Whooo doggies, Maria Bartiromo outdid herself this morning with an interview segment just packed with information, insight and discussion into the DOJ and FBI corruption and DNI Ratcliffe’s nomination. (h/t Michael Sheridan)  This is a MUST WATCH:
After the first segment on the El Paso and Dayton shootings, Ms. Bartiromo segued into a discussion of George Papadopoulos and the secret informant transcripts; from recordings that were part of the FBI sting operation using U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper; and are now being held in evidence by U.S. Attorney John Durham and Inspector General Michael Horowitz. [Background] Keep in mind Gowdy has seen these transcripts.
According to Bartiromo those transcripts include FBI wire-taps of Halper attempting to get Papadopulos to accept assistance from Russia (delivering Clinton emails), and George Papadopoulos absolutely refusing to accept any engagement therein.  Confirming that outline, Gowdy notes there are more recordings (and transcripts) of a similar nature, where the FBI was attempting to bait other Trump campaign officials.
Additionally, Bartiromo confirms that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to meet with DNI nominee John Ratcliffe after his nomination; and exactly as we suspected it was the lack of support from the SSCI and McConnell that led to his nomination withdrawal. Stunning interview.

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The DOJ has filed a response motion requesting a reversal of a prior court order that would have forced unredacted release of the “David Archey Delcarations“; detailed descriptions of the James Comey memos.  [Detailed Backstory]
In their latest filing (full pdf below) the DOJ and FBI are falling back on the familiar “sources and methods” justification to block DC Circuit Court Judge Boasberg’s earlier ruling.
[Backstory for those unfamilar] In the background of what was The Mueller Investigation, there was a FOIA case where the FBI was fighting to stop the release of the Comey memos.  Within that courtroom fight Mueller’s lead FBI agent David Archey wrote a series of declarations to the court describing the content of the memos and arguing why they should be kept classified.
The FOIA fight shifted; and the plaintiff, CNN, argued for public release of the content of the FBI agent’s descriptions, now known as the “Archey Declarations”.
After a lengthy back-and-forth legal contest, on June 7th Judge James E Boasberg agreed to allow the FBI to keep the Comey memo content hidden, but instructed the DOJ/FBI to release the content of the Archey Declarations.  The DOJ is seeking to reverse that order.
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Now that we know the Department of Justice Inspector General is about to release a report on former FBI Director James Comey; and now that we know the OIG Principal Review Phase was already initiated; we can start to monitor the IG Website for the release.

NOTE: This is NOT the IG report on DOJ and FBI conduct about IG FISA abuses. This is a carve-out report, specific to James Comey and his leaked memos.

It appears the pending IG report will cover the conduct of James Comey and how he handled a series of memos he produced; contemporaneous accounts written by Comey covering events he documented outside of normal FBI protocol.

As part of the process, the inspector general report has been given to James Comey in advance.  According to John Solomon reporting, Comey lawyers Patrick Fitzgerald and Daniel Richman, along with spokesperson Keith Urbahn are all participating in his review of the report content.  This is called the “Principal Review Phase”.
In the example of the 2018 IG report on Andrew McCabe, the OIG gave McCabe’s team a week during the principal review phase, and then published the report two days after the responses were submitted. [McCabe Report Reviewed] We don’t know how long James Comey has had the report, but my hunch is several days.
If the IG sticks to the same general feedback timeline as the McCabe report, we could see a final IG report very soon; perhaps even as early as tomorrow (Friday August 2nd); which would line-up with the DOJ request for additional time in the Comey Memo/Archey Declaration FOIA case in the DC Circuit (Judge James Boasberg) also due Aug 2nd, and possibly delayed due to the background of the Comey IG report being released.
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A recent FOIA release from Judicial Watch (full pdf below) reveals that two of Mueller’s initial FBI agents, based on dates and redactions – likely Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, visited James Comey on June 7th, 2017, to retrieve a collection of his memos.
[However, a word of caution, one of the memos was titled “last night at 6:30pm” and is being widely misinterpreted to have been written the night before (June 6th, 2017) when that is not accurate.  It is likely that memo relates to the January dinner in the White House with President Trump that held the same sentence.]

(pdf here)

If we ignore the misinterpreted “last night” memo aspect (dinner with potus in January ’17), here’s what we can learn from this FOIA release:
♦First, the memos were picked up while FBI agent’s Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka were lead FBI agents that transferred into the Mueller team.  Therefore it’s likely they were the two who traveled to Comey’s house for this June 7th effort.
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On the positive side George Papadopoulos appears to have a solid understanding of the motive behind the $10,000 given to him by intelligence asset Charles Tawil in Israel. Mr. Papadopoulos correctly identifies the purpose of the $10k as a FARA set-up designed by the DOJ-NSD ‘small group’ which evolved into the special counsel team.
h/t Michael Sheridan for the video segment.

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#1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges.
[A “laundering” charge applies if the money is illegally obtained. The FARA violation would be the *illegal* aspect making the treasury charges heavier. Note: the use of the airport baggage-check avoids the need for a search warrant (the agents didn’t have one).]
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This was rumored earlier today [New York Times] and [Axios]. Now Confirmed.
President Trump has announced via Twitter that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is departing. He will be leaving office on August 15th, 2019.  President Trump has announced the nomination of Representative John Ratcliffe to be the next head of the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

Representative John Ratcliffe is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee.  Ratcliffe is one of only a few people who has seen all of the unredacted DOJ and FBI evidence within the documents congress has previously asked the President to declassify.
Representative John Ratcliffe currently holds a top-level security clearance.  John Ratcliffe is very even tempered albeit direct by natural disposition.
Ratcliffe’s nomination, and confirmation should be unremarkable.
However, due to the information that Ratcliffe already holds about the overall intelligence community operation in 2015 through 2019, we can expect the deepest part of the Deep State to immediately begin a process to impede any confirmation effort.   Ratcliffe is a risk, and he will likely be controversialized in a political effort to block his nomination.
Earlier today Ratcliffe spoke to Maria Bartiromo about ongoing concerns around the DOJ, CIA, and FBI operations in 2016:
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Maria Bartiromo is one of a very few mainstream journalists with knowledge of the deepest weeds of ‘spygate’ and the multiple intelligence operations to manipulate the 2016 election against candidate Trump, and then run operations to remove President Trump.
In an extensive interview with HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes, Maria Bartiromo asks the ultimate question: “who was the mastermind” behind all of these intelligence operations?

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Released FOIA documents into the special counsel team of Robert Mueller revealed the  remarkable trail of the 2017 entrapment scheme conducted by prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to target George Papadopoulos.
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On May 23rd, 2019, President Donald Trump gave U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr full authority to review and release all of the classified material hidden by the DOJ and FBI.

Sixty-five days ago….

It has been 65 days since President Trump empowered AG Bill Barr to release the original authorizing scope of the Mueller investigation on May 17, 2017. A Mueller investigation now being debated and testified to in congress, and yet we are not allowed to know what the authorizing scope was…. Nor the 2nd DOJ scope memo of August 2nd, 2017… Nor the 3rd DOJ scope memo of October 20th, 2017.

…Every minute spent outraged at what Muller did yesterday, is one minute less that Bill Barr is being held accountable for what he is not doing today…

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Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins and Intel Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes appear on Fox News to discuss their perspective on Robert Mueller, the issues revealed by the testimony, and the behind-the-schemes maneuvers of the democrats on both committees.  It’s an interesting dual-interview.

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In our opinion the content of the diary by former FBI Director James Comey, as outlined in what has formally been called “The Comey Memos”, is devastating to the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI.   How do we know? Because the FBI is fighting like hell to keep even descriptions of the memo(s) content from becoming public.
Here’s something you don’t see CTH say every day…. We’re on the side of CNN !

Rather complex backstory with citations HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

In the background of what was The Mueller Investigation, there was a FOIA case where the FBI was fighting to stop the release of the Comey memos.
Within that courtroom fight Mueller’s lead FBI agent David Archey wrote a series of declarations to the court describing the content of the memos and arguing why they should be kept classified.
The FOIA fight shifted.
The plaintiff, CNN, argued for public release of the content of the FBI agent’s descriptions, now known as the “Archey Declarations”.
Hat Tip Techno Fog for the latest court filing update.  As you can see from the filing graphic, the DOJ is requesting more time to file a response to a motion that would force them to release the “Archey Declarations” [detailed explanations of what’s inside the Comey Memos].
After a lengthy back-and-forth legal contest, on June 7th Judge James E Boasberg agreed to allow the FBI to keep the Comey memo content hidden, but instructed the DOJ/FBI to release the content of the Archey Declarations.
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