For the sake of understanding this specific release, “unmasking” occurs when the NSA, eavesdropping on foreign communications, sweeps up communications with U.S. citizen. That is known as “incidental collection.”

When the intelligence about that communication is shared across the government, the names of U.S. citizens in the communication are typically concealed or masked to protect their identities. However, the names can be unmasked if U.S. officials make the request.

In this release [pdf here], the Obama-era NSA was monitoring various foreign government officials and within their communication they picked up contacts with incoming President-elect Trump’s National Security Advisor Lt. General Michael Flynn.  This release only includes NSA intercepts; not other intelligence agency reports; only the NSA.

The NSA generated [redacted number] of reports based on those foreign contacts. The reports are actual transcripts of the conversations.  The Obama-era officials then asked the NSA to unmask the name of General Flynn so they could see the content and context of the calls.  Current DNI Ric Grenell has assembled a list of who asked the NSA to unmask incoming NSA Michael Flynn from November 8, 2016 through January 31, 2017.

It is important to remember, these intercepts are part of the normal function of monitoring foreign communications.  There is nothing nefarious about the monitoring and there is nothing nefarious about a foreign person contacting the incoming administration, via General Flynn, to begin preparing for the change in administrations.

However, what is completely alarming and disturbing, is the extent to which the Obama administration went to share the contacts and transcripts of the calls with a myriad of government officials.  That’s where the list comes in.

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Why is former President Obama calling forth all his defensive resources now?  Why did former national security advisor Susan Rice write her cya letter?  Why have republicans in congress not been willing to investigate the true origins of political surveillance?  What is the reason for so much anger, desperation and opposition from a variety of interests?

With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report, the Carter Page FISA and Flynn documents showing FBI activity, there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign in the first place.  Why was Donald Trump considered a threat?

In this outline we hope to provide some fully cited deep source material that will explain the origin; and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community began targeting Trump and using Confidential Human Sources against campaign officials.

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 Admiral 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.

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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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Earlier today Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin held a press conference in the White House to announce new sanctions against Iran. The secretaries also took questions from the press pool. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here today. I’d just like to make a brief comment before we talk about Iran sanctions. I’m sure everybody saw that the DOW hit 29,000. The President’s economic plans are clearly working. We’re looking forward to the China signing, USMCA, and a very strong economy this year.
As previously announced by the President, we are announcing additional sanctions against the Iranian regime as a result of the attack on U.S. and allied troops.
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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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News we might have missed.  Last week Catherine Engelbrecht announced a historic legal victory in her decade long battle against the IRS for targeting her group, True The Vote, as part of the Obama administration’s weaponization program against political opposition.
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton issued a stunning ruling (full pdf below) in favor of True the Vote, and penalized the IRS.  Judge Walton forced the IRS to pay maximum attorney’s fees due to discrimination against the conservative organization that stemmed from the Lois Lerner scandal.  The financial award is likely to exceed $2 million.

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Ms. Engelbrecht gave Breitbart News an interview where she discussed the victory, SEE HERE.
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Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are structuring a contempt vote against U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr for next week, June 11th.   As part of the current construct, the Lawfare alliance of legal advisers and staff are writing specific language into the vote that will automatically allow more contempt votes against the Trump administration without hearings.
Their collective goal is to use a legislative vote to open a civil lawsuit against Bill Barr for his failure to deliver the fully unredacted Mueller report to them. Additionally, the contempt vote will be written so that any other arbitrary Trump administration official can also be held in contempt, without a committee vote, and thereby initiate a civil lawsuit against the executive officer that will have to be defended in court.

WASHINGTON DC – The House will vote next week to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller’s fully unredacted report and underlying evidence, according to multiple Democratic sources.
The resolution would clear the way for the House Judiciary Committee to take Barr to court to enforce its subpoena and settle the matter legally — a crucial step for Democrats seeking to accelerate their obstruction of justice investigation against President Donald Trump.

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Former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia, Joe diGenova, discusses the declassification of intelligence documents relating to political surveillance; and the origin of the database abuses outlined by FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer…

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With President Trump returning from Japan tomorrow (5/28); and with the upcoming state visit to the U.K. coming June 3rd; a declassification “window of opportunity” opens between this Wednesday 5/29 and Saturday 6/2.
Given last weeks visit to Main Justice by congressman Mark Meadows; and considering the visit was specifically to review unredacted Page-Strzok-McCabe messages; it could be surmised the first series of declassified documents might be those communiques. Additionally, John Solomon has stated “Bucket Five” is likely the first release prior to the IG report:

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.  Presumably this would include the recently revealed State Dept Kavalac email; and the FBI transcripts from wiretaps of George Papadopoulos (also listed in Carter Page FISA).

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Repost by Request – Considering the upcoming declassification window…between Trump’s state visit in Japan (5/25 – 5/28) and the state visit with the U.K (6/3 – 6/5).

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.  Presumably this would include the recently revealed State Dept Kavalac email; and the FBI transcripts from wiretaps of George Papadopoulos (also listed in Carter Page FISA).

Now that we have significant research files on the 2015 and 2016 political surveillance program; which includes the trail evident within the Weissmann/Mueller report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the entire objective and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.
This is why there’s panic.
Working with a timeline, but also referencing origination material in 2015/2016 – CTH hopes to show how the program operated. This explains an evolution from The IRS Files in 2010 to the FISA Files in 2016.
More importantly, research indicates the modern political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012.
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Everything after March 9th, 2016, is a function of two intelligence units, the CIA and FBI, operating together to coverup prior political surveillance and spy operations.
Prior to March 9th, 2016, the surveillance and spy operation was using the NSA database to track and monitor their political opposition.  However, once the NSA compliance officer began initiating an internal review of who was accessing the system, the CIA and FBI moved to create ex post facto justification for their endeavors. [Full Backstory]
The evidence for this is found in the documents attached to both operations; and bolsters the original statements by Congressman Devin Nunes as highlighted below.

♦The CIA track took place between March and July 2016, and consisted of using foreign intelligence allies in Italy, the U.K and Australia to create a background illusion of Russian involvement with the Trump campaign.  This operation was based on earlier -more innocuous- contacts from various countries, weaponized and redeployed in what everyone calls “spygate”.  This track successfully culminated in Operation Crossfire Hurricane.
♦The FBI track was domestic-centric, albeit sub-contracted to Fusion GPS and later a former British intelligence officer, and took place between April and October 2016; also to create the illusion of Russian involvement.  This operation is best known around the Steele Dossier and FISA warrant against U.S. person Carter Page.  The FBI track continued with the Mueller investigation into 2017, 2018 and 2019.
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