The entire MSM apparatus were breathlessly waiting for the Michael Flynn sentencing memo in the hopes they could glean some information as to the nature and substance of the details within Flynn’s engagement with the special counsel.  It is unlikely anyone will be awaiting the sentencing memo for former SSCI Director of Security, except us.  The DOJ sentencing memo is due Tuesday, December 11th, at 5:00pm.

It will be really interesting to see the details of James Wolfe’s sentencing memo, because some (not us) have speculated Wolfe’s minimal charges were due to cooperation with the DOJ on larger constructs.   According to the original indictment, James Wolfe leaked “classified” and “top secret” information from the Senate Intelligence Committee to the media.  However, Wolfe was only charged with one count of lying to the FBI.

CTH suspects the reason for the minimal charges, is specifically because the corrupt DOJ (Rosenstein) is providing cover to the corrupt SSCI (Warner/Feinstein/Burr); and Wolfe has not been a cooperating witness – because he was never asked to cooperate in an investigation the DOJ never intended to pursue.

(Court Filing Link)

The BACKSTORY – To understand why and how the DOJ appears to be covering-up the most damaging evidence toward the institutions of the Senate (SSCI), the DOJ and the FBI. The discussion must first establish a a key distinction:

What we know of the DOJ and FBI events, is entirely different from what the DOJ and FBI have admitted to.

#1) The DOJ and FBI have never officially said, or made a statement about, the FISA Court having sent a copy of the FISA application against Carter Page to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 17, 2017.   That knowledge has come from our independent research and review of the released parts of the FISA application.

#2) The DOJ and FBI have never said, or made any statement toward, the FISC application being leaked by the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 17, 2017, by SSCI director of security James Wolfe.  That knowledge has come from our independent research and review of the: (a) Wolfe indictment; and (b) the released FISA application.

#3) The DOJ never indicted SSCI Security Director James Wolfe with leaking the FISA application.  Nor did the FBI or DOJ technically ever state within the indictment that Wolfe received, let alone leaked, the FISA application.

Within the Wolfe Indictment, the FBI did describe with some detail the type of document sent to the SSCI and the date therein (March 17, 2017).  It was later, when the FISA application was released (July, 2018), when we could compare the description within the indictment, align dates and pages with the FISA documents, and put those issues together.

The three points above did not come from any admission by the DOJ or FBI, but rather by connecting information that was produced in individual and unrelated releases.

How we gained knowledge is very important and being overlooked/conflated in discussion.

As a consequence of what was never officially released, the DOJ is not “technically” covering-up these issues within the James Wolfe pleading;  rather, the DOJ is simply continuing a process of not revealing information that would be highly damaging to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the FBI/DOJ.

However, accepting the DOJ and FBI have never officially gone on record is also the baseline to understand that James Wolfe cannot be striking a plea deal, accepting a lesser charge, to avoid being charged with a crime he was never indicted for; and the DOJ/FBI have never said existed.

Wolfe was charged with three counts of lying to the FBI. In his agreement Wolfe has plead guilty to one count lying to the FBI.  James Wolfe cannot be striking a plea deal, accepting a lesser charge, to avoid being charged with a crime he was never charged with; and, *more importantly* the DOJ/FBI have never said existed.

If there was a plea in return for cooperation on other indicted persons, James Wolfe would not be sentenced until AFTER all assistance had been given in those other cases, so that if he backed out, the heavier charges could be brought. Additionally, any plea that requires cooperation is spelled out within the plea document that’s filed with the Court. If there’s cooperation the court must be informed so the court can take that into account for sentencing.  None of that is present in THIS PLEA agreement.

The fact the DOJ never charged Wolfe with leaking the FISA application; and the fact the DOJ never even admitted to giving the FISA application to the SSCI; is the baseline for the DOJ and FBI to be covering-up the bigger untold story.

Remember, if it were not for our (and others) independent research we would never know the FISA application was given to the Senate, let alone leaked from within it.  If we were to go by what has officially been stated by the FBI/DOJ, none of this information exists.

Start with point #1 – the DOJ has never admitted to giving the SSCI the FISA application; neither has the Senate ever admitted to receiving the Carter Page FISA application in March 2017; exactly the opposite is true.

When you consider all of the statements from Richard Burr, Mark Warner and the Senate Intelligence Committee members, going back to March/April 2017, the fact the Senate had the application is a massive story unto itself.

Several SSCI senators including Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein, Ron Wyden, and especially Mark Warner, made outlandishly false statements about the DOJ and FBI activity surrounding the Russia investigation during the time-frame when no-one even knew the SSCI had custody of -and reviewed- the application.  It is demonstrably true those committee senators were making false statements throughout 2017, and well into 2018; and no-one knew how purposefully false they were because no-one knew they had the FISA documents.  It was a secret kept easily hidden by the nature of the classification.

Even through today, there’s never been a single MSM article written about the Senate having the Carter Page FISA application in 2017; and/or not a single confrontational question to any of the committee members about their statements. So, there’s a typically swampian political motive for the DOJ/FBI to not expose those lying senators.

Secondly – The DOJ has never admitted, or outlined, the SSCI leaked the FISA application to the media.  Nor have any of the recipients (Buzzfeed, Washington Post or New York Times) ever admitted to the possession therein.  Again, that’s a massive story unto itself.

So when I outline how four issues are being intentionally buried by the DOJ and FBI:

(1) the FISC sending the FISA to the SSCI;

(2) the SSCI leaking the FISA;

(3) the media receiving a copy of the FISA; and

(4) Wolfe never being charged with the FISA leak…

…all of that is based on research and dot-connections that are not in open evidence as admissions by the DOJ and FBI.  It would also be intellectually dishonest not to accept that all of that activity took place during the current administration.

The DOJ and FBI have never officially outlined any of the above; and the DOJ/FBI have never been questioned on record to get an admission for any of the above.

The decision to protect the Senate and the institutions of the DOJ and FBI was made long before James Wolfe was indicted in June 2018.   It was likely an outcome of those earlier decisions -to keep this damaging FISA information hidden- that led to James Wolfe never being charged with leaks of classified information.

The “cover-up” per se’, is in the fact(s) the DOJ and FBI have never outlined to the American public that James Wolfe received and leaked the classified FISA application.

The decision not to inform the public, or to outline the truth behind the events, is factual.

That decision is a fact because officials have never made statements outlining what is known by those of us who have done the legwork.  That decision is also hidden by a complicit main-stream media.

The motive behind that decision is open to interpretation; however, the most likely motive for the DOJ and FBI to hide all of this is nothing more than a typically swampy decision to protect the institution of the Senate (SSCI); -and- to protect the integrity of the FISA court; -and- to protect the DOJ and FBI as agencies within the apparatus.

James Wolfe is nothing more than a benefactor of that intent.

John Solomon appears on Fox News Tick-Tock to discuss the latest breaking tick-tock developments deep inside the spygate story.   The bombshell discovery lies within a chain of emails, prior to the FISA application against Carter Page, that includes DOJ and FBI officials discussing the lack of substantiation for the warrant request. [Story Here]

Additionally, Solomon outlines his sources telling him the reasons for President Trump to delay any involvement within the declassification process.  Meaning the sources for Solomon are the same voices advising the President. [Key point]  Watch:

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Wait.. A.. Minute.. James Comey is scheduled to appear on Friday right?  Now ask yourself: why would the people feeding information to Solomon want him to push this story into the media bloodstream ahead of that testimony?  Wouldn’t earnest investigators prefer to question Comey about these emails without him having time to prepare?….

Think about it.

Perhaps HERE’S The Reason

In a May 2017 testimony to congress former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates explains the details surrounding her engagement with White House legal counsel Don McGahn.  However, for the purposes of truthful discussion, the important part of the back-and-forth between Senator Graham, Sally Yates and former DNI James Clapper is not the aspect about Flynn or McGahn.

Listen carefully to the first three minutes; specifically the part about the Flynn transcript leak to the Washington Post.  Notice Graham outlining how easy it would be for the intelligence apparatus to find out who: (A) unmasked the Flynn communication; and (B) likely then leaked the Flynn communication.  Pay close attention:

Now ask yourself…. If Graham, Yates and Clapper are correct; if there is a paper trail; if it would be essentially a simple process to discover that detail; then WHY hasn’t that been done?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and DNI Dan Coats made a big deal of stating they were committed to finding out who would leak such critical and sensitive ‘top secret’ information.  And Graham tells everyone how easy it would be to do… and Yates and Clapper agree… So, why wasn’t it done?

Want to drain the swamp?  Start there !

The uncomfortable truth is: they don’t want to find out… and they never did want to find out… so they didn’t.

Co-dependent no more.

Yet, for some apparent reason, we anticipate this same DOJ/FBI and intelligence community, who didn’t go through the simple process to discover who unmasked the Michael Flynn wire-tap, will suddenly develop some virtuous intent around Michael Horowitz, Matt Whitaker and John Huber?…

Color me skeptical.

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There are elements who took the redacted portions of the Mueller sentencing memorandum, and the notes of Flynn’s assistance in an unrelated criminal matter, to point out a possibility Flynn’s “other criminal investigation” assistance, might be an investigation headed by U.S. Attorney Huber.

The baseline for that hypothesis would be: (a) Mueller would intentionally point to a criminal investigation adverse to his ideological interests; and (b) that Mueller’s special counsel team might also be willing to take down a team member of the administrative state in some sort blind justice quest.  Nonsense.

That is classic victim projection toward the abuser: if we just make Mueller’s team better sandwiches they will also target “their side“…. Yeah, no; it doesn’t work like that.

The special counsel team, all of them, have one directional focus and it is the same focus as written outlining the only target in their DOJ mandate of targets: President Trump.

So what is the “other criminal investigation” that Flynn is/was helping with.  Easy, the New York Times spelled it out today:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has released the sentencing guideline memo against General Michael Flynn (full pdf below).  Within the sentencing recommendation the special counsel recommends leniency:

Here’s the full court filing, along with CTH review and opinion therein.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/394926613/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-U7SKDN7r4cZGYnGsBglI

Notice the primary legal risk/emphasis is not directed to the *lying* issue surrounding the FBI interview with Flynn, but rather is focused on the issues surrounding the unregistered lobbying for Turkey; the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) violation.

There’s about a page on the FBI interview, and two pages on the Turkish lobbying issues.

The Turkish lobbying was the teeth that Mueller used to keep General Michael Flynn on the ropes.  Long time CTH readers might remember how we warned about this issue even before Flynn was selected for National Security Adviser [PLEASE SEE HERE].  So it does not come as a surprise to see this issue at the epicenter of Mueller’s leverage against Flynn.

Secondly, CTH warned again in August 2017 about how this issue was likely to be used against Flynn.  [AGAIN SEE HERE FOR THE SECOND WARNING]   The FARA issue was the preeminent leverage used by Mueller, exactly as expected.

We knew even before the election this could be a problem.  As far as we could surmise at the time – the Trump Campaign and subsequent President-Elect transition team, had no idea that campaign advocate and campaign adviser Michael Flynn was also being paid to lobby in DC on behalf of the government of Turkey, and Recep Erdogan.

The entire Flynn lobbying arrangement was beyond sketchy.  Before the election Flynn penned an op-ed advocating heavily for Recep Erdogan –SEE HERE–  The content was entirely disconnected from the assembled foreign policy outlook of Candidate Donald Trump. The Flynn Op-Ed was actually counter to candidate Trump’s policy views.  (more)

♦Now, on the issue of Flynn lying to the FBI – this is the primary focus of the media’s entire narrative construct and is part of the Mueller sentencing memo.  However, if you look at the recommendation for no-incarceration; in my opinion, there’s an angle to this that has always been FUBAR.

This is complex, so please bear with me.

Many people have asked the question why would Michael Flynn have lied about talking to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the first place?

It’s a great question.

The Occam’s Razor answer is the toxic political environment that existed in January 2017, where the administration was being hammered by a tsunami of media narratives and political opposition claiming that any scintilla of contact with anything Russian meant that Putin and Trump were “colluding BFF’s”,…. and Flynn didn’t want to fuel that nonsense.

If you look at the timeline, there was always a sketchy set of circumstances.

Reminder:  •Sunday January 15th, 2017 – VP-elect Mike Pence appears on Face The Nation. [Transcript Here]

JOHN DICKERSON: But there’s a distinction between that feeling about the press and legitimate inquiry, as you say, that the Senate Intelligence Committee is doing. Just to button up one question, did any advisor or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?

MIKE PENCE: Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy. (link)

*NOTE* Notice the incoming administration was under a false-narrative siege created by the media.  At the time (early Jan, 2017) ‘any contact’ with Russians was evidence of meddling/election-collusion with Russians.  VP-elect Mike Pence poorly answered the question from Dickerson from a very defensive position.

That toxic media environment and Mike Pence speaking poorly during a Face The Nation interview was the issue. Once Vice-President Mike Pence made the statement that Flynn had no contact with anyone from Russia etc. any contradictory statement from Flynn would make Pence appear compromised; so Flynn had to stick to Pence’s false point without clarification.  Flynn was interviewed by the FBI on January 24th, nine days after Pence made his comments.

•Tuesday January 24th – Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn was interviewed at the WH by the FBI.

During this ambush interview, disguised as a meeting, FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka were contrasting Vice-President-elect Pence’s statements to CBS against the known action of Mike Flynn.  [Flynn has three options: either (1) Flynn contradicts Pence, or (2) he tells a lie; or (3) Flynn explains Pence misspoke, those were his options.]

How Flynn responded to the line of inquiry and explained/reconciled the difference between Pence’s statement on Jan 15th, and what actually took place, is why the FBI ended up with the conclusion that Flynn wasn’t lying.

I have long believed it is within this dynamic where the FD-302 reports, written by Strzok and Pientka, then became the subject of political manipulation by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

Stay with me and think about this carefully.

The FBI knew the content of the Flynn call with Sergey Kislyak because they were listening in.  The FBI were intercepting those communications.  So when Pence said no-one had any contact on January 15th, the FBI crew IMMEDIATELY knew they had a bombshell issue to exploit.

We see the evidence of the FBI knowing they had an issue to exploit, and being very nervous about doing it, in the messages between Lisa Page and FBI Agent Peter Strzok who would end up doing the questioning of Flynn.

The day before the Flynn interview:

♦January 23, 2017, the day before the Flynn interview, Lisa Page says: “I can feel my heart beating harder, I’m so stressed about all the ways THIS has the potential to go fully off the rails.” Weird!

♦Strzok replies: “I know. I just talked with John, we’re getting together as soon as I get in to finish that write up for Andy (MCCABE) this morning.” Strzok agrees with Page about being stressed that “THIS” could go off the rails… (Strzok’s meeting w Flynn the next day)

Why would Page & Strzok be stressed about “THIS” potentially going off the rails?  The answer is simple: they knew the content of the phone call between Mike Flynn and Sergey Kislyak because they were listening in, and they were about to exploit the Pence statement to CBS.  That’s why they were so nervous.  They were planning and plotting with Andrew McCabe about how they were going to exploit the phone-tap.

I’m not convinced that Flynn lied.  There’s a good possibility Flynn was honest but his honesty contradicted Pence’s national statement on CBS; and he likely tried to dance through a needle without being overly critical of VP-elect Pence misspeaking.   Remember, the alternative, if Flynn is brutally honest, is for the media to run with a narrative about Vice-President Pence is now a national liar in the media.

That’s why the issue of how the FBI interviewers write the 302 summary of the interview becomes such an important facet.   We see that dynamic again playing out in the messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok with Andrew McCabe providing the guidance.

♦February 14th, 2017, text messages – here is a note about the FBI reports filed from the Flynn interview.  Peter Strzok asks Lisa Page if FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is OK with his report: “Also, is Andy good with F-302?”

Lisa Page replies: “Launch on F 302”.

That would be Flynn’s 302.  The FBI interpretation of the Flynn interview, is now the way the FBI can control the interview content…. and, specifically because the only recourse Flynn would have to contradict that FBI interpretation would be to compromise the Vice President… Flynn cannot challenge the structure of the narrative within the 302 outline.

See what happened?

Does it all make sense now?

Do you see why there are reports of the second FBI agent, Joe Pientka, saying he didn’t believe Flynn lied to them in the interview.  Likely because Flynn didn’t…. but the McCabe crew jumped on the opportunity to frame a lose/lose.  Either Flynn accepts a version of the 302 report where he lied; or, Flynn has to take the position that Vice President Mike Pence lied to the nation in the CBS Face The Nation interview.

See how that went down?

That’s also the likely reason why FBI Agent Joe Pietka has been kept quiet.

FUBAR !!  All of it.