Moments ago, citing prosecutorial vindictiveness and the DOJ changing their position on sentencing, lawyers for Lt. General Michael Flynn filed a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. (pdf link – PDF embed link below)
This is good news.  Withdrawing the plea will now force the government to prove its case.

(link to cloud pdf)

Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack knowingly sought to induce false statements from Flynn relating to his FARA registration.  When Michael Flynn refused to lie about the FARA registration and other material matters related to his business partner Bijan Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group), the government retaliated against Mr. Flynn.

“Only after new counsel appeared, did the government for the first time demand an admission and testimony from Mr. Flynn that he knew and intended when he signed the FARA registration form that it contained several material false statements.  Not only was that demanded testimony a lie, but also, the prosecutors knew it was false, and would induce a breach.”
[…] “The government’s stunning and vindictive reversal of its earlier representations to this Court are incredible, vindictive, in bad faith, and breach the plea agreement.”

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This is a little weedy, but it’s important….

In the second half of Devin Nunes interview with Maria Bartiromo today he was asked his thoughts about the FISA Court selecting David Kris as an FBI surveillance and compliance monitor.  The issue is quite important because the FBI FISA reforms and promises are essentially meaningless without some form of structural review process.
However, the new 2020 FISC Presiding Judge James Boasberg selecting David Kris has been noted by several people as a rather weak effort on behalf of the court.

As an outcome of our former FISA-702 reviews CTH has an entirely different reason for questioning the selection of Kris; there’s much more substantive reasons to be alarmed about it; but first here’s the general consensus opposition:

WASHINGTON – The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has stunned court-watchers by selecting David Kris — a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and written extensively in support of the FBI’s surveillance practices on the left-wing blog Lawfare — to oversee the FBI’s implementation of reforms in the wake of a damning Department of Justice inspector general report last year.
[…]  “Of all the people in the swamp … this is the guy that you come up with?” Nunes asked. “The guy that was accusing me of federal crimes? The guy that was defending the dirty cops at the FBI? … The court must be trying to abolish itself. There is long-term damage.”

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President Trump asks: “Are these “dirty cops” going to pay a big price for the fraud they committed?” 

However, the only person who can honestly answer that question is the person in the mirror when President Trump brushes his teeth.   Perhaps forgotten…
In the spring of 2018 a group of congressional reps led by Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Lee Zeldin and Bob Goodlatte, asked President Trump to declassify a series of documents so the public could see how former officials in the DOJ & FBI abused their offices and conducted political surveillance.
In September of 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked President Trump not to declassify those same documents until after the Mueller probe was complete.  Rosenstein informed the President (confirmed in later POTUS interviews) that declassifying the material could be interpreted as impeding the Mueller investigation.
Two months later, in November 2018, the mid-term election took place.  Republicans lost the House and their committee chairs.  Many people suspected (I concur) the mid-term election was the real motive for the Sept. 2018 request from Rosenstein.  Four months after the mid-term, March 2019, the Mueller investigation of President Trump ended.
Two months after the Mueller probe ended U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, a profoundly supportive voice for DAG Rosenstein, asked President Trump to grant him unilateral declassification authority to assist the purposes and intents of his DOJ effort.  President Trump granted U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr with the authority to declassify on May 23rd, 2019; granting access to the same documents requested by congress a year earlier.
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In June 2018, in response to an IG investigation, while denying the FBI had any political bias, FBI Director Christopher Wray promised anti-bias training for all agents. In response to the “challenges” identified by the report, the FBI “appreciates the opportunity” to provide more “support” to our employees. [June 14th, 2018]

In December 2019, in response to another IG investigation, while denying FBI agents would intentionally act illegally, FBI Director Christopher Wray notified the FISA court a Senior FBI investigative lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith intentionally falsified evidence on a FISA application.
In response to the FBI notification, late December 2019 the FISA court demanded to know what corrective actions the FBI was going to take; and what other applications FBI Lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was involved in.
In response today (full pdf below) FBI Director Christopher Wray promises more training.
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A very interesting development in the ongoing effort of former CBS investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, to resolve the issue of who spied on her, planted spyware and infiltrated her computer systems for illegal surveillance.  [Attkisson website here]
According to a recent court filing [Source Here] a person who was engaged in the “wrongful activity” has come forward to provide Ms. Attkisson with details about the operation.  As a result of those whistle-blower revelations Attkisson is able to name specific individuals who were running the operation:

Former DOJ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is named as the person who was in charge of the operation; and the former head of the FBI DC field office, Shawn Henry is also outlined.
Mr. Henry is the head of Crowdstrike, a contractor for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company.  Those who have followed the aspects related to the FBI use of the NSA database to illegally monitor U.S. persons; and those who followed the DNC cover story of Russia “hacking”; will be familiar with Crowdstrike.
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Unfortunately we anticipated the DOJ reversing their prior sentencing recommendations for Michael Flynn and that’s exactly what has happened.
In the 2018 sentencing recommendations prosecutors recommended probation. However following Flynn’s unsuccessful effort to access material evidence favorable to his defense, federal prosecutors under U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr are now requesting Michael Flynn be sent to prison for a sentence of up to six months.

(pdf Link – full DOJ sentencing recommendation)

Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Emmet Sullivan on Jan. 28, 2020.
The irony here is the DOJ used the threat of FARA charges to compel the guilty plea.  The DOJ then went after Flynn’s former partner Bijan Rafiekian on those exact FARA charges Flynn plead guilty to avoid.  Mr. Rafiekian’s sketchy DOJ conviction was overturned and the indictment against him dismissed in September by a federal judge who said there was insufficient evidence to sustain the case.
The case against Rafiekian was dismissed. However, the case against Flynn, which was based on Flynn’s effort to avoid the case against Rafiekian, will likely see Flynn serving prison time.  No prison for Rafiekian, and prison for Flynn.  Go figure.
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Sara Carter held a pod-cast interview with HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes.  At approximately 36:25 of the interview congressman Nunes discusses the testimony of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

The transcript from Atkinson’s House testimony has never been released.  Rep. Nunes states the reason HPSCI Chairman Schiff has kept the transcript hidden and classified is because the content is extremely damaging to the origin of the impeachment fraud.  Additionally, the testimony from Atkinson conflicted with evidence which surfaced later:

“[Atkinson] is under active investigation. I’m not gonna go any farther than that because you know obviously he has a chance to come in and prove his innocence, but my guess is Schiff, Atkinson they don’t want that transcript out because it’s very damaging”… (Link)

CTH has previously outlined ICIG Michael Atkinson as a dirty player amid a network of very corrupt officials who hold self-interests from participating in unlawful abuses of government surveillance including the DOJ and FBI activity during the 2016 election.
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The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) holds confirmation authority over leaders appointed to the intelligence community.  Chairman Burr and Vice-Chairman Warner participated in the IC effort to target and remove President Trump from office.
You might remember recently how Burr and Warner would not support Rep. John Ratcliffe for Director of National intelligence under the auspices of Ratcliffe not having enough “experience” within intelligence operations.  However, those same “experience” concerns were absent when they approved dirty ICIG nominee Michael Atkinson.

Reminding ourselves how ICIG Atkinson manipulated the ‘whistle-blower’ regulations to permit hearsay from CIA operative Eric Ciaramella; and knowing the primary concern of Senator Warner was to cover his own involvement in the soft coup effort in 2017; it is interesting to go back to the 2018 confirmation hearing of Atkinson and review the focus:

Senator Mark Warner […] You’re also aware that this Committee is leading the review into the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. During this hearing I want to hear assurances from both of you that you will fully cooperate with this review and provide this Committee with all the information requested in a timely fashion.
Mr. Atkinson, as the Inspector General of the Intel Community your job is especially critical because of the nature of the material that they handle every day, whistleblowers within the IC generally can’t go public to expose misbehavior and misuse of official resources. We the Congress and the American people will depend upon you as an independent agent of accountability for the Office of the DNI and, for that matter, for the whole intel community.

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Logical thought is antithetical to the interests of the coup-plotters.  Nuance and obfuscation are their shields; that’s why they, writ large, will not release the classified documents. A common sense American Thinker article cuts through the chaff and countermeasures for many interests:
[…] The implications of intercepting the communications of a U.S. citizen who is associated with the political campaign of a candidate seeking the presidency rings nearly every “bell” in the FBIs and Attorney General’s Guidelines for sensitive investigations. As discussed in the IG report, by regulation, these cases cannot be initiated without the written approval of the Director and the Attorney General. 

In addition to the approval obviously granted by the Director and AG, the IGs report identified the following additional high level officials who reviewed and approved the Page FISA affidavit:  “NSD’s Acting Assistant Attorney General, NSD’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight over 01, 01’s Operations Section Chief and Deputy Section Chief, the DAG, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Associate Deputy Attorney General responsible for ODAG’s national security portfolio.”
The suggestion that somehow, seventeen significant errors, omissions of fact, falsehoods, or deliberate misrepresentations made their way into a FISA affidavit/s (accidentally, at the hand of an anonymous case agent) and then were not immediately noted and corrected throughout the course of this exceptional review process is simply not believable. ~ Continue Reading

Natasha Bertrand is the stenographer for Fusion-GPS smear activities with a reputation for egregious lying and narrative engineering.  As a result it doesn’t come as a surprise to see Bertrand writing a collaborative article in Politico taking swipes on behalf of a thoroughly corrupted intelligence community.

Consider this paragraph using another vile creature from the political swamp:

[…]  When it comes to Durham, Haspel is likely “confident there has been no serious wrongdoing, and will therefore find a means to cooperate” with the investigation, said John Sipher, a 28-year CIA veteran.

Too funny.  The spooks and scribes live a life so deeply enmeshed in the world of fraud and lying they cannot even see themselves exposing their own character.  Put another way: ‘if Haspel was confident of serious wrongdoing, she wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation’. 
See, they just can’t help exposing themselves. If it wasn’t serious, it would be funny.  These inherently vile liars cannot stop themselves from exposing their nature…. it just flows out.
The good news in the article; and there is a lot of accidentally placed good news within it for those who follow closely; comes from these paragraphs:
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