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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Attorney General Bill Barr had an extensive sit down interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Wednesday, December 18th.  The interview was broadcast this evening.

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On August 30th, 2019, Devin Nunes submitted eight criminal referrals to the DOJ.
Five of those referrals were for specific people who participated in the political scheme against candidate, president-elect and President Trump. The remaining three referrals were not person specific, but rather outlines of “conspiracy”:
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Regardless of whether you would support or not support the vigorous defense of Michael Flynn, I would hope we would all agree a fulsome discovery of all relevant background material is a cornerstone of justice appropriately applied.
With that in mind it is concerning how Attorney General Bill Barr would prefer to keep DOJ conduct against Flynn hidden from public review.  Consider…
♦Would it be valuable for Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan to know the FBI was discussing how to “lock in” charges against [Flynn] in a “formal chargeable way”?

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♦Would it be valuable for Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan to consider how Special Counsel Robert Mueller requested DAG Rod Rosenstein to provide leverage against [Mike Flynn Jr] to coerce a plea against Michael Flynn in the second scope memo?
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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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A Washington Post spin article attempts to defend the DOJ/FBI “small group” 2016 campaign effort by claiming vindication from IG Horowitz and U.S. AG Barr not accepting the finding.   But not so fast…
Before getting to the WaPo narrative construction a little background review is worthwhile; starting with the original investigative purpose of the IG review.  The Horowitz review was initiated to look into how the DOJ and FBI secured a Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page:
IG Horowitz was never investigating the predicate claims that initiated the CIA/FBI operation known as “Crossfire Hurricane”.  So how exactly would AG Barr and IG Horowitz be diverging on an aspect to a predicate that Horowitz was never reviewing?
Additionally, IG Horowitz was never tasked or empowered to interview CIA officers who are known to have been at the heart of the pre-July 2016 operation.  Horowitz was/is focused on the DOJ and FBI compliance with legal requirements for the FISA application that was assembled for use in October 2016, and renewed throughout 2017.
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In the past several days; and in anticipation of an inspector general report/release tasked to look into the FISA processes of the prior administration; I have been assembling a file, a series of reminder questions, that peer into the heart of the 2015/2016 FISA surveillance.  Today, is another reminder…  [*ahem* Sidney Powell, please note]

Left to right: Kathryn H. Ruemmler, President Obama, Lisa Monaco and Susan Rice.

Knowing what we know now, consider this long forgotten letter from Susan Rice’s lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler.  Ms. Ruemmler is currently the global co-chairman of the Latham & Watkins white collar criminal defense practice; she formerly served as White House Counsel to President Obama.  Ask yourself: how do these paragraphs reconcile?

[Feb 23, 2018] The memorandum to file drafted by Ambassador Rice memorialized an important national security discussion between President Obama and the FBI Director and the Deputy Attorney General. President Obama and his national security team were justifiably concerned about potential risks to the Nation’s security from sharing highly classified information about Russia with certain members of the Trump transition team, particularly Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
[…] While serving as National Security Advisor, Ambassador Rice was not briefed on the existence of any FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, and she later learned of the fact of this investigation from Director Comey’s subsequent public testimony.
Ambassador Rice was not informed of any FISA applications sought by the FBI in its investigation, and she only learned of them from press reports after leaving office. (link)

How could Ms. Rice be aware of a “national security compromise”, “particularly surrounding Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn” after a “briefing by the FBI”, if she was not briefed on the existence of an FBI investigation”?
See the problem?
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During his short-lived media appearances former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne claims he had spoken to the DOJ April 5th, 2019, and again April 30th, 2019. Mr. Byrne stated he told the DOJ all of the information he was aware of during those two interviews covering approximately seven hours of questioning from officials in the Department of Justice.

During interviews Mr. Byrne highlighted the May 13th DOJ appointment of John Durham to look into the origination of the Russia investigation events. Byrne surmised this was likely, at least in part, a direct result of his two DOJ sessions April 5th and 30th, 2019.
Ms. Maria Butina, a young Russian idealist, was caught up in the 2016 vast Russian conspiracy agenda and had strong connections to high powered Russian oligarchs.
Originally the purpose of Butina coming to the U.S. in 2015, as explained by Patrick Byrne, was for her to engage with influential Americans for political contacts that could provide geopolitical value to the oligarchs.
Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne was seen as important to Ms. Butina due to his connections to the emerging financial structures of crypto-currency and block-chain. Mr. Byrne is a libertarian who believes in small government, and is somewhat of a disruptor in the business world. Ms. Butina wanted to introduce Byrne to her friends in Russia.
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Ms. Maria Butina, a young Russian idealist who was caught up in the 2016 election frenzy and the vast Russian conspiracies, had strong connections to high powered Russian oligarchs.
Today she was released from federal prison and immediately deported back to Russia.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina was released from a Florida prison on Friday after serving most of her 18-month sentence for conspiring to influence U.S. conservative activists and infiltrate a powerful gun rights group, and taken into custody by immigration officials to be deported to her native country. (read more)

Ms. Butina pleaded guilty in December 2018 to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.  However, the under-reported backstory to the 31-year-old Russian is actually connected to the 2016 election and FBI efforts to weaponize Ms. Butina as a FISA-enabling virus.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier today President Trump stopped to answer questions from the assembled press pool as he departed the White House.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hi, everybody. Hi. How are you? So, the stock market is doing very well. The economy is booming. We have a new record in sight. It could happen even today. But we have a new stock market record. I think it’ll be about 118 times that we’ve broken the record. Jobs look phenomenal.
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The background context has already been outlined –SEE HERE– so we won’t repeat.  Instead, we look at today’s defensive narrative engineering from the New York Times with a similar perspective, but a different set of reminders.
Content and distribution tells us this information is from the DOJ and FBI faction of the “Small Group“.  Not accidentally, and VERY importantly, this is the same faction under the microscope of Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his pending IG report.  Additionally, and again very importantly, the principles within the IG report have already had an opportunity to review the part of the upcoming report that highlights their conduct.

So this New York Times reporting, from conversations with the DOJ and FBI small group participants, is coming out in advance of the IG report and with their review in mind.
Here’s the article, emphasis mine:

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation have asked witnesses pointed questions about any anti-Trump bias among former F.B.I. officials who are frequent targets of President Trump and about the earliest steps they took in the Russia inquiry, according to former officials and other people familiar with the review.

[Note “prosecutors” is plural; more than one.  “prosecutors” also implies a shift from investigative review, to a likelihood of criminal conduct.  The media presentation of John Durham has gone from a single U.S. Attorney with a mandate from his boss, to a group of people, ‘prosecutors’, working with the U.S. Attorney.]
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