From the State Department:
“The United States faces a 21st century global environment that presents unconventional threats from non-state actors, as well as challenges to our economic and national security from traditional state actors. Whether the threats are rogue nations seeking nuclear weapons, terrorists plotting to attack our homeland, or malicious cyber actors seeking to damage and destabilize our critical systems and infrastructure, we must remain vigilant against those who would do harm to our people and our way of life.”

“President Trump’s new National Security Strategy brings to bear all elements of American power to protect our people, generate new economic opportunities, and advance our interests and democratic principles. The State Department will work closely with other federal agencies and our allies and partners around the world to implement this strategy. ”
~ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
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The previous effort at justification and damage control over the FBI counterintelligence operation to spy on presidential candidate Donald Trump was likely courtesy of FBI Asst. Director of Counterintelligence E.W. “Bill” Priestap.

The latest effort at justification comes directly from anti-Trump FBI Counterintelligence Agent Peter Strzok; claiming the ‘insurance policy’ statement was to protect candidate Donald Trump, not to defend the republic against him.  :::insert eyeroll here:::

WASHINGTON DC – An FBI agent’s text message that referred to “an insurance policy” and has been cited as evidence of bias against President Trump reportedly alluded to the investigation into Russia’s election interference and any potential ties between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.
The Wall Street Journal, citing individuals familiar Peter Strzok’s message, said the agent did not mean to indicate that there was a plan to damage Trump. Strzok’s message, instead, was intended to mean that Trump could win the election, and therefore the probe “couldn’t afford to take a more measured approach,” the newspaper said.  (read more)

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This would be embarrassingly laughable if the underlying issue was not so serious. Notice the transparency of the timing here; along with the justification angle.

Today NBC comes out with an “exclusive report” provided by “FBI counterintelligence sources” curiously pushing a story (*NOW*?) about a “high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials” for candidate Donald Trump in July 2016 “soon after the nomination”.  Why this narrative now?  Methinks they doth protest too much.
Gee, I wonder why government officials would be pushing NBC’s Ken Dilanian (the narrative engineer for pro Fusion-GPS stories) to report on Senior FBI counterintelligence briefings with Donald Trump in July 2016?

Perhaps because those same Senior FBI counterintelligence people (Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe) are quickly realizing their 2016 spy operation against Trump, their “insurance policy“, is out in the sunlight…. and NOW their collaborative illegal operation is about to put them in a position of being questioned by congressional oversight?  When does McCabe testify? Oh, yeah, tomorrow; funny that.

WASHINGTON — In the weeks after he became the Republican nominee on July 19, 2016, Donald Trump was warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign, according to multiple government officials familiar with the matter.
The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies.

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It is my belief, based on mounting evidence, a specific cast of characters -within the Mueller “Russia Election Interference” probe- were placed there to protect people behind the FBI’s initial false claims. Those claims formed the basis for the counterintelligence operation against 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump.

According to reports, in August 2017 the Mueller team went around the Trump administration in their quest for documents, by directly demanding documents from the General Services Agency (GSA); the entity that hosted the communication network for the Trump transition team.
According to reports, the content of 12 email accounts was handed over to the Special Counsels’ office; consisting of thousands of pages of transition team communication.  Innocuous, ordinary transition stuff, but the method of procurement is jaw-droppingly unethical, possibly illegal.
Well, now you don’t have to rely on reports. Here’s the actual letter (Full pdf):
[scribd id=367392335 key=key-NHeTYuWqhdD4duzA7D1d mode=scroll]
.
Now, let’s take a stroll and explain to our neighbors exactly what this entire plot is all about and why they should care….
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People have caught on; it was bound to happen. Back in August 2017 Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein created a special joint task-force within the FBI and DOJ to track down intelligence leakers. The investigative unit was requested by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
No-one was really paying much attention to it, until recently people started realizing the false media stories were too structured. The stories were fake, but the leaks were real.
Someone was seeding congress with carefully constructed false information and then watching to see where that false information surfaced. This is exactly how you track down leakers.  We previously referenced it as “Black Hat Hunting“.

A few false stories leading the news might be accidental, but the Donald Trump Jr. email date leak, a CNN story, was so specific and so carefully crafted, it became the fake news leak that evidenced a clear strategy going on behind the scenes. CTH has been discussing the likelihood for several weeks, now there’s a bunch of people who have caught on:
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There is widespread opinion that many of the officials enlisted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller are ethically challenged.  Critics point to Mueller team members like DOJ Attorney Andrew Weissman, Jeannie Rhee and Aaron Zebley as specific examples of players within Mueller’s investigative team who have a history of gross ethics violations and also carry jaw-dropping conflicts-of-interest.
Against that backdrop, a report today about conduct by the Mueller team of investigators gains additional levels of concerns.   According to reports, in August 2017 the Mueller team went around the Trump administration in their quest for documents, by directly demanding documents from the General Services Agency (GSA); the entity that hosted the communication network for the Trump transition team.  According to reports, the content of 12 email accounts was handed over to the Special Counsels’ office; consisting of thousands of pages of transition team communication.  Innocuous, ordinary transition stuff, but the method of procurement is jaw-droppingly unethical, possibly illegal.

However, as with all things disclosed and discovered recently, CTH would caution anyone toward weighting favor or disfavor on the underlying issue.  Additionally, I would again remind everyone to look at the timelines on any new information, overlay it against prior information, and consider how the timing of the event(s) -in relation to the whole- might change the first impression.
In this case, the reported action by the SC team took place in August 2017, four or five months ago.  Inside that exact same timeline, on August 16th 2017, FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Attorney Lisa Page were kicked off the Mueller team.  Coincidence? Dunno. Maybe.
Again, don’t get so stuck looking at the granules moving at your feet that you fail to notice the entire landscape around you is shifting.
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Many people are understandably tentative about the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz.  How can this IG, or any IG, really be trusted to root out the rot that lies at the heart of the DC corruption?
Can we trust the IG to target the politicization of the FBI and DOJ, and do so with the righteous indignation necessary to tear out the corruptocrats? After all, what would motivate Inspector General Horowitz to participate in such a righteous endeavor?
How quickly some have forgotten:  DATELINE July, 2015:

WASHINGTON DC – The Obama administration formally announced that inspectors general will have to get permission from their agency heads to gain access to grand jury, wiretap and fair credit information — an action that severely limits the watchdogs’ oversight capabilities, independence and power to uncover fraud.
An opinion, issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, says the Inspector General Act of 1978 — which was written by Congress to create the government watchdogs in order to help maintain integrity within their agencies — does not have the authority to override nondisclosure provisions in other laws, most notably in regard to grand jury, wiretap or fair credit information.

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Merry Christmas.  Well, it appears people -lots of people- are quickly catching on.  As we shared earlier:

“The records IG Horowitz is sharing are details his investigation has uncovered that outline the larger FBI and DOJ collusion against candidate, and possibly President, Donald Trump.

While the partially recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions watches it play out, Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein works as the conduit to ensure those records are provided to congress per request.   Yes, Rosenstein, like Horowitz, is also a white hat.

Their united approach with this information is essentially confirming what CTH has written about for the past several weeks.  There is a clear strategy here with the information that is surfacing for us to absorb.

Each piece of released information outlines the location of a larger piece of information.  Congressional committees just need to keep asking questions, follow the trail of evidence, seek more investigative discovery material, and interview the DOJ and FBI officials named along the way.” (more)

Um,… well,… Cue The Audio Visual – “where are we going?”:

…Giddy up!  Democrats just realized the years-long DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation is about to bite them, hard.  We are now entering the political combat zone where congressional democrats will attack the IG, in advance of the pending report.
Ironically, the Inspector General investigation led by Michael Horowitz was originally a lame-duck request (January 12, 2017) by Democrats prior to President Obama leaving office. [OIG Origination pdf HERE] That’s one of the more brilliant aspects towards its value.  The resulting investigation into the politicization of the FBI and DOJ is revealing details of how both departments were corrupted by political operatives friendly to Democrats.  Consequently, their own demanded investigation now becomes a risk.

(OIG Horowitz, AG Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Chris Wray)

As described by Politico: “Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerrold Nadler of New York and two other panel Democrats asked for a full review of DOJ’s decision making that led to Tuesday night’s release of about 375 texts that the FBI officials — Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — sent over a 15-month period during the 2016 presidential campaign.”
Democrats are furious the Strzok/Page text messages were released by DOJ Inspector General Horowitz to the House Committee.  They’re mad because the releases provide evidence of the corruption Jerold Nadler and Democrat leadership want to keep hidden.  However, as we have shared, the Inspector General is releasing some of the evidence collected so that the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees can question FBI and DOJ leadership about the content – and this approach rolls out the much bigger story.
In essence, Inspector General Horowitz is providing the American people with information the Democrats want to keep hidden.  Institutionally, the black hat usurpers, mostly mid-level management and staff within the DOJ and FBI, have been stalling and blocking congressional inquiry into their nefarious, and politically motivated schemes.
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In the past few weeks, thanks to some revealing information amid the various investigators of the DC swamp, we have been introduced to some previously unknown people.
Names like FBI Agent Peter Strzok; his mistress FBI Attorney Lisa Page; their ideological comrade Asst FBI Director Andrew McCabe; along with DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr; and his wife, Fusion-GPS contract employee Nellie Ohr.  These are a few of the recent names that have hit the headlines as a result of ongoing investigations into the politicization of the FBI and DOJ.
But there’s one name conspicuously absent, FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.

When you understand how central Bill Priestap is to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, creates a curiosity.  I wrote a twitter thread about him recently because it seems rather unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.
Bill Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation.  He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss.  If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know.
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