House intelligence committee ranking member Devin Nunes appears on Fox New with Maria Bartiromo to outline the current status of his investigative releases.

According to the interview Representative Nunes will be submitting eight criminal referrals to the Dept. of Justice next week.   Five of those referrals are for specific people who participated in the political scheme against candidate, president-elect and President Trump.  The remaining three referrals are not person specific, but rather outlines of “conspiracy”:

• One referral is the conspiracy to intentionally falsifying material to the FISA Court in order to gain a Title-One FISA warrant against U.S. person Carter Page; and by extension the political campaign of Donald Trump.
• A second conspiracy referral targets the intentional manipulation of intelligence information; and a conspiracy to weaponize the intelligence apparatus against a political party and presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
• The third conspiracy referral is less specific and pertains to evidence collected that shows a small group of government officials engaged in “global classified intelligence leaks” to the U.S. media and other entities and/or persons.

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While we do not know the five individuals referenced, it is possible to overlay the three conspiracy referrals against other investigations.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is already looking into all of the aspects surrounding the DOJ and FBI submission to the FISA court. So, we can reasonably predict AG William Barr will wait to see the outcome of the DOJ-OIG report before taking both files (Nunes and Horowitz) and reviewing.

On the conspiracy to manipulate the intelligence apparatus. That angle will be interesting to watch because it goes to the origin of activity in early 2016. The issues around how Crossfire Hurricane was officially started… and, more importantly, the earlier use of intelligence assets: Joseph Mifsud (Maltese Professor, FBI/CIA asset), Alexander Downer (Australian Diplomat), Stephan Halper (U.K. Academic and FBI/CIA asset), or Charles Tawil (Israeli CIA asset) to make contact with George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn or Carter Page. Those contacts were covert and (un)official government missions for the weaponized U.S. intelligence apparatus.  This is where John Brennan is center-stage.

The last referral relating to specific leaks of classified intelligence – sounds like Nunes is submitting a classified list of only a few people who had access to the direct intelligence product that was leaked.  Unfortunately, the ordinary Main Justic approach toward this type of an investigation would be through the DOJ-NSD and FBI Counterintelligence divisions; however, those two intelligence agencies were likely the source of the leaks and the career staff within those sub-agencies are exactly the same as they were when the seditious conspiracy was carried out.   That dynamic presents a challenge on a myriad of levels.

One of the impossible to answer issues surrounds Mueller and Rosenstein controlling the evidence, via the Mueller ‘small group’ (19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, and a host of support staff) investigation in the past two years.  No-one knows whether Michael Horowitz was actually given access to direct evidence, I doubt he was; and no-one knows if that direct evidence was shaped, modified or altered prior to his review, I think it likely was.

If Mueller and Rosenstein plus 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents and additional staff and career officials, have engaged in this operation for the past three years (they have), what is the likelihood this crew would expose themselves to jeopardy with an expose’ of evidence -against their interests- made available to the inspector general?   Methinks the probability is very low.

I fear we are going to get an IG report, yes, even on FISA submissions, that shows “customary department standards, rules, processes and procedures were not being followed” etc. etc. etc.

At which time those who engaged in the corruption will deploy the Susan Rice letter….

…”we were in uncharted territory, and customary departmental rules, processes and procedures were not equipped to deal with a political campaign, president-elect and incoming President/Administration who were likely under the control of the Russian government”… “we couldn’t take the chance of being wrong”…. “we had to act as if that possibility was true”….  “so we tried to keep everything by the book, yet we needed to be mindful of the White House as an adversarial entity”…

Into this narrative Nadler, Schiff, Cummings and Pelosi will say: “my God, those poor intelligence officials and what they suffered through to protect our country.  If President Trump had not violated every rule of ethical political conduct, the intelligence apparatus would not have been under such pressure.  It’s Trump’s fault….. impeach!!”

… or something like that.

The media will do the rest.

♦ Prove the July 31st, 2016, Crossfire Hurricane operation originated from fraud by exposing the CIA operation that created the originating “Electronic Communication” memo.  Declassify that two-page “EC” document that Brennan gave to Comey.

♦ Reveal the November 2015 through April 2016 FISA-702 search query abuse by declassifying the April 2017 court opinion written by FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer.  Show the FBI contractors behind the 85% fraudulent search queries. [Crowdstrike? Fusion-GPS? Nellie Ohr?]

♦ Subpoena former DOJ-NSD (National Security Division) head John Carlin, or haul him in front of a grand jury, and get his testimony about why he hid the abuse from the FISA court in October 2016; why the DOJ-NSD rushed the Carter Page application to beat NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers to the FISA court; and why Carlin quit immediately thereafter. Squeeze this bastard’s nuts in the proverbial legal vise.

♦ Prove the Carter Page FISA application (October 2016) was fraudulent and based on deceptions to the FISA Court.  Declassify the entire document, and release the transcripts of those who signed the application(s); and/or depose those who have not yet testified.

♦ Release all of the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages without redactions.  Let sunlight pour in on the actual conversation(s) that were taking place when Crossfire Hurricane (July ’16) and the FISA Application (Oct ’16) were taking place.

♦ Release all of Bruce Ohr 302’s, FBI notes from interviews and debriefing sessions, and other relevant documents associated with the interviews of Bruce Ohr and his internal communications. Including exculpatory evidence that Bruce Ohr may have shared with FBI Agent Joseph Pientka.  [And get a deposition from this Pientka fella]