Earlier today the Washington Post reported that Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe is planning on retiring on/around March 2018; timed to receive pension benefits.
President Trump notes the conspicuous timing of Andrew McCabe’s decision:

It is important to note that in prior congressional testimony by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, the Department of Justice OIG (Office of Inspector General) has committed to release over 1.2 million pages of documents on January 15th, 2018 to the Judiciary Committee.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein affirmed the investigative documents would be released to Chairman Goodlatte and House investigators. This release is important to overlay against the backdrop of the McCabe decision to retire.
The Inspector General may, or may not, be complete with his investigative report on/around January 15th. However, with the House Oversight (Gowdy) and Judiciary (Goodlatte) Committees both launching investigations they are not waiting for Inspector General Michael Horowitz to conclude his final report.
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Things are getting increasingly interesting and simultaneously obvious. Thursday night the Washington Post reported that FBI Director Christopher Wray had relieved FBI Chief Legal Counsel, James Baker, of his responsibilities within the department.
Attorney James Baker accompanied FBI Asst. Director “Andy” McCabe to the Tuesday congressional hearing with the House Intelligence Community. Curiously, in addition to other lines of inquiry, during the questioning McCabe was asked about whether James Baker was authorized to speak to the media about the Steele Dossier and the underlying ‘counterintelligence’ operation. Asst. Director McCabe responded that Baker would not be authorized to take such action.
Following the HPSCI hearing, republican committee leadership announced their plan to subpoena James Baker for further questioning. [Keep in mind Baker was there.] Two days later, at the Thursday Judiciary and Oversight Committee hearings, James Baker did not accompany Andrew McCabe. Hours later, James Baker is removed from his responsibilities as legal counsel within the FBI. Cause: ‘unknown‘.

Back in July, 2017, it was reported that James Baker was under a criminal investigation for leaking classified information from within the FBI, although the details of the leak content were unknown. Politico today reports that James Baker has been identified as the likely source that released information about the Fusion-GPS/Christopher Steele “Russian Conspiracy Dossier” to David Corn of Mother Jones in October of 2016:
(Via Politico) House Republicans are investigating contact between the FBI’s top lawyer and a Mother Jones reporter in the weeks before the left-leaning outlet broke the first news story about the existence of a disputed dossier alleging ties between President Donald Trump and the Kremlin, according to two congressional GOP sources who described documents linking the two men.
The GOP sources said the documents — made available recently to lawmakers by the Department of Justice — revealed that James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel, communicated with Mother Jones reporter David Corn in the weeks leading up to the November 2016 election. Corn was the first to report the existence of the dossier on Oct. 31 and that it was compiled by a former high-level western spy.
There is a clear plan and strategy in place to deal with the schemes of the “small group” of co-conspirators within the DOJ and FBI. CTH advises prudent patience, and assembly of tar and feathers, as the Machiavellian schemes continue to be untangled.
Tuesday afternoon when FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe travelled to Capitol Hill for his 10-hour closed door testimony and questioning he was accompanied by “small group” defense shield, FBI legal counsel, James Baker. In front of the House Intelligence Committee, Andy McCabe suddenly couldn’t remember his relationship with the Steele Dossier. As a result of Attorney Baker’s appearance and specific engagement within the hearing investigators announced yesterday to Baker would be summoned for questioning:
While HPSCI staff would not confirm who will be summoned for testimony, all indications point to demoted DOJ official Bruce G. Ohr and FBI General Counsel James A. Baker, who accompanied McCabe, along with other lawyers, to Tuesday’s HPSCI session. (link)

Today, FBI Director Christopher Wray relieved FBI legal counsel James Baker from his responsibilities within the department. The favored MSM outlet for the defense of those within the “Trump Operation”/conspiratorial plot, rushes to the typeset:
WASHINGTON POST – The FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, is being reassigned — one of the first moves by new director Christopher A. Wray to assemble his own team of senior advisers as he tries to fend off accusations of politicization within the bureau.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe faced about eight hours of questioning behind closed doors during the House Intelligence Committee yesterday. Unlike prior HPSCI closed hearings remarkably there were no leaks; which would generally indicate the content was adverse to the interests of Democrat party investigators within the hearing.

From scant reporting it appears the questioning surrounded potential conflicts of interest and anti-Trump bias amid the entire cabal of FBI officials. Fox News James Rosen provides some overall information from congressional investigators.
According to Rosen’s reporting Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, bringing a full contingent of FBI/DOJ lawyers, has apparently lost much of his memory surrounding how the Steele Dossier was financed, constructed and later utilized by the FBI Counterintelligence unit (Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok) in their quest for 2016 surveillance and wiretaps against candidate Donald Trump within their FISA applications.
James Rosen – Congressional investigators tell Fox News that Tuesday’s seven-hour interrogation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe contained numerous conflicts with the testimony of previous witnesses, prompting the Republican majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee to decide to issue fresh subpoenas next week on Justice Department and FBI personnel.
While HPSCI staff would not confirm who will be summoned for testimony, all indications point to demoted DOJ official Bruce G. Ohr and FBI General Counsel James A. Baker, who accompanied McCabe, along with other lawyers, to Tuesday’s HPSCI session.
Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe is testifying today behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee. Important to note how there have been no leaks; that’s the first indication of coordinated chaff and counter measures deployed by the UniParty enablers of the Deep State institutional government.
Bruce Ohr is scheduled tomorrow; again behind closed doors, this time in the Senate Intelligence Committee setting. Again, dueling intelligence hearings -between House and Senate- (on the same witnesses), indicates the UniParty apparatus has deployed Chaff and Countermeasures and is protecting the administrative state.

Promoting, well, actually the appropriate word is ‘deploying‘, the leveraged and controlled head of the House Oversight/Reform Committee is the tri-fecta in seeing the countermeasures deployed. [Prior: Issa, Chaffetz, now Roosterhead] The Chairman or Chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee is given the responsibility to deflect. In payment for services toward the cause of the UniParty the Chairman gets indulgences.
The oversight “Gang of Eight” appear to have taken over the process to ensure controls are in place. If we had not been watching this exact process play out for the past 8 years, we might not recognize the pattern. Alas, with Fast and Furious, IRS Targeting, Benghazi and more examples of UniParty wagon-circling, we would be naive not to notice the identical replay. The Hezbollah side-show is part of the ‘shiny thing’.
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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.
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?”:
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The text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strozk and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, have been released to both Fox News and CBS. SEE HERE and SEE HERE.
The messages reflect a strong bias against President Trump. However, the bigger story is not the anti-Trump bias within the text communication, the BIGGER story is why the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General (OIG), began even looking at Agent Peter Strozk’s communication in the first place.
Remember, the original mandate by the Inspector General’s office was initiated to review and discover any politicization of the FBI and/or DOJ officials.
After news broke of Strzok’s removal from investigative duty within the FBI counterintelligence unit, what the OIG responding statement said was for 11 months the Dept of Justice OIG office has been investigating the politicization within the DOJ and FBI and deciding if the actions, or lack of action, was driven by the political ideology of the participants therein:
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Last Thursday it was announced that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras was mysteriously recused from the Special Counsel case against General Mike Flynn, five days after Judge Contreras accepting the initial pleading. No explanation as to ‘why’?
(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)

One might think the media apparatus, or pundit proletariat writ large, might be curious about why a U.S. District Court Judge would be recused. Alas One would be wrong. The recusal angle is transparently missing from any follow-up by media; and apparently the judicial cat also has stolen the tongue of congressional curiosity. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
The story has been memory holed into the concentric whirlpool of nothingness.
We have speculated that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused, either by himself or by challenge, because he is also a FISA Court Judge and could have signed off on the October FISA warrant that led to the wiretapping and surveillance of General Flynn. However, we have received information that it wasn’t ‘by challenge’, leaving the preponderance of the motive for recusal directly upon Judge Contreras personal decision.
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MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Frank Luntz, a GOP establishment messaging consultant, was visibly flabbergasted as every single one of his focus group participants in a Birmingham area Vice News-produced panel backed Judge Roy Moore for U.S. Senate. (read more)
