Attorney General Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham must be right over the target.  The Washington Post (via allies in Lawfare) is quick to the typeset to assist the collective effort.  However, there’s good news therein.  Obviously WaPo and The Times (via journolist-type cooperation) divided up the narrative angles.
Based on the severity of “small group” risk exposure, it must be assumed the halls of Main Justice in Washington DC are filled with corrupt allies for the administrative state.

One only needs to read a few paragraphs to see the corrupt Lawfare Main Justice “sources” (ie. embeds still operating) are urgently leaking details of the Durham/Barr investigation. (emphasis mine):

(Washington Post) Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

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It is becoming clear the principals connected to the 2016 weaponization of the intelligence apparatus, DOJ and FBI are increasingly concerned about U.S. Attorney John Durham and Attorney General Bill Barr looking at the origins of “Spygate” and the Trump-Russia narrative.  Lawfare and their media outlets are leading their defensive-based offensive.
Remember, Stefan Halper (U.K.), Joseph Mifsud (Italy) and Alexander Downer (Australia) all played a key part in helping CIA Director John Brennan assemble his two-page Electronic Communication (EC) that initiated the FBI to start “Crossfire Hurricane.”

All of the Obama-era officials (specifically those who weaponized government in 2016 to target their political opposition) are using the “IC anonymous whistleblower” approach in an attempt to paint any current inquiry as Trump weaponizing the investigation of their coup effort.  Any effort by President Trump to expose the 2016 misconduct is now spun to be President Trump weaponizing his office to target his political opposition.
The latest visible example of the corrupt team anxiety surfaces via a counter-narrative in a New York Times article claiming President Trump asked Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to assist AG Bill Barr and his 2016 review.

WASHINGTON — President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

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Back in December 2018 CTH noted the significant House rule changes constructed by Nancy Pelosi for the 116th congress seemed specifically geared toward impeachment. {Go Deep} With the House going into a scheduled calendar recess, those rules are now being used to subvert historic processes and construct the articles of impeachment.
A formal vote to initiate an “impeachment inquiry” is not technically required; however, there has always been a full house vote until now.  The reason not to have a House vote is simple: if the formal process was followed the minority (republicans) would have enforceable rights within it.  Without a vote to initiate, the articles of impeachment can be drawn up without any participation by the minority; and without any input from the executive.  This was always the plan that was visible in Pelosi’s changed House rules.

Speaker Pelosi and Douglas Letter

Keep in mind Speaker Pelosi selected former insider DOJ official Douglas Letter to be the Chief Legal Counsel for the House.  That becomes important when we get to the part about the official full house impeachment vote. The Lawfare group and DNC far-left activists were ecstatic at the selection.  Doug Letter was a deep political operative within the institution of the DOJ who worked diligently to promote the weaponized political values of former democrat administrations.
Speaker Pelosi has authorized the House committees to work together under the umbrella of an “official impeachment inquiry.”  The House Intelligence (Schiff) and Judiciary Committees (Nadler) are currently working together leading this process.
From recent events we can see the framework of Schiff compiling Trump-Ukraine articles and Nadler compiling Trump-Russia articles.  Trump-Ukraine via Schiff will likely focus on a corruption angle; Trump-Russia via Nadler will likely focus on an obstruction angle.
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Today in a court filing, surrounding a FOIA case seeking access to the fully unredacted Carter Page FISA application, the DOJ clarified the position of the DOJ as it pertains to President Trump’s May 2019 declassification authority. (pdf available here)
The DOJ highlights that President Trump did not order AG William Barr to declassify anything.  Instead, according to the official position of the DOJ, President Trump “delegated authority” to the Attorney General to determine *if* anything should be declassified:

[Source – pdf]

Whether AG Bill Barr does actually declassify anything is open to debate.  The current odds remain slightly less than 50/50; however, those odds could diminish significantly if the impeachment effort is successful.
The current priority for the Dept. of Justice does not appear to be highlighting internal corruption that targeted President Trump.  The current institutional priority appears to be protecting Rod Rosenstein.  However, we should have a better idea exactly where this will all end when we see the IG Report on potential FISA abuses against Carter Page.
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48 Hours after the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call transcript has been made public, and 24 hours after the “whistleblower’ complaint is made public, Things are now becoming much more clear… The whistleblower complaint is the “Schiff Dossier.”
After the 2018 mid-terms, and in preparation for the House “impeachment” strategy, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler hired Lawfare Group members to become committee staff.
Chairman Schiff hired former SDNY U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman (link), and Chairman Nadler hired  Obama Administration lawyer Norm Eisen and criminal defense attorney Barry Berke (link), all are within the Lawfare network.  You probably saw Berke questioning former Trump campaign chairman Corey Lewandowski.
It now looks like the Lawfare network constructed the Schiff Dossier, and handed it to allied CIA operative Michael Barry to file as a formal IC complaint.  This process is almost identical to the Fusion-GPS/Lawfare network handing the Steele Dossier to the FBI to use as the evidence for the 2016/2017 Russia conspiracy.
While Devin Nunes cannot describe the specifics of what I just outlined, he explains the process in the bigger picture.  WATCH:

Details are beginning to emerge about the deep state political operative within the intelligence apparatus who wrote a ‘whistleblower’ complaint based on second-hand information he heard on the intelligence grapevine about President Trump.
According to the New York Times the complaint derives from a male who was a former CIA operative on assignment within National Security Council (NSC), who left the White House and returned to the CIA:
(emphasis mine)

WASHINGTON — The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity.

The man has since returned to the C.I.A., the people said. Little else is known about him. His complaint made public Thursday suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law. (more)

The outlined profile, in combination with the political motive, have led many people to begin searching through: (1) current CIA operatives; (2) who come from the era of Brennan; and (3) were previously assigned to the White House (NSC); and (4) then removed; and (5) then returned to the CIA.  That profile has led to suspicions of identity.
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You know the Democrats had a pre-planned strategy to use the “whistleblower” complaint, because Adam Schiff has the production scheduled for 9:00am public hearing today.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is appearing before the House Intelligence Committee to face lawmakers’ questions about his handling of the hearsay whistleblower complaint relating to a phone call between President Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine.  The transcript of the non-controversial call was released yesterday.
Lawmakers also received their copy of the 6-page complaint Wednesday afternoon after criticizing the White House and Department of Justice for complying with Office of Legal Counsel guidance and handling recommendations. The declassified complaint, consisting of hearsay and political media spin, is expected to be released to the public today.
C-Span Livestream Link – PBS Livestream Link – CBS Livestream Link

The completely over-the-top response by a Deep State embed whistleblower and his/her political allies within the administrative state now makes sense; it had nothing to do with Joe Biden.  President Trump asked President Zelenskyy about “Crowdstrike.”

(Page 3 – Source pdf)

To understand how important this is, we must remember the foundation for the entire Russian election interference narrative, ‘Muh Russia – writ large, is built on the claim Russians hacked the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently released damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders.
Despite the Russian ‘hacking’ claim the DOJ and FBI previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server or cloud-based network.  Instead the original claim was that the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.
According to the original FBI statements made by James Comey: Crowdstrike did the captured imaging of the DNC network (servers/cloud), then conducted analysis, then provided a report to the DNC with their findings; and that report was given to the FBI.  At least that was the original 2017 claim.  However, during court filings in the case against Roger Stone, the DOJ/FBI later admitted they never even saw the Crowstrike final report.
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In a stunning and very rare move today Federal Judge Anthony J Trenga has thrown out the conviction of a Mike Flynn’s partner Bijan Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group) and granted the defendants’ motion to acquit.  [Hat Tip to Techno-Fog for the ruling]
This is a huge blow to the DOJ-NSD who framed their special counsel case on sketchy FARA violations and bamboozled the jury with dubious legal theories.  This type of intervention by a federal judge is very rare.  Here’s the ruling:
[scribd id=427282559 key=key-FLrsDlBqLzfEi5EPcarr mode=scroll]
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Highlights below:
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A Judicial Watch FOIA Lawsuit has resulted in the release of a May 16, 2017, memo written by then Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.  [Link Here]  Current media are focused on Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein willingness to wear a wire into the Oval Office to record the President; however, the memo content actually reveals much more.

There are three aspects to the McCabe memo that warrant attention: (1) Rosenstein’s willingness to wear a wire. (2) Evidence that Rosenstein took Mueller to the White House on May 16, 2017, as a set-up to interview Mueller’s pending target; and (3) the CURRENT redactions to the memo indicate CURRENT efforts by the CURRENT AG Bill Barr to protect the corrupt intent of Rod Rosenstein.  While all three points are alarming; the last aspect is concerning in the extreme.
In order to show the significance of this FOIA release CTH is going to present the McCabe memo in two different ways.  First, by highlighting the raw memo release; and then secondly, to highlight the important context by inserting the memo into the timeline.
First, here’s the McCabe memo:
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