President Trump draws attention today to an article written by Andrew McCarthy.
NY Post […] “As night follows day, we were treated to the same Beltway hysteria we got this week: Silly semantic carping over the word “spying” — which, regardless of whether a judge authorizes it, is merely the covert gathering of intelligence about a suspected wrongdoer, organization or foreign power.
There is no doubt that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. As Barr made clear, the real question is: What predicated the spying? Was there a valid reason for it, strong enough to overcome our norm against political spying? Or was it done rashly? Was a politically motivated decision made to use highly intrusive investigative tactics when a more measured response would have sufficed, such as a “defensive briefing” that would have warned the Trump campaign of possible Russian infiltration?
Last year, when the “spy” games got underway, James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, conceded that, yes, the FBI did run an informant — “spy” is such an icky word — at Trump campaign officials; but, we were told, this was merely to investigate Russia. Cross Clapper’s heart, it had nothing to do with the Trump campaign. No, no, no. Indeed, the Obama administration only used an informant because — bet you didn’t know this — doing so is the most benign, least intrusive mode of conducting an investigation.” (read more)

According to the DOJ Attorney General William Barr will release the redacted version of the Mueller report on Thursday morning.

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department expects to make a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation public Thursday morning, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The redacted report would be sent to Congress and also made available to the public, spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. (read more)

Representative Mark Meadows appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss his recent conversation with Inspector General Michael Horowitz and how that pertains to the upcoming inspector general report on FISA abuse.
In addition to criminal referrals from HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan recently visited with IG Horowitz and foresees future criminal referrals coming as an outcome of the IG investigation.

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After three years of research, CTH is confident we are closing in on the current White House “insider” who is working on a collaborative Machiavellian program to assist the deep state…. stay tuned.
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In the second segment with Maria Bartiromo, Senator Lindsey Graham discusses the 2016 surveillance and spying operations against candidate Trump, president-elect Trump, and finally President Trump in 2017.
As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham outlines his approach toward inquiry of the DOJ and FBI.

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During a rather innocuous podcast discussion panel yesterday, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers Jay Sekulow mentioned the FBI had three FISA applications denied by the FISA court in 2016. [Podcast Here – Note comment at 25:05]   The denials were always suspected; however, until now no-one in/around the administration has ever confirmed.
Jay Sekulow did not expand on his statement and did not explain where the information was derived from; however, if accurate this may explain the backstory to why FISA Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused.  This issue has been nagging many people since the recusal notation in December 2017.

On November 30th, 2017, Mike Flynn signed a guilty plea; ostensibly admitting lying to investigators.  The plea was accepted by Judge Rudolph Contreras; who is also a FISA court judge.  Six days later, December 7th, 2017, Judge Contreras “was recused” from the case without explanation.

(Reuters) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday.  (read more)

The only two significant things that happened between the initial Mike Flynn plea hearing and the recusal from Judge Contreras was:

#1) The stories about anti-Trump FBI Agent Peter Strzok and his involvement with Fusion-GPS and Christopher Steele (keep this in mind as it pertains to FISC presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer); and

#2) FBI Director Chris Wray appearing before the House Judicial Committee and hearing Representative Jim Jordan demand to see the 2016 FISA application.

In fact, Judge Contreras was recused only a few hours after that House Judicial Committee hearing. The story was memory-holed into the concentric whirlpool of nothingness.  However, if what Jay Sekulow describes is true, and one of the denied FISA applications was against Mike Flynn, some of the issues reconcile.
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Finally…. F.i.n.a.l.l.y, Devin Nunes outlines the origin of the spying operation as it began in 2015 and extended into 2016.  During an interview to discuss his criminal referrals to Attorney General Barr [see here] Devin Nunes outlines the big picture.  WATCH:

[Transcript @02:08] Devin Nunes:  “Well Sean, let’s just, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Okay, and now, thank God, we have an attorney general who calls spying for what it is.”
“In late 2015, early 2016, spying began on the Trump campaign.”
“That information leaked; that led to, what they consider to be, “legal spying” that began, that they’ve acknowledged that they started doing in the end of July; you just had Carter Page on; they considered that all “legal spying.”

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In the Day #2 transcript released today FBI chief legal counsel James Baker was asked about a specific series of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages on the evening President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
Comey was fired on May 9th, 2017.  Later that night Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had the following text conversation:

5/9/17 8:14pm And we need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting.
5/10/17 05:29am We need to lock in [REDACTED] in a formal chargeable way. Soon.
5/10/17 05:30am I agree. I’ve been pushing and will reemphasize with Bill [Priestap].

(link to texts)

FBI chief legal counsel James Baker’s response to questions about this text message exchange indicates that President Trump (‘Trump’ or ‘POTUS’) was the name under the redaction.
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With the Mueller probe complete; with AG Barr announcing a focus to review the intelligence operation in 2016; with Devin Nunes submitting criminal referrals; with Lindsey Graham probing CIA, DOJ and FBI conduct; with Doug Collins releasing ‘Spygate’ transcripts; with Inspector General Michael Horowitz closing in on the final stages of his FISA abuse investigation; and with President Trump contemplating declassification of documents applying sunlight on the Russia collusion/conspiracy hoax; there is an outrage trap which must be avoided….

The issue(s) surround President Obama and high-ranking Obama intelligence officials, notably: John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper and Sally Yates intentionally lying and/or misrepresenting issues to president-elect Donald Trump and the transition team in/around the transition period and shortly after the January 20, 2017, inauguration.
Some of the misinformation stems from intelligence officials telling direct lies (ex. telling President-elect, and President Trump he was not under investigation). Other aspects were lies of omission surrounding the Steele Dossier during the January 6th, 2017, intelligence briefing session with the President-elect in Trump Tower.
In essence, there were many misleading and false statements, with varying scales of severity, during the period from November 9th, 2016, through mid-May 2017 when President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
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Attorney General William Barr delivered stunning, albeit obviously honest, remarks during congressional testimony today in response to Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen about his intent to review prior intelligence activities in targeting the Trump campaign.
Before getting to the video and transcript, it is important to note how this line of questioning surfaces.  The professional political apparatus, primarily Democrats – but also Republicans, who participated in the ‘soft coup’ effort are attempting to gauge the landscape of their risk by identifying AG Barr’s intention.  This line of questioning is NOT organic or random; it is deeply purposeful and scripted. You can smell the fear.
Shaheen is being asked by allies within the Administrative state, including interests no longer holding political office, to do advanced query…. this is political reconnaissance intended to give corrupt officials and media allies the background to: (a) scale their risk; and (b) plan their defense narrative.  They are nervous now. Very nervous.

Here’s the important transcript, (all emphasis mine):

Senator Shaheen: News just broke, today, that you have a special team looking into why the FBI opened an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. I wonder if you can share with this committee: who is on that team; why you felt the need to form that kind of a team; and what you intend to be the scope of their investigation?

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Something is coming… something delicious.  How can we tell?  Well, whenever a bombshell is about to drop on the corrupt Intelligence Community, the New York Times does a quick narrative dump to get out ahead of the story.

All the way down, buried deep, in a NYT story about Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA investigation and AG Barr’s review of DOJ and FBI activity… they drop the following two paragraphs (emphasis mine):

[…] The inspector general is also scrutinizing another early source of information for the Russia investigation, the people said: Mr. Horowitz’s investigators have been asking questions about the role of Stefan A. Halper, another F.B.I. informant, and his prior work for the bureau.

Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper, an American academic who teaches in Britain, to gather information on Mr. Page and George Papadopoulos, another former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. (read more)

Oh?  NYT now saying FBI agents asked help from intelligence asset Stefan Halper to go gather information on Carter Page and George Papadopoulos?
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