With much of the media, and indeed the President himself, fueling the ongoing headline discussion over the ramifications of the Obama administration setting up “surveillance”, “informants”, counterintelligence operations and “agent provocateurs” against their political opposition, ie. “SpyGate”, it is perhaps time for some mental sorbet.
Relating to the overall issue, on March 28th, 2018, the DOJ Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz formerly announced an additional investigation of how the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation engaged with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in matters relating to the FISA Title-1 application filed against U.S. person Carter Page. However, one part of the OIG notification was generously overlooked by a defensive and IC compliant media:
As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications. (pdf link)
Two months later on Monday May 21st, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein added a significant DOJ mandate to the Inspector General review. Rosenstein expanded the original FISA review to include looking at whether officials within the intelligence community may have unlawfully used human intelligence assets to “spy” or “surveil” the Trump campaign:
“The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.” (link)
The overall FBI and DOJ corruption and political weaponization discussion has now shifted to issues of politically motivated spies, surveillance and the use of intelligence agents to conduct domestic operations. There are obvious ramifications and seemingly and endless series of directions and outlines for evidence therein.
♦The first IG report, exposing the lies and media leaks from officials within the FBI, known as the IG Report on Andrew McCabe, was a derivative outcome from the original investigation into whether the FBI politicized their investigation of Hillary Clinton. That report was published Friday April 13th, 2018. {SEE HERE}
♦The second IG report, which is actually based on the original IG mandate, was completed on May 16th, 2018, and is being reviewed in draft report format prior to publication. It is widely anticipated that report will be made final and public in the first week of June.
♦The third IG report, again an outcropping from the original IG mandate, is the FISA review and use of the FISA Court (FISC) by the DOJ and FBI in their counterintelligence investigation of candidate Donald Trump. As noted, this third investigation has now been expanded to include inquiry into how the larger intelligence apparatus might have been weaponized for political purposes; spies, surveillance, international agents, and such.
Here’s where a mental sorbet is in order.
While we await the IG report on the politicization of the DOJ and FBI and how they handled the Clinton Classified-Email Investigation, it is worth noting that much of the FISA investigation overlaps with the FBI intent during this timeline.
There’s obviously a boatload of investigative angles and questions that can possibly swirl around the FISC and IC (intelligence community) investigation. Heck, when any investigation is launched into the intelligence community, this is where you enter the land of the proverbial rabbit hole(s).
Having traveled through this IC matrix before, and with a firm grip on the seemingly slippery pathways therein, CTH has no desire to chase ourselves through the hall of mirrors. We can, and perhaps at times will, go granular. However, for current purposes what we would draw attention to are the ‘larger aspects’ being seemingly overlooked.
Obviously the FISA/IC investigation is going to go into the locations of the CIA, ODNI, NSA and their intersection with the Department of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. The DOJ-NSD is the division within Main Justice that handles domestic intelligence operations from the position of legal intent and court engagement.
On these domestic counterintelligence issues, DOJ-NSD gives the instructions and authorization from Main Justice to the FBI counterintelligence officials; who then do the actual investigatory police work. In the 2016 “small group” operation against the Trump campaign the DOJ-NSD officials worked in unity with FBI officials. In rooting out corruption therein, both the FBI side and the Main Justice side have issues.
On the FBI side Director Comey, Asst. Director McCabe, as well as a host of downstream officials were caught in the investigative net. Some were fired (Comey, McCabe); some demoted (Baker, Strzok); some quit (Rybicki, Kortan, Baker); and one -Peter Strzok- remains; likely cooperating with Phase III of the IG FISA/IC investigation. The head of the FBI Counterintelligence Operation, Bill Priestap, has never been touched.
In essence, the corrupt officials within the FBI side have been purged.
On the Main Justice side things are slightly more complex because there’s much bigger stakes at play and legal risks that extend far beyond the DOJ-NSD. While a host of DOJ-NSD officials have been removed or quit (John Carlin, Mary McCord, David Laufman) many more remain. Trish Beth “Trish” Anderson, Tashina “Tash” Gauhar, George Toscas to name a few. Then there’s Bruce Ohr, demoted twice and remaining likely for cooperation. In addition, the entire apparatus of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) appears to have been involved in creating plausible legal justification.
In essence, many of the corrupt officials within Main Justice HAVE NOT been purged.
Almost every current media leak is from inside the remaining Main Justice and DOJ-NSD officials who remain in place protecting the interests of the former corrupt officials. All are lawyers, and all have alignment with their external allies in the Lawfare Blog Group.
The Obama Main Justice officials remaining inside the permanent political state are the types Shakespeare was referring to in Henry-VI. Says Dick the Butcher: “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers“. Despite his socialist tendencies and moral failings we can all relate to Dick the Butcher. So that’s challenge number one.
Challenge number two is how to bring national security intelligence information into investigative review while simultaneously avoiding the exhaustive defense systems of the Deep State.
The terms “classified” and “top secret” have been so abused by the administrative state as a deployment mechanism to hide their $5000 latte machines and $70,000 conference tables, when the IG actually begins digging into FBI, CIA, NSA, FISC, and DOJ-NSD network communication we can only imagine the non-disclosure schemes.
Then again, perhaps, just perhaps, such specific subject-matter-expertise is the entire reason why AG Sessions selected John Huber from Utah (NSA HQ), and more recently brought in Ezra Cohen-Watnick as National Security Advisor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (NOTICE THE TIMING)
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/380244698/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-iZBeyNrf1Z86TPayJAqp
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Centinel2012 