The Senate voted Thursday to confirm CIA chief Mike Pompeo as President Trump’s next secretary of state.  Secretary Pompeo was confirmed on a 57-42 vote.  All Republicans present voted to confirm Pompeo. Seven Democrats voted yes.

After the vote, Pompeo was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in the West Conference Room of the Supreme Court:

I am pleased with the Senate’s confirmation of Mike Pompeo to serve as our country’s top diplomat. Having a patriot of Mike’s immense talent, energy, and intellect leading the Department of State will be an incredible asset for our country at this critical time in history. He will always put the interests of America first. He has my trust. He has my support. Today, he has my congratulations on becoming America’s 70th Secretary of State.

~ President Donald J Trump

After congressman Jim Jordan made mention of this issue last Sunday people started asking questions. Fox News Catherine Herridge details how Daniel Richman held special access privileges to the FBI, as an outcome of former FBI Director James Comey authorizing his friend as a “Special Government Employee” or SGE.

(VIA FOX) […] The professor, Daniel Richman, confirmed the special status in response to an inquiry from Fox News, while referring other questions, including on the scope of his work, to the FBI.

“I did indeed have SGE status with the Bureau (for no pay),” Richman wrote in an email.

Richman emerged last year as the former FBI director’s contact for leaking memos documenting his private discussions with President Trump – memos that are now the subject of an inspector general review over the presence of classified material. Sources familiar with Richman’s status at the FBI told Fox News that he was assigned to “special projects” by Comey, and had a security clearance as well as badge access to the building. Richman’s status was the subject of a Memorandum of Understanding.  (read more)

Wait, let’s look at something here. From the article the benefits included: “Sources familiar with Richman’s status at the FBI told Fox News that he was assigned to “special projects” by Comey, and had a security clearance as well as badge access to the building. Richman’s status was the subject of a Memorandum of Understanding.”

A few paragraphs later, this: “Richman’s portfolio included the use of encrypted communications by terror suspects.”

Oh my. Well, well, well… You see what’s being described here. There’s only one way to gain access to “encrypted communications” and that means having access to the FBI and NSA database.

Accepting he obviously had such access…. what would be the probability that Daniel Richman was one of these?

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Representative Ron DeSantis appears on Maria Bartiromo to discuss the referral of Andrew McCabe to federal prosecutors and the remaining characters within the FBI and DOJ who were involved in the weaponization of government for political operations.

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Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the origin of the counterintelligence operation, that began in July 2016, against the Trump campaign.

Last week the FBI released the original “electronic communication” (EC) documents that underpinned the origin of the FBI counterintelligence operation.  The first half of this interview contains some stunning information: the raw intelligence product within the EC did not come through official intelligence channels.

Meaning, the origin of the 2016 counterintelligence operation, which was specifically started by CIA Director John Brennan sharing his ‘raw intelligence product’ with the FBI, was not an official product of the U.S. intelligence community. Brennan was NOT using official partnerships with intelligence agencies of our Five-Eyes partner nations; and he did not provide raw intelligence -as an outcome of those relationships- to the FBI.

The questions, many of which are rhetorical against the backdrop of political motives, become: if the EC is not based on official intelligence from U.S. intelligence apparatus or any of the ‘five-eyes’ partners, then what is the origin, source and purpose therein, of the unofficial raw intelligence? Who created it? And why?

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As we begin to ponder the ramifications and answers to the questions in the first half of this interview, we must remember that CIA Director John Brennan gave congressional testimony last year where he explained how he delivered the raw intelligence product itself.  We spotted this issue, and Brennan’s obfuscation therein, a year ago, when Brennan first gave his testimony.

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Generally I would not refer so strongly to a prior discussion thread if the latest information did not absolutely confirm what was originally suspected.

On January 10th, 2017 we discussed “The Anatomy of a Modern Political Smear“, where we connected the dots, as they were happening in-real-time between James Comey, the Obama intelligence community and the media, specifically CNN. {Please See Here}

Yesterday, two events happened which absolutely confirm -with demonstrable certainty- what we immediately saw over 15 months ago.  The first event was the appearance of James Comey on CNN to discuss his book. In part of the questioning by Jake Tapper, Comey admitted his January 6th briefing of the Steele Dossier content was ONLY about the Russian hookers, pee-tapes, and ridiculous sexual accusations against the President-elect. [CNN Transcript]:

TAPPER: So, let’s talk about the investigation and what you can talk about it. In January, 2017 when you met with President Trump and you did that oral presentation of what’s in that two page memo, summarizing the Steele dossier. We know from the book that you talked about these unverified allegations involving him and prostitutes.

Did you brief him about any — any of the other things in the Steele dossier, claims that his associates, Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort, were potentially working with the Russians? Or was it only about the prostitutes?

COMEY: It was only about the salacious part of it.

TAPPER: Why? Why only about that?

COMEY: Because that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about because we knew it and thought it was about to become public. And if it was true, we didn’t know whether it was true, it would be important to let him know this as part of a defensive briefing. (link)

The second event, was the actual release of the Comey memo describing that January 6th, 2017, briefing as directed by “the leaders of the intelligence community”.  We now know exactly who was giving that instruction:

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During the Easter holiday weekend, CIA Director Mike Pompeo traveled to Pyongyang North Korea and met with Kim Jong Un, laying the groundwork for an upcoming summit between Kim and President Trump.  There were no leaks about the meeting.

“We’ll either have a very good meeting or we won’t have a good meeting; and maybe we won’t even have a meeting at all, depending on what’s going in. But I think that there’s a great chance to solve a world problem.”  ~ President Trump

Last night House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes threatened to impeach FBI Director Christopher Wray and Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, if not granted access to review the two-page intelligence community origination document that kicked-off the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump.

Today Rosenstein and Wray allowed Chairman Nunes and Trey Gowdy to review the origination document, also known as the “electronic communication” (EC).  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes issued the following statement today:

Do not get so caught up watching the granules moving at our feet that we forget to look up and notice the landscape is shifting….

A key DIA official from within the White House National Security Council has resurfaced today as reports show Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been hired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assist on issues surrounding counterintelligence and counterterrorism.

WASHINGTON — A former American intelligence official who came under intense scrutiny during a stint at the White House last year is returning to government as the national security adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The official, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, will play an important role at the Justice Department, advising Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence and counterterrorism.  (NYT Link)

Before getting to the big picture of Cohen-Watnick, let’s look at a few recent granules which at first might seem disconnected – but they are not.

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Most of the ‘vast-Russian-conspiracy‘ media presentations seem to start with a discussion of intelligence gathering beginning in July of 2016. The GOP convention to nominate Donald Trump was July 18-21st of 2016.

Adding to the July 2016 origination narrative FBI Director James Comey stated the counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump began in July 2016.   However, not a single MSM entity has looked at the FISA-702(16)(17) abuses by the FBI and DOJ-NSD outlined by the FISA court and NSA well before July 2016.

It is a matter of unclassified public record the FBI and DOJ-NSD were allowing “contractors” to conduct searches of the FBI and NSA databases, and extract raw intelligence, throughout 2015 until April 28th 2016 when NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers shut down all access and initiated a compliance review.

Any objective review of that time period indicates (strongest likelihood) the search activity was political ‘opposition research’ for the 2016 presidential election.  With hindsight of the FBI and DOJ’s political intents, ‘opposition research’ was almost certainly the motive.

Surrounding the nomination that stunned the geo-political world almost every foreign government was trying to figure out who and what Donald J Trump was all about; and more specifically: how would his run for the presidency impact their specific interests.

2017- WASHINGTON NYT — American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.

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DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has released a public statement stating the OIG intention to investigate the fraudulent FBI FISA Title-1 surveillance application submitted to the court against U.S. person Carter Page; and the surrounding issues of the FBI using Christopher Steele to underwrite their evidence therein:

(OIG link)

There are likely to be voices wondering why this OIG investigative avenue is only just now being announced and/or explored.  However, a careful review and reminder of the process explains what is happening.

Inspector General Horowitz initial investigation focused on the politicization of the FBI and DOJ surrounding the Clinton investigation.  However, that original announcement also included the disclaimer that he would follow “other issues that may arise”.   To say there were “other issues”, that indeed did “arise”, would be the understatement of the decade.

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