It was not unexpected to see NBC shift their earlier reporting on the surveillance of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and attempt to walk-back the most troubling of issues. In a correction to earlier reporting NBC changes the story from federal authorities (ie. Robert Mueller and the corrupt FBI group) “wiretapping” the phones and communication devices of Cohen, to federal authorities “monitoring” the phones and devices of Cohen.

NBC – CORRECTION: Earlier today, NBC News reported that there was a wiretap on the phones of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime personal attorney, citing two separate sources with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.

But three senior U.S. officials now dispute that, saying that the monitoring of Cohen’s phones was limited to a log of calls, known as a pen register, not a wiretap where investigators can actually listen to calls.  NBC News has changed the headline and revised parts of the original article. (link)

The reason for the imprecise shift is obvious. If everyone understood how Robert Mueller’s investigation was merely an extension, an “insurance policy” per se, of the prior originating FBI Counterintelligence operation against Trump, then people would begin to ask uncomfortable questions.

Whether the FBI was actively listening in-on Michael Cohen’s calls; or whether the FBI was merely monitoring who, what, where and how, those calls were taking place, doesn’t diminish the reality that Robert Mueller was –and is– conducting wide-scale surveillance on President Trump and any entity associated with his administration.

That reality, accidentally released by the initial NBC reporting, is considered an uncomfortable risk to the Mueller investigation. The last thing Team Mueller team want people to understand is how they are simply continuing a political investigation that began two years ago under false and unlawful pretense.

The information resources originally deployed by a politically corrupt FBI Counterintelligence unit to conduct surveillance on candidate Trump (2016), and President-elect Trump (2016/2017), are the same information resources currently underpinning the politically corrupt Mueller investigation; May 2017 through today – with the exact same motives and intents. This is the “insurance policy” described by FBI Agent Peter Strzok.

The original Mueller instructions were hidden from the public by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Those originating instructions were carefully kept under wraps -via redactions- by Robert Mueller’s political operatives in a response pleading to a dismissal request by attorneys for Paul Manafort. (pdf below)

Mueller needed to reveal the hidden origination instructions in order to prove the validity of his case against Paul Manafort. Unfortunately for Rosenstein this filing by Robert Mueller also meant the public found out about the secret instructions.

Remember, Rosenstein presented one set of guidelines to the American public, and another set of more detailed instructions to Robert Mueller. If there was nothing sketchy about the instructions, then why would Rosenstein have to hide them?

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/375478974/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-4DaehSp6U38EiB8eNVXS

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And when you accept that Mueller’s investigation was simply a continuance of the politically corrupt endeavors of the FBI, via Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Bruce and Nellie Ohr et al, you begin to understand the likely reason why Rod Rosenstein reauthorized the final FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant for U.S. person Carter Page and the Trump campaign officials.

Robert Mueller’s team needed to assemble the same framework previously built by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. However, Mueller’s team needed some form of arms-length distance from the clouded and corrupt motives of Strzok, Page and crew. Ergo access to the underlying architecture of surveillance originally used against candidate Trump, was needed to build the same process for President Trump. Same/Same but giving the appearance of something entirely different.

Once the value within the campaign surveillance authority was extracted for the new deployment of Insurance Policy 2.0, the Page FISA warrant was no longer needed. It was allowed to expire. Mid-2017 the Mueller crew was moving the net to the larger Trump administration.

NBC accidentally exposed this aspect with their initial report of Michael Cohen being “wiretapped” under the federal authority granted to Robert Mueller by Rod Rosenstein. Hence, a walk-back was needed not only to clarify details but to also cloud the larger issues. That larger issue is that Robert Mueller’s team is simply carrying out the political objectives that originated within the FBI small group in 2016.

…If only someone familiar with such surveillance and monitoring *matters* would have advised Michael Cohen to, well, uh… oh, say: get a ham radio, then this surveillance of Team Trump might be more difficult for Robert Mueller, Aaron Zelby, Andrew Weismann, et al.

Alas…

A report by NBC that Michael Cohen’s phones and email accounts are being “wiretapped” and under surveillance by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation unit has gained attention today.  However, there should be no real surprise in the reporting.

When the special counsel was initiated and authorized by Rod Rosenstein, there was a transfer of investigative authority from the FBI to Robert Mueller.  This is the underpinning of the “Insurance Policy”, as originally begun via the original FISA surveillance warrant granted in October of 2016.  The only thing that changed was who was conducting the investigation.

The appointment of the Special Counsel merely transferred the ongoing investigation from inside the FBI counterintelligence unit (Page, Strzok, Ohr, Priestap, etc.) to Robert Mueller (Aaron Zelby, Andrew Weissman, etc.).  The ongoing SC (Mueller) investigation is identical in every way, sans the name changed for the participants.  The current Mueller investigation is the same one initiated by the FBI in 2016; that is what is hidden in the redactions of instructions by Rod Rosenstein. (See pdf below):

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/375478974/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-4DaehSp6U38EiB8eNVXS

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For some reason people thought the surveillance of the Trump campaign, began under the auspices of an FBI counterintelligence investigation -that began in July 2016, and gained retroactive legal authority in October 2016- ended.  It didn’t.

The appointment of the Special Counsel was then (’17), and is now (’18), all part of the continued surveillance of President Trump and all of the officials associated with the Trump administration.  This was the “small group” plan all along in the event that Donald Trump was to win the election.

Today’s report of the wiretapping of Michael Cohen is nothing more than a discovery of the existence of the ongoing “insurance policy”; started in 2016 as an operation to conduct political surveillance of a campaign; continuing in 2018 as an operation to conduct political surveillance of an administration.

The original 2016 FBI Counterintelligence Operation against Trump never ended.  It still goes on today.  The only thing that changed was the entities conducting the investigation.

The FBI “small group” handed-off their work to Robert Mueller’s team, and the exact same operation continues today.  This is what Peter Strzok previously described as the “insurance policy”.

The “insurance policy” was gaining legal authority via the FISA Court in 2016, to conduct a counterintelligence operation against Donald Trump.  That investigation, the insurance policy, has never ended.   Hence:

(Via NBC) Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.

It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen’s offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge.

At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said.

Previously, federal prosecutors in New York have said in court filings that they have conducted covert searches on multiple e-mail accounts maintained by Cohen.  (read more)

Make sense now?

…

Chairman Devin Nunes calls in to Fox News for an interview with Neil Cavuto to discuss the HPSCI report on Russian active measures (pdf also below):

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fyi, late last night I decided to reset all assumptions about the ‘small group’ and go back to the beginning of the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok texts and re-read every single message that has been released.  *Note* it takes, at a very minimum, six hours to chronologically review every document containing their messages. I’m writing up a summary of that review today.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/377590825/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-8scILVHdovVgNIQxfOn6

Last night another batch of FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ Lawyer Lisa Page text messages were released by the DOJ. (pdf here)

This series of messages are clearly from captures on the Peter Strzok side of their communications. All prior releases were captures from Lisa Page’s side, and were a direct outcome of her providing the messages to the FBI Inspection Division (INSD) as verification for her side of the story in the contradictions between her statements and those of her once boss Andrew McCabe (per the INSD leak investigation).

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/377540616/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-VnQlT8HQJOAa4hTVK8wZ

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Some initial notes from the latest release below:

Much of the messaging is disjointed because of the one-sided capture. However, some information is decipherable and very interesting.

FBI Head of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok’s boss, features heavily in convos. This makes sense since the perspective in the release is from Strzok’s side of their communications.  The name “Jen” also figures prominently and appears to be a person within the FBI Counterintelligence Unit that Strzok views as a competitor of sorts.

Important Note – It definitely appears Page and Strzok were using joint G-Mail account. Notes to “clear GMail” indicates they were using a running draft to talk at length about ongoing activities.  [This is also a common tactic of terrorist group communications]

♦[April 6th, 2017] 15:32 FBI definitely Coordinating media leaks. Strzok asks Page if she has “update from Mike Kortan (FBI Communication Director) about timing of New York Times piece.”

♦[April 10th, 2017] 08:16am Strzok anxious because new DOJ is leaning in on media leaks and making inquires. Might pertain to April 6th leak to NYT previously highlighted.

♦[April 22nd, 2017] 10:53am another article constructed for intentional leak again discussed. Sheeesh, this crew was constructing leaks like mad. Transparent behavior of political motives within small group. Kortan needs to be questioned under oath to understand scale.

Connected aspect “GC” = General Counsel. That’s James Baker and he figures heavily in their coordinated activity. He’s the fulcrum amid Comey and McCabe and these activities as carried out by Michael Kortan, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok etc. Another frequent name abbreviated is “JR” James Rybicki, Comey’s former Chief of Staff.

♦[May 8th, 2017] Afternoon (15:00ish – 3pm) Strzok/Page are watching Yates/Clapper testimony to Senate Judicary Committee. Strzok makes mention of “unmasking” etc. First notation of concern. Here’s a reference point for convo: (CTH Article From May 8th)

More from May 8th, 2017. Appears to be a key date (lengthy convos). Discussion of Special Counsel and what they skills and investigative stuff they need.

♦[May 9th, 2017] Strzok “angry” because his boss “Bill” Priestap is starting to question why Strzok needs to have his fingers in everything. “implication is I’m a busy body” etc. Gee, ya think?

Important – May 9th, 2017 was date of Comey firing

♦[May 10th, 2017] 05:29am (five o’clock in morning) Page to Strzok: “We need to lock in {redacted} in a formal chargeable way soon”.

It’s highly likely the redaction is “POTUS” (secondary option could be “FLYNN”) “We need to lock in POTUS (Trump) in a formal, Chargeable way soon”. It is on page 32 of the pdf.

♦[May 11th, 2017] Conversation is about this picture when Andrew McCabe testified to congress, and the coordinated and accompanying media leaks to frame the narrative.  DOJ Attorney Lisa Page was assigned a special counsel to McCabe’s office during the entire operation to exonerate Clinton, and later to frame Donald Trump (ie. the “insurance policy”) hence her centrality to all aspects within Main Justice and FBI via McCabe.

Convo on May 11th also includes Senator Mark Warner and Richard Burr questions to McCabe etc. With additional convo about Lester Holt interview w/ Trump. Page/Strzok see Holt as on their team: “he did a great job” etc.

♦[May 17th, 2017] Lisa Page mentions reviewing Benjamin Wittes Lawfare website (James Comey BFF and leak conduit) for “arguments to chronicle” on behalf of Special counsel advocacy.

NOTE: This is interesting because Lawfare Blog also mentions the “Insurance Policy”.

Important – May 17th, 2017 is the date of the Special Counsel Mueller appointment.

♦[May 17th, 2017] Date of Mueller appointment. Discussions of team being assembled. Strzok notes “emailing with Aaron”.  Well that’s Aaron Zelby former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s Chief of Staff who was selected for Special Counsel position. He’s also a partner at WilmerHale, and Strzok mentions to Page that she might find herself working at WilmerHale if she plays her cards right.

The fact that Agent Strzok was emailing with “Aaron” Zelby prior to the official appointment of the special counsel team should likely raise a few eyebrows.   Of course within this time-frame of the messaging released, the redactions increase.  Go figure.

Toward the end of the release a more thorough picture emerges of who was selecting Robert Mueller’s team and why. Andrew McCabe was key player along with James Baker. Reading how this was done blows the entire Mueller “White Hat Theory” to smithereens. However, the conversation does highlight an aspect we have previously discussed. Robert Mueller did not select the “small group” to work with him; but rather the DOJ/FBI “small group” appears to have selected him.

Specifically Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are discussing who is best ideological ally to help their Mueller Special Counsel team “get Trump” (discussions on pages 46, 47, 48, 49).

… And whaddyaknow… Predictably right when those juicy tidbits about the Mueller agenda are surfacing the text message release abruptly stops on May 23rd, 2017.

Transparently those who are releasing information do not want the motives and intents of the Mueller team origination to surface. So they stop the release right there.

Bastards.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/377540616/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-VnQlT8HQJOAa4hTVK8wZ

You can always tell when President Trump hits upon a subject the media is desperate to avoid covering.  Yesterday President Trump tweeted about the “Pakistani Mystery Man” and the transparent media avoid the story like political Ebola.

Learn About Pakistani Mystery Man HERE

Do not get so caught up watching the granules moving at our feet that we forget to look up and notice the landscape is shifting….

A key DIA official from within the White House National Security Council has resurfaced today as reports show Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been hired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assist on issues surrounding counterintelligence and counterterrorism.

WASHINGTON — A former American intelligence official who came under intense scrutiny during a stint at the White House last year is returning to government as the national security adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The official, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, will play an important role at the Justice Department, advising Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence and counterterrorism.  (NYT Link)

Before getting to the big picture of Cohen-Watnick, let’s look at a few recent granules which at first might seem disconnected – but they are not.

♦U.S. Attorney John Lausch was brought on by AG Jeff Sessions to coordinate investigative document releases to congressional oversight.  Specifically, Lausch has been assigned as the point of contact for discussion with congress. This move keeps Federal DOJ Prosecutor John Huber (IG Horowitz’s investigative partner) away from political engagement, and allows Huber to continue culling through potentially criminal evidence without political concerns.

Earlier today Lausch was asked about the two-page “electronic communication” (EC) letter that initiated the 2016 FBI Counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump and his campaign officials.  The “EC” relates to the origin of the surveillance conducted by the corrupt DOJ-NSD and FBI officials; and ties directly to the abuse of FISA(702((16)(17) search abuses – and later to the issues of a fraudulent, potentially criminally misrepresented, FISA Title-1 surveillance application by those same officials.

In responding to the questioning, Attorney Lausch stated the EC document, and as a consequence the FISA documents, are not under his authority for review and release.  So the DOJ has carved out the FISA and EC issues from the investigative releases to congress.

This distinction is important.

♦Remember, previously the Eastern District of Virginia attorney, Dana Boente, was identified as being a problem for the ‘small group’ of co-conspirators during their activity. Following the firing of AAG Sally Yates, April 2017, Boente was put in charge of the DOJ National Security Division.  Acting Attorney General Boente granted IG Horowitz previously denied access to oversight within the DOJ-NSD.  After Jeff Sessions confirmation Boente remained in charge of the DOJ-NSD.

Near the end of 2017 Dana Boente left Main Justice and then resurfaced late in January 2018 when FBI chief legal counsel James Baker was outlined as being a key participant in the 2015, 2016, 2017 anti-trump operation.  Baker was removed from all responsibilities  and replaced with Boente.  Mr. Boente remains the current chief legal counsel of the FBI serving under Christopher Wray.

♦The Head of the FBI Counterintelligence Unit is E.W. “Bill” Priestap.  In ’15, ’16, and 2017 Priestap was Peter Strzok’s boss.  Text messages between Andrew McCabe’s former office lawyer, Lisa Page, and FBI Agent Peter Strzok, during the DOJ/FBI operations against candidate Trump, showed multiple examples of the ‘small group’ working around Priestap.

FBI Agent Peter Strzok was even promoted to #2 without Priestap’s prior knowledge.

On March 20th, 2017, when FBI Director James Comey was asked by congress why he did not inform oversight -as required- about the 2016 counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump, James Comey stated the decision not to inform congress was recommended by his FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.

There is also evidence from Priestap’s statements to investigative officials that contradicts FBI, DOJ-NSD and intelligence community leadership, McCabe, Comey, Brennan (CIA) and Clapper (ODNI); in that the source documents (Clinton/Steele Dossier) for the October 2016 FISA surveillance application were not vetted at the time they were used.

On January 30th, 2018, after Chairman Nunes personally took FBI Director Christopher Wray to view his HPSCI “FISA Memo”, and prior to the House Intel Committee vote to release the memo the next evening, FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a Main Justice official and a “counterintelligence official” to view the content. According to Catherine Herridge reporting: those officials: “could not point to any factual inaccuracies.”

Mr. Bill Priestap, has given statements to ongoing FBI investigators and remains the head of FBI Counterintelligence today.  [Absolutely no change in status, role or responsibility]

♦Responding to the initial results of an NSA FISA audit – on April 28th, 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers shut down the DOJ-NSD and FBI access to the NSA database based on 702(16) “about” search inquiries.  When the full audit was completed, October 2016, Admiral Rogers informed the FISC court of serious FISA search violations, breaches, extraction of raw intelligence information and misrepresentations by FBI and DOJ officials to the FISA court.

(source link)

In April 2017, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, declassified and released a substantive portion of the 99-page response from the FISA court. The FISC reviewed the DOJ-NSD and FBI FISA misrepresentations and the NSA compliance audit reports provided by NSA Director dmiral Mike Rogers.

On June 7th, 2017, Admiral Mike Rogers informed congress the NSA deleted all of the results of those unlawful FISA(702) searches, but also stated he directed “all audit logs of the activity to be preserved/retained”.  (ie. the NSA preserved the evidence of conduct)

♦Early April this month: (Via The Hill) […] Attorney General Jeff Sessions quietly tapped Prosecutor John Huber — apparently last fall — to work in tandem with the Justice Department’s inspector general to determine whether allegations of abuse at the FBI and the Justice Department merit investigation. […]  The Justice Department has declined to comment on his budget or what Sessions meant when he said that Huber is working “in cooperation” with Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz’s office also declined to comment.

♦Back to Today’s News – The IG Horowitz and Prosecutor Huber investigation is ongoing; the FBI has Dana Boente as chief legal counsel; Bill Priestap remains in place as head of Counterintelligence; and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions has added former DIA official Ezra Cohen-Watnick to “advise Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence” matters.

2017: […] “Washington got its first real look at Cohen-Watnick when he was identified as one of two White House sources who provided House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes with evidence that former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the “unmasking” of the names of Trump associates in intelligence documents.” (Atlantic – link)

I think everyone can see how each of these moves and shifts relates to the larger matters at hand.  It is obvious Mr. Cohen-Watnick is part of the dynamic to capture all those who participated in the scheme to destroy the Trump presidency.

You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD