Bartiromo to discuss House Speaker Nancy Pelosi withholding articles of impeachment from the Senate.
Senator Graham does a good job explaining the fraudulent visible reasons, purposes and strategy for establishing the House obstruction article; however, Graham completely overlooks the hidden motive for withholding it/them.
Moving to “spygate” Bartiromo points out Special Counsel Mueller never investigated the “dossier”; however, Bartiromo misses that Rosensteins’ second scope memo in August 2017 specifically empowered the research of (ie. use of) the dossier for his probe.
*POINT: In my opinion, this is the reason why the DOJ (AG Bill Barr) will not release the scope memos…. Barr is protecting DAG Rosenstein and his good friend Robert Mueller.

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Lindsey Graham goes on to discuss the background surveillance on the Trump campaign; and outlines questions he has and potential witnesses before his committee.  Pause for a moment in this part of Graham’s interview, and notice how the answer to every question is within the declassification documents we have discussed. We know where the answers are.
Amid the twists and turns many people have forgotten about the material congress asked President Trump to declassify a year-and-a-half ago.  Additionally there has been some material cited that just seemingly slipped away without follow-up.  Consider:
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Merry Christmas.  The intercept is reporting that former NSA Director, Admiral Mike Rogers, has been working with U.S. Attorney John Durham for several months during his investigation into the origin of the 2016 intelligence operation against candidate Trump.
This is particularly important because NSA Director Mike Rogers’ knowledge is at the epicenter of the origination of almost everything related to the FBI data-surveillance that was happening in 2015 and 2016.
(Via Intercept) Retired Adm. Michael Rogers, former director of the National Security Agency, has been cooperating with the Justice Department’s probe into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, according to four people familiar with Rogers’s participation.
Rogers has met the prosecutor leading the probe, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, on multiple occasions, according to two people familiar with Rogers’s cooperation.

While the substance of those meetings is not clear, Rogers has cooperated voluntarily, several people with knowledge of the matter said.
Rogers, who retired in May 2018, did not respond to requests for comment.

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With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC  operations and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.
Working with a timeline, but also referencing origination material in 2015/2016 – CTH hopes to show how the program(s) interacted and operated.  A full review explains an evolution from The IRS Files in 2010 to the FISA Files in 2016.
More importantly, the assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012.
The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process. We start by reviewing the established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26th, 2017; and explain the details within the FISC opinion.
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Today the Dept. of Justice Office of Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, will release the much anticipated report covering a 21-month review of FBI and DOJ compliance with legal requirements surrounding FISA and the application against U.S. person Carter Page.
The report is rumored to be well over 600 pages.  It will BE RELEASED HERE.
The report was published at 1:00pm – The Report is only 476 Pages

PDF of REPORT HERE – Read on Oversight Here– Press Release HERE

Use this thread as an open discussion and research thread  specific to the content of the IG report when released.

Things to keep in mind…
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