There are some interesting overlays amid a Washington Post report just published which outlines that a Grand Jury is hearing witness testimony in a criminal probe of former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
You might remember it was April 19th, 2018, when the initial criminal referral from the Office of Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, was first made public.  The actual timing of the referral, to a “D.C. U.S.Attorney” took place some time prior to April 19th.

The original IG referral to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office was after the inspector general concluded McCabe had lied to investigators and possibly his own boss, then-FBI Director James B. Comey, on four occasions, three of them under oath.   The details were outlined in the first IG report into the conduct of Andrew McCabe [See Here]
Within today’s Washington Post report they specify a grand jury has been hearing from witnesses surrounding that referral and potentially other matters, in an effort to “lock down” witness statements.

WaPo – Federal prosecutors have for months been using a grand jury to investigate former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — an indication the probe into whether he misled officials exploring his role in a controversial media disclosure has intensified, two people familiar with the matter said.

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Yesterday we wrote about how the Associated Press was attempting to cloud and obfuscate details (now getting exposed) about DOJ Official Bruce Ohr and his engagements with Fusion-GPS, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele and the collaboration with the FBI in their collective political targeting of candidate Donald Trump.
I noted it becomes frustrating because writing hundreds of words to: (1) initially outline, then; (2) describe as the fiasco unfolds with more details surfacing; then (3) affirm the original outline and description with irrefutable evidence; is like writing/reading the same chapter of the same novel over-and-over-and-over… yet no-one in authority makes a single move to indict these bastards because ‘muh institutions‘ must be protected.  I digress…
Here’s the cut-to-the-chase:  Those AP reporters are almost virtually guaranteed to be the same AP reporters that are participants within the Fusion GPS network; and the same AP reporters who collaborate with Andy Weissmann et al. These endless media scribes were willing participants within the 2015/2016/2017 plot, plan and execution; and as such they are clearly acting/writing to protect themselves and their interests.
Today we cue up another brutally obvious example of media collaboration to protect their own interests, where we see the New York Times attempt to engineer yet another narrative and hide a reality that DOJ and FBI officials were conspiring with Russians:

(Read Article Here)

See how the insufferable media now spin the connection between the DOJ/FBI and Oleg Deripaska as the FBI was trying to “flip” the Russian oligarch.
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There’s an Associated Press report published today presenting a ridiculously slanted version of the Bruce Ohr testimony from the perspective of two leaking democrat congressional staffers who were present. However, if you fly passed the nonsense narrative engineering, and go way down in the article you might note this (emphasis mine):

[…] One of the meetings he recounted was a Washington breakfast attended by Steele, a Steele associate and Ohr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, who worked for the political research firm, Fusion GPS, that hired Steele, attended at least part of it.
[…] That breakfast took place amid ongoing FBI concerns about Russian election interference and possible communication with Trump associates.
[…] That revelation prompted the FBI to open the counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, one day after the breakfast but based on entirely different information.  (link)

Breakfast with “a Steele associate” on July 30th, 2016.
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It will be very interesting when the joint committee releases the transcript from Lisa Page and Bruce Ohr.   In another article containing information from Bruce Ohr’s closed-door testimony we highlight two key points (emphasis mine):

Kim Strassell – […] Congressional sources tell me that Mr. Ohr revealed Tuesday that he verbally warned the FBI that its source had a credibility problem, alerting the bureau to Mr. Steele’s leanings and motives. He also informed the bureau that Mrs. Ohr was working for Fusion and contributing to the dossier project.

The admission that Nellie Ohr was contributing to the dossier is a really important specific point.  We always suspected some of the dossier content was attributable to Mrs. Ohr, this confirms that suspicion.
Additionally, on the day before Mr. Ohr testified to congress, embarrassingly the New York Times launched a proactive defense surrounding his predicted testimony; within the August 27th article they cited Fusion GPS as a source saying Nellie Ohr never worked on the dossier (see screengrab):

(article link)

Whoopsie…
Obviously Mr. Ohr did not tow-the-media-predicted-line.
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Last Sunday Representative Darrell Issa was being interviewed by Maria Bartiromo about the testimony of Bruce Ohr when Issa innocuously said that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS in 2015.  Previous to that statement by Issa the timeline for Nellie Ohr working with Fusion GPS began in April of 2016 (simultaneous to Fusion beginning the contract work for the Clinton Campaign and sub-contracting of Chris Steele).

If the 2015 date was correct, this was a big deal; a VERY BIG deal.  Well, today amid other revelations within an excellent report by Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller, the 2015 date is confirmed:

[…] Republicans pressed Ohr about how his wife, a Russia expert named Nellie Ohr, came to work for Fusion GPS.
Ohr testified that Fusion approached his wife for a job and that she began working for the research firm in late 2015. California GOP Rep. Darrell Issa said Ohr testified that his wife was paid $44,000 by Fusion GPS. As TheDCNF has reported, Ohr did not disclose his wife’s Fusion income on his annual ethics disclosure form.

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After the Michael Cohen guilty plea. his attorney Lanny Davis began pitching a claim that the longtime Trump loyalist/lawyer had information Trump knew of the Russian hacking of Democratic emails ahead of time.
Davis said: “I believe that Mr. Cohen has direct knowledge that would be of interest to Mr. Mueller that suggests -I’m not sure it proves- that Mr. Trump was aware of Russian government agents hacking illegally, committing computer crimes, to the detriment of the candidate who he was running against, Hillary Clinton.”  And the media ate it up, and put Davis on just about every possible TV show imaginable.
However, in an interview with the Washington Post this weekend, Mr Davis not only walked back that claim, he entirely retreated from it:

(Via Washington Post) An attorney for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, is backing away from confident assertions he made that Cohen has information to share with investigators that shows Trump knew in 2016 of Russian efforts to undermine Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

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It is an inarguable fact that ideologues within the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation used their official positions to conduct a political operation against the candidacy of President Trump. It is also an inarguable fact that DOJ/FBI contractors were exploiting the NSA/FBI database for opposition research as evidenced in the FISA 702(16)(17) abuses admitted by the DOJ and outlined in a FISA ruling by presiding FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer.  There is currently an Office of Inspector General investigation by Michael Horowitz into FISA abuse to discover the scale of the corrupt use.

Major HatTip @JohnWHuber – Today in the Spectator U.K. another sketchy journalist with deep ties to the intelligence apparatus, and specific ties to leaks from former CIA Director John Brennan, outlines that Robert Mueller has “electronic records” showing Michael Cohen travel to Prague:

[…]  The more important question is whether Cohen has even been to Prague. Steele’s dossier claims he did go, in 2016, to meet Russian hackers and Russian intelligence officers. Cohen was asked by The Atlantic magazine about this claim, and about Russia. He responded: ‘I’m telling you emphatically that I’ve not been to Prague, I’ve never been to [the] Czech [Republic], I’ve not been to Russia.’ If my ‘eyewitness’ to the Moscow meeting is telling the truth, then perhaps Cohen was, in the same breath, being misleading about Prague, too — and the whole Russia ‘conspiracy’ starts to unravel. I have spoken to one intelligence source who says Mueller is examining ‘electronic records’ that would place Cohen in Prague. (link)

Michael Cohen has never been to Prague; even Cohen’s anti-Trump lawyer Lanny Davis admits the Cohen claims inside the Steele dossier are nonsense.  CNN, again another anti-Trump voice, confirmed in January Cohen was never in Prague as the dossier claimed.  Quite simply, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen has never been to Prague.
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Paul Sperry at Real Clear Politics has an extensive article highlighting step-by-step how the FBI did not review the Hillary Clinton emails on the laptop belonging to Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner.

“When then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was closing the Hillary Clinton email investigation for a second time just days before the 2016 election, he certified to Congress that his agency had “reviewed all of the communications” discovered on a personal laptop used by Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.”

He Lied – SEE HERE

Paul Sperry confirms our prior research:

This is VERY interesting, actually a MASSIVE FIND by Ziiggii, and simultaneously an apropos signal of the collapsing narrative.

Back in March 2018, CNN was giddy about a Russian prostitute arrested in Thailand named Anastasia Vashukevich; who claimed to have evidence of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.  CNN framed the prostitute story around a possibility that her claims would back-up the ridiculous Trump ‘hookers’ angle in the Steele dossier.

CNN even sent Ivan Watson to Thailand to interview Ms. Vashukevich in the hopes that she could validate the “hookers” and “pee-tapes” material that was in the Steele dossier.
Well, it turns out the recordings Ms. Vashukevich was promoting/leveraging, were actually recordings of Oleg Deripaska; and, at his request she returned them to him. News today:

[…]  Vashukevich told The Associated Press that she had turned over audio recordings to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whose conversations about election interference she claimed to have taped.
She has said she provided “escort” services to Deripaska, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who has links to Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager now being tried in the United States on money laundering and other charges.

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Is that distant whistling sound from the fins of an atomic truth bomb inbound from President Trump’s tweets?

Catherine Herridge report available here. In the past several days the name Oleg Deripaska has resurfaced, this time with some more attention.  Oleg Deripaska, is a Russian billionaire and is likely much more of a central figure than previously discussed.
Byron York previously outlined new documents showing the communication between Trump Dossier author Christopher Steele and DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
Within the early 2016 discussions, Chris Steele appeared to be advocating to Bruce Ohr on behalf of Oleg Deripaska who was banned from travel into the U.S. by the State Department.

(Byron York) Emails in 2016 between former British spy Christopher Steele and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr suggest Steele was deeply concerned about the legal status of a Putin-linked Russian oligarch, and at times seemed to be advocating on the oligarch’s behalf, in the same time period Steele worked on collecting the Russia-related allegations against Donald Trump that came to be known as the Trump dossier. The emails show Steele and Ohr were in frequent contact, that they intermingled talk about Steele’s research and the oligarch’s affairs, and that Glenn Simpson, head of the dirt-digging group Fusion GPS that hired Steele to compile the dossier, was also part of the ongoing conversation. (more)

I strongly urge you to read the York article because I’m going to expand on the Deripaska angle from the context of the reader understanding the relationship.
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