There are three key congressional events likely in the first quarter of 2019. The sequencing of those events will be key to the “Resistance” political year.

The baseline is that Democrat leadership are cunning political strategists; and have likely already drawn out the big picture road-map with details to be filled in as they proceed.

• The first event is the congressional use of Michael Cohen for a series of public committee hearings. [Oversight (Elijah Cummings) and possibly -though less likely- Judiciary (Nadler) and HPSCI (Schiff)] This likely has to happen before March 6th, 2019, when Cohen is scheduled to enter federal prison. It’s almost certain Cohen’s incarceration deferment contains the unwritten agreement to appear. [Democrat leadership almost certainly coordinated this plan with team Mueller and the SDNY some time ago.]
• The second event is the release of the Team Mueller political report which, despite its inability to find criminal wrongdoing, will most certainly be written with highly charged innuendo as damaging to President Trump as possible. The release of this report will absolutely fuel several public committee hearings [Oversight/Reform (Cummings), HPSCI (Schiff) and Judiciary (Nadler)] without any doubt.
• The third event is the release of the OIG Horowitz report on possible FISA abuse. Due to the nature of Mueller’s proprietary investigative blackout (Horowitz not allowed to  see investigative material or witnesses with Mueller probe ongoing), the Horowitz report will  likely come out *after* Mueller.

That’s the three key events the Democrats and media will be most likely to exploit for maximum political benefit in the first quarter of 2019.   The sequence between Mueller and Horowitz might reverse (though unlikely and I’ll explain later). Other investigative resistance paths will spur from these three primary Q1 events.
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Several people have requested specificity as to why President Obama and candidate Hillary Clinton viewed Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as a risk worthy of primary confrontation/removal after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election.
The most obvious answer is not too complex; predates the election; and is connected directly to three core components of the Libya crisis: (1) White House; (2) State Department; (3) Hillary Clinton.
Drawing from years of exhaustive research within the Benghazi Brief; along with breakout information as to how the FBI and DOJ are directly connected to the issues therein; there is a clear and concise reason why Flynn was viewed as a risk to the interests of President Obama, Hillary Clinton and State Department Officials.
Lieutenant General Flynn was appointed to head the Defense Intelligence Agency on July 24th, 2012, approximately two months before the attack on the State/CIA compound in Benghazi Libya.
The Benghazi compound itself was controversial as it was part of a joint State Department and CIA mission to try and stop the spread of weapons to radical Islamic elements in the region.  After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi the Libyan weapons depots -as well as U.S. weapons shipped into Libya to assist the “rebels” in Gaddaffi’s ouster- were the immediate problem.
Weapons in 2012 were being redirected to Syria.  An operation to secure those weapons was ongoing in Benghazi (Eastern Libya).
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With the congressional year now effectively over Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy are retired.  With that in mind they submit a joint letter to the DOJ and Senate saying, essentially: ‘wish we could have done more… but, oh well, c-ya‘.
Outta’ there like a couple of fat kids playing dodge-ball.

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McClatchy journalists Peter Stone and Greg Gordon are once again attempting to prop-up the most disproven allegation in the Chris Steele/Nellie Ohr dossier about Michael Cohen making a trip to Prague.  They appear to stir this false story approximately every six months.  [See Here]  This iteration is framed around cell-phone tower pings.
Michael Cohen has denied the claim for years.  Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, has clearly denied the claim.  The special counsel has reviewed and walked-away from the claim.  The Washington Post spent months trying to substantiate the claim, and could find no evidence [See Here].  According to WaPo reporter Greg Miller, the CIA and FBI have refuted the claim.  It simply did not happen.

However, that said, the Cohen mistake within the Dossier continues to point toward how the FISA-702 FBI/NSA database was likely exploited by government intelligence ‘contractors’ to extract political opposition research.  Their FISA(16)(17) “about” queries of the database simply returned a result of the wrong Michael Cohen.
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Arguably the biggest story of 2018 is how much we have learned about institutional political corruption within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  With that level of new knowledge in mind, some earlier stories about the DOJ and FBI take on an entirely different light.
Here’s one from late 2016 – You might not know the name Marc Turi but if you are familiar with the Benghazi Brief, or more specifically with Operation Zero Footprint, you’ll likely know the issues.

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Marc Turi was the guy who constructed the covert weapons shipments into Libya to overthrown Mouamar Gaddaffi (2011) and send weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Government supported by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
During the original phase of the Libyan uprising, early February 2011, the first defector from the official Gaddaffi regime was a foreign justice minister named Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
Jalil became the international face of the anti-Gaddaffi elements within the Libyan government. However, Jalil was an extremist Brotherhood member and somewhat of a patsy. When we were outlining his ideology, and the extremists who were behind him, almost no-one was paying attention.
Following Jalil’s moves was ultimately what enabled CTH to construct the Benghazi Brief so accurately – because during the shell game Mustafa Jalil was the pea.
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Former FBI Director James Comey appeared December 17th, 2018, for a second round of questions by a joint House committee oversight probe into the DOJ and FBI conduct during the 2016 presidential election and incoming Trump administration.
The Joint House Committee just released the transcript (full pdf below):
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This was just released.  Analysis to follow.

House Permanent Sub Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Devin Nunes appears on with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the current state of issues with Michael Flynn.
Chairman Nunes draws attention to the latest documents (released Friday). One of the documents is written by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe who noted that Flynn was aware the FBI had the content of a phone call between himself and Russian Ambassador Kislyak, prior to the FBI interview. Therefore it is highly unlikely Flynn would lie about the content of that Kislyak phone call.

Most people forget the background of how the Mueller probe was constructed. FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI chief legal counsel James Baker selected most of the special counsel investigators; those two then recommended to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein that he hire Robert Mueller as special counsel lead.
Comey was fired. The remaining ‘at-risk’ corrupt FBI leadership (McCabe and Baker), positioning to defend their own interests, selected the “small group”; then Mueller was selected and brought on his additional team members. The entire  purpose of the special counsel operation was to cover-up the DOJ/FBI activity.
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Well, well, well.  This is likely to be quickly brushed under the proverbial rug.  If you have followed the case against SSCI Security Director James Wolfe you will note the original indictment against him outlined, obliquely, how Wolfe took custody of the Carter Page FISA application and then leaked it to his concubine at Buzzfeed Ms. Ali Watkins.
The leak of the FISA application was a rather explosive issue not readily identified when Wolfe’s indictment was first presented (June ’18).  It was only possible to connect the dots after the FISA application was released (July ’18) and a comparison on specific dates, times, contacts and chain-of-custody, was possible.

In response to his indictment, Wolfe’s lawyers said they would force Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) members to participate and testify in any trial.  This was a rather stunning approach.  A few months passed and a plea bargain was struck.  Wolfe would plead guilty only to one count of lying to FBI investigators.  The charges of the leaking “top secret and classified” intelligence were dropped.
Wolfe was not ultimately charged with leaking the FISA application.  We sniffed a quid-pro-quo.  We suspected Wolfe was instructed by at least one senator, likely  SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, to leak the information.  This would explain Wolfe’s extraordinary defense position – and the DOJ response therein.
Think about it.  A gang-of-eight member (Warner), who happened -as a consequence of the jaw dropping implications- to be one of only TWO SSCI members who was notified by the FBI that Wolfe was compromised. The ramifications cannot be overstated.
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The curious case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn gets even more curious as Robert Mueller doesn’t deliver the FBI notes (FD-302) from the January 2017 interview of Flynn, as requested by Judge Emmet Sullivan, and instead submits notes from an internal July 19th, 2017, interview with FBI agent Peter Strzok.
The filing by the special counsel team (full pdf below) is a must read.
The special counsel begins their filing by criticizing the approach taken by the Flynn defense in the defense sentencing memo; and attempts to validate/justify their charges against the accused.   The details in their response to the judge’s request tell quite a story.

The attachments are very interesting.  They begin with notes by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe outlining the contacts with Michael Flynn prior to the FBI interview on January 24, 2017.  McCabe did not inform main justice, Sally Yates, until after FBI agents were dispatched.  The documents reveal Yates was not happy with McCabe’s decision.
FBI agent Peter Strzok and agent Joe Pientka were sent to the White House to interview Flynn only a few minutes after McCabe called Flynn. There was obviously a plan in place.
From the second attachment we discover that agent Strzok did all the questioning and agent Pientka took all the notes (screen-grab below).  Those FD-302 interview notes, written by Pientka on January 24th, 2017, are part of the what Judge Sullivan ordered to be submitted.  However, those notes are not included in the responsive Mueller filing.
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Tick-tock-bombshell club member John Solomon drops an explosive statement on Sean Hannity.  Oddly, there’s a factual part of his statement CTH agrees with; and a structural part of the background that is almost certain never to reach sunlight.  First, the substance:

(Transcript) […] “In May of 2017 there was a document identified to a small number of people in the United States government. It’s in the possession of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  For eighteen months there’s been an effort to resist declassifying that document; I know that that document contains extraordinary exculpatory information about General Flynn. I don’t believe the president has ever been told about the existence of this document.  One lawmaker discovered it, but was thwarted by the Defense Intelligence Agency in his efforts to disclose it. I think we should all ask for that declassification; get that out; it may enlighten the judge; it will certainly enlighten the American public.”

From the time-frame disclosed we can reasonably infer what this document is; at least what background surrounds it.
♦“In May of 2017”… The document is likely part of an intelligence product that was produced for President Obama’s Daily Briefing (PDB), and contains unmasking information (likely done by Susan Rice) on Michael Flynn as a surveillance target.
♦“One Lawmaker discovered it”… You might remember way back in March 2017 when HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes was taken to the White House SCIF by then white house official Ezra Cohen-Watnick; and that began a series of cascading events.
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