It is hard to believe this was written a year ago; time flies.  However, we are repeating a FISA-702 explanation thread below because as the year has evolved; and understanding FISA-702 process abuse is now the specific focus of Inspector General Michael Horowitz; there is an aspect to the FISA-gate story that must be expanded.
The United States intelligence community, writ large, will likely never allow the structural abuse of the FISA-702 system by the Obama administration to surface.  Consider it a third rail of unspoken agreement. A similar motive for the DIA to keep the Flynn file under wraps.  However, before going into the complexities of the FISA conundrum, which would also envelop any Horowitz report, it is important to revisit the basics.

We’ll break down the term: “ FISA-702(16)(17) ” into the elements that will help make sense of this story in the future.

• FISA – Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
• 702 – An American caught up in the process of Foreign Surveillance
• (16) – A search query based on “TO” and/or “FROM”
• (17) – A search query based on “ABOUT” (now removed)

Again, to repeat, there are differing FISA rules for use of the NSA or FBI database depending on the originating intelligence compartment.
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Tick-tock-bombshell club member John Solomon drops an explosive statement on Sean Hannity.  Oddly, there’s a factual part of his statement CTH agrees with; and a structural part of the background that is almost certain never to reach sunlight.  First, the substance:

(Transcript) […] “In May of 2017 there was a document identified to a small number of people in the United States government. It’s in the possession of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  For eighteen months there’s been an effort to resist declassifying that document; I know that that document contains extraordinary exculpatory information about General Flynn. I don’t believe the president has ever been told about the existence of this document.  One lawmaker discovered it, but was thwarted by the Defense Intelligence Agency in his efforts to disclose it. I think we should all ask for that declassification; get that out; it may enlighten the judge; it will certainly enlighten the American public.”

From the time-frame disclosed we can reasonably infer what this document is; at least what background surrounds it.
♦“In May of 2017”… The document is likely part of an intelligence product that was produced for President Obama’s Daily Briefing (PDB), and contains unmasking information (likely done by Susan Rice) on Michael Flynn as a surveillance target.
♦“One Lawmaker discovered it”… You might remember way back in March 2017 when HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes was taken to the White House SCIF by then white house official Ezra Cohen-Watnick; and that began a series of cascading events.
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We shared a discussion thread several months ago about how the media are enmeshed within the story of the DOJ and FBI corruption. The media engagements with the parties swirling around the FBI, DOJ and Clinton-Steele Dossier are so pervasive they cannot reasonably report on any aspect of the story without exposing their own duplicity.
As more and more information surfaces about corrupt DOJ and FBI activity, it’s worth remembering the media’s complicit role.  Here’s an updated review for context:

Michael Isikoff highlighted that level of how enmeshed media is with the story in February when he admitted his reporting was being used by the DOJ and FBI to advance the political objectives of the intelligence community. Additionally, FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page were shown in their text messages to be leaking stories from the Clinton Investigation, the Trump investigation and the Mueller investigation to journalists at Politico, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. –SEE HERE–
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was busted by the Inspector General leaking stories to the media and then lying about it to INSD and IG investigators. FBI Director James Comey admitted to leaking stories to the New York Times, and even hired his friend Andrew Richman (off-the-books), gave him access to FBI and NSA databases, and then leaked information to Richman along with another friend Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare blog.
Lest we forget, the IG report on how the FBI handled the Clinton investigation revealed that dozens of FBI officials were actually taking bribes from the media for information:

IG REPORT – We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. Attached to this report as Attachments E and F are two link charts that reflect the volume of communications that we identified between FBI employees and media representatives in April/May and October 2016. We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review.

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A key point to finding truth in any theory is to apply the scientific method to the research; ie. question the assumption, reverse the hypothesis.

Throughout the research into the Machiavellian constructs of “Spygate” and the subsequent Mueller investigation, there have always been larger questions behind the stories.  It is a fact that most of the evidence surfaced after General Michael Flynn entered a plea agreement with special counsel Mueller on November 30th, 2017.
Why were the original Page/Strzok text messages released to the public in December 2017, and January 2018?  Perhaps more importantly: Who did the redactions within the text messages prior to their release? And why were those redactions ever made?

There’s a bunch of ‘unofficial’ evidence, or data-points, that no-one can explain how or why they came to be visible.  The data did not surface sequentially; but it surely surfaced purposefully from within the apparatus of government.
Just like the questions about who redacted information inside the 600 pages text messages between DOJ/FBI Lawyer Lisa Page and FBI investigator Peter Strzok; putting the downstream data-points together leads to a series of questions that remain the subject of much speculation through today:

• How do we find out about the Mark Warner text messages?
• Who publicly released the Carter Page FISA application?
• Where did the four day flood of information (Dec 1st – 4th, 2017) about Lisa Page and Peter Strzok come from?
• Who released that Page/Strzok information to the media?  Why?
• Who made the decision not to indict James Wolfe for leaking classified information?
• Why be so specific about details within the Wolfe indictment; then dismiss them?
• Who made the decision (FISA ap) NOT TO redact the key FISC clerk stamp?
• Where is all of this “unofficial” evidence/information coming from?
• Why?

For a long time CTH has looked at these questions from the position that the information was adverse to the interests of the DOJ; therefore we operated on the assumption that someone within the apparatus of government was leaving a trail of information with good intention.  However, over time – and with the absence of any accountability being delivered, there is also another motive that deserves attention and review.
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Robert Mueller (the entire team) was put into place by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017.  The specific selection of Robert Mueller was an outcome of recommendations and advice from FBI Chief Legal Counsel, James Baker, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In hindsight; and specifically against the backdrop of known illegal activity [remember, McCabe is under criminal referral] there was a motive of self-interest within Baker and McCabe, specifically to cover for the 2015/2016/2017 DOJ and FBI activity that preceded the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
From the initial perspective of self-interest, Mueller’s role had/has three essential aspects:

♦(1) Create an investigation – Just by creating the investigation it is then used as a shield by any corrupt FBI/DOJ official who would find himself/herself under downstream congressional investigation.  Former officials being deposed/questioned by IG Horowitz or Congress could then say they are unable to answer those questions due to the ongoing special counsel investigation.  In this way Mueller provides cover for officials.
♦(2)  Use the investigation to keep any and all inquiry focused away from the corrupt DOJ and FBI activity that took place in 2016, 2016, 2017.  Keep the media narrative looking somewhere, anywhere, other than directly at the epicenter of the issues. In this way, Mueller provides distraction and talking points against the Trump administration.
♦(3) Use the investigation to suck-up, absorb, any damaging investigative material that might surface as a result of tangentially related inquiry.  Example: control the exposure of evidence against classified leak participants like SSCI Director of Security, James Wolfe. In this way Mueller provides cover for the institutions and the administrative state.
In all of these objectives the Mueller special counsel has been stunningly effective.
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I’m going to walk through a long-held hypothesis of sorts, surrounding how multiple institutions within government were weaponized around politics.  The foundation is what we already know about how the intelligence apparatus was politically weaponized by multiple Obama-era officials.
Jeff Carlson has assembled a strong and in-depth outline covering most of the weaponized intelligence agencies and how they related to “spygate” – SEE HERE –
However, there has also been a strong suspicion that most of the corrupt origination activity would never surface.
The downstream ramifications to the institutions of our IC apparatus would be too destructive. What follows below is the story that will never reach sunlight officially.
When reading the Department of State (DoS) letter today, I cannot avoid reviewing the information against the backdrop of known DoS corrupt political activity that extends beyond the Clinton emails scandal.   For this explanation, here’s the excerpt that matters:

Forget Clinton’s motives for a moment. We all know her “request” was a proactive measure due to the likelihood her clearance was going to be forcibly revoked.  Requesting the removal avoids multiple political and logistical issues of her security file being damaged by a forced revocation.  The request is transparent in motive; so lets get beyond the surface issue.
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears with Laura Ingraham to discuss the ongoing congressional issues with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Chairman Nunes notes the motives and intents of the DOJ to hide the information within the previous declassification directive.

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Exposing the FBI/DOJ dirty deeds is a major priority for a contingent within congress and a multitude of Trump supporters.  Therefore HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes and Trump supporters have differing sets of priorities than President Trump.
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Critical – Critical – Critical

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing FISA abuse investigation; the use of Michael Sussmann to act as a go-between for the DNC and FBI; the status of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and his upcoming (10/11) testimony; current visible activity within the DOJ that points to their ongoing corruption; and how all of that relates to the Robert Mueller investigation.
This is a very important interview segment because it dovetails with the much larger issue CTH outlined about: “How Deep Is This Swamp“?  Believe me, you’re going to want to watch this several times to absorb the bigger-big picture that Nunes is careful to explain.

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Working backwards from the interview content is perhaps the best way to discuss.  Nunes cannot say it out loud, but when he outlines what the Mueller investigation *is not* doing, he is highlighting the purpose of Special Counsel placement.
Robert Mueller (the entire team) was put into place, carefully selected by James Baker and Andrew McCabe, specifically to cover for the DOJ and FBI activity that preceded the firing of James Comey.   Mueller’s role has two essential aspects:
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Regardless of how far into the DOJ and FBI investigative network/timeline you get with the story it always circles back to the 2015/2016 abuse of the NSA and FBI database.  The origin of “spygate” or the myriad of downstream issues all come back to a network of government contractors who were exploiting their database access for political opposition research.  Not only is this a reality, it’s also where the deep swamp doesn’t want the focus.

Other than a few intrepid researchers who keep drawing attention to this issue, no-one within mainstream media -or even allied media- can touch this third-rail of intelligence corruption which lies at the heart of FISA abuse.   One of those intrepid truth-tellers, Jeff Carlson, draws attention to it again today [SEE HERE].    If President Trump wants to dismantle the deep state, declassifying the April 2017 FISC ruling IS the place to start.

(TheMarketsWork) – One of the bombshell admissions from a closed-door testimony by DOJ official Bruce Ohr was that his wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for opposition research firm Fusion GPS already in late 2015.
Previously, it had been reported that Nellie Ohr was hired to find dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump in the spring of 2016.

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Well this is troubling on many levels.  According to a responsive filing from the FISA Court (full pdf below), there wasn’t any hearing on the sketchy FISA application submitted by the DOJ/FBI to conduct FISA Title-1 surveillance on Carter Page.
Even more disturbing, according to the secret court, it is customary to just accept and review the FISA applications as presented without judicial inquiry into the content.

(link to pdf)

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.  (read more)

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