Alan Dershowitz and Joe diGenova appeared tonight on Sean Hannity to discuss the ramifications to the political FBI raid on Michael Cohen’s office and residence along with the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation. Additionally, they discussed fired FBI Director James Comey and current Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Last night House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes threatened to impeach FBI Director Christopher Wray and Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, if not granted access to review the two-page intelligence community origination document that kicked-off the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump.
Today Rosenstein and Wray allowed Chairman Nunes and Trey Gowdy to review the origination document, also known as the “electronic communication” (EC). House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes issued the following statement today:
“After numerous unfulfilled requests for an Electronic Communication (EC) related to the opening of the FBI’s Russia counterintelligence probe, Chairman Trey Gowdy and I met this afternoon with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. During the meeting, we were finally given access to a version of the EC that contained the information necessary to advance the Committee’s ongoing investigation of the Department of Justice and FBI. Although the subpoenas issued by this Committee in August 2017 remain in effect, I’d like to thank Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein for his cooperation today.” (link)
The two-page electronic communication (EC) is essentially the intelligence report from CIA Director John Brennan, that started the FBI Counterintelligence Operation against the campaign of Donald Trump.
A key DIA official from within the White House National Security Council has resurfaced today as reports show Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been hired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assist on issues surrounding counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
WASHINGTON — A former American intelligence official who came under intense scrutiny during a stint at the White House last year is returning to government as the national security adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a person familiar with the decision.
The official, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, will play an important role at the Justice Department, advising Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence and counterterrorism. (NYT Link)
Before getting to the big picture of Cohen-Watnick, let’s look at a few recent granules which at first might seem disconnected – but they are not.
During an interview with Fox News host Harris Faulkner today U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) discussed a response letter he received from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Senator Paul inquired with the FBI Director about whether reassigned FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ/FBI Attorney Lisa Page still retained their Top Secret FBI clearances.
According to Senator Paul, the FBI director would not respond to specific agent inquiry, however, Wray did affirm that all existing FBI officials retain Top Secret clearances.
In essence, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, despite being removed from investigative authority over their role in the political efforts to target President Trump, retain employment within the DOJ/FBI apparatus in an unknown capacity and thereby their clearances.
This information by Rand Paul dovetails into an increasingly obvious storyline where Lisa Page and Peter Strzok remain employed because they are cooperating with the internal investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz and parallel federal prosecutor John Huber.
Representative Matt Gaetz sent out a tweet today that is absolutely accurate. You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States…. and that’s what the DOJ is trying to hide.
If you peel the skin off the onion, and get down to the substantive core issue that represents the biggest risk to the entire collective group who worked to subvert the 2016 presidential election, you get to the FISA-702(16)(17) and Title-1 surveillance abuse that was carried out by the Obama Intelligence Community, DOJ-NSD and the FBI.
The actions taken by ‘inside’ government officials and ‘outside’ ideological cohorts is exactly what all of their collective “resistance” activity is about. Attacking the Office of the Presidency is a strategy to keep sunlight from their previous action.
When we absorb the full scope and scale of the political effort from inside and outside government, then we understand everything happening. Additionally, I would strongly suggest this is also where Attorney General Sessions is going wrong.
To understand the dynamic it becomes important to separate the FISA/FISC issues from the other issues within the IG Horowitz and Prosecutor Huber investigations.
Tomorrow Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce the assignment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ (Horowitz/Huber) to the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.
Mr. Lausch is a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney from outside Washington DC. John Lausch currently heads the Northern District of Illinois which includes Chicago, and this specific U.S. Attorney has extensive experience in complex cases of conspiracy and political corruption; a key skill-set given the issues within the Horowitz/Huber investigation of potential politicization of the FBI and DOJ offices.
Accepting the OIG report is almost certainly the most complex undertaking of IG Horowitz career; and accepting the multitude of possible angles within each section of the investigative inquiry are so consequential; there’s a strong likelihood the report could come out in stages.
Very interesting interview with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes earlier today. Chairman Nunes discusses his current objective to gain the two-page “electronic communication” document that initiated the FBI and DOJ-NSD investigation into the campaign of presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Chairman Nunes is focusing more intensely on the use of FBI/DOJ counterintelligence operations a weaponized agencies against political opponents. As a result of that focus the origination documents gain increased importance along with the FISA Title-1 application used to conduct exhaustive surveillance on U.S. person Carter Page.
Another very interesting dynamic occurs toward the latter half of the interview where Chairman Nunes brings up the international allies, and specifically describes the origination of “The Alliance of the Orb“, against the backdrop of weaponized intel.
A few hours ago President Trump tweeted a curiously specific pair of tweets targeting the FBI, DOJ and FISA investigations as it relates to the House Judiciary Committee and Chairman Bob Goodlatte. Something’s up:
Against the backdrop of the DOJ notifying the House Intelligence and House Senate committees last night of their ability to review the DOJ/FBI submission of the FISA Court application used to target U.S. person Carter Page, the specificity of POTUS Trump’s direction is curious.
As we previously discussed the DOJ allowing expanded congressional oversight over the FISA application, against the backdrop of a previously announced IG review of this specific FISA application, would indicate Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Federal Prosecutor John Huber signed-off on, or perhaps directed, last night’s approval.
Until today the only people allowed to review the full Title-1 FISA application were Trey Gowdy, Adam Schiff, Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Rep John Ratcliffe.
In an interesting development, the Department of Justice has responded to HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes notifying him the DOJ will allow all members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees full access to review the unredacted FBI/DOJ FISA application used to gain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. citizen Carter Page.
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According to CNN: ‘Separately, Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said the department on Monday will supplement its document production to the House Judiciary Committee by producing another 1,000 pages of materials in response to a subpoena issued by committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte.’
This is an interesting development for several reasons:
Most of the ‘vast-Russian-conspiracy‘ media presentations seem to start with a discussion of intelligence gathering beginning in July of 2016. The GOP convention to nominate Donald Trump was July 18-21st of 2016.
Adding to the July 2016 origination narrative FBI Director James Comey stated the counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump began in July 2016. However, not a single MSM entity has looked at the FISA-702(16)(17) abuses by the FBI and DOJ-NSD outlined by the FISA court and NSA well before July 2016.
It is a matter of unclassified public record the FBI and DOJ-NSD were allowing “contractors” to conduct searches of the FBI and NSA databases, and extract raw intelligence, throughout 2015 until April 28th 2016 when NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers shut down all access and initiated a compliance review.
Any objective review of that time period indicates (strongest likelihood) the search activity was political ‘opposition research’ for the 2016 presidential election. With hindsight of the FBI and DOJ’s political intents, ‘opposition research’ was almost certainly the motive.
Surrounding the nomination that stunned the geo-political world almost every foreign government was trying to figure out who and what Donald J Trump was all about; and more specifically: how would his run for the presidency impact their specific interests.
2017- WASHINGTON NYT — American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.