There are so many threads of information surrounding the 2016 operation to conduct political surveillance on the Trump campaign by various officials and offices within corrupt structures of government it’s easy to get lost. However, if we take all the various bits of information and place them together a less confusing picture emerges.

The {Go Deep Threads} look like this: The FISA-702(17) ‘About Queries’; the political opposition research of Fusion-GPS and Glenn Simpson; the DOJ officials and FBI officials; Bruce and Nellie Ohr; the U.S. State Department and U.N Ambassador Samantha Power; the Clinton-Steele Dossier and Christopher Steele; the FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant; and the unmasking by former Senior White House officials: Lisa Monaco and Susan Rice.

Here’s the basic overview of how all those threads come together to paint a picture.

The FBI group was participating in a plan to exonerate Hillary Clinton. That same FBI group was simultaneously conducting opposition research on candidate Donald Trump and the larger construct of his campaign team. Those FBI officials were allied by entities outside official government structures. The ‘outside group’ were “contractors”. It is likely one of the contractors was Fusion-GPS or entities in contact with Fusion-GPS. {Go Deep}

The contractors were using FBI intelligence databases to conduct opposition research “searches” on Trump campaign officials. This is where the use of FISA-702(16)(17) “To/From” and “About” queries comes in. {Go Deep} This FISA abuse was the allowed but unofficial process identified in early 2016 by NSA internal auditors.

This is where NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers steps in on April 18th, 2016, and stops the FBI contractors from having any further access. {Go Deep}

{Go Deep on NSA Rogers}

No longer having access to the FBI intelligence database the group needed a workaround. That’s where DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie Ohr come into play. {Go Deep} Coincidentally(?), the following month, May 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras became a member of the FISA court.   Contreras was friends with lead FBI counterintelligence agent, Peter Strzok.{Go Deep}

The DOJ side of the operation was conducted within the National Security Division (John P Carlin head). {Go Deep} The DOJ-NSD could use the NSA/FBI database and pass information to, and receive information from, Nellie Ohr. Nellie was hired by Fusion-GPS immediately after Admiral Rogers shut down the FBI ‘contractor’ use of the system. Nellie would be the go-between.

The problem was that any information from within the FISA searches could not be directly used by the FBI because they would likely have to explain how they gained it and all search queries were illegal. This is where Fusion-GPS hires the retired British MI6 officer Christopher Steele. The FBI needed to launder the intelligence product:

Chris Steele would be the laundry for the intelligence information pulled from the U.S. system. Unauthorized FISA-702(16)(17) results were passed on to Christopher Steele, likely by Nellie Ohr. Steele would then wash the intelligence product, repackage it into what became known as his “Dossier”, and pass it back to the FBI ‘small group’ as evidence for use in their counterintelligence operation which began in July 2016 [ intentionally without congressional oversight {Go Deep}].

Evidence of this laundry process is found in a significant “search query” result that was actually a mistake. The faulty intelligence mistake was the travel history of Michael Cohen, a long-time Trump lawyer. The FISA search turned up a Michael Cohen traveling to Prague. It was the wrong Michael Cohen. However, that mistaken result was passed on to Chris Steele and it made its way into the dossier. Absent of a FISA search, there’s no other way Christopher Steele could identify a random “Michael Cohen” traveling to Prague.

The Cohen mistake created a trail from Chris Steele to the FISA database. {Go Deep}

All of the unauthorized FISA-702 search queries, “To From”(16) and/or “About”(17), of the NSA/FBI database were returning results. Those results were “raw intelligence”.

That raw intelligence needed “unmasking”, that’s where the Department of State (DoS) comes in. The U.N. Ambassador is part of the DoS. Samantha Power stated she wasn’t doing the daily “unmasking” identified by the House Intelligence Committee investigation {Go Deep}. Someone, or a group of people, within the State Department, were doing unmasking requests – presumably using Ms. Power’s authority.

The collaborative process by officials within the State Department, as outlined and supported by Senator Chuck Grassley and his investigation, explains why those officials were also communicating with Christopher Steele. {Go Deep}

The assembled but highly compartmentalized reports from the DOJ-NSD, FBI-Counterintelligence, Department of State, Office of National Intelligence (Clapper) and CIA (Brennan), was then constructed to become part of President Obama’s Daily Intelligence Briefing. That’s where National Security Adviser Susan Rice comes in and her frequent unmasking of the assembled intelligence product. {Go Deep}

The Obama PDB was then redistributed internally to more than three dozen administration officials who POTUS Obama allowed to access his PDB. This includes the heads of DOJ, DOJ-NSD, FBI, FBI-counterintel, CIA, DoS, ODNI, NSA and Pentagon.

The distribution of the PDB was how each disparate member of the administration, the larger intelligence apparatus, knew of the ongoing big picture without having to assemble together for direct discussion therein. That’s Lisa Monaco and “Operation Latitude”:

.

Additionally, remember this from the FBI?

January 31st, 2018, […] “With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

FBI Asst. Director Michael Kortan (aka text message “Mike”), the head of the FBI Public Affairs Office was the one who wrote it. Kortan was part of the scheme team. FBI Director Christopher Wray fired him the following week. {Go Deep}  Additionally, we now know the FBI was leaking stories to the media to help frame favorable narratives toward their political endeavors.  The leaks were coordinated by Asst. FBI Direct Andrew McCabe, communications officer Michael Kortan, legal counsel James Baker, and likely provided by FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok to the journalists. McCabe is now saying that FBI Director James Comey sanctioned the leaks McCabe was authorizing. {Go Deep}

CTH has a hunch the OIG report is going to come in multiple phases, containing multiple investigative facets, following the investigative mandate initially outlined when IG Horowitz began (also listed below for reference).  The first release will likely surround McCabe and (bullet point #4) “Allegations that department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information.” I’m working on some summary information therein.

Lots to chew.

Former FBI Deputy Director James Kallstrom appeared on Fox News for an interview with Maria Bartiromo earlier today.  He conveys a common set of perspectives and concerns.

Dan Coats – Director of National Intelligence

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is one of the top three people throughout the entirety of congress with a comprehensive knowledge of the events surrounding the investigations of the FBI and DOJ.  Chairman Goodlatte is one of only four people outside the DOJ who have read the full DOJ FISA application used for a Title-1 Surveillance warrant of Carter Page.

The House Judiciary Committee holds the primary statutory oversight over the U.S. Department of Justice.  Additionally, Chairman Goodlatte is the congressional office working closest with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.  In short, Goodlatte is the center of all ‘oversight’ information circling the investigations into the DOJ and FBI.

Michael R Bromwich (Twitter HERE) is the attorney of record for fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.  Mr. Bromwich responded to the firing of his client with the following statement (Pdf HERE)

March 16, 2018
STATEMENT BY FORMER IG MICHAEL R. BROMWICH

I have been involved in Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) disciplinary matters since 1994. I have never before seen the type of rush to judgment – and rush to summary punishment – that we have witnessed in this case. The result of this deplorable rush to judgment is to terminate Mr. McCabe before his long-anticipated retirement and deny him of the full pension and retirement benefits he would have otherwise earned through his 21 years of devoted service to the FBI and this country. This is simply not the way such matters are generally handled in the DOJ or the FBI.

It is deeply disturbing.

This distortion of the process begins at the very top, with the President’s repeated offensive, drive-by Twitter attacks on Mr. McCabe. These attacks began in the summer of 2017 and accelerated after it was disclosed that Mr. McCabe would be a corroborating witness against the President. The attacks have continued to this day, with the President’s press secretary stating Thursday, in response to a question about Mr. McCabe’s fate, “that is a determination that we would leave to Attorney General Sessions, but we do think it is well-documented that he has had some very troubling behavior and by most accounts a bad actor.”

This vile and defamatory statement is fully consistent with the attacks on Mr. McCabe that have come from the White House since last summer. And it was quite clearly designed to put inappropriate pressure on the Attorney General to act accordingly. This intervention by the White House in the DOJ disciplinary process is unprecedented, deeply unfair, and dangerous.

The investigation described in the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report was cleaved off from the larger investigation of which it was a part, its completion expedited, and the disciplinary process completed in a little over a week. Mr. McCabe and his counsel were given limited access to a draft of the OIG report late last month, did not see the final report and the evidence on which it is based until a week ago, and were receiving relevant exculpatory evidence as recently as two days ago.

We were given only four days to review a voluminous amount of relevant evidence, prepare a response, and make presentations to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. With so much at stake, this process has fallen far short of what Mr. McCabe deserved.

This concerted effort to accelerate the process in order to beat the ticking clock of his scheduled retirement violates any sense of decency and basic principles of fairness. It should make all federal government employees, who continue to work in an Administration that insults, debases, and abuses them, shudder in the knowledge that they could be next.

Michael R. Bromwich served as the Inspector General for the Department of Justice from 1994 to 1999. He served as counsel to Andrew McCabe in this matter.

###

It is interesting to note the dates surrounding the preferred narrative as outlined by Andrew McCabe in his statement Friday evening, and this public letter from McCabe’s attorney, Michael Bromwich, also dated Friday March 16th, 2018.

Obviously, against the timing of a 10:00pm (EST) March 16th, 2018, public release from the DOJ Attorney General announcing McCabe’s termination of employment, in order for McCabe and Bromwich to have lengthy prepared statements ready for immediate release – they were well aware of the pending public release of the DOJ notice of termination.

Secondly, notice the timeline, and contacts, as described in the Bromwich letter:

[…] Mr. McCabe and his counsel were given limited access to a draft of the OIG report late last month, did not see the final report and the evidence on which it is based until a week ago.

[…] We were given only four days to review a voluminous amount of relevant evidence, prepare a response, and make presentations to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.

It would appear toward the end of last month (February), McCabe and his attorney were given the summary outline of the OIG referral submitted to the Office of Professional Responsibility.  They had approximately three weeks to file a response.

Then a week ago, they received the finalized a copy of the OPR recommendation delivered to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  They had four more days to respond to the Deputy AG.

Doesn’t sound rushed to me.

Mr. Michael Bromwich is also on record (Op Ed in WaPo) esupporting the Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, January 14th, 2017, immediately after the OIG investigation was launched:

January 2017 – The announcement by the Justice Department’s inspector general that his office will look into FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails reopens painful questions about the 2016 election, but it is also welcome news. The country needs this — an objective, independent and thorough investigation of issues that have roiled the country for months and continue to stir heated debate.

The investigation will address allegations that Comey violated established Justice Department and FBI policies and procedures in his July 5, 2016, public announcement concerning the Hillary Clinton email investigation. And it will explore allegations that Comey’s Oct. 28 and Nov. 6 letters to Congress, which jolted the presidential election — and may have changed its outcome — were improper.

The impact of Comey’s actions can never be definitively known. But it is important, for the Justice Department and for the country, to obtain a detailed accounting of what happened and why; to assign blame where it is warranted; and to understand how similar situations can be prevented.

In addition to looking into the actions of the FBI director regarding the email investigation, the probe will look into whether the FBI’s deputy director should have recused himself from the investigation because of his wife’s political involvement;whether a high-ranking Justice Department official or others improperly disclosed non-public information to both the Clinton and Trump campaigns; and whether the timing of the FBI’s election eve Freedom of Information Act disclosures relating to Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardon of Marc Rich was based on inappropriate considerations.  (read more)

So attorney Michael Bromwich was for the OIG investigation (January 2017) until his client, Andrew McCabe, was found to have acted inappropriately/unlawfully as a result of the OIG investigation (March 2018) – and now he’s against it.

Gotcha.

So goes life in the swamp.

The thing about advocating for the Sword of Damocles, is never knowing when you might be under it.

Next up… James Comey:

Michael R Bromwich (Twitter HERE) is the attorney of record for fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.  Mr. Bromwich responded to the firing of his client with the following statement (Pdf HERE)

March 16, 2018
STATEMENT BY FORMER IG MICHAEL R. BROMWICH

I have been involved in Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) disciplinary matters since 1994. I have never before seen the type of rush to judgment – and rush to summary punishment – that we have witnessed in this case. The result of this deplorable rush to judgment is to terminate Mr. McCabe before his long-anticipated retirement and deny him of the full pension and retirement benefits he would have otherwise earned through his 21 years of devoted service to the FBI and this country. This is simply not the way such matters are generally handled in the DOJ or the FBI.

It is deeply disturbing.

This distortion of the process begins at the very top, with the President’s repeated offensive, drive-by Twitter attacks on Mr. McCabe. These attacks began in the summer of 2017 and accelerated after it was disclosed that Mr. McCabe would be a corroborating witness against the President. The attacks have continued to this day, with the President’s press secretary stating Thursday, in response to a question about Mr. McCabe’s fate, “that is a determination that we would leave to Attorney General Sessions, but we do think it is well-documented that he has had some very troubling behavior and by most accounts a bad actor.”

This vile and defamatory statement is fully consistent with the attacks on Mr. McCabe that have come from the White House since last summer. And it was quite clearly designed to put inappropriate pressure on the Attorney General to act accordingly. This intervention by the White House in the DOJ disciplinary process is unprecedented, deeply unfair, and dangerous.

The investigation described in the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report was cleaved off from the larger investigation of which it was a part, its completion expedited, and the disciplinary process completed in a little over a week. Mr. McCabe and his counsel were given limited access to a draft of the OIG report late last month, did not see the final report and the evidence on which it is based until a week ago, and were receiving relevant exculpatory evidence as recently as two days ago.

We were given only four days to review a voluminous amount of relevant evidence, prepare a response, and make presentations to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. With so much at stake, this process has fallen far short of what Mr. McCabe deserved.

This concerted effort to accelerate the process in order to beat the ticking clock of his scheduled retirement violates any sense of decency and basic principles of fairness. It should make all federal government employees, who continue to work in an Administration that insults, debases, and abuses them, shudder in the knowledge that they could be next.

Michael R. Bromwich served as the Inspector General for the Department of Justice from 1994 to 1999. He served as counsel to Andrew McCabe in this matter.

###

It is interesting to note the dates surrounding the preferred narrative as outlined by Andrew McCabe in his statement Friday evening, and this public letter from McCabe’s attorney, Michael Bromwich, also dated Friday March 16th, 2018.

Obviously, against the timing of a 10:00pm (EST) March 16th, 2018, public release from the DOJ Attorney General announcing McCabe’s termination of employment, in order for McCabe and Bromwich to have lengthy prepared statements ready for immediate release – they were well aware of the pending public release of the DOJ notice of termination.

Secondly, notice the timeline, and contacts, as described in the Bromwich letter:

[…] Mr. McCabe and his counsel were given limited access to a draft of the OIG report late last month, did not see the final report and the evidence on which it is based until a week ago.

[…] We were given only four days to review a voluminous amount of relevant evidence, prepare a response, and make presentations to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.

It would appear toward the end of last month (February), McCabe and his attorney were given the summary outline of the OIG referral submitted to the Office of Professional Responsibility.  They had approximately three weeks to file a response.

Then a week ago, they received the finalized a copy of the OPR recommendation delivered to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  They had four more days to respond to the Deputy AG.

Doesn’t sound rushed to me.

Mr. Michael Bromwich is also on record (Op Ed in WaPo) esupporting the Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, January 14th, 2017, immediately after the OIG investigation was launched:

January 2017 – The announcement by the Justice Department’s inspector general that his office will look into FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails reopens painful questions about the 2016 election, but it is also welcome news. The country needs this — an objective, independent and thorough investigation of issues that have roiled the country for months and continue to stir heated debate.

The investigation will address allegations that Comey violated established Justice Department and FBI policies and procedures in his July 5, 2016, public announcement concerning the Hillary Clinton email investigation. And it will explore allegations that Comey’s Oct. 28 and Nov. 6 letters to Congress, which jolted the presidential election — and may have changed its outcome — were improper.

The impact of Comey’s actions can never be definitively known. But it is important, for the Justice Department and for the country, to obtain a detailed accounting of what happened and why; to assign blame where it is warranted; and to understand how similar situations can be prevented.

In addition to looking into the actions of the FBI director regarding the email investigation, the probe will look into whether the FBI’s deputy director should have recused himself from the investigation because of his wife’s political involvement;whether a high-ranking Justice Department official or others improperly disclosed non-public information to both the Clinton and Trump campaigns; and whether the timing of the FBI’s election eve Freedom of Information Act disclosures relating to Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardon of Marc Rich was based on inappropriate considerations.  (read more)

So attorney Michael Bromwich was for the OIG investigation (January 2017) until his client, Andrew McCabe, was found to have acted inappropriately/unlawfully as a result of the OIG investigation (March 2018) – and now he’s against it.

Gotcha.

So goes life in the swamp.

The thing about advocating for the Sword of Damocles, is never knowing when you might be under it.

Next up… James Comey: