Durham Is Focusing On The Task Force And The ICA Assessment

Excellent. AG Bill Barr is on the same page we described earlier today: Brennan's Task Force--The Heart Of The Russia Hoax. Barr recognizes the Task Force and the ICA Assessment as twin lynchpins in the Russia Hoax.

The NYT has an article out that reports that AG Bill Barr's prosecutor of choice for the Russia Hoax "review", John Durham, "wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016." That means, the Task Force. And the NYT understands that:

In the summer of 2016, the intelligence community formed a task force housed at the C.I.A. to investigate Russian interference. The group shared intelligence with F.B.I. investigators who opened the bureau’s Russia inquiry ...

Further, Durham is focusing on the analytical process behind the production of the ICA Assessment.

Specifically, the article (Justice Dept. Seeks to Question C.I.A. Officers in Russia Inquiry Review) reports that Durham will soon seek to interview two CIA employees who were key to that CIA/FBI cooperation in 2016--and it should come as no surprise that the same personnel who were involved in the Task Force were also involved in the production of the ICA assessment (Peter Strzok, on the FBI side, was also involved in both):

One of the C.I.A. officers he wants to question works at the agency’s counterintelligence mission center that would have been one conduit for the C.I.A. to pass intelligence to the F.B.I. about Russian attempts to reach out to the Trump campaign, or information that the agency uncovered about Moscow’s interference campaign. C.I.A. officers at the center work closely with the F.B.I. on complex cases like hunting down traitors and helping validate the agency’s informants. 

The senior analyst whom the Justice Department wants to talk to was involved in the C.I.A. assessment of Russian activities in 2016, ...

The article makes two additional points:

Brennan's Task Force--The Heart Of The Russia Hoax

Mark Meadows is promising us indictments in the Russia Hoax "this month"--June, 2019. In the meantime, while Bill Barr plays his cards close to the vest and the Dems play at impeachment theater, it may be worth our while to review some matters that we haven't looked at for a while. Barr talks about getting to the "origins" of the Russia Hoax, which we know could go back well into 2015. However, in a compelling article dating back to March, 2018, J. E. Dyer makes the case that the period July - Mid-October of 2016 is crucial (The heart of Russiagate: Probes by Nunes, Grassley, and Graham will point to Obama task force).

To illustrate her point, Dyer constructs a timeline for that period. What develops from the timeline is that all the major players come together during this period, and the common element that ties them together is the Steele dossier. Additionally, Dyer draws attention to the Russia Hoax task force that Brennan formed toward the beginning of this period. Obviously Barr's and John Durham's prosecutors and investigators won't focus solely on this time period but, because of the way that the various players interact during these three months, thanks to our knowledge of the task force, a focus on this period has the advantage of pointing toward those exercised overall direction of the Russia Hoax. That knowledge, in turn, will help focus all other investigation.

We know that the first installment in what became known as the Steele dossier turned up dated June 20, 2016. How long the project had been in preparation is difficult to say, but once started events began in earnest--on both sides of the Atlantic. Let's run down a few of them: