Another unsourced leak of a congressional hearing transcript to The Epoch Times highlights the testimony of former FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.
Unfortunately, the transcript is not provided, and there is no explanation as to why the transcript is not provided; however, one quote seems interesting.
The question surrounds why congressional leadership, including the Gang-of-Eight, were not briefed about the opening of a counterintelligence operation into a presidential campaign.  The investigation began on July 31st, 2016. Congress was not notified until early March 2017.

Rep. Jordan: I guess what I’m asking, Mr. Priestap, is who made the decision not to brief Congress in this particular instance?
Mr. Priestap: Mr. Comey.

This answer seems to be directly contradicting the March 20, 2017, testimony of FBI Director James Comey. Watch that first 3:00 minutes, ending with: ”because of the sensitivity of the matter.”

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So in open testimony Comey said congress was not notified upon the advice of the Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.  However, in closed testimony Bill Priestap says congress was not notified because of a decision by FBI Director James Comey.
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The sound of sad trombones echos through the halls of media networks today as a year of speculation, surrounding contacts between Don Trump Jr. and ‘blocked phone records’ before and after the oft-emphasized Trump Tower meeting, ends with congress identifying two long-time Trump friends and a major nothing-burger.
Three phone calls by Donald Trump Jr. to blocked numbers in June 2016 fueled rampant media speculation that DJT-Jr. was coordinating with his father, Candidate Trump, over the substance of the Trump Tower meeting, before and after it took place.
SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff both sold a suspicion narrative that candidate Donald Trump and Trump-Jr. were organizing, coordinating and colluding with “Russians”.   Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his primary investigative asset Andrew Weissmann fueled the Russian Conspiracy speculation with targeted leaks to allies in the media.  However, the truth comes out; and it is boring:

VIA ABC NEWS – Investigators on the Senate Intelligence Committee have learned the identities of three blocked phone calls with Donald Trump Jr just before and after the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, three sources familiar with the calls told ABC News.
The calls to blocked numbers, which came on June 6, and after the meeting on June 9, were between Trump Jr.’s cell phone and two family friends — NASCAR CEO Brian France and real estate developer Howard Lorber, according to the sources.

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Fox News Catherine Herridge files a report covering the relationships between Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr and the DOJ and FBI.

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Today Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham sends a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting a briefing on the FBI conduct during the raid and arrest of 66-year-old Roger Stone.
However, sorry, I can’t let this go unnoticed. This letter is pure Decepticon politics.
Just yesterday FBI Director Chris Wray gave testimony before the senate for over four hours. If Republicans in the senate were actually concerned about the issue, why didn’t a single senator spend 30 seconds to ask about Wray about it?  I digress…
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So far the joint house committee transcripts have been leaked to: John Solomon (The Hill), The Epoch Times, The New York Times, and now The Daily Caller.  Someone is trying to get additional traction to these structured transcripts.
The content is also interesting.  The only thing we knew previously about the testimony of Nellie Ohr was that she evoked ‘spousal privilege’ during her deposition.  However, now the Daily Caller is reporting that Nellie Ohr gave testimony about her research with Fusion GPS, to include doing research on Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr’s travels:

Daily Caller – The wife of a Justice Department official who worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign told Congress in 2018 that one of her tasks at the opposition research firm was to research President Donald Trump’s children, including their business activities and travel.
Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for Fusion GPS, also told lawmakers during an Oct. 19 deposition that she recalls that Christopher Steele gave her husband, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, materials from the infamous anti-Trump dossier funded by Democrats.

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This is really interesting.  Unfortunately, we don’t get the names.

Findings of Misconduct by Two Current Senior FBI Officials and One Retired FBI Official While Providing Oversight on an FBI Contract (LINK)

(pdf link)

Key phrases: “two current senior FBI officials”, “one former”, relating to an “FBI Contractor”.  Could this be an FBI contractor like Fusion-GPS or Crowdstrike?
I wish we could know more.
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The background here is that any unilateral declassification by President Trump will end up putting him in opposition to a variety of corrupt interests. As a direct result he will be facing legal action from the legislative branch. With that accepted, here is the most strategic approach.

In anticipation of litigation:

President Trump informs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, that he wishes to have a full intelligence briefing on the following documents:

• All versions of the Carter Page FISA applications (DOJ) (FBI) (ODNI).
• All of the Bruce Ohr 302’s filled out by the FBI. (FBI) (ODNI)
• All of Bruce Ohr’s emails (FBI) (DOJ) (CIA) (ODNI)
• All relevant documents pertaining to the supportive material within the FISA application. (FBI) (DOJ-NSD ) (DoS) (CIA) (DNI) (NSA) (ODNI);
• All supportive documents and material provided by Bruce Ohr to the FBI. (FBI)
• All intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court. (CIA) (FBI) (DOJ) (ODNI) (DoS) (NSA)
• All unredacted text messages and email content between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok on all devices. (FBI) (DOJ) (DOJ-NSD) (ODNI)
• The originating CIA “EC” or two-page electronic communication from former CIA Director John Brennan to FBI Director James Comey that started Operation Crossfire Hurricane in July 2016. (CIA) (FBI) (ODNI)
• The full and unredacted April 2017 FISA court 99-page opinion written by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer outlining the compliance audit conducted by the NSA in 2016. (NSA) (ODNI) (DOJ) (FBI) (DOJ-NSD)

The President selects a date for this briefing and informs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, to inform and coordinate with all executive branch lead intelligence officials, who were/are stakeholders in the compartmented intelligence products as described above, of their request be present for the briefing.
Further, all of the compartmented intelligence is to be collectively assembled by the ODNI into one volume of a singular Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB).  There are to be eighteen printed copies of the PDB assembled and secured for the briefing.
Additionally, the office of the president informs the ODNI of the executives’ intent to invite for the briefing each member of the Intelligence Community legislative oversight known as the Gang-of-Eight.
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There has been a great deal of debate and consternation surrounding how the Administrative State has boxed in President Trump through the use of the Mueller/Weissman counterintelligence probe, authorized by Rod Rosenstein, where President Trump is a target of the investigation.
A widely held supporter perspective is that President Trump can expose the fraudulent origination of the counterintelligence investigation; of which he is now a target; if he were to declassify a series of documents as requested by congress and allies of his administration. This approach would hopefully remove the sword of Damocles.
Because the issues are very complex, we begin a two-part CTH post to outline the issues and hopefully clarify the situation; as well as outline a possible solution that would minimize the risk.  This is part I.

The core issue within the debate surrounds two contradictory reference points: (1) President Trump has ultimate declassification authority.  (2) Yes; however, in this example President Trump is also the target of the investigation; so declassification could be viewed by elements within the investigation as ‘obstruction’. Both of these points are true.
Also true is the reality that both laws and politics come into play.
In November 2018 President Trump gave an interview where he discussed the situation as it is visible to him.  Democrats and opposition, writ large, are working earnestly to remove him from office.  Obviously President Trump is aware:
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Devin Nunes dropped a bombshell yesterday in an interview with Maria Bartiromo [Video Here].  Many people are overlooking the implications of his speculation; and, more importantly how Nunes statement answers just about every contradictory question people have carried.  Including:

• Why Rosenstein introduced Mueller to President Trump the day before he was appointed as Special Counsel?
• Why Mueller/Rosenstein are hiding the investigative origination letter?
• Why President Trump has NOT been able to declassify documents? and
• Why President Trump is, and will always be, hamstrung by the Mueller investigation?

In short, Devin Nunes speculated that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein put the substantive allegations from the Fusion-GPS/Ohr/Steele Dossier into his investigative instructions (full pdf below) that he gave Robert Mueller.
If it is accurate that Rosenstein charged Robert Mueller with investigating the dossier claims; and if Nunes is accurate that the DOJ investigative target, a derivative of the dossier, is Donald Trump; well, everything starts to make a hell of a lot more sense.
If the mandate given to Robert Mueller was to specifically investigate the sitting president of the United States as an active participant, and subsequent target, for a counterintelligence operation, then DAG Rod Rosenstein -and Mueller- would have to hide that mandate from everyone and anyone.
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The widely held view of the process is/was that Rod Rosenstein selected Robert Mueller as special counsel, and following that selection Mueller created his team.  The perspective from CTH research is slightly different.
CTH believes that following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the FBI Chief Legal Counsel, Jim Baker and FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe; together with the corrupt small group that was involved in the prior year’s counterintelligence investigation; reacted to Comey’s firing by pressuring Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint their preferred person, Robert Mueller.
Within this internal debate (May 2017); at the time this construct was being argued; is when the famous comment from Rosenstein originates: “what do you want me to do, wear a wire?”  The corrupt FBI investigative crew; having initiated and continued “Crossfire Hurricane”; including people from the DOJ-NSD side (Ohr, Weissmann, etc) were pressuring Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel….. but not just any special counsel.. Baker and McCabe had the person pre-selected.  That person was Robert Mueller.
Obviously we can see the reason for this FBI/DOJ crew to need a special counsel. As career corruptocrats they were operating from a mindset of mitigating risk to themselves and continuing to advance on the objective to attack the executive office through their investigative schemes. The key point here is subtle but very significant. Robert Mueller didn’t select his team, the corrupt team selected him.

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