Critical – Critical – Critical

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing FISA abuse investigation; the use of Michael Sussmann to act as a go-between for the DNC and FBI; the status of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and his upcoming (10/11) testimony; current visible activity within the DOJ that points to their ongoing corruption; and how all of that relates to the Robert Mueller investigation.

This is a very important interview segment because it dovetails with the much larger issue CTH outlined about: “How Deep Is This Swamp“? Believe me, you’re going to want to watch this several times to absorb the bigger-big picture that Nunes is careful to explain.

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Working backwards from the interview content is perhaps the best way to discuss. Nunes cannot say it out loud, but when he outlines what the Mueller investigation *is not* doing, he is highlighting the purpose of Special Counsel placement.

Robert Mueller (the entire team) was put into place, carefully selected by James Baker and Andrew McCabe, specifically to cover for the DOJ and FBI activity that preceded the firing of James Comey. Mueller’s role has two essential aspects:

♦(1) Create an investigation – Just by creating the investigation it is then used as a shield by any corrupt FBI/DOJ official who would find himself/herself under downstream congressional investigation. Former officials being deposed/questioned by IG Horowitz or Congress could then say they are unable to answer those questions due to the ongoing special counsel investigation. In this way Mueller provides cover.

♦(2) Use the investigation to keep any and all inquiry focused away from the corrupt DOJ and FBI activity that took place in 2016, 2016, 2017. Keep the media narrative looking somewhere, anywhere, other than directly at the epicenter of the issues.

In both of these objectives the Mueller special counsel has been stunningly effective.

That leads to the second aspect of Nunes discussion, the role of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. All of the visible activity being conducted by Rosenstein has been an intentional effort to keep as much of the evidence hidden from public review. When Nunes points out that Rosenstein’s motives are to keep the documentary evidence classified he is speaking directly to this aspect.

But the current corrupt DOJ activity is not isolated to FISA abuse and documents the usurping officials want to keep hidden. The corrupt activity also flows outward and can be found in the DOJ behavior surrounding James Wolfe; the busted Senate Intelligence Security Official who was caught leaking the classified FISA application to the media.

The reason Wolfe was not indicted for the more serious charges of leaking classified intelligence is because the *CURRENT* DOJ needs to hide what was taking place. Wolfe is simply a benefactor of current DOJ officials who need to hide their fingerprints and activity in 2016 and 2017.

Those currently corrupt DOJ and FBI officials are not protecting Wolfe as much as they are protecting themselves. This includes Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy FBI Director David Bowditch and current FBI general counsel Dana Boente; as well as all the second level and third level carry-over career officials. The failure to accept this currently corrupt DOJ and FBI is where most of the “Stealth Jeff” and “Q” believers are entirely wrong.

The efforts of Rosenstein, Wray, Bowditch, Boente et al, to cover-up the institutional corruption extends far beyond their blocking activity of the declassification requests; and shows up in the lack of substance behind the Wolfe indictment and the ability of the external Lawfare group, former officials, to influence current activity.

Part of that current influence is keeping the most severe elements of investigative sunlight away from review. These officials have done this in many visible ways. Three of them are inarguable:

(1) By redacting innocuous, albeit highly damaging information, within the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages and emails. Officials within the agencies are hiding information and even eliminating the most damaging material.

(2) By controlling what records IG Horowitz has access to; in addition to who he is interviewing. The IG is only as effective as the material he has to review.

(3) By shaping the executive summaries of the two previous IG reports to ensure the specific material within the report is diluted as much as possible in the summary and conclusions.

The collaborative efforts of the current group of corrupt officials is also evident in the hit job against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Those corrupt former DOJ/FBI officials (Bromwich, McLean, Laufman, etc.), who are part of the Blasey-Ford construct, were clearly working with a set of current officials. [This collaborative interest extends to people within government (the legislative branch) and those outside government (media allies).]

The appearance of former DOJ lawyer Michael Sussmann working with Perkins Coie and on behalf of the DNC, to feed information to former FBI legal counsel James Baker, only highlights this systemic collaboration and corruption within the DOJ and FBI. That corruption has not been addressed; it is currently being protected from sunlight.

AG Jeff Sessions is recused; he is useless. As a specific outcome, Rod Rosenstein, Christopher Wray, David Bowditch, Dana Boente, Robert Mueller and the affiliated network of political operatives within the DOJ and FBI held free reign to shape everything in the past two years.

This is the current state of the challenge; refusing to accept it doesn’t make anything improve.

On March 28th, 2018, the DOJ Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz formerly announced an additional investigation of how the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation engaged with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in matters relating to the FISA Title-1 application filed against U.S. person Carter Page. However, one part of the OIG notification was generously overlooked by a defensive and IC compliant media:

As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications. (pdf link)

Two months later on Monday May 21st, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein added a significant DOJ mandate to the Inspector General review. Rosenstein expanded the original FISA review to include looking at whether officials within the intelligence community may have unlawfully used human intelligence assets to “spy” or “surveil” the Trump campaign:

“The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.” (link)

The IG process for the FISA report is structural. Once the interviews and investigation is complete the “IG referencer” phase takes several weeks. The referencer could be a person or a group of people depending on the size of the report.

The referencer has the responsibility for going through every statement of fact and providing the citation or footnote for the assertion. The person(s) doing the reference review has/have the most arduous of tasks.

The referencer checks every sentence, every assertion, and ensures only provable facts with citations are part of the report. Every assertion of fact must be cited (or footnoted) to include the investigative material that proves the fact. After the footnotes, citations and all fact assemblies are reconciled a draft report is written. The Draft Report encompasses the findings.

The Draft Report is then sent to the principals to review. The Draft Report review allows the principals to provide input on the facts identified and outlined within the draft. This part of the process takes at least two weeks. Responses from the principals about the facts outlined in the draft report are then reviewed, cleared for addition if appropriate, and included in the final report. Then the final report goes to print.

The election is 30 days away from today. There is almost no way the IG report on FISA abuse and “spygate” will be completed prior to the mid-term election.