You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD

It is being reported today that Special Counsel Robert Mueller instructed the FBI field office from the Southern District of New York to raid the home and office of President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.

[Via New York Times] The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.

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Tomorrow Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce the assignment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ (Horowitz/Huber) to the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

Mr. Lausch is a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney from outside Washington DC.  John Lausch currently heads the Northern District of Illinois which includes Chicago, and this specific U.S. Attorney has extensive experience in complex cases of conspiracy and political corruption; a key skill-set given the issues within the Horowitz/Huber investigation of potential politicization of the FBI and DOJ offices.

Accepting the OIG report is almost certainly the most complex undertaking of IG Horowitz career; and accepting the multitude of possible angles within each section of the investigative inquiry are so consequential; there’s a strong likelihood the report could come out in stages.

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A very well informed Maria Bartiromo has an interesting interview with Trey Gowdy this morning.  In the first section of the interview Representative Gowdy reveals he has seen some of the originating “electronic communication” (EC) source material that initiated the 2016 counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.

An interesting aspect to this interview is how much ‘deep-weed’ background information Mrs. Bartiromo is aware of. [Obviously Maria has a direct network to some very specific information.]  WATCH:

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Representative Gowdy seems to using the Mamet Princple in this interview. Gowdy is obviously aware the DOJ cannot, and should not, release all evidence in their custody if some of that evidence outlines the basis for criminal referrals and will be used later by Prosecutor John Huber. So why does he demand access to it, and public release of it?

Gowdy’s presentation is almost enough to make a person wonder if he’s not trying to protect entities that might be at risk from sunlight or prosecution. It couldn’t be that perhaps there were/are 2016 republican political campaigns (*cough* Rubio), and/or uniparty leadership, who were in common-cause alignment with an operation that might eliminate Trump? Wait… wha?

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Very interesting interview with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes earlier today.  Chairman Nunes discusses his current objective to gain the two-page “electronic communication” document that initiated the FBI and DOJ-NSD investigation into the campaign of presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Chairman Nunes is focusing more intensely on the use of FBI/DOJ counterintelligence operations a weaponized agencies against political opponents. As a result of that focus the origination documents gain increased importance along with the FISA Title-1 application used to conduct exhaustive surveillance on U.S. person Carter Page.

Another very interesting dynamic occurs toward the latter half of the interview where Chairman Nunes brings up the international allies, and specifically describes the origination of “The Alliance of the Orb“, against the backdrop of weaponized intel.

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National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News for an interview with Chris Wallace discussing Trump administration trade positions.  Kudlow and Wallace were previously on the same team, and held the same positions, perspectives and outlooks.

In the face of four decades of results which cannot be refuted, Chairman Kudlow is modifying his position to align with President Trump and Main Street.  At the same time Kudlow is trying to convince Wall Street and GOPe Wallace-types to follow his lead.

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[*side note* notice how no-one ever mentions MfN status?]

In some ways POTUS Trump’s selection of Kudlow is an interesting test to see if the functionally obsolescent Wall Street-minded economists have the capacity to retool decades of flawed thinking.

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A few hours ago President Trump tweeted a curiously specific pair of tweets targeting the FBI, DOJ and FISA investigations as it relates to the House Judiciary Committee and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.  Something’s up:

Against the backdrop of the DOJ notifying the House Intelligence and House Senate committees last night of their ability to review the DOJ/FBI submission of the FISA Court application used to target U.S. person Carter Page, the specificity of POTUS Trump’s direction is curious.

As we previously discussed the DOJ allowing expanded congressional oversight over the FISA application, against the backdrop of a previously announced IG review of this specific FISA application, would indicate Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Federal Prosecutor John Huber signed-off on, or perhaps directed, last night’s approval.

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Until today the only people allowed to review the full Title-1 FISA application were Trey Gowdy, Adam Schiff, Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Rep John Ratcliffe.

In an interesting development, the Department of Justice has responded to HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes notifying him the DOJ will allow all members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees full access to review the unredacted FBI/DOJ FISA application used to gain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. citizen Carter Page.

[scribd id=375730245 key=key-7BQe9fJzvsXo7bSB3dRh mode=scroll]

According to CNN: ‘Separately, Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said the department on Monday will supplement its document production to the House Judiciary Committee by producing another 1,000 pages of materials in response to a subpoena issued by committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte.’

This is an interesting development for several reasons:

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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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Fox News Catherine Herridge reports today, per her FBI investigative sources, it was an investigative interview with FBI Attorney Lisa Page, in July 2017, that contradicted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and ultimately led to his firing.

That revelation is exactly what we anticipated was the origin to Inspector General Michael Horowitz gaining the text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.  The issue is actually more stunning than presented.  However, first here’s the report from Herridge (emphasis mine):

Fox News – Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired last month for committing three violations of the bureau’s ethics code, an investigative source told Fox News on Thursday.

The violations initially were uncovered by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and confirmed by the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. They included lack of candor under oath, lack of candor when not under oath, and the improper disclosure of non-public information to the media about the FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

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It was noted –and reported– yesterday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes sent a letter (full pdf below) to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  Nunes is demanding un-redacted FBI documents surrounding the origination of the July 2016 counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump, and the FISA application stemming from within the FBI investigation.

The issue(s) surrounding the declassification of the FISA application and subsequent FISA warrant against Carter Page are not new.  The new aspect within the Nunes demand relates to a request for the intelligence community “electronic communication” (EC) that kicked off the initial FBI counterintelligence op.  Within that new line of inquiry the subject of interest is ultimately former CIA Director John Brennan.

However, there are issues here; serious issues. There are VERY valid reasons why the FBI (Wray) and DOJ (Rosenstein) would push back against HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes.  It’s complicated, and we’ll try to unpack.

Begin by noting on page two of the Nunes request, Paragraph #3, something all media writing about the Nunes demand seem to overlook.  Screengrab below:

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