Former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, says any investigation of prior administration “will find nothing” that shows former President Obama or White House staff had any “involvement” in the origins of the surveillance of Trump campaign and Russia collusion investigation.

Prior to March 9th, 2016, the Obama-era political surveillance and spy operations consisted of using the FBI and NSA database to track/monitor their opposition. However, once the NSA compliance officer began initiating an internal review of who was accessing the system, the CIA and FBI moved to create ex post facto justification for their endeavors. [Full Backstory] Everything after March 9, 2016, became a cover-story.
Looking at White House engagement in the last half of 2016, The War Economy has done some excellent research on this period to contrast the reference of Ben Rhodes:

[Via TWE] […] On July 31, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ran by Director James Comey, opened an investigation into the Trump campaign titled “Crossfire Hurricane”, named after the Rolling Stones documentary of the same name. It focused on the actions of four members of the Trump campaign:

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has written his resignation letter to President Trump (link to pdf).  His resignation is effective May 11th, 2019:

(pdf link)

With the background of Sally Yates involvement outlined, it does not seem coincidental that immediately after President Trump begins discussing the “coup” and “overthrow”  former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates surfaces.
Smug Ms. Yates is interviewed by Hillary Clinton’s primary media mouthpiece, Mrs. Alan Greenspan. This is eight minutes of deliciously paranoid projection and ass-covering; and Little Ms. Sanctimony fears the music stopping without access to an escape pod…

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Obvious political games are afoot when House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler is more interested in the testimony of Attorney General Bill Barr about the Mueller report, while simultaneously ignoring author of the report, Robert Mueller, himself.

Additionally, House and Senate Democrats are refusing to read the classified and fully unredacted Mueller report unless it is made public.  This is all part of their ridiculous games.

(Via CNN) […] Nadler, wants to allow all members of his panel at Thursday’s hearing to have one round of questioning of five minutes each, according to the source. He also wants to allow for a subsequent round of questioning of 30 minutes for each side, allowing both parties’ committee counsels to also engage in questioning during their respective turns — which has turned into a key sticking point for the Justice Department.

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The rather alarming aspect here is the multiple layers of editorial review and approval this had to pass through.  This is not simply an example of bad judgement, this is a clear reflection of the ideology within the publication.  Not a single person involved in the process saw a problem with it, until after it was published.  Quite remarkable.

From the international edition of the New York Times: A blind kippah-wearing President Donald Trump being led around -or leading- a dog depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (enlarged below)
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The 2016 anti-Trump effort and 2017 soft-coup was not just an assembly created by Obama officials; there was/are a significant number of mutually aligned republican politicians willfully blind to the effort.
As a consequence, we see the administrative state holding a vested interest in retaining the originating Russia premise.
With President Trump openly stating “coup” and “overthrow“, those who participated in the coup and overthrow need to protect their involvement by substantiating the background lie they used to carry out the cover-up operation.  We note the media outlets used by the intelligence community never change. Cue the predictable:

New York Times – The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a “significant counterintelligence threat.”
[…]  “We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said Friday in a speech in Washington, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin’s record of malign influence operations.

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Can’t make this stuff up folks…. as if on cue.
Vice President Mike Pence responds to Senator Grassley and Senator Johnson’s speculation that FBI agents wanted to use Pence’s chief of staff to infiltrate President-elect Trump’s transition team in 2016:

“I was deeply offended to learn that two disgraced FBI agents considered infiltrating our transition team by sending a counter intelligence agent to one of my very first intelligence briefings only 9 days after the election,” Pence said in a statement to Axios. “This is an outrage and only underscores why we need to get to the bottom of how this investigation started in the first place.”
“The American people have a right to what happened and if these two agents broke the law and ignored long-standing DOJ policies, they must be held accountable.” (more)

Next up: Deep State (IC) deploys Washington Post and New York Times remind everyone how intense the 2016 Russian election interference was…. In 3, 2, 1..

Yesterday Senators Johnson and Grassley opened the door for the DOJ and FBI to justify the post-election investigation of President Donald Trump, based on a premise of a possible FBI counterintelligence operation ran against the office of the Vice-President, Mike Pence. And lickety-split the outrage voices jumped right to work. Predictable.

Discussions, conversations and displays of evidence outlining the efforts of the intelligence community, to defend against the potential of a compromised President, are exactly what the previous administration officials want to see.  This is the conversation President Obama, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes and Denis McDonough would be happy to discuss.
Think of the worst or most shocking possibility you can imagine for what might have taken place.  Wiretaps on the White House? Enlisted assistance from staffers? Bugs placed in the cufflinks of Donald Trump?  So what?  From their position all of these efforts were undertaken because they were dealing with the possibility of a U.S. President who might be under the control of a foreign government.  This is the conversation they would enjoy.
From their ‘by-the-book‘ perspective the officials who ran the counterintelligence operation against President Trump have no fear of discussions about what they did in their post-election defense of the constitution (that’s how they will sell it). No fear.
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President Trump gave an extensive interview to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday evening.  The President made several stunning comments about the Mueller investigation, previous wiretaps, the upcoming inspector general report, the deep state, and his firm plans to declassify a significant amount of background documents.
For the first time President Trump used the terms “attempted coup” and “overthrow” to discuss the coordinated effort against his administration by the previous administration including James Clapper (ODNI), John Brennan (CIA), James Comey (FBI), and lower level officials within the intelligence apparatus.

Background Reports referenced by Hannity:

• Ukraine Report from John Solomon 
• Catherine Herridge Story – Grassley/Johnson Letter
• Sara Carter Column. Pence Chief-of-staff/Strzok Staffer

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CTH suspected this was sketchy when notorious Swamp Defender Chris Wallace was used as the point person to push it. FUBAR suspicions confirmed when looking at the construct.
Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson send a letter to AG William Barr questioning post election text messages by Lisa Page and Peter Strzok that outline questions about the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump transition team. First the letter:
[scribd id=407638522 key=key-P6WGecNAMQ7aMu9ud4L6 mode=scroll]
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If you’ve followed the DC pattern, you can pick up the purpose of sending a letter that walks directly, and purposefully, into the President Obama and Susan Rice justification trap, CTH warned about a few months ago.
Asking questions about the motives of Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and the FBI counterintelligence unit in the post election period is ridiculous; all it does is open the door for justification. The FBI has admitted on-the-record the operation picked up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was an extension of an ongoing FBI investigation.
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