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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This is a prime example of what historically sent people to the pitchforks.  According to newly released FOIA documents received by Judicial Watch, twice-demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr received pay raises and a $28,000 bonus while working on the anti-Trump operation.  (full pdf below)

(Source pdf)

Bruce Ohr was originally demoted in December 2017 stripping away his title of associate deputy attorney general based on what DOJ officials said were “undisclosed contacts” with FBI informant Christopher Steele.   We later found out Bruce Ohr completely disclosed his contacts; so his first demotion was a complete CYA move by DOJ officials (ie. Rosenstein).
A month later, in January 2018, Bruce Ohr was demoted a second time, removing his title as head of the DOJ Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. No reason was given for the second demotion. His employment remained (as it does today) but no official word as to his title.
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The DOJ has released the FBI agent report (FD-302) written after their interview of Michael Flynn on Jan 24th, 2017. (Full pdf below)  From prior testimony we know that FBI Agent Peter Strzok did the questioning and FBI Agent Joe Pientka took notes.
However, for some reason, within the DOJ release of the report they are continuing to redact the name Joe Pientka. [Could be due to ongoing employment]
It’s worth noting according to Mark Meadows the Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz has interviewed Joe Pientka extensively; prior attempts by congress to gain testimony from Pientka were blocked by the FBI and Rod Rosenstein.
FBI Agent Joseph Pientka was never interviewed by the joint House judiciary and oversight committees (Goodlatte and Gowdy).   The reason, as explained by Meadows, was simple; Pientka was on Weissmann and Mueller’s special counsel team. Congress was not allowed to interfere in the Mueller probe.  In hindsight this looks like Weissmann, Mueller & Rosenstein strategically using the investigation as a shield from sunlight.
The interview took place on January 24, 2017.  The report was written Jan 24th, 2017.  The wording was then deliberated by the small group, approved by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and entered into the record on February 15th, 2017. Here’s the report:
[scribd id=412593612 key=key-UXQiJJThf7dbiYXmZbNH mode=scroll]
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UPDATE (3:55pm EDT): The lawyer change (motion for leave) was denied by Judge Sullivan due to a technicality in the filing (no accompanying order, and failure to outline method of notification to Flynn). They are free to refile (probably will).

Previously: This is a very interesting development and may well indicate a change in strategy; or, even more interesting, the execution of a pre-planned strategy, for General Michael Flynn.  There is a possibility, with legal distance happening as a result of Weissmann and Mueller’s investigation concluding, that Michael Flynn may be shifting to offense.
Two separate court filings today show: (1) Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has fired his legal team and retained new counsel; and, (2) the DOJ is filing the evidentiary documents (possibly Joe Pientka 302 and Kislyak transcript?) under seal.
The Daily Caller is reporting that an announcement from the new legal counsel will come out within the next few days:
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In what seems like a reversal, the DNC-contracted author of the infamously sketchy dossier on Trump, Christopher Steele, is now willing to cooperate with U.S. authorities.
Steele was hired by Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson as an outcome of a contract between the Clinton campaign and Fusion-GPS.  Steele was hired by Fusion to work with Nellie Ohr (wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr), generate political opposition research, and write a dossier targeting candidate Donald Trump.
According to the London Financial Times, the former MI6 intelligence operative is willing to talk to U.S. investigators, likely Michael Horowitz, regarding his contact with corrupt DOJ and FBI officials during the 2016 campaign and seditious aftermath.

(Daily Caller) Former British spy Christopher Steele has agreed to meet in London with U.S. officials regarding the dossier, The Times of London is reporting.
A source close to Steele told the newspaper he plans to meet with American authorities within the next several weeks, but only about his interactions with the FBI and only with the approval of the British government. (more)

His testimony could be a key issue to expose corruption within the FBI that was previously identified by Senator Chuck Grassley.  The FBI said Christopher Steele never told them he was shopping his dossier to the media; however, Christopher Steele told a British court the FBI was fully aware of all his media contacts, and they used the dossier anyway.
Christopher Steele had no motive to lie to the FBI about his media contacts.
The FBI had tons of motive to lie about their knowing Steele talked to the media.
It’s just common sense.
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After a court filing revealed how Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller carefully edited the telephone message by John Dowd to Michael Flynn’s attorney, Dowd points out the motives of Weissmann and Mueller was to create a fraudulent report.

Backstory Below
In the Michael Flynn sentencing phase Judge Emmet Sullivan requested the Mueller prosecution team provide records related to the case. [Backstory Here]
Among other evidence, the judge ordered the government to file on the public docket “the transcript of the voicemail recording” from President Trump’s attorney John Dowd to Michael Flynn. The transcript of that voicemail recording was cited in the Mueller report as evidence that team Trump was trying to obstruct justice by shaping witness testimony.
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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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When previously questioned by Catherine Herridge about timing for declassification of documents President Trump noted “when they need them“.  Within the response, who “they” were was never clarified; but the later directive to empower executive branch cabinet member AG Bill Barr provided a more clear reference.
In the legislative branch representatives Mark Meadows, Doug Collins and John Ratcliffe are the primary House members who were clearly helping to organize timing and distribution.  Additionally, AG Barr has appointed a prosecutor in John H Durham to review the overall DOJ, FBI and intelligence community activity.  Obviously Durham along with Inspector General Horowitz would benefit from declassification of documents in both of their reviews.

Earlier today John Ratcliffe outlined his view of U.S. Attorney John Durham as a benefactor of the declassification insofar as he would gain information for his review.  Interestingly Ratcliffe noted Durham was essentially a ‘special counsel’ and could use access to documents as a tool toward a grand jury review [ergo DOJ declassification would be needed].
Along with noting the likelihood of Durham’s intent, Ratcliffe seemed to temper expectations of any upcoming publicly visible declassification.
The possibility of Durham exploiting/using documents declassified by his boss, AG Bill Barr, would suggest some of the material may not be made public; indeed that’s the inference from Ratcliffe earlier today as he outlined to Maria Bartiromo.
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Representative John Ratcliffe is one of the few (only 3 or 4) who has seen all of the known classified documents surrounding the corrupt DOJ and FBI effort.  In this interview Mr. Ratcliffe discusses the ongoing issues within the review of the corrupt DOJ/FBI activity.
Interestingly Ratcliffe uses specific wording in his notation of the appointment of John H Durham; akin to Attorney General Bill Barr appointing a “special counsel”.

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Oh, this is rich….  Shifty and hyper-partisan Adam Schiff, quite possibly the world’s slimiest human, writes a letter (as below) to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, demanding legislative branch authority over executive branch declassification.  The scale of obtuse, hypocritical and self-serving protestation is off-the-charts.
First, the executive branch controls the declassification process unilaterally.  The legislative branch can request briefings; and customarily the executive informs the ‘gang of eight’ (when needed) on matters of intelligence releases.  However, the legislative branch has no authority over the independent decisions/purposes of the executive in that regard.
Second, Shiff-for-brains, claims the Declassification Directive is inappropriate because President Trump has empowered the U.S. Attorney General with discretionary decision-making; while Schiff simultaneously avoids/manipulates the inherent conflict avoided by President Trump in granting discretionary decision-making authority to the AG.
In material fact, President Trump is likely the target/victim of the underlying extra-constitutional and corrupt overreach by a seditious “small group” within the FBI, DOJ and intelligence community; and as a consequence prudence would dictate the abdication of declassification decision to the investigative agency, that’s Barr.  If Trump didn’t grant AG Barr the unilateral decision-making authority, the same Adam Schiff would start shouting that President Trump carried a conflict.  [Also, Schiff knows this – he’s playing politics.]
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