Special Counsel Robert Mueller has released the sentencing memo for Paul Manafort (full pdf below).  Opposition to President Trump had hoped the memo would outline nuggets of investigative material that would indicate risk to President Trump. However, the Manafort sentencing memo provides no additional insight beyond what was already known.

WASHINGTON – As part of his plea deal in September, Manafort, 69, acknowledged he was guilty of everything he was accused of both in Washington and Virginia: making millions as an unregistered lobbyist for Ukrainian politicians, hiding that money to avoid paying taxes, defrauding banks to pay his debts when his oligarch patrons fell out of power, and lying to cover up his crimes while trying to persuade witnesses to do the same. (link)

Under his prior plea agreement in Washington, prosecutors had agreed to ask Judge Amy Berman Jackson to give Manafort credit at sentencing for cooperation. But because she found he lied to investigators and breached that agreement, the prosecution is no longer bound by the plea.
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There have been a great many questions surrounding the activity that took place in 2017 after President Trump took office and how politicians and officials coordinated an apparent ‘soft coup’ attempt to remove President Trump.
Questions around DAG Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, James Comey and the larger intelligence community (to include the Gang-of-Eight) surrounding the Trump administration. Many of those questions can be reconciled with a review of the predicate.
There are five phases in the evolution of ‘Spygate’ into the ‘Soft Coup’; to reconcile the latter, which extends to today, a full review provides the clarity.

♦ Phase One – December 2015 through April 2016:  The first phase leading into ‘Spygate’ is the period of time where opposition research of the republican candidate field was taking place.  It is in this period where Fusion-GPS hired CIA Open Source researcher Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ-NSD official Bruce Ohr, to do research.
In the background of this time period the FBI and NSA database was being exploited by unknown FBI contractors; it is highly suspected that Nellie Ohr and/or Fusion-GPS was one of those contracted agencies with access to the massive electronic and metadata files.
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The most likely sequencing of the Democrat scheme has always looked to be: (1) Michael Cohen testimony; then (2) The Mueller report.

Cohen is scheduled to testify to Elijah Cummings House oversight committee Wednesday February 27th (10:00am) next week.  Today, predictably, the DOJ announces the Robert Mueller report will be *after* that testimony:

WASHINGTON DC – Special counsel Robert Mueller will not deliver his report to the Justice Department on Friday or next week, a Justice Department official told The Hill.
The news comes amid broad speculation that Mueller’s probe into Russia’s electoral interference is wrapping up, with several news outlets reporting Wednesday that newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr was preparing to receive Mueller’s final report as soon as next week. (read more)

Meanwhile, also anticipated, with Attorney General William Barr in place to receive and statutorily summarize the report from Robert Mueller, House democrats start posturing to impede AG Barr’s influence within the final report construct.
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There is a unified plan amid the resistance movement to use the impeachment process for political gain. Part of that plan includes the exploitation of testimony from Michael Cohen to facilitate their designed sequencing of events.  Robert Mueller is scheduled to deliver his final report on the Trump-Russia probe sometime in the next week.  And now:

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was granted a few more weeks of freedom Wednesday after his lawyers said he’s still recovering from surgery and hasn’t had time to get his affairs in order because he’s preparing to testify before Congress.

U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III approved delaying the start of Cohen’s three-year sentence until May 6. Cohen’s lawyer said he was undergoing intensive post-surgery physical therapy and spending substantial time getting ready for testimony his attorneys say he will deliver to three congressional committees this month.

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A John Solomon article today points out the circumstances of Fusion-GPS contractor Nellie Ohr delivering a memory stick to her DOJ husband Bruce Ohr, who then turned around and gave it to the FBI team.  The memory stick contained Nellie’s Trump-Russia research files.
As Solomon writes: “The way Ohr described it, his wife’s research was like an additional dossier assembled from Fusion GPS research to augment what Steele was separately providing the FBI.”  However, Solomon stops short of explaining the full story.

Since 2017 CTH research has outlined that Christopher Steele was never the factual source of all the material inside the Clinton financed dossier.  Instead all indications of the granular details point toward Christopher Steele as the laundry process where Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson’s collaborative work was formatted into an intelligence product known as the “Steele Dossier”.
Our research of central dossier claims, suppositions, accuracy and inaccuracy, points toward a process where Nellie Ohr provided Chris Steele with her research material and then Chris Steele was tasked with verifying, finding second sourcing, and formatting the final product into a series of intelligence documents that could be passed back to the FBI.
In essence, Nellie has always been the material dossier author.
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Sidney Powell is one of a very few people who tenaciously keep reminding media pundits about the origin of the political surveillance efforts in the 2016 election: the FBI and NSA FISA-702(16)(17) abuse scandal.
In this report broadcast by Sharyl Attkisson and Full Measure News, Ms. Powell reminds everyone of the 2017 published FISA court review by Judge Rosemary Collyer that lies at the origin of the political surveillance deployed by hidden FBI contractors.

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The suspicion has always been that Fusion-GPS was one of the FBI contractors with access to the FBI/NSA database; and was using their access to conduct political opposition research.  According to the Collyer report 85 percent of all database searches were unlawfully carried out by FBI contractors.  There were thousands of searches in 2015 and 2016 during the presidential election campaign season until NSA Director Mike Rogers ordered an audit and eventually halted contractor access.
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This is one of those rare interviews where granular substance surfaces.  On a particular issue Trey Gowdy is a valuable SME.  Gowdy has seen all of the classified documentary evidence that surrounds the July 31, 2016, FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign to include Crossfire Hurricane FISA documents, and issues related to “spygate”.  Gowdy was one of the few who reviewed all source documents.
In this interview Gowdy draws a distinction between 2016 CH (spygate) and what Andrew McCabe is discussing; highlighting how the investigative issues McCabe continues to talk about are the two additional FBI investigations, one counterintelligence and one criminal, McCabe started on May 10th, 2017. WATCH:

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For sake of brevity there are essentially three investigations: ♦One counterintelligence investigation known as Crossfire Hurricane, began on July 31, 2016, into the Trump campaign and possible Russia involvement.  ♦One counterintelligence investigation that McCabe started on May 10th, 2017, (Trump as the target w/Russia); and ♦one criminal investigation (Trump obstruction) that also began on May 10th, 2017.
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On the surface it would appear the Mueller probe has reached its final stages.  Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was scheduled to exit the DOJ simultaneous to his partner, Robert Mueller, concluding his special counsel investigation.
[Via The White House] February 19, 2019 – President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration Post.
Today, President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to nominate the following individual to a key position in his Administration:

Jeffrey A. Rosen of Virginia, to be the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice.
Mr. Rosen currently serves as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Previously, Mr. Rosen was a senior partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. During his nearly 30 years at that firm, he held positions of Associate, Partner, Co-Head of the Washington, D.C., office, and member of Kirkland’s Global Executive Management Committee.

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January 5th, 2017, an Oval Office meeting with President Obama, VP Joe Biden, James Comey (FBI), Michael Rogers (NSA), John Brennan (CIA), James Clapper (ODNI), Sally Yates (DOJ) and Susan Rice.   At the conclusion of the briefing, President Obama asks Sally Yates and James Comey to remain.  Together with Susan Rice, this is where the “by the book” comment comes into play. As recounted by Rice:

“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”

Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is now highlighting how the FBI conducted a criminal and counterintelligence operation under the auspices that President Trump was possibly an agent of a foreign government.  Let’s look at the big picture…
FBI Director James Comey told congress (March 20th, 2017) the reason the intelligence community did not disclose their counterintelligence operation against candidate, president-elect and President Trump was “because of the sensitivity of the matter.”  As such the required congressional oversight notifications were bypassed.
We learn in hindsight the Trump Transition team was under electronic surveillance.  This surveillance also included the capture of all of their transition email accounts, the content was later given -without prior approval- to Robert Mueller by the GAO.  This is not disputed.
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The best thing for an examination of the 2016/2017 seditious effort is for former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to keep talking.
In this NBC interview McCabe attempts to cleverly obfuscate the original July 31, 2016, FBI counterintelligence investigation (Crossfire Hurricane/”Spygate”) with the second investigation he launched on May 10th, 2017.

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Worth noting is McCabe talks about briefing the IC congressional oversight group known as the ‘Gang of Eight’ in May 2017. [Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Richard Burr and Mark Warner]
Here is where the actions of Paul Ryan and Adam Schiff to remove Devin Nunes from active engagement with the Russia probe in March 2017 comes into play.
Remember during the 2016 election Harry Reid was Senate Minority Leader and Gang of eight member. Also, Dianne Feinstein was vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee and was part of the gang-of-eight; however after the 2016 election Feinstein abdicated her position and Harry Reid retired. In 2017 Harry Reid was replaced by Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein was replaced by Mark Warner.
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