With the congressional year now effectively over Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy are retired.  With that in mind they submit a joint letter to the DOJ and Senate saying, essentially: ‘wish we could have done more… but, oh well, c-ya‘.
Outta’ there like a couple of fat kids playing dodge-ball.

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Representative John Ratcliffe discusses ongoing congressional appropriations battle and his interview last week of James Comey.
Mr. Ratcliffe points out that congressional investigators have taken the inquiry into the DOJ and FBI corruption as far as possible; it is now up to the DOJ to hold those corrupt officials accountable for weaponizing their offices.

Paul Sperry has an interesting report posted at RCP-Investigations outlining numerous interviews with DC politicians and would-be witnesses, if any actual DOJ investigation of the FBI and DOJ misconduct was taking place.  What Sperry discovers is the year-long narrative around John Huber and Michael Horowitz is factually false. [SEE HERE]

Just like the false framework surrounding the long-forgotten U.S. Attorney John Lausch; the guy who was supposedly hired to facilitate DOJ record production but actually did nothing of the sort; Sperry discovers the framework around U.S. Attorney John Huber was manufactured by career officials inside the DOJ to tamp down problematic demands for a second special counsel.
Worse still, and absolutely confirming information from our own contacts within the OIG, Paul Sperry outlines how Michael Horowitz has not interviewed key people who would be part of any authentic FISA abuse inquiry.  [READ HERE]
Unfortunately, this information is directly in-line with information received by CTH in September of 2018.  According to people with knowledge of DOJ-OIG operations, and restrictions upon the IG imposed by chain-of-command authority, Horowitz’s investigation has been limited by Mueller’s team.
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The FBI has responded to a request for declassification review of witness transcripts from the Joint House Committee headed by Chairman Bob Goodlatte.   The FBI is refusing to comply with the declassification review; and, entirely as expected, outlines the decision-maker for releasing any testimony is ultimately Robert Mueller.

(Link to letter)

…proving, yet again, the purpose of the special counsel probe is to control and mitigate the risks from any investigative inquiry.  This is how Robert Mueller protects the corrupt officials and corrupt institutions within government.
Despite their claims, don’t be tricked into thinking it’s about timing, and/or a workload, and/or the holidays.  How do we know this? Well, remember, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chaired by Devin Nunes, made a similar request for release of their transcripts on September 26th, 2018.  The ODNI, DOJ, FBI and Special Counsel have refused to comply for three months.
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CTH has some new readers, so against the backdrop of the UniParty in Washington DC jumping into action to criticize President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria; perhaps a little factual historic refresher is in order….

On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:

[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)

When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
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Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack filed a cover letter attempting to explain the reason for the Flynn interview on January 24th, and the official filing of the interview notes (FD-302) on February 15th, and then again on May 31st.  To explain the delay, he claims the report “inadvertently” had a header saying “DRAFT DOCUMENT/DELIBERATIVE MATERIAL”  (screen grab)

What the special counsel appears to be obfuscating to the court is that there was factually a process of deliberation within the investigative unit, headed by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, surrounding the specific wording of the 302 report on the interview.
Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack is attempting to hide the length of the small group deliberations. It seems he doesn’t want the court to know Andrew McCabe was involved in shaping how the fd-302 was written.
We know there was a deliberative process in place, seemingly all about how to best position the narrative, because we can see the deliberations in text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:  See below (note the dates):

The text message conversation above is February 14th, 2017.   The Michael Flynn FD-302 was officially entered into the record on February 15th, 2017, per the report:
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Congressman Darryl Issa appears for an interview with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the sketchy Mueller case against Michael Flynn; the likelihood that someone in the administration is going to have to talk to the FISA court about likely DOJ abuse; and the second round of questions for James Comey scheduled for tomorrow.

Well, well, well.  This is likely to be quickly brushed under the proverbial rug.  If you have followed the case against SSCI Security Director James Wolfe you will note the original indictment against him outlined, obliquely, how Wolfe took custody of the Carter Page FISA application and then leaked it to his concubine at Buzzfeed Ms. Ali Watkins.
The leak of the FISA application was a rather explosive issue not readily identified when Wolfe’s indictment was first presented (June ’18).  It was only possible to connect the dots after the FISA application was released (July ’18) and a comparison on specific dates, times, contacts and chain-of-custody, was possible.

In response to his indictment, Wolfe’s lawyers said they would force Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) members to participate and testify in any trial.  This was a rather stunning approach.  A few months passed and a plea bargain was struck.  Wolfe would plead guilty only to one count of lying to FBI investigators.  The charges of the leaking “top secret and classified” intelligence were dropped.
Wolfe was not ultimately charged with leaking the FISA application.  We sniffed a quid-pro-quo.  We suspected Wolfe was instructed by at least one senator, likely  SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, to leak the information.  This would explain Wolfe’s extraordinary defense position – and the DOJ response therein.
Think about it.  A gang-of-eight member (Warner), who happened -as a consequence of the jaw dropping implications- to be one of only TWO SSCI members who was notified by the FBI that Wolfe was compromised. The ramifications cannot be overstated.
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Forget the unmentioned brutally obvious political motives and intents behind the operation against Donald Trump for a moment; and focus on the collective Obama activity as if they actually believed the claims they have since presented…
The counterintelligence investigation into candidate, president-elect, and president Donald Trump was predicated on the Obama’s intelligence community believing that campaign officials were colluding, conspiring and otherwise coordinating to take over the office of the presidency, with help from a foreign government.  So why wouldn’t the intelligence services of the United States government conduct wiretaps and full blown surveillance upon that incoming administration?

The John Brennan CIA presented a classified electronic communication, “ec”, origination memo (we are not allowed to see) to ODNI (Clapper) and FBI (Comey); who then opened a full-blown counterintelligence operation against officials within the Trump campaign.
We know this operation was political, but again, ignore that aspect and just look at the issues, details and activity while accepting -at face value- their demonstrably dubious claims.
Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn provided the opening for operational surveillance of the Trump team. We can argue about how they were framed in that regard; however, it is factual that FISA-Title-One surveillance is all encompassing.
The target is validated and defined by the FBI as “an agent of a foreign government”. This legal distinction permits full surveillance: electronic, physical, the works.  Everything is on the table, no limits or boundaries.
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Tick-tock-bombshell club member John Solomon drops an explosive statement on Sean Hannity.  Oddly, there’s a factual part of his statement CTH agrees with; and a structural part of the background that is almost certain never to reach sunlight.  First, the substance:

(Transcript) […] “In May of 2017 there was a document identified to a small number of people in the United States government. It’s in the possession of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  For eighteen months there’s been an effort to resist declassifying that document; I know that that document contains extraordinary exculpatory information about General Flynn. I don’t believe the president has ever been told about the existence of this document.  One lawmaker discovered it, but was thwarted by the Defense Intelligence Agency in his efforts to disclose it. I think we should all ask for that declassification; get that out; it may enlighten the judge; it will certainly enlighten the American public.”

From the time-frame disclosed we can reasonably infer what this document is; at least what background surrounds it.
♦“In May of 2017”… The document is likely part of an intelligence product that was produced for President Obama’s Daily Briefing (PDB), and contains unmasking information (likely done by Susan Rice) on Michael Flynn as a surveillance target.
♦“One Lawmaker discovered it”… You might remember way back in March 2017 when HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes was taken to the White House SCIF by then white house official Ezra Cohen-Watnick; and that began a series of cascading events.
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