The resistance appears to be coming together.  In a stunning and historic change of protocol the United States Supreme Court will hold teleconference hearings and will actually live-stream broadcast the oral arguments and questions. Two elements are remarkable.

First, that the Supreme Court would permit a livestream broadcast of any hearing is historic. The purposeful controls of the Court, never allowing video, cameras or live audio broadcasting for their hearings, was always justified around the court never wanting to allow politics and media to shape the serious legal issues being debated.

Secondly, and perhaps not coincidentally, during this live-stream session, the Supreme Court is going to be hearing legal arguments after they consolidated a series of casestargeting the financial and business records of President Donald Trump.  The various lawsuits against President Trump are not only going to be heard, they are going to be broadcast.   It doesn’t get much more political than that.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will hold arguments by teleconference in May in key cases, including President Donald Trump’s bid to shield his tax and other financial records.

The court will make live audio of the arguments available for the first time. It had previously postponed courtroom arguments for March and April because of the coronavirus.

The court will hear 10 cases in all between May 4 and May 13. In addition to fights over subpoenas for Trump’s financial records, they include two cases about whether presidential electors are required to cast their Electoral College ballots for the candidate who won their state.

[…] The court has never live-streamed courtroom arguments and only rarely has it made the audio available on the same day. Cameras also are not allowed in the courtroom.

Most federal appeals courts already have moved to allow arguments by phone, though some cases are being postponed or decided without arguments.

The Supreme Court did not indicate when it might decide the cases it will hear in May. The court usually winds up its work for the summer by the end of June, and returns to the bench on the first Monday in October. Another 10 cases that were postponed because of the virus outbreak will be argued in the fall, said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor who will argue one of those cases, involving rapes by members of the military.

The justices last met in public on March 9, and have held private conferences by telephone since then. The court has decided seven cases in the past month, and while the justices customarily read a summary of the decision from the bench, all the opinions have been released online.

The justices all remain healthy, court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said.  (read more)

In December of last year the Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari and said they would hear all cases related to attempts to gain President Trump financial records and tax filings.

The Supreme Court issued a stay upon all lower court action and consolidated the cases into one writ.  The court will hear arguments in May and release a ruling later in the summer of 2020.

President Trump went to the Supreme Court after the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One seeking President Trump’s tax records. In his request to the court [Read Here] Trump asked SCOTUS to block the subpoenas on the ground they go beyond the committees’ powers.

Justice Ginsburg stayed the lower court decision and ordered the House of Representatives to file a response by Wednesday, December 11, 2019.  The cases and issues were then discussed at their private SCOTUS conference.  The court decided to take up all the cases.

The underlying House case has several defects and there is a strong likelihood President Trump would win the case:

House Oversight is one of three committees that 26USC§6103(f) requires the IRS to turn over individual returns “upon request”.

They requested (PDJT taxes for 6 years 2013-2018) long before Pelosi announced her impeachment inquiry, way before the House vote on same, to which Pelosi said Sunday, (paraphrased) “We haven’t decided to impeach. We are only inquiring about it.”

The ‘upon request’ is not as absolute as it seems. The request must still be predicated on a legitimate legislative purpose. SCOTUS has held (I skip the rulings, since previously commented on here many months ago) that there are only two valid purposes, both constrained to legislative powers expressly granted by A1§8.

1. An inquiry into making, repealing, or amending an A1§8 law.
2. Oversight of executive administration of an existing law.

With respect to (1), a legitimate legislative purpose would be reviewing real estate tax law for possible changes. BUT then, the request should have come from Ways and Means (Neal) where tax laws originate. AND, it should have included requests for tax returns from other big real estate developers also. Singling out only PDJT is a fatal defect to this purpose.

With respect to (2), after Nixon/Agnew the tax code was amended to require a special IRS audit of annual POTUS and VPOTUS returns, with the results held in the National Archive. Reviewing those special audits by IRS would be a proper Oversight and Reform legislative purpose, BUT ONLY for 2017-2018 after PDJT was inaugurated. The earlier 4 years demanded are a fatal defect to this purpose.

Both these valid points were raised by President Trump and were already on their way to SCOTUS. Now the committee is trying to ‘cure’ these fatal request defects by claiming the returns are necessary for impeachment. This raises four new issues where PDJT can also win.

1. Impeachment is not a legislative purpose within A1§8.
2. Articles of Impeachment have historically been the the province of Judiciary, NOT Oversight.
3. The demand was made BEFORE the impeachment inquiry unofficially started and cannot be retrospectively cured.
4. No tax ‘high crimes of misdemeanors’ have even been alleged. Impeachment fishing expeditions are unconstitutional.

IMO this case has the potential to set a major constitutional precedent about POTUS harassment via political impeachment. The constitutional convention minutes and Federalist #65 both make it clear why ‘maladministration’ (the original third test after treason and bribery, and which WOULD allow for political impeachment) was replaced by ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors’. The phrase was borrowed from prior British law, has a specific set of meanings, and DOES NOT allow political impeachment. (link)

The quest for President Trump’s financial records is essentially a legislative and political fishing expedition in an attempt to gain opposition research for their Democrat candidate in the 2020 election.  [Joe Biden or other]

Catherine Herridge ponders what could possibly lay behind the remain redactions on footnote #350.  We know the overall subject matter relates to U.K. intelligence, Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source, and the overall lack of interest by the FBI to undermine their objective; the investigation of the Trump campaign. [Tweet]

Not to sound overly dismissive to the question, but the remaining redactions, intentionally placed by the CURRENT DOJ, only relate to the specific sources and methods within what we know was an investigative partnership between the FBI and British intelligence.

Who or what the specific agencies are [and I’ll share one possibility below] is essentially irrelevant to the larger story.  Unfortunately, the DC administrative state writ large, is attempting to obfuscate the real story by focusing on “Russian disinformation” within the Steele report that was not identified by the FBI.

That DC narrative is a great deflection from the more uncomfortable reality that U.S. intelligence officials purposefully and willfully worked to create, promote and support a dossier they knew from the outset was garbage.  They all knew the dossier was junk because the U.S. intelligence apparatus and political operatives provided the material to include within it.

So here’s footnote #350 from the Herridge tweet, modified only by size to use as a template for possible redaction discussion:

And… considering what we know about the subject matter that is discussed in fn350; and considering what is already known from prior research and public document production; here is a rough example of what could be behind the redactions.

Again, in the big picture the redacted material is moot.  We know the FBI used U.K. sources to corroborate Christopher Steele’s work product; and we know British agencies informed FBI officials that Steele was unreliable, biased in his views toward Donald Trump as a target, and lacking due diligence as an outcome of his intent.

In reality Chris Steele only used one primary sub-source, in addition to the information he was being fed by Fusion-GPS, Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, democrat allies of Hillary Clinton, U.S. media conscripts, officials of the U.S. intelligence community (FBI, CIA, DOJ-NSD) & finally The U.S. State department.  All of these operators participated in the assembly of a political opposition research document without any verification. {Go Deep}

So the part where we ask questions about U.S. agencies not verifying the material inside a dossier they helped assemble, promote and exploit is, well, a little silly.  Alas, this is the pretend questioning game the DC machine likes to play.

Meanwhile most people avoid asking why Attorney General Bill Barr classified the IG report footnotes in the first place.

The only material behind the classifications is material that exposes U.S. corruption; U.S. intentional wrong-doing; and the use of intelligence surveillance as a political weapon.

♦Footnote 334 Before

♦Footnote 334 After

{Go Deep With Source Material}

Do you see any “sources or methods” in that redaction?

Of course not….

So why was it there?

The only thing the DOJ was hiding was: the reality of a Primary Sub-source who said his contacts were not viewed by him as a network of sources.  That is correct, they were just random people he interacted with as an ordinary part of life…. and they chatted about rumors, gossip, innuendo, theories, and stuff.  [Just like it said in the IG report]

Footnote 334, outlining the PSS who gave Steele the majority of information, was embarrassing to the CURRENT institutional interests of the FBI because it showed the prior FBI officials were on a mission; undeterred by truth.

The FBI is a mess of political targeting operations.

That’s what was redacted in the December 2019 IG report, a mere four months ago.  Embarrassing stuff that makes the CURRENT institutions of the DOJ and FBI look bad.  So they hid it…. again… as they continue to hide damaging and embarrassing material.

Which brings me to the point of AG Bill Barr and his biggest challenge.

The challenge for Attorney General Bill Barr is not investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of…. And then finding a way to protect the institutions of the DOJ and FBI while getting people to stop demanding action to address the corruption within them.

We are once again stuck in this stupid place where DC pretends the previous CIA, FBI and DOJ officials were duped by “Russian disinformation”, while we roll our eyes at them because we know the truth; and we know that they know the truth; but their pretense is supported by a willfully blind media.

AG Bill Barr has to keep feeding the purveyors of investigative hope-porn as a method to keep the pitchforks at bay, while simultaneously trying to figure out how to do nothing of substance so he can preserve the institutions. Remember, the DC system operates on an entirely different legal principle when it comes to internal investigations within the bubble.

As a result we get AG Barr saying “if John Durham can find evidence of criminal conduct”; where “criminal” in DC is defined around a DC-exclusive legal theory of “intent” that doesn’t apply anywhere else in the country.  [examples: see Hillary Clinton; or see IG Horowitz saying he couldn’t find intent.]

If John Q Public violated a law, the FBI would break down our door in a no-knock raid and use the violation as leverage to get us to break.  The FBI would not sit around debating  whether John intended to violate the law; they’d deal with that aspect after the raid and the pressure on us to fork over $250,000 in a legal effort to defend ourselves.  [example: see Roger Stone]

But in the DC-tier of justice, where administrating the law is subject to the internal rules that don’t apply outside the bubble, everything must be filtered through “intent”. When intent is transparently obvious, the DC legal theory moves to the second filter where collateral damage to the institutions must be weighted. [example: see James Wolfe]

AG Bill Barr has no intention on prosecuting any former individual or entity, regardless of their political hierarchy and/or level of participation, in the matrix of the coup effort against Candidate/President Trump….  unless the DC-exclusive legal hurdles are met.

(1) There must be clear intention that cannot be excused by the coup participant behind obtuse justifications.  If the corrupt participant says they had to follow-up and investigate because the Trump-Russia ramifications were so enormous (ie. the justification trap); and there’s nobody to refute that, then it’s over.

(2) There must be no collateral damage to the institutions of government.  No executive agency or branch of government can be compromised by the truthful prosecution of an individual from within it.  If the consequences are severe enough to damage an entire institution, then it’s over.

The current DOJ redactions and lack of declassification of a host of known material (including the scope memos), is directly related to #2, the need to preserve and protect people (Rosenstein) and the institutions (DOJ/FBI/Congress).

Think about the argument:  Are we debating what lies behind redactions on current DOJ documents from the AG Bill Barr agency; and simultaneously believing that AG Bill Barr is going to deliver some form of justice from inside the institution of the DOJ?

The Bill Barr Dept. of Justice is currently engaged in an ongoing effort to cover/redact  details that are embarrassing to the institutions; but the same Bill Barr Dept. of Justice is going to prosecute those who embarrassed the institutions?…

There’s something akin to a Stockholm Syndrome in the ability of people to rationalize away two mutually exclusive facets of DOJ behavior. And no, the redactions have nothing to do with U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation. Look at them again if needed.

In the fulsome picture, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr is trying to navigate.

…The challenge for Attorney General Bill Barr is not investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of… And finding a way to tamp down the inquisition…

[@4:10 of Video] INGRAHAM – What can you tell us about the state of John Durham’s investigation? People have been waiting for the, the final report, on what happened with this, what can you tell us?

BARR – “Well I think a report y’know, may be, and probably will be, a by-product of his activity; but his primary focus isn’t to prepare a report, he is looking to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses if he can show that there were criminal violations; and that’s what the focus is on. And, uh, as you know, being a lawyer yourself, building these cases, especially the sprawling case we have between us that went on for two or three years here, uh…, it takes some time, it takes some time to build the case.  So he’s diligently pursuing it.”

“My own view is that, uh, the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness, there was something far more troubling here; and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted.”

INGRAHAM – “The president is very frustrated, I think you, you obviously know that; about Andrew McCabe, uh, he believes that people like McCabe and others just were able to basically flout the laws, and so far with impunity.”

BARR – “I think the president has every right to be frustrated, because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history.  Without any basis uh, they, uh, they started this investigation of his campaign; and even more concerning actually, is what happened after the campaign; a whole pattern of events while he was President. uh, So I, to sabotage the presidency; and I think that, uh, or at least had the effect of sabotaging the presidency.”

INGRAHAM – “Will FISA abuses be prevented going forward given what happened here where FISA judges were not given critical pieces of information; material facts about evidence that informed the governments’ okaying of surveillance on American citizens.”

BARR – “You know I think it’s possible to put in a regime that will make it very hard, either to willfully circumvent FISA, or to do so sloppily without due regard for the rights of the American person involved. And also to make it very clear that any misconduct will be discovered and discovered fairly promptly.”

“So I do think we can put in safeguards that will enable us to go forward with this important tool.. uh.. I think it’s very sad, uh, and the people who abused FISA, have a lot to answer for. Because this was an important tool to protect the American people, they abused it, they undercut public confidence in FISA but also the FBI as an institution: and we have to rebuild that.”

There are multiple stories today about the declassification of three footnotes from within the DOJ IG report on the Carter Page FISA application.  Many voices are calling the declassification of those three footnotes “bombshells”, and “the beginning of the great reveal“; however, that’s not accurate. [Neither Is This From Congress]  Exactly the opposite is true… the release today is purposeful misdirection.

Everyone seems to be overlooking the obvious… Why were these footnotes classified four months ago when the report came out?  Who classified them?  There are no protected “sources or methods”; and the only reason for the redactions was to protect the corrupt interests of the DOJ.

With that said, I find no reason to celebrate the un-redaction of redacted information that should never have been classified in the first place.  Factually, the information revealed by the footnote declassification was already well known.   Worse still, the interpretation of the information within the footnotes is propaganda, purposeful ‘misinformation’.

Additionally, if these declassified footnotes are an example of a new DOJ shift to allow sunlight; as in: some newly discovered interest in truthfulness; then why are the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages still redacted?  Why is the Susan Rice memo on inauguration day still redacted?  And, more importantly, more tellingly, why is the DOJ still hiding the ‘scope memos’ that authorized Mueller’s investigation?

Nope.  What was released today was an example of the state moving in a very specific way to protect itself.  I’ll explain after we first review what happened today: [h/t Catherine Herridge]

Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson wanted four footnotes declassified (unredacted) from the IG report on FISA: fn-302, fn-334, fn-342* and fn-350. 

Footnote 342 is still fully redacted; however the others were mostly unredacted today.

♦Footnote 302 Before

Footnote 302 After

♦Footnote 334 Before

Footnote 334 After

♦Footnote 350 Before

Footnote 350 After

As a result of the declassification, the media and congressional takeaway is this:

The “central and essential” evidence used to justify invasive surveillance of an American citizen in the FBI’s probe into Russian interference was, itself, an example of Russian interference, according to once-secret footnotes declassified at the urging of two U.S. Senators. (link)

According to these interpretations, which are fully supported by the DOJ and FBI, the former administration officials were duped, tricked, into believing Russian disinformation that was seeded into the Chris Steele dossier.

That interpretation is the official U.S. Government position.

That interpretation is also pure nonsense.  Here it is again:

[…] The footnotes reveal that, beginning early on and continuing throughout the FBI’s Russia investigation, FBI officials learned critical information streams that flowed to the dossier were likely tainted with Russian Intelligence disinformation. But the FBI aggressively advanced the probe anyway, ignoring internal oversight mechanisms and neglecting to flag the material credibility concerns for a secret court. Despite later intelligence reports that key elements of the FBI’s evidence were the result of Russian infiltration to undermine U.S. foreign relations, the FBI still pushed forward with its probe.  (more)

That is not just a wrong interpretation; it is an intentionally wrong interpretation.

That interpretation comes from interests of the U.S. government, all sides; and it is intended to help protect and insulate the institutions of U.S. government.

The truth is the CIA and FBI worked to plant disinformation in the Steele dossier.  The CIA/FBI did not get duped by Russian Disinformation. The CIA/FBI knowingly and willfully solicited Russian disinformation to be channeled to Chris Steele.

The current DOJ, current FBI, and current political class (both parties), do not want to reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies worked with Russian actors to seed disinformation into the Steele Dossier that could then be laundered and returned to the U.S. intelligence apparatus for exploitation – via political surveillance – using FISA.

♦ FACTS – In addition to working in collaboration with Fusion-GPS and Nellie Ohr (CIA), Christopher Steele was simultaneously employed by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Our current DOJ and FBI are well aware of this; so too is congress.

Oleg had hired Christopher Steele at the same time Steele was working with Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS to write the Trump dossier. [LINK] Also WATCH:

.

In September of 2016 Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, and two FBI agents approached Deripaska in New York – again asking for his help. This time the FBI request was for Deripaska to provide dirt on Paul Manafort and the Trump campaign.

Later the New York Times tried to spin that request, by saying the FBI was trying to “flip” Deripaska to be a source for them. [LINK]

And then there was Anastasia Vashukevich, Oleg’s female companion, who was traveling with Deripaska at the time, and coincidentally talked about overhearing conversations about Trump, Moscow, hookers and Pee tapes between Oleg and ?? [Likely Steele] Funny how those same claims were in the debunked dossier.

And lets not forget our coup-plotter pal, Senator Mark Warner, and his “would rather not have a paper trail” conversations with Oleg’s lawyer (Adam Waldman) [LINK]…

So no, the FBI didn’t “ignore likely Russian disinformation.” The entire CIA/FBI network was based around CREATING Russian disinformation [or at least the impression therein].

The reality is that Christopher Steele was working for Oleg Deripaska, and Deripaska provided material, ridiculous material like hookers, pee-tapes etc, that Steele -while working in collaboration with Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr (CIA)- put into his silly dossier and gave to the FBI….. who then used that nonsense to gain a surveillance warrant against the Trump campaign.  That’s Oleg’s REAL STORY.

Christopher Steele, working for Deripaska and Fusion-GPS, was simply the tool to get the CIA/FBI constructed intelligence products into useful position/channels.  It was an intelligence laundry operation…. all feeding into Chris Steele and then coming out in his dossier.  There was no “ignoring” it, because the CIA/FBI was manufacturing it.

The FBI used the dossier as evidence for the FISA warrant against the campaign.  Some of the information used in the dossier was from U.S. intelligence to Chris Steele.  The FBI knew all along the Russia intelligence part was bullshit; that is the reason the FBI ignored any warnings about the validity or provenance of the dossier.

The FBI knew the dossier was junk, they were not duped.  That’s why the FBI “ignored” warnings…. They were only ignoring what they already knew.

They were ignoring all of this because the goal changed after the November 8, 2016, election.  In January 2017 the goal to get rid of Trump was now centered around creating the special counsel.

The special counsel would then use the pre-existing FISA surveillance authority to conduct intelligence operations against the administration.  The DOJ/FBI needed to hand Mueller the tools to investigate Trump; that’s why they kept renewing the FISA warrant despite the collapse in provenance.  This was all by design.

No-one participating was unaware of the background of their participation.  No-one was duped; no-one was a victim of Russian disinformation.  Everyone knew the operational goals and objectives to target Trump.  Everything was done purposefully and with specific intent, including Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein…

…And that’s why we cannot see the expanded scope memos.

The current DOJ and FBI are protecting themselves and their institutions.