Steve Bannon appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the pros and cons of a partisan impeachment.  Bannon was one of the early political observers who identified the likely entry of Mayor Michael Bloomberg into the 2020 race.
Bannon notes that Bloomberg has enough money to outlast the field; however, I doubt Bloomberg can fill a venue. If there’s no connection to the base party voter, candidate Bloomberg just can’t win the primary.

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It would appear U.S. Attorney John Durham digging into the origin of the ‘vast Russian collusion-conspiracy’ has the founders of Fusion-GPS getting twitchy.  The “Mamet Principle”of pretending not to know things was on full display today during a Meet the Press interview with Fusion founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch.
For obvious reasons fellow traveler Chuck Todd avoided the most damning lines of questioning including why they hired Nellie Ohr, why Simpson lied to the House intelligence committee, and why Glenn Simpson invoked the fifth amendment in refusing to testify to the House Judiciary Committee.
It was demonstrably evident that Glenn Simpson was working with Russian operative/lobbyist Natalia Velelnitskaya in a 2016 effort against the Trump campaign. However, during the interview today Glenn Simpson takes the defensive position that he was likely tricked by the Russian.  WATCH:

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While Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson was domestically working with Russian lobbyist Natalia Veselnitskya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin.
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Within the only impeachment resolution put forth by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to open an “impeachment inquiry” the resolution outlined a process.  With only eight legislative days left in 2019; and considering the resolution as adopted; the calendar doesn’t match the democrat talking points.  Here is a walk through of the timeline:
Congress returns from the Thanksgiving break on December 2nd and recesses again on December 12th.  That leaves eight days in December to accomplish all the House tasks.
Democrats have said they anticipate an impeachment vote in mid-December, but a review of the House impeachment resolution calls for a transfer from HPSCI “inquiry” (Schiff) to HJC “investigation” (Nadler) as an outcome of a report from Adam Schiff’s intelligence committee.
Even if we assume the HPSCI report is being written during the Thanksgiving break by HPSCI/Lawfare staff there would still need to be a period where the report is reviewed by the congress members on the committee.  Normally there would be a minority section to the report; and under all committee processes there would be a vote to advance the report.
Again, there’s only eight days in December and presumably HPSCI committee members would need to review the report prior to advancing it to the House Judiciary Committee (HJC).  Once the report lands in the HJC, again – according to the prior resolution, that’s when President Trump would be able to call rebuttal witnesses and have White House counsel challenge and cross-examine HJC witnesses.
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Following leaked revelations that former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith manipulated evidence to attain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page to conduct political espionage against the Trump campaign, former AAG Matthew Whitaker discusses the IG investigation and upcoming IG report.
Whitaker notes the bigger issues are how the FISA process generally has been abused and potentially long-term ramifications.  It is also worth remembering it wasn’t just “wiretaps” that were gained, the FBI requested and received full Title-1 surveillance authority including: wiretaps, electronic surveillance, the use of bugs and tracking devices, physical surveillance, electronic and satellite geolocation surveillance and much more.  The FBI requested a type of surveillance generally reserved for tracking suspected terrorists.
When Mr. Clinesmith manipulated evidence to attain the warrant he was working under the guidance of FBI supervisory agent Peter Strzok.  “Political Espionage“.

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The New York Times is confirming that Kevin Clinesmith is the “low-level lawyer” within the FBI who doctored evidence within the Carter Page FISA application.
As anticipated, the DOJ and FBI ‘small group’ leaks are from their individual review of a heavily compartmented IG report; and now they are being selectively shaped by the favorite ‘small group’ media network: NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Politico et al.
Remember, each of the principals only was able to see the draft of the IG report specific to their outline therein.  All principal reviews were very compartmented.  No principal has any idea what the bottom line conclusions are from the totality of the assembled compartments.  An example of this is in the very first paragraph.
The New York Times article is purposefully heavy on narrative engineering.  However, given how the accountability trends are identified by the specifics of the narrative construction, that’s not a bad thing.  As CTH outlined in anticipation of this phase, take the first wave of media justification with a grain-of-salt. There are two clear angles visible in the narrative assembly.   First, here is the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department’s inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump, according to people briefed on a draft.

One can read that from the perspective of accountability and become frustrated.  However, notice the construction closely: “to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump”… or put another way, there was an “abuse of power”, but that abuse cannot specifically be attributed to bias against the President.  Key point: there was an “abuse of power”, it is in the motive for that abuse where narratives step in.
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Earlier this morning President Trump called in to Fox and Friends for an hour-long  interview about the breaking story of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith manipulating FISA documents to gain surveillance on the 2016 Trump campaign.
President Trump notes the current trickle of information is only the beginning and the background story could be the biggest political scandal in modern U.S. history.  President Trump awaits the final reports showing the full scope of the investigations and the likelihood of FBI spying and surveillance on his campaign and administration.
Additionally, President Trump discusses the frustrating political agenda behind the Pelosi and Schiff partisan impeachment effort at great length.  WATCH:

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TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE HERE

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At 8:15pm last evening Washington Post journalist Devlin Barrett posted a supportive article for the CNN (Manu Raju) news exclusive that outlined an “FBI Official” who was under criminal investigation as an outcome of the inspector general review of FISA.
The original WaPo article by Devlin Barrett noted the FBI official was actually a “line-level” lawyer who worked “under FBI Agent Peter Strzok.”
At 12:15am, the WaPo article was significantly edited, two more journalists (Ellen Nakashima and Matt Zapotosky) were added to the byline.  Unfortunately, no explanation or notation of the changes were given.

~ Above: 8:15pm Washington Post Screen Grab prior to 12:15am edit ~

However, that said, the edit(s) help to identify the identity of the FBI lawyer.  The updated article removed the references to Peter Strzok, and identifies the line-level lawyer thus:

[…] The person under scrutiny is a low-level FBI lawyer who has since been forced out of the agency, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that has not yet been made public.
The employee was forced out of the FBI after the incident was discovered, two U.S. officials said. Horowitz found that the employee erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim, they said. (link)

If you have followed the case closely, the intentional removal of Peter Strzok in combination with the explanation of the lawyer’s FISA responsibilities; and in combination with prior reporting of FBI lawyer 2; it seems pretty obvious the line-level lawyer was Kevin Clinesmith.
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Former foreign policy adviser to President Trump Carter Page discusses the breaking reports of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altering documents in the 2016 Russia probe to gain a FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant on him and the Trump campaign.

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Last week we outlined the likely schedule for all of the rapidly surfacing DC issues to include: (A) Pelosi and Schiff’s impeachment effort; (B) the IG FISA abuse report being released; and (C) the narrowing timeline of court decisions for all three of Pelosi’s impeachment committees.
Today we have some new background to help see the narrative race and legal race.  Pelosi and Schiff are not only racing the impeachment vote against the IG report, they are also racing against the Judicial branch wiping out all prior “impeachment inquiry” validity.
Effective at the end of business today the House is now in recess for the Thanksgiving holiday.  CNN is reporting:

The House returns on December 3rd and recesses again for Christmas break on December 12th.  That is the window for Pelosi to cram in all of the House needs; eight days.
Remember, the House Democrats punted the budget with a short term CR so that has to get done.  We were hopeful Pelosi would put the USMCA ratification up for a vote; however, that now appears to be off the table until 2020.  So the budget and impeachment vote are inside this eight day window.
But that is not all that is inside this window.
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Representatives Elise Stefanik and Steve Scalise discuss the partisan effort to remove President Trump through a one-sided impeachment effort.

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Within the interview Ms. Stefanik notes the outside money pouring in to her district in a concerted effort to remove her from office.  The link to support her IS HERE
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