A large number of people who read the Mueller 13-person Russian Indictment released on Friday noted a transparent lack of actual substance.  Today the absence of substance turns toward the hilarious.

Much like the heavily touted sketchy 2017 Joint Analysis Report (the infamous “14 U.S. intelligence agencies report“) was really only three political intel agencies, FBI (Comey), CIA (Brennan) and ODNI (Clapper), Friday’s Russian indictment had a lot of pages and citations but in the aggregate was an assembly of nothing-burger reporting of various insignificant social media events.

Today the absurdity of the report becomes even more laughable.  As Gateway Pundit reports almost everything in the Mueller indictment was previously outlined in a Radio Free Europe report from 2015.   If that wasn’t funny enough, even the Washington Post finds the majority of the indictment was published last October in a Russian Business Magazine (RBC) article.

(WaPo) A 37-page indictment issued by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team on Friday brings fresh American attention to one of the strangest elements of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election: The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a state-sponsored “troll factory” in St. Petersburg.

But much of the information Mueller published on Friday about the agency’s efforts to influence the election had already been published last October — in an article by a Russian business magazine, RBC.

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Interesting interview.  The Russians didn’t keep Hillary out of Wisconsin; the Russians didn’t make Hillary use personal email; the Russians didn’t hire Fusion-GPS; the Russians didn’t pay Christopher Steele; the Russians didn’t make a dossier or deliver work product to the State Dept; the Russians didn’t do the unmasking of campaign officials.

The Russians didn’t apply for a FISA warrant; the Russians didn’t lie to a FISA court; the Russians didn’t leak Mike Flynn monitored phone calls; the Russians didn’t use DOJ and/or FBI databases to download FISA 702(16)(17) queries and extract the data to private contractors; the Russians didn’t hire Nellie Ohr and Russians didn’t approach president-elect Trump and warn him of politically weaponized intelligence surveillance…

The… wait…. then again, THAT’S ENTIRELY THE MOTIVE to blame the Russians:

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Fox News host Maria Bartiromo interviews former Special Counsel Ken Starr surrounding the Mueller Trump/Russia investigation and the 36-page indictment surrounding Russian election interference. Ken Starr directs attention toward the OIG investigation by Michael Horowitz and the evidence of FISA court corruption.

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This outline is mostly a repost because it hits on the central framework of an obvious dynamic being missed by almost everyone within the larger discussion.

On December 2nd, 2017 (not accidentally ONE DAY after Mike Flynn’s guilty plea was announced), part of the intelligence community –sources inside the investigative unit– outlined specific examples of DOJ/FBI political corruption. The revelations surrounded FBI Agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr.

The month of December 2017 brought to light everything within the larger storyline of a corrupt domestic intelligence apparatus filing for a fraudulent FISA ‘Title-1’ surveillance application, and outlined the process of the DOJ and FBI spying on the Trump campaign. This entire enterprise was/is white-hats fighting back against corrupt black-hats.

In the aftermath, the FBI responded to media inquiry; and the DOJ responded to the revelations (December 3rd release) by specifically pointing attention to the Office of the Inspector General and Michael Horowitz (emphasis mine):

The January 2017 statement issued by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announcing its review of allegations regarding various actions of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in advance of the 2016 election stated that the OIG review would, among other things, consider whether certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations and that we also would include issues that might arise during the course of the review.

The OIG has been reviewing allegations involving communications between certain individuals, and will report its findings regarding those allegations promptly upon completion of the review of them.”

~ Justice Department Office of the Inspector General (link)

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Sometimes people who assemble information make wrong assertions; this is one such time. Unfortunately, Byron York’s assertion needs a quick deconstruction.

In a twitter reply today Mr. York makes a mistake in spreading false information that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is not investigating the DOJ/FBI corruption surrounding the “Trump/Russia Case”.

The fact is – the origination statement from the Office of Inspector General specifically says the review of DOJ/FBI politicization of their investigative authority is not restrained from following “other issues that may arise.”  There’s a years-worth of evidence that IG Horowitz is running an investigation on two-tracks, here’s how:

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Moments ago FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer responded to the requests from the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte. (full pdf’s below – #1 and #2)

There are nuances in each response specific to the statutory roles of each Chairman and the specific requests made by each committee.  Reflected in Judge Collyer’s responses is a need for careful consideration of each unique request.

♦House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes holds primary oversight authority over the aggregate Intelligence Community (IC).  Chairman Nunes has requested the transcripts from the FISA Court during the DOJ/FBI Title-1 surveillance application over their target, U.S. person Carter Page.

♦House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte holds primary oversight authority over the Department of Justice -including the FISA court- and has requested the actual FISA Title-1 application as submitted by the DOJ/FBI for surveillance of Carter Page.

Judge Collyer responds to both legislative branch chairmen from the position of “never previously receiving such requests.” There are separation of power challenges, but also an understanding inherent in the response to Chairman Goodlatte of the unique statutory oversight his committee holds.

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Andrew McCarthy has an excellent must-read review of how the Susan Rice email paints a clear picture of James Comey’s instructions -from President Obama- to obfuscate the intent of the FBI counterintelligence operation during the early days of the Trump administration.

Andrew McCarthy – On her way out the White House door and out of her job as national-security adviser, Susan Rice writes an email-to-self. Except it’s not really an email-to-self. It is quite consciously an email for the record.

Her term having ended 15 minutes before, Rice was technically back in private life, where private people have private email accounts — even notepads if they want to scratch out a reminder the old-fashioned way. Yet, for at least a few more minutes, Rice still had access to her government email account. She could still generate an official record. That’s what she wanted her brief email to be: the dispositive memorialization of a meeting she was worried about — a meeting that had happened over two weeks earlier, at which, of course, President Obama insisted that everything be done “by the book.”  (continue reading)

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For those following the increasingly curious case against General Mike Flynn, events took another unusual turn yesterday as Special Counsel Robert Mueller -with agreement from all parties- filed a motion for a protective order to seal documents. These are documents compelled on behalf of the defense, by Judge Emmet Sullivan, prior to sentencing.

On November 30th, 2017, Mike Flynn signed a guilty plea; ostensibly admitting lying to investigators.  The plea was accepted by Judge Rudolph Contreras; who is also a FISA court judge.  Six days later, December 7th, 2017, Judge Contreras “was recused” from the case without explanation.  The case was reassigned to DC District Judge Emmet Sullivan.

The Contreras recusal always seemed sketchy. If the conflict existed on December 7th, wouldn’t that same conflict have existed on November 30th, 2017?

On December 12th, 2017, Judge Sullivan gave out a rather unusual set of instructions to Robert Mueller.  The instructions included Sullivan telling Mueller to turn over to the Flynn defense anything that could be considered exculpatory:

[…]  if the government has identified any information which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes is not material, the government shall submit the material to the Court for in camera review. (link)

On January 31st, 2018, Robert Mueller requested a delay of sentencing pushing the sentencing phase into May of this year.  And then yesterday, February 14th, 2018, Mueller asks for the information he is turning over to be sealed.

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It’s always an interesting exercise to take new and confirmed information and go back to see the claims from the key stakeholders when the initial trail of the information was discovered.  This is one such example from July 2017.

Now that Chairman Devin Nunes, Chuck Grassley and the key players themselves, have discovered and admitted the U.S. State Department was heavily involved in passing along Clinton opposition research to Chris Steele to create the “Clinton-Steele Dossier”, it’s interesting to look at how the former State Department spokesperson -in place during all the events- responded last year when the Clinton-Steele Dossier was thought to be part of the underlying evidence for the DOJ/FBI FISA application.

Former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf, a person in direct and continuous contact with all the principle agents during the 2016 information flow, was confronted in July 2017 and adamantly denied the dossier was part of the FISA application. WATCH:

Looking beyond the transparent lying and subsequent collapse of credibility, the key takeaway here is how State Department officials knew what was going on in 2016, recognized the risk presented by that action in 2017, and were willing to walk the plank because they were certain none of it would ever come to light.

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There are many people who wonder why any Democrat, particularly Adam Schiff, would continue clinging to a narrative despite all contrary evidence that disproves it.  The answer is really quite simple; there’s nothing to lose.  Much like the bank robber killing a police officer, once that initial capital felony is committed there is no greater punishment for all subsequent actions.

The foundational lies are of such significance there is no punitive, or political, down-side to dissuade further lying built upon the originating falsehood.  Twice in this interview Major Garrett asks the ranking member of the HPSCI if he is certain the DOJ and FBI followed proper procedures, and presented proper evidence, in gaining a FISA court “Title-1” surveillance warrant over Carter Page.  WATCH:

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Note how Adam Schiff is in California (Friday night appearing on Bill Maher), and maximizing the political benefit of his narrative construction; instead of actually working to clear up his memo construct and release it. It’s not the memo that is important to him, it’s the political narrative he’s created.

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