Dept of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz publishes a report critical of how the FBI evaluates their Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) [Full pdf below]. This is the phase-1 OIG report the “Trust the Plan” crowd said was going to be explosive. It ain’t.
As an outcome of the ridiculous wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the DOJ provides the internal Office of Professional Responsibility report as part of their responsive filing.
The OPR report is the culmination of a two-month long internal investigation conducted in 2018. The OPR report contains several embarrassing details, including new text messages, about Peter Strzok during his FBI employment. The report is only public because it is part of a filing connected to his public lawsuit.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Here’s the report:
[scribd id=435752237 key=key-XgzGu1GsbpQb1PiB5BEl mode=scroll]
After Strzok was suspended and removed from his position, FBI Agent David Archey assumed the lead role in the Mueller investigation, August 2018.
The House and Senate are doing what the deep state does so well. Buried in the final pages of a short term Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund government, the controversial bulk metadata (Call Detail Records) within the FISA program, due to expire on December 15th, is being extended to March 15th, 2020.
As we suspected the intelligence community -and most of congress- wants the reauthorization, even if temporary, prior to the release of a critical IG report on FISA abuse. That said, a short term extension is the best case scenario when we consider the goal of the intelligence apparatus -writ large- was a permanent reauthorization.
The “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], parts of the Patriot Act, are going to be revisited *AFTER* the report by IG Horowitz. The new deadline for terminal expiration will be March 15th, 2020.
FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA database being exploited for unauthorized reasons. The sketchy programs, and abuse therein, needs more public attention.
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There is a lot of rapid information about events worth putting into a calendar context to see the democrat mapping. David Holmes has just been added to Thursday’s public impeachment testimony (Nov 21st); he will join Fiona Hill. In essence this rapid addition highlights Schiff on a tight schedule, and his portion ends November 21st, this week.
Additionally today, as expected, it is now reported that Pelosi will take up a short-term continuing resolution (CR) tomorrow to fund government; that will push govt funding to December 20th aligning with the mid-December budget vote plans: Impeach, USMCA and budget). This intentionally designed delay aligns with Pelosi and House counsel Doug Letter requesting a delay in SCOTUS review of arguments for Trump Taxes. Everything gets punted to after Thanksgiving; then mid-December they will flood the zone.
However, outside of the House control, Lindsey Graham has announced Dec 11th as the date for Horowitz to testify, which makes the likely FISA report on/around Dec. 2nd.
It’s worth putting it all into a calendar to see how the end of the year is shaping up.
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has announced that Inspector General Michael Horowitz will testify About the 500+ page FISA report on Wednesday December 11th, 2019.
WASHINGTON – Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today announced that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will testify before the Committee on Wednesday, December 11, 2019.
The Inspector General will discuss the findings of his investigation into DOJ and FBI’s conduct during the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant process as it relates to the 2016 presidential election. (link)
Considering the end of the principal review phase on Friday November 22nd; and considering the Thanksgiving holiday of November 28th; this likely puts the publication date for the report on/around Monday December 2nd, with testimony the following week.
It is possible the FISA report release, and the 12/11 Horowitz senate testimony will come at the same time the House of Representatives moves the impeachment inquiry into the House Judiciary Committee. According to the Pelosi calendar the last day for the House of Representative is Thursday December 12th.
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As a reminder John Ratcliffe is one of only four members of congress who has reviewed all of the classified documents that surrounds the current background for the Inspector General report on FISA abuse. That said, the quoted comment from Ratcliffe, while it will be overlooked by most, is the first visible sign reconciling a fundamental challenge previously highlighted.
In the 2018 IG report on FBI conduct in the 2016 election, the IG stated there was no evidence of any FBI activity being taken for political intents. Yes, there was a tremendous amount of politically motivated evidence noted within the report; but the top-line statement by Horowitz was counter to the underlying evidence.
A year ago that led us to ask: how could the IG outline political motives in the FISA investigation, if he previously stated there was no politically motivated action by the FBI?
The statement today by Rep. John Ratcliffe seems to speak to this issue. The implication within the words is that the evidence is so overwhelming the IG has few options.
Representative Doug Collins appears with Maria Bartiromo and points out a position on FISA reauthorization that is hopefully carried by the majority of Republicans. Collins states an approach where he, perhaps others, would advance a “short-term” FISA extension pending a full review of the upcoming FISA report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, prior to any longer term reauthorization.
FISA-702 authority, bulk U.S. person metadata collection, storage and surveillance, is set to terminally expire December 15th. The last FISC report from Judge Boasberg stated that all violations of FISA law are still ongoing and there have been no substantive corrections by the intelligence community to fix the abuse issues. The Judge Boasberg report was written in September of 2018 but not released (redacted) until last month. {Go Deep}
The Intelligence Community (writ large), the FBI and the DOJ are all seeking a permanent reauthorization. In my humble opinion this FISA reauthorization is the cornerstone motive for an IG report delay. There is an alignment of interests.
The usurping group of FBI and DOJ officials we have called “the small group” have an established set of media operatives and outlets aligned to assist their narrative. Tonight Devlin Barrett (Lisa Page and Peter Strzok’s favorite narrative engineer) publishes a report in the Washington Post highlighting their concerns.
According to the WaPo Inspector General Michael Horowitz is not allowing the ‘small group’ to provide written rebuttals to the IG report on FISA abuse during their principal reviews. The outline by Devlin on behalf of the group also confirms our timeline.
As is the case in most inspector general probes, witnesses are being invited to review draft sections of the report and offer comments and corrections, the people said. But — unlike most cases — they are being told those comments must be conveyed only verbally, the people said.
During the impeachment hearing today State Department officials George Kent and Bill Taylor both stated they never heard of any claims of Ukrainian political interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Additionally, both claimed to have no knowledge of any U.S. investigation that might overlap with Ukraine.
When pressed with specifically cited reports about DNC operatives engaging with Ukraine government officials to gather opposition research against candidate Donald Trump, both Mr. Kent and Ambassador Taylor denied any knowledge of the outlined reporting.
However, what everyone in the media –and on Capitol Hill– seems to forget is a letter in July, 2017 [LINK HERE], written by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley to Dept. of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, specifically outlining 2016 election interference by Ukrainian government officials; and specifically asking for an U.S. DOJ investigation therein:
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The Washington Post jumps-in to the Horowitz ‘principal review’ timeline adding that some of the opportunities for witnesses to review the final draft report are “still being negotiated”, likely by the attorney’s for the principals.
Take all reporting on this two-week review phase with a grain of salt. Despite the NDA’s there will be a rush to control the narrative. “People familiar with the matter” will start popping up in the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Buzzfeed and CNN.
There is likely to be a flood of spin from the PR teams behind each principal outlined in the report. Lawyers for James Comey and Andrew McCabe will be using every angle of Lawfare imaginable to attempt to shape their clients image within the report.
Lawyers, Lawfare legal teams, and DC-based PR consultants for Sally Yates, John Carlin, Mary McCord, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Hillary Clinton, James Baker, Michael Kortan, Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Chris Steele, Glen Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, John Brennan, James Clapper and many more will all be working at courtroom rates to control any report damage for their clients.
The Obama administration will be working in the background, while Fusion-GPS takes in fees and pays their primary journalists and narrative engineers premium rates for column inches that protect their client interests. This is one big confab of interests all positioning to control any negative impressions and highlight their magnanimous patriotic activity.
Watch and we will see full deployment of the justification defense and “outrage trap“. After all, according to their predictable defenses, there was evidence, even if slight, that President Trump was a Russian asset belonging to Vladimir Putin…. it had to be taken seriously, etc. Even the Republicans in congress were alarmed.
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