The epicenter of the deepest defensive mechanism of the Deep State is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  The SSCI is the bunker, the intelligence manipulation operations headquarters. The SSCI is where the political nuclear weapons (black files and IC gathered political surveillance research) are housed.  As a direct consequence the SSCI is the most corrupt and manipulative committee in all of congress.
President Trump has withdrawn the nomination of John Ratcliffe because both wings of the most corrupt deep state apparatus had formed a hardened defense in the SSCI:

Let me be perfectly clear.  The issue is the SSCI.
The weaponized issues of corrupt DC endeavors are always associated with the SSCI.   It is also not coincidental that ODNI Dan Coats was Senator Dan Coats…. and where was his tenured membership prior to becoming Director of National Intelligence?   Yup, the SSCI.
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The interesting aspect here is to remind ourselves that James Comey is currently in the “Principal Review Phase” of a pending IG report that is specific to his conduct.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz has written a report of Comey’s conduct. Part of that process included a criminal referral to US Attorney John Huber, and a prosecution declination. James Comey has obviously reviewed the IG report (an NDA restricts his ability to talk specifically about it); and we are awaiting publication of the final report.

(Tweet Link)

It sounds like former FBI Director James Comey has concluded his response to the Inspector General’s report.  Which means the IG report is soon to be released.

Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  As President Trump departs the White House traveling to Cincinnati, Ohio, for a MAGA rally, the high energy POTUS stops to answer questions from the press pool.  [Video Below – Transcript ADDED]

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[Transcript]  THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Mr. President, why the tariffs against China now? And are you concerned about the nosedive the Dow took today as a result?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not concerned about that at all. I expected that a little bit because people don’t understand quite yet about what’s happened.
We’ve taxed China on 300 billion dollars’ worth of goods and products being sold into our country. And China eats it because they have to pay it. Because what they do is they devalue their currency and they push money out.
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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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To say there is broad-based confusion is an understatement.  The recent reporting by John Solomon of The Hill only makes the confusion worse.  Let’s stand back and reconcile two issues (with evidence to support) that are MASSIVELY conflated.

First, go read the full Solomon article.  Notice the entire construct of the article surrounds “The Comey Memos“.  As you will see, this specific topic is important.  Within the Solomon article you will find (emphasis mine):

[…] Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s team referred Comey for possible prosecution under the classified information protection laws, but Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors working for Attorney General William Barr reportedly have decided to decline prosecution — a decision that’s likely to upset Comey’s conservative critics.
Prosecutors found the IG’s findings compelling but decided not to bring charges because they did not believe they had enough evidence of Comey’s intent to violate the law, according to multiple sources.

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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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Tonight CNN is the broadcast host for the second night of Democrat presidential primary debates in Detroit Michigan.  After a live lotto-draw, the line-up was announced for only the 20 presidential candidates who the DNC qualified the second set of debates.
[Former Senator Mike Gravel, Mayor Wayne Messam, former Representative Joe Sestak and billionaire Tom Steyer did not qualify for the second round of debates. Sad.]

Tonight puts all of the peoples’ of color candidates together.  In a luck-o’-the draw, ‘spank me’ Harris is in position to finish off ‘creepy’ Joe Biden.  Consequently, most of the pressure is upon Creepy to have a good debate and stop the downward spiral of support losses to Spank Me and How.
However, that possible conflict opens the door for fellow New Yorkers Gillibrand and Booker to play the creed-card, mounting racist attacks with opening statements in Spanglish while comrade De Blasio attempts to gain traction.
CNN holds exclusive broadcast rights to the debate. Consider this an open discussion thread for anyone watching…
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Tonight and tomorrow CNN is the broadcast host for two nights of Democrat presidential primary debates in Detroit Michigan.  After a live lotto-draw, the line-up was announced for only the 20 presidential candidates who the DNC qualified the second set of debates.
[Former Senator Mike Gravel, Mayor Wayne Messam, former Representative Joe Sestak and billionaire Tom Steyer did not qualify for the second round of debates. Sad.]

Tonight is the all white line-up: the Thriller in Vanilla; and will put Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the stage along with Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke.  It will be interesting watch how the communist and socialist differentiate themselves, the crowd is expecting a free stuff frenzy.
Meanwhile Beto needs to take a bite out of Buttigieg to survive to the next round.  Mayor Pete has been stealing all of self-flagellating Beto’s support; and the cashmere might start flying if the limo-liberals enter a demolition derby.
CNN holds exclusive broadcast rights to the debate. Consider this an open discussion thread for anyone watching…
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier today President Trump held an impromptu press conference as he departed the White House for an event in Virginia.
[Video below – Transcript ADDED]

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[Transcript] – 9:12 A.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT: So I just want to tell you the economy is doing fantastically well. We have people over in China right now. We’re negotiating with China. We’ll see what happens. We’re either going to make a great deal or we’re not going to make a deal at all. But a lot of great things are happening, and including with China.
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Jumpin’ ju-ju bones, there’s big news in here.  Actual Bombshells! For real Tick Tocks and much much more….

Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker appeared on Fox News to discuss the replacement of Dan Coats with John Ratcliffe as head of the ODNI, and the current status of AG Bill Barr’s ongoing reviews into prior DOJ and FBI (mis)conduct.
Whitaker posits the placement of Ratcliffe as looking at the aggregate intelligence apparatus and seeing if there “are systemic issues and failures for how the investigations were kicked-off”; and the engagements with other countries (FBI and CIA).
Additionally Whitaker summarizes U.S. Attorney John Durham as focused on the origin of the intelligence operation against candidate Trump and “prosecuting anyone that needs to be prosecuted“.  [By the way, that seems to confirm Durham as an official “investigation”, not a “review”.]
Then comes the BOMBSHELL…. (@01:26 below) while seemingly not realizing what he just said, Whitaker outlines U.S. Attorney John Huber as reviewing “anything related to Comey’s memos and the like.”  Boom… There it is.
THAT finally explains why the DOJ is fighting the release of the David Archey declarations in the FOIA lawsuit by CNN.  [Listen carefully at 01:26 of the interview]

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Until that obscure comment, likely a slip that not many would catch, there has been no valid explanation by the DOJ about any investigation of the Comey memos, which would also encompass the “Archey Declarations”.
If U.S. Attorney John Huber is indeed looking at those Comey memos, that would explain why the DOJ is fighting the release of the Archey Declarations in the DC Circuit Court with Judge James E Boasberg.  Now it makes sense.  That little obscure comment by Whitaker is a big effen’ deal.
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