UPDATED: WOW! Ted Cruz just curbstomped Andy McCabe

Trump did Ted Cruz a favor. Cruz has the chance to be star in the Senate, and he showed it today when he grilled a total POS, Andy McCabe. Cruz totally eviscerates McCabe. I only wish this had been face to face:

Yes, I lifted the subject line from CFP.

UPDATE: Shipwreckedcrew was really funny about this. Earlier today a commenter asked whether I'd be writing about McCabe's testimony. I responded, basically: Were McCabe's lips moving? What's the point?

Well, Shipwreckedcrew decided to pile on a bit, and I luv it because, well, because McCabe:

Disgraced FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Gets Publicly Humiliated In Senate Hearing

It has been such a slow news day I had to spend hours looking around for something to cover, and the best I could find was some information about my old friend Andy McCabe’s testimony via videoconference today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

...

Enter U.S. Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz — and one of the most talented actual trial lawyers (the only one?) in the United States Senate.  He had a couple of questions for McCabe about Joe Biden:

I expect the Capitol Police came along after this and arrested Sen. Cruz for murder because that was a sacrificial removal of McCabe’s heart and showing it to him while it was still beating before he died.

And it proved one other thing that I have long maintained here and on Twitter — Andrew McCabe was an idiot who simply managed to leverage the FBI’s system for promotion by moving from spot to spot as quickly as possible without doing anything substantial or consequential along the way.  “No big cases, no big problems” is the mantra of that crowd in FBI management.

 

Manafort, Flynn--And A Dog That Hasn't Barked Yet

John Solomon continues to plow through the FBI spreadsheet that purports to fact check the Carter Page FISA application. He's come across an interesting detail:

Memo suggests FBI opened Manafort probe before Trump hired lobbyist but gave no warning

Some question why bureau didn't give Trump a defensive briefing in spring 2016.

A footnote (#332) appears to indicate (it's redacted) that the FBI opened an investigation on Manafort on January 13, 2016, but never provided the Trump campaign with a defensive briefing about Manafort. 

Solomon consulted Kevin Brock, a former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI. Brock laid out the general principles behind providing defensive briefings:

UPDATED: McCabe And The Big Picture Conspiracy

We're having a bit of a slow news day. However, Paul Sperry has tweeted a link to an article he wrote back in March: Days After Comey Firing, McCabe's Team Re-Engaged Fired Dossier Author. With various opinions swirling around regarding exactly what Barr and Durham are planning in terms of indictments, it may be useful to take a second look at Sperry's article from the standpoint of what I've called the "big picture conspiracy".

The big picture conspiracy, of course, is the plot to remove President Trump from office--the attempt to prevent his election having failed. Sperry's article is focused on the FBI's continuing contacts with Christopher Steele in the wake of James Comey's firing. To place that in context, we now know much more about the Danchenko interview in February, 2017, which, in essence, totally debunked the Steele "dossier." Team Mueller was set up in May, 2017. Add to that what we've now learned about the FBI's interview of Joseph Mifsud (also in February, 2017)--in which the Papadopoulos hoax predication for Crossfire Hurricane and Russian "collusion" was also debunked. Does that suggest a predication problem to you? The predication for the Russia Hoax investigation had never been verified to begin with--a serious violation in itself. For the FBI under McCabe (the Acting Director after the disgraced Comey's departure) and Team Mueller to then forge ahead even after the unverified "information" had been actually debunked and the purveyor of much of it--Chris Steele--had been exposed as a known hoaxer who, moreover, was in the pay of the Clinton campaign ... Well, that compounded the whole predication problem.

What that suggests is an agenda, and one that was driven solely by animus against Trump and not by disinterested considerations of probable cause. If that agenda was the removal of a lawfully elected president, and that agenda was combined with the opening of unpredicated investigations and obtaining FISA warrants under false pretenses, then we have the making of a conspiracy.

Stephen Somma Again

Commenter Bebe drew my attention to Margot Cleveland's excellent article today (I was at the dentist):

FBI Lawyer’s Guilty Plea Suggests Spygate Corruption Goes Way Higher 

FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith’s guilty plea suggests another area ripe for inquiry: FBI Agent Stephen Somma’s misrepresentation of Trump campaign details to a secret federal court.

Cleveland's article largely focuses on the Horowitz FISA report and, specifically, the role of Case Agent 1--Stephen Somma--in persuading DoJ Office of Intelligence attorney Stu Evans that Carter Page's past cooperation with the CIA wasn't relevant to the FISA application targeting Page. Stu Evans, not entirely coincidentally, was a thorn in the side of Peter Strzok and the Crossfire Hurricane (CH) Team in their quest for a FISA on Page, but Evans is now reported to be cooperating extensively with John Durham.

I won't repeat the details that Cleveland provides, but I do want to suggest a line of inquiry that Durham may be looking into--or, more likely, looked into long ago.

Clinesmith And The Bigger Context.

When we talk about Kevin Clinesmith and the Carter Page FISA we naturally tend to focus on his involvement with the final renewal of that FISA order, in June of 2017. However, it may prove useful to step back and look at Clinesmith--and Carter Page--in a somewhat wider context.

For most of us, Carter Page was a rather obscure person who only began to matter when the the Deep State become involved in, first, attempting to prevent a Trump presidency and, then, in attempting to stage a lawfare style coup against the Trump presidency. Nevertheless, in the world of National Security, Carter Page had mattered for several years, to the extent that he was almost certainly familiar to officials at the highest levels, perhaps even to Obama.

First, it's important to understand the position of the FBI in national affairs. The FBI is, of course, the country's premier law enforcement and investigative agency. Since 9/11 the FBI has also gained enormous importance for its counterterrorism role. However, from its earliest days the FBI had a second role that, while generally not visible to the public eye, has always been crucial: That role is the FBI's status as the lead counterintelligence (CI) agency for the US.

The FBI's CI role, while often relatively low key at FBI field offices across the country, is what gets the FBI a seat at the table in the highest circles of government. We're used to hearing about FBI criminal investigations that lead to high profile prosecutions. Those prosecutions, while they may draw the attention of the president, rarely involve the president's input. They stop at the AG level.

The case is different with the FBI's CI role. An important CI case can have major ramifications for US foreign relations generally, thus potentially drawing the personal attention of top level cabinet members and other agency heads--State, Defense, the Intel Community, etc. The NSC and the president may also get involved, since any actions taken in a CI case could impact sensitive foreign relations matters.

Carter Page had operated 'under the radar' for years--including years spent living and working in Russia--as a CIA asset. However, in 2013 he became involved in an FBI investigation in New York City involving Russian intelligence gathering (I'll refer to the FBI office in New York as the 'NYO' for the sake of brevity). How truly important that case really was needn't detain us. Carter Page was in contact with the Russian intelligence officers (IOs) who were targeted by the FBI investigation and he became an important cooperating witness (CW). That means that he agreed to testify against the Russians, if necessary, if the investigation resulted in prosecution, which would mean revealing his identity publicly.

Sally Talks To The Senate--What Was That About?

Sally Yates performed pretty much as expected--and I use the word 'peformed' advisedly. She was putting on a show, reprising all the worn out and discredited Russia Hoax talking points, smearing once again people who did nothing wrong but were framed by the DoJ and the FBI for political purposes.

How did the GOP senators do? Josh Hawley--a very smart lawyer but without prosecutorial experience--got high marks for aggressively challenging Yates' non-credible denials that she knew, well, anything.

Lindsey Graham, on the other hand, has had extensive prosecutorial experience and has demonstrated that he's an adept cross examiner when he wants to be. After rewatching a portion of his questioning it strikes me that we need to ask ourselves exactly what Graham--as, in my view, the lead questioner--was trying to accomplish.

I have in the past suggested, repeatedly, that Graham coordinates his committee's activities with regard to the Russia Hoax with AG Bil Barr. In other words, Graham makes sure that he does nothing that might involve stepping on John Durham's toes in any way. And that means that Graham calls no witnesses until he gets a go ahead from Barr and Durham.

From this standpoint, what would be the purpose of these witness inteviews and, in particular, the Yates interview. Obviously it satisfies the senatorial need for a certain amount of grandstanding for their constituents. Beyond that, I suggest the serious purposes are strictly limited--no one should expect any witness before the senate to break down and abjectly admit to criminal wrongdoing. That happens in movies or on TV, and it may happen in plea negotiations, but Graham's goal in questioning Yates yesterday were likely more modest and closely circumscribed after consultation with Barr. Those purposes may well have been achieved in Graham's questioning.

Fact Or Fiction?

Well, if we're talking about Jeffrey Toobin--legal fabulist for CNN--and his new book, "TRUE CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS: The Investigation of Donald Trump," then I think we're talking fiction on several levels.

I really hadda laugh last night when I read an article at The Hill--FBI officials hid copies of Russia probe documents fearing Trump interference: book--that recounted an excerpt from Toobin's novel at CNN. My first thought was, Whoa! Theft and/or Destruction of Government Property in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the government of honest services! Or, in the alternative, in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud certain named persons of their constitutional rights. In plain sight--I couldn't believe McCabe could be publicly admitting to that. Here's what The HIll said:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and other top officials reportedly took steps to preserve memos authored by former Director James Comey and other key documents related to the Russia investigation over worries that President Trump would interfere in the probe, CNN reported Thursday. 

In the days following Comey's ouster in 2017, McCabe reportedly thought that President Trump's decision to remove the FBI director was problematic and, as the then-acting director of the agency, instructed his team to open a criminal case, according to an adapted excerpt from CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin's book, "True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump." 

...  

McCabe, fearing that he would not last at the agency given the tumultuousness of the moment, then acted to preserve Comey's memos detailing his conversations with Trump as well as other related documents on the FBI's internal system, thus ensuring that they could not be destroyed, according to CNN. 

Other officials sent documents including the memos to remote locations throughout the FBI, according to CNN, with the goal of preserving them to be shared at a later date. 

Did you catch what was going on? Here's the key phrase: "McCabe ... acted to preserve Comey's memos ... on the FBI's internal system." And just to be sure we have that right, here's Toobin:

McCabe couldn't be sure how long he'd last as director, so he wanted to lock down as much evidence as possible. Most important, he told the investigating agents to place Comey's memos in SENTINEL, the FBI's case management software. McCabe knew that once documents were inside the system, they were virtually impossible to remove. With Comey's memos in the system, the investigators were certain to have access to them -- even if McCabe himself would eventually be gone.

...

Would Trump dismiss more people? Would he shut down the investigation of his campaign's ties to Russia? Would the President demand that the Bureau cease its investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump's onetime national security adviser?

Wait--does that mean that Comey's memos had previously NOT been in SENTINEL? Yes, it does, but, Excuse me! ALL official records must be preserved on the official file system. No exceptions allowed. Believe me--if there's a reason to restrict access to particular investigations within the FBI file system, there are well established, tried and tested, methods for doing so. That's absolutely basic for any investigative agency. It's no more than the application of the basic need-to-know principle that governs all investigative activity.

All Toobin is actually doing is providing us with McCabe's self serving account of how the Comey memos finally--months after some were written--found their way into the FBI's file system where they belonged in the first place. In other words, this is a backhand admission that Comey, McCabe, and presumably others were maintaining a private file system apart from the FBI's official file system. The facts of what happened, as opposed to Toobin's fictional account, run like this:

After Comey's firing McCabe and other top conspirators--undoubtedly including McCabe but also, in all likelihood, James Baker and possibly a few others--afraid that the nature and extent of their conspiracy would become widely known throughout the FBI and DoJ and thus leakable, as also the fact that they had been maintaining a private file system, i.e., conducting a private investigation--scrambled to get the private file system uploaded into the official file system.

The idea that entering Comey's memos into the FBI file system was a security measure rather than an after the fact CYA measure doesn't come remotely close to passing the laugh test.

What To Take From The Senate's ICA Report

Yesterday during the Dem House's theater of the absurd involving AG Bill Barr, the Senate Intel Committee released a heavily redacted version of their report on the origination of the notorious Obama administration Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian "meddling" in US elections. What this report focuses on is the inclusion of the Steele "dossier" as "Annex A" to the ICA.

I think we can take this report as a starting point for John Durham's investigation--at least as regards the ICA and its relevance to the rest of the Russia Hoax and Mueller witchhunt. We've heard at regular intervals that Durham is very much focused on the ICA, that he has been busily interviewing all the analysts involved, and--most pointedly--that he has been gathering all communications between disgraced former FBI Director James Comey and John Brennan. Naturally, the new revelations surrounding the FBI's three-day interview of Christopher Steele's notional "Primary Subsource", Igor Danchenko, make anything we can glean from this report of special interest.

Here's what struck me in reading even this heavily redacted version. You can assess my impressions while reading the excerpts I provide, below.

1. It's clear that the ICA was special ordered from the highest levels. Obama ordered it, but one assumes that there had to have been high level discussions before the decision was made. Those discussions probably involved both the Obama camp as well as the Clinton camp. After all, the Steele "dossier" was Clinton property--they had contracted for it, paid for it, and had already been putting it to use by the time the ICA was written. Getting it into the ICA, mainstreaming it as somehow an intel product rather than a political campaign product, was a big deal. And that was true no matter what caveats CIA analysts may have added.

2. Despite his testimony to the Senate, it seems clear that Comey was the driving force behind getting the dossier into the ICA. Certainly that comes across as the CIA's  understanding of the dynamics. There are hints that the FBI's Bill Priestap--its top CI official--wasn't totally committed, but Comey and disgraced former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe come across as determined. The question, then, is: Was Comey acting strictly on his own, or was he colluding with political operatives, whether from the Obama or Clinton camps, or both? Durham has surely been exploring that angle.

3. John Brennan comes across as rather clever in pointing the finger at Comey in his Senate testimony. This explains why Durham was so eager to get his hands on communications between Comey and Brennan, rather than having to rely on their testimony. What seems clear to me is that if Brennan had insisted, had really gone to the mat in support of the CIA analysts, the dossier could have been excluded from the ICA. Brennan was positioning himself.

4. While the ICA was presented as the assessment of the Intel Community as a whole, it's more clear than ever from this report that the matter of the dossier was strictly between the FBI and CIA--no other agency was truly involved--and Brennan positioned the FBI to shoulder any responsibility.

5. While the CIA analysts may not have been aware of the political provenance of the dossier material, the people at the FBI pushing for its inclusion in the ICA most certainly were fully aware that this was Clinton campaign material. They were also aware of just how unreliable it probably was and the FBI's failure to vet the material was raised insistently by the CIA analysts. Not only was this political provenance concealed from anyone reading the ICA as well as from the CIA analysts, but the fact that the FBI made no attempt to amend or revise the ICA after the Danchenko interview--just three weeks after the ICA came out--is damning evidence of Comey's conspiratorial intent against the president.

Now, here's the major portion of the redacted version of the report. What I've done is to insert an asterisk "*" to indicate redactions in the selected text. My own insertions are in brackets.

More On Fallout From The Strzok Notes

Please note that I have corrected this post based on info from commenter Cassander--Sally Yates was NOT Acting AG at the time of the Oval Office meeting re Flynn.


The enormity of the revelation from the Peter Strzok notes is slowly starting to sink in. It's not that the notes reveal things that--realistically--we didn't know already. It's that we can now look to the future and get some idea of what could be in the offing--what has the Progs and Libs and crazy Lefties of all sorts bouncing off the walls.

Let me start my pasting in some dressed up comments from earlier this morning, exchanges with commenters.

My initial impression upon looking at the Strzok notes was that they appeared to have been taken by a participant at the Oval Office meeting involving Obama, Biden, Sally Yates (NB: Did AG Loretta Lynch absent herself deliberately?) and disgraced former FBI Director Jim Comey. But there's no way that a guy at Strzok's level could have been present at such a meeting. We'll probably find out later how it worked. I don't believe Comey could have recorded it, so I'm guessing--just a guess--that Comey took notes on his way back to FBIHQ and then, as part of a briefing for the Russia Hoax inner circle at FBIHQ, read the notes to participants in that briefing--who took notes on Comey's notes. Perhaps if we could get a look at the redacted portions of the notes we'd understand fully. Or, perhaps Strzok wasn't actually present at that Comey briefing but received a second hand briefing, and took notes from someone else who was reading their notes from the Comey briefing.

However it worked, the very fact that there were any such briefings raises interesting prospects for the future, prospects that the Barr/Durham investigation is unquestionably focused on. We have to presume that at the Comey briefing issues that flowed from the Oval Office meeting were discussed. Issues like: Where do we go from here? What concrete steps do we at the FBI take?

Durham will want to know--among other things:

UPDATED: I Was Wrong About 'CR Cuts'

Yesterday a friend pointed out to me that I was mistaken regarding the meaning of a Peter Strzok reference to "CR cuts." For that I apologize. Here's the short version:

Whereas I thought that the words "CR cuts" referred to "tech cuts" associated with the Crossfire Razor, i.e., Michael Flynn case, in fact the reference is to the Steele dossier. 

Now here's the longer explanation.

First, I want to be clear that this changes nothing regarding the Flynn/Kislyak conversations as far as issues of non-minimization or 'unmasking' are concerned. The testimony of disgraced former Director James Comey and of Andrew McCabe is explicit: Those conversations were written up, at least initially, in the form of 'tech cuts' and Flynn's name was not minimized or redacted. The reason for his name was not minimized was that Flynn was already the subject of a Full Investigation and thus fell within the exceptions to the minimization requirements. I've covered all that previously, and it all remains 'operative.' As a reminder, here's what a 'tech cut' is:

In FBI parlance a FISA order is referred to as "technical coverage". Or, simply, a "tech." The typed up summaries of, for example, telephone conversations captured in that way are referred to as "tech cuts" or, commonly, as "cuts."

Thus, I assumed that "CR" meant "Crossfire Razor" and "cuts" meant "tech cuts." However, there's a sort of dual context involved:

1) The context at the time Strzok and Lisa Page were texting, and

2) The context at the time I was writing.

To start with #2, I was writing in the context of new documentary revelations regarding the Flynn case, and debates about whether Flynn's name had ever been masked and, if not, why not. I was able to address those issues successfully, but then wrongly assumed, working from incomplete data, that "CR cuts" fell into the same category. In other words, I assumed that Strzok and Bill Priestap were objecting that DNI James Clapper should not be providing raw tech cuts to the White House. 

Now we turn to #1. Here's the fuller data, the full text thread between Strzok and Page on January 3, 2017, slightly reformatted:

Mary McCord: Leak To David Ignatius Could Have Come From Obama WH

Among the more intriguing bits of information to come from the newly declassified but by far not fully digested transcripts of House testimony on the Russia Hoax can be found in Mary McCord's testimony. Julie Kelly, to my knowledge, was the first to pick up on this.

The information comes up when Adam Schiff is questioning McCord. Comically, Schiff leads McCord on to commit to the notion that the leak to David Ignatius (WaPo) re Flynn's perfectly appropriate conversation with Russian ambassador Kislyak could have come from the White House. Schiff doesn't get it that McCord is talking about the Obama White House.

The way this works--and I'll provide portions of the transcript below--is like this. McCord, who worked under Sally Yates, learned of the Flynn/Kislyak conversation from Andy McCabe, the disgraced former FBI Deputy Director. McCord learned of the conversation before Yates but didn't have the opportunity to share this knowledge with Yates before Yates went to the famous January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting. Thus, when Obama, after the larger meeting, pulled Yates and disgraced former FBI Director Comey aside and started talking to them about Flynn, Yates didn't have a clue what was going on. However, when Yates got back to DoJ McCord briefed her on it, and Yates stated that it was clear to her that Comey and Obama were both in on it--they both had prior knowledge, that is, prior to this small meeting.

Here's the not-much-more-than 25 words version of how the information on the Flynn/Kislyak conversation flowed, without Yates being in on it:

Undercover Huber
@JohnWHuber 

The reason Obama knew about the Flynn call with Kislyak and even Sally Yates at DOJ didn’t, is that McCabe told Comey, who told Clapper, who told Obama
All that briefing took place orally.

And then POTUS himself raised the Flynn issue in the “by the book” meeting on Jan 5, 2017.

11:13 AM · May 8, 2020

Techno Fog Argues That President Trump Is The Redacted Subject Of Mueller Witchhunt Memo

Last night DoJ released disgraced former DAG Rod Rosenstein's second "scope of the witchhunt" memo, which outlines whom Team Mueller could investigate and under what pretext. There were no real surprises in the revelations, except perhaps that Rosenstein actually cited the Logan Act with regard to Michael Flynn. The one exception to the "no surprises" statement is that there was a fifth subject whose identity was redacted and the allegations against whom were also redacted.

Naturally everyone wants to know who that fifth (redacted) subject is. There is no lack of plausible candidates, except that--with regard to most of them--it's difficult to understand why everything should be redacted: Roger Stone? Michael Cohen? Rick Gates? Etc.?

For that reason a number of internet commenters have been suggesting that the fifth (redacted) subject is, in fact, President Trump, and the pretext for that investigation would be "obstruction" for having fired disgraced former FBI Director James Comey. Last night I included a tweet by Undercover Huber to that effect in Rod Rosenstein's Second "Scope Memo" For Team Mueller.

This morning Techno Fog presented a fairly concise argument that seeks to make that case--that President Trump was explicitly targeted by Rosenstein and Team Mueller:

Does the redacted section of the 8/2/17 Mueller scope memo relate to President Trump?

Recall McCabe's admission that he opened an FBI investigation into Trump "as an agent of Russia" in May 2017...

ht @JohnWHuber and @TheLastRefuge2 and @almostjingo pic.twitter.com/xl0rSHteyX

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) May 7, 2020

To make things a bit easier, here are the relevant attachments to Techno Fog's tweet:

Save Joe's Voice!

Among the newly released documents relating to the Flynn case are previously unreleased text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. Among those messages is an exchange dated February 10, 2017.

The part you want to focus on is the blue part beneath the yellow. In that exchange we see that Lisa Page has been asked by Strzok to review his work on a document. Page gets back to Strzok and accuses him of "lazy work," producing a document that isn't "cogent and readable."

Strzok defends his work by saying,

Lisa, you didn't see my edits that went into what I sent you. I was 1) trying [not]* to completely re-write the thing so as to save [Joe's]** voice and 2) get it out to you for general review and comment in anticipation of needing it soon. I greatly appreciate your time in reviewing and your edits. I incorporated them. Thank you.

* The "not", as you can see, is Strzok's correction in a follow-up text.
** I inserted "Joe's" for the short redacted space because it's logical and it fits. More below.

What's going on here?

Hands Down Best Commentary On Flynn Case

Every time I've listened to Brett Tolman discuss anything to do with the Russia Hoax I've been impressed by the way he gets right to the real heart of issues that are often difficult to grasp for people who are unfamiliar with the legal aspects of our national security apparatus. This morning on Fox and Friends Tolman was excellent and succinct as usual, in an interview that focused narrowly on the Flynn case, rather than the big picture of the Russia Hoax. Nevertheless, the implications for Durham's investigation could be enormous, as he will have crushing leverage over everyone involved in trying to screw Flynn--and through Flynn, Trump. Tolman was a former prosecutor, former USA, and former counsel to Orrin Hatch on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He really gets this stuff.

Here's how this excellent interview went.

Q: When you read the notes, it looks like a trap. And it looks like, going in, they were trying to get [Flynn] to admit that he had broken the Logan Act--which, that never happens, that never gets prosecuted [Tolman grin at mention of the Logan Act]--or to catch him in a lie. Cuz, ultimately, they weren't really interested in investigating his contact with the Russians but instead they were looking for a referral to the Department of Justice--and get that guy out of his job.

Tolman: That's right. This activity is outrageous. Everybody's saying it, but here's why it is. It's *predatory.* This is not ... a group of FBI agents who are informed there may be a line of investigation they need to look into. Instead, they are *creating* that investigation. And why are they doing it? They see him, potentially in the role he was in, they saw him as a threat. Perhaps he'd be a threat to what they wanted to accomplish through FISA. Whatever reason, they targeted him, and you can see now, it's starting to come out, that it was a target.

In other words, as I've maintained in the past: Setting False Statement Traps Is Not Official FBI Business. This interview of Flynn had no official FBI purpose--it had nothing to do with official FBI authorities or business. The excuse of the Logan Act was barely even a fig leaf--it was a joke, and a bad one at that. That excuse never rose to the level of a good faith belief that the interview had a legitimate FBI purpose. Nor was the FBI seeking information from Flynn for use in some actual legitimate investigation. The pretext for the interview was simply that the leak--probably an FBI authorized leak to begin with, and certainly one they gave a wink and a nod--had caused a public stir. Flynn fell for that. But the interview itself sought no information the FBI didn't already have and that was legitimately their concern--it turned out to be no more than a memory test for Flynn. And because his memory was claimed not to be up to snuff he was called a liar and was prosecuted. "Predatory." It is not official FBI business to conduct memory tests. That is not within the scope of FBI authority or duties.

The next question focuses on the enormous pressure that Team Mueller was able to exert over Flynn to coerce a guilty plea. The question ends up: "Does Lt. General Flynn now have some leverage to go for exoneration?" Listen to Tolman's response:

Tolman: Yeah, couple of things, very important, there. People plead guilty when they're innocent. Why do they do it in the federal system? Because the federal system has what's referred to as the trial penalty. If you take them to trial you're risking many, many more years in prison. Decades. And they can do it. They could do it in this case. They could create a sentence that he would be facing ... decades in federal prison. So there's enormous pressure. So he pleads guilty thinking it'll be probation, he'll get this behind him, only to learn and realize that his lawyers didn't serve him well, there were conflicts of interest. He's now feeling that he's stuck, he hires a new lawyer and she aims at one thing, one thing alone: She wants to see the underlying documentation that justifies what they did. That's called 'exculpatory evidence', what they found. Usually you find that kind of evidence and it suggests some sort of innocence. But here it suggests innocence *and* misconduct by the FBI. It's outrageous!

The final question is prefaced by a video clip of Devin Nunes saying "Clearly General Flynn is gonna have a civil rights case. ... Secondly, hopefully there's gonna be some prosecutions for this matter." So, the question goes, re Priestap's notes, which suggest strongly that Priestap thought the "game playing" was at least ill advised, perhaps even legally wrong: "James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were in that meeting. What will happen to them?"

Tolman: So, a lot of people are throwing out the phrase, 'obstruction of justice.' That's *not* the only issue for these individuals. If they knew going into this that they were setting up and creating this crime that wasn't actually there [please refer again to my comments above] then they made representations to the grand jury, and then they made representations to the court--all of those can have criminal consequences. Keep in mind, the Supreme Court in 1971 said that an individual like Flynn can go after agents that do this kind of thing--knowingly violate someone's constitutional rights. It's called a 'Bivens action.' And I'm pretty certain, if this case gets dismissed, that'll be the first thing he does.

A Bivens action is not necessarily straightforward in all cases, but I believe Tolman is correct in this case. There have been, in relatively recent years, restrictions placed on Bivens actions by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, in this case, where there is such strong evidence of a conspiracy to use the "color" or cover of federal law to knowingly violate Flynn's rights, acting outside of any plausible authority, that Flynn probably has a strong case. And a case that any lawyer would love to present to a jury. You can read about Bivens actions here.

This is what the conspirators are facing: the strong potential for crushing civil and criminal liability with all the attendant legal costs and gut wrenching consequences for personal lives. That's what Durham gets to work with to secure cooperation and/or pleas. That's the kinda stuff you should consider before getting into an attempted coup.

UPDATES: Priestap Now Front And Center In The Flynn Case

Former head of Counterintelligence for the FBI, Bill Priestap (now retired) is featured in new and, presumably, soon to be unsealed FBI records regarding the framing of Michael Flynn. John Solomon provides a sneak preview--FBI notes detail effort to catch Flynn in lie to 'get him fired' as Trump adviser:

A senior FBI official's handwritten notes from the earliest days of the Trump administration detail a tortured debate among officials to use a bureau interview of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to get him to lie so "we could prosecute him or get him fired." 

The notes and other emails were provided to Flynn's lawyers under seal last week and released Wednesday night by court order, providing the most damning evidence to date of potential politicalization and misconduct inside the FBI during the Russia probe. 

The notes show FBI officials discussed not providing Flynn a Miranda-like warning before his January 2017 interview —  a practice normally followed in such interviews — so that he could be charged with a crime if he misled the agents, the officials said. 

That's Peter Strzok and Lisa Page who had that discussion. Andrew McCabe would have had operational control of the Flynn interview, and Lisa Page was his legal counsel. It all fits in.

"What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?," the handwritten notes of the senior official say. 

Multiple officials confirmed to Just the News that the author of the notes is William Priestap, the now-retired FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and the ultimate supervisor for fired agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia probe.

I left Priestap off my original list of targets, but his role here is perfectly logical.

Justice Department officials are investigating whether Priestap's notes were written in conjunction with meetings he had with top leaders like then-Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, officials said. A special prosecutor is reviewing DOJ's and the FBI's handling of the Flynn prosecution, which led to the former Trump adviser and retired general pleading guilty to lying to the FBI under a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia case.

Yeah, I'll bet they are!

Question: When did it become official FBI business to get someone fired? When did that became a legitimate goal of an interview regarding matters outside the FBI's responsibility? It seems to me that anyone involved in this is in a very hard place. Even if they somehow elude prosecution, Flynn will own them.

UPDATE 1: I've had a chance to look at some of the unsealed documents: US v Flynn - new unsealed docs.

What I see here is three things:

1) Peter Strzok emails James Baker Baker for legal advice on how "DD" (Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) should respond to various scenarios when McCabe makes the phone call to Flynn to send Strzok over for the interview. The scenarios that Strzok puts forward all appear to be aimed at hiding from Flynn the true nature of the interview. This is part of what Bill Priestap (below) will refer to as "game playing"--an "ambush" or "gotcha" plan of attack to frame Flynn.

2) Strzok and Lisa Page email re when "1001" (False Statement) warning should/must be given in an interview.

3) And this is most important. Bill Priestap's handwritten notes regarding what the interview is all about in the first place. Priestap's notes come in two parts. The first part, on the left side, are brief. However, the notes on the right side are longer, and appear under the heading "Afterwards." My guess is that these are notes that Priestap made either in advance of presenting an argument orally or perhaps as a draft for an email. Priestap says in this portion of the notes that he thought about the proposed Flynn interview "last night"--presumably after a discussion/meeting. Clearly Priestap began having second thoughts on the advisability of the proposed meeting--he thinks the FBI should "rethink" the whole idea.

Priestap's counter proposal is that the interview should be conducted on the up and up, by being open with Flynn about the FBI's concerns and by showing him the transcript of his conversation with Kislyak. Priestap regards the plan as proposed by others as smacking of "game playing," of a "gotcha" approach. And so he asks: What are we trying to accomplish? Are we trying to learn the truth, or are we trying to catch Flynn in a lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired? Priestap appears, after thinking about it overnight, to favor trying to learn the truth! He was, of course, overruled. He ends by stressing the risks of the proposed "game playing" approach--"the White House will be furious." He wants to "protect our institution"--the FBI--whereas the coup plotters are perfectly willing to risk all.

Overall, Priestap strikes me as a sap. How could he ever believe that the talk of a Logan Act violation was actually serious? It must have been a sore trial for the coup plotters to have to deal with a dummy like Priestap who didn't understand "What's urgent?"

That's my summary, but here's my transcript of Priestap's notes:

* We have a case on Flynn and Russians 

* Our goal is to resolve case 

* Our goal is to determine if Mike Flynn is going to tell the truth & his relationship with Russians 

* Can quote [REDACTED] 

* Shouldn't [REDACTED] 

Review [illegible?] alone 

* Afterwards

* Interview 

* I thought [about?] it last night, + I believe we should rethink this

* What's urgent? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?

* We regularly show subjects evidence with he goal of getting them to admit their wrongdoing 

* I don't see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him 

* If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DoJ + have them decide

* Or, if he initially lies, then we present him [REDACTED] + he admits it, document for DoJ, + let them decide how to address it 

* If we're seen as playing games, WH will be furious

* Protect our institution by not playing games

I presume Priestap cooperated with OIG and is now cooperating with John Durham.

UPDATE 2: Sidney Powell stated to Hannity tonight that while the emails have, of course, always been in FBI custody, the written notes may not have been. She also stated with regard to the notes--which are being widely attributed (as above) to Bill Priestap--she is still not certain of the identity of the person who wrote those notes.

Lou Dobbs Talks To John Solomon Re Unequal Justice

Another interesting interview--it's about 8 minutes long. Dobbs is upset with our Two Tier "justice" system. He calls it a justice system and a "just for us" system. He's upset with what he sees as the slow pace of the Barr DoJ, discusses the McCabe case, Flynn, and Lindsey Graham's claim that he wants to interview witnesses to the Russia Hoax.

Solomon acknowledges the systemic problems and expands on some of these cases, but he also tries to push back and suggest that progress will be made.

The truth of the matter is, in my view, that Barr probably understands all this but for various reasons feels unable to speak openly about the issues.

No answers offered, but frank discussion:

Two-Tiered System. @jsolomonReports says there are “two systems of justice,” one for Republicans and one for radical Dems and Deep State officials. #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs pic.twitter.com/J310NUOkbQ

— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) February 15, 2020

Here's a good Twitter exchange that's on point with the video--"SCO" = Special Counsel Office = Team Mueller. For those not really into this stuff, Orin Kerr is a very high profile law prof and legal blogger:

I would have thought a lawyer would be able to see that the extreme prosecutions by the SCO have created this problem, which is the very real - & justifiable - perception that justice isn’t equal in this country because it depends on the political party to which you belong. https://t.co/mha51mPcSD

— Leslie McAdoo Gordon (@McAdooGordon) February 15, 2020

McCabe knows--John Cardillo:

Maybe McCabe isn’t out of the woods, knows it, and is trying to get in front of it.
Quote Tweet

The Hill
@thehill

Andrew McCabe: "[Trump's] a vindictive guy and I fully expect that he'll continue to hound me and my family."

Correction: It'll be John Durham and other prosecutors hounding him.

Lee Smith's Good Interview Re Info Sharing, McCabe

Author Lee Smith, The Plot Against The President, did a good interview on Fox last night regarding Eric Felton's bombshell article about the FBI doing "info/intel sharing" with Chris Steele and Fusion GPS.

Smith phrases things very well in the interview. For example, he points out the middleman "liaison" role of Chris Steele and how that sheds light on the FBI's role in the Russia Hoax vis a vis the Clinton campaign. The fact that the information flow was bi-directional means that not only was the Clinton campaign (Fusion GPS) sharing with the FBI and the FBI was using that oppo research to target Trump. But that bi-directional flow also means that the FBI was sharing with the Clinton campaign (Fusion GPS, again). Steele, in effect, becomes the FBI liaison to the Clinton campaign. And, as we saw yesterday, the FBI knew that that's what they were doing.

Smith also lets drop that Peter Strzok and Bill Priestap, High Bureau Officials as I put it yesterday, were involved in the intel sharing with Steele. Yesterday I suspected that when Horowitz referred to a "Section Chief" that would logically be Strzok. Smith, with better sources, has apparently nailed it down that the Section Chief in question was, in fact, Strzok.

Smith also appears to agree with me that the purpose of the information flow to Steele from the FBI was so that Steele could use that information to feed "source information" back to the FBI for use in the FBI application. We've seen similar information laundering operations involving media accounts, in which leaks to the media were presented by the FBI to the FISA court as independent corroborating information.

All of this goes toward proving and fleshing out the Big Picture conspiracy of the Russia Hoax--a conspiracy that involved key players at the top of the FBI, State, CIA, DoJ, the White House, and the Clinton campaign.

At the end of the interview a very important point is made regarding Andrew McCabe's excuses re the FISA applications, in which McCabe tries to push the blame off on the field agents, when in fact the whole Russia Hoax operation--as Felten documents--was very closely held at FBIHQ:

I know there was some news about the non-prosecution of McCabe, but if you think McCabe is out of the woods on this one he's got another think coming, because between Barr and Durham and the things that are going on at the Department of Justice, this show is not yet over.

Watch it--you'll be glad you did:

UPDATED: Arrests Monday! Or Maybe Tuesday! Or ...

So Lindsey Graham went on with Judge Jeanine last night, and here's what he had to say:

LINDSEY GRAHAM: The Russia investigation, what happened? Half the people behind the Russia investigation are gonna go to jail and Trump was cleared. Hang tight! They come after Trump on Ukraine, and BIDEN blows up! So every time they throw a rock at Trump, THEY get hit. 

So here's what we should look at. Why did the State Department not act when they were told about the conflict of interest with Hunter Biden regarding the Ukraine, right? Who was the "whistleblower"? Does he have contacts on Schiff's staff? Did Colonel Vindman leak information to the "whistleblower"? And as to the FISA warrant, how could you sign the warrant four times and not know the whole thing was off the rails? That's where I come in. 

JUDGE JEANINE: OK, so you're gonna do something. Cuz even the head of the FISA court said it was wrong ... 

LINDSEY GRAHAM: Stay tuned. 

JUDGE JEANINE: ... it was not predicated on probable cause. You know the whole thing. So you're gonna do something. Wanna tell us what you're gonna do? 

LINDSEY GRAHAM: Yeah, I'm gonna give a list of witnesses to the Department of Justice that I wanna call. It's gonna be the Case Agent. I wanna find out how this thing got so screwed up. Why didn't they tell about the Russian source who said, 'The dossier's not reliable,' how could it be possible that it never goes up to the top [to Loretta Lynch]? I don't believe--I wanna know what Obama knew about this investigation. I wanna call Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Comey and McCabe, and all the people who worked on this case to find out how it got so off the rails and make sure it never happens again. And I wanna know who in the White House knew about this counterintelligence investigation against the Republican nominee.

Sounds good! Call the case agent, Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Comey and McCabe, and all the people who worked on the Russia Hoax. Where was Loretta during all this? Shoot, call Obama, too!

Comey, McCabe, Lynch, Rosenstein--Liars All?

It certainly seems likely, based on the facts developed by IG Horowitz's FISA investigation--and, of course, it was always likely simply as an a priori assumption. Today TGP continues the deep dive into the facts assembled by Horowitz that's being conducted by independent internet researchers, and they come up with some goodies for the holiday season: IG Report Reveals Someone’s Not Telling the Truth – AG Lynch, Comey, McCabe and Rosenstein All Caught in Conflicting Accounts.

With regard to disgraced former FBI execs Comey and McCabe vis a vis former AG Loretta Lynch, the issue is whether Lynch was ever briefed on Crossfire Hurricane and the Carter Page FISAs. She says she didn't know anything about the FISA--which can't possibly be true--but that Comey told her about the investigation of Page as a Russian agent. That, of course, is highly likely, but Lynch says that happened in "spring of 2016." Woops! Not good for Comey and McCabe, since they claim they weren't doing much of anything until the end of July, so they have to deny Lynch's story. Uh oh! Deep State, we have a conflict!

As interesting as all that is--and TGP has lots of details--the Rosenstein information is, to me, the most fascinating for the long run, because it inevitably leads right into the Mueller Witchhunt. I've called Rosenstein a "weasel" in the past, but I've never suggested he's stupid. But you'd have to be stupid yourself to believe the things he told the IG. Check this out:

OIG Report: When, How Deep?

Last night Sean Hannity obtained remarks on the state of the OIG FISA Report from Jason Chaffetz and the head of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Biggs (video below). Rather than present a full transcript, I'll present a summary that closely tracks their words. Their remarks were relatively brief, but very much to the point. The common thread is that they believe that the delay in issuance of the report has to do with Horowitz having to repeatedly expand the scope of his investigation as whistleblowers kept deciding to come forward.

The business that both mention--that IG Horowitz' investigation expanded beyond DoJ to include other agencies--shows how complicated this has become. Those other agencies all have their own IGs, and DoJ's IG, Horowitz, doesn't have authority on his own to investigate beyond the confines of DoJ. Even within DoJ his authority is split with OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility which, unlike OIG, is not independent). Hannity points out at the start that OIG has ample resources--in fact it's rather huge, with over 600 employees. My speculation would be that it's possible that--with all the knowledge of detail, with all the accumulation of crucial documentation that was reviewed,that OIG investigators have acquired and worked with over the past at least two years--Barr believed that it was best to keep them working while Durham's team got in place and up to speed. That would require securing cooperation from outside DoJ and a willingness to work with Horowitz that wasn't required by the IG law. There's likely a big story there.

Now, on to Chaffetz and Biggs.

Basically, Hannity had been talking to Sara Carter, who maintains that the FISA Report will be out before Thanksgiving and will include important criminal referrals. Working from Carter's statements, Hannity pretty much demands to know why things have gone on so long. His guests, of course, are more than happy to respond. Here's how it goes: