Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova conducted a radio interview earlier today with WMAL where he outlines some of the nuance within the Schiff memo and the response from the FBI. Worth listening:

Apparently a group of GOP Senators are proposing an outline (pdf below) for the Republican senatorial legislation for immigration reform.  A first review of the seven  senators outlined in the group shows a majority-minded tilt toward the CoC position(s), with a dose of Chuck Grassley sprinkled in to make their GOPe mix palatable.

With the 1000mg bitter pill of a massive budget bill still blocking our trachea, upon first glance we note an ideological similarity here to the failed Obamacare repeal construct (amid the big picture analysis). The backdrop is a faux-deadline of March 5th where POTUS asked congress to solve the DACA issue. Here’s the press release:

WASHINGTON D.C. -A group of U.S. Senators tomorrow will introduce a common-sense proposal aimed at providing legal certainty for undocumented children brought to the United States by their parents and preventing others from falling into the same legal limbo in the future.

Their proposal, which mirrors the White House framework announced by President Trump, provides a generous opportunity for approximately 1.8 million DACA or DACA-eligible immigrants to earn citizenship while strengthening our nation’s border security and enforcement measures to reduce illegal immigration.

The Secure and Succeed Act, sponsored by Senators Cotton, Grassley, Cornyn, Tillis, Perdue, Lankford, and Ernst, appropriates $25 billion for real border security such as physical and virtual fencing, radar and other technologies. It also provides for additional personnel for border control and ends key loopholes in current law that allow dangerous criminals to enter our country.

The legislation prospectively limits family-based immigration to the nuclear family and reallocates the Diversity Visa lottery. Their proposal generously grandfathers all pending family-based visa applications in order to reward those who chose to follow the law and immigrate legally. The allotment for the Diversity Visa lottery will be reallocated to reduce this backlog and the employment-based visa backlog.

“This is the only bill that has a chance of becoming law, and that’s because it’s the only bill that will truly solve the underlying problem. It will protect those eligible for DACA but also make sure we don’t end up back here five years from now. By addressing our border security needs and limiting family sponsorship to the nuclear family, it goes far beyond the other half measures that have been proposed. This bill is generous, humane, and responsible, and now we should send it to the president’s desk,” Tom Cotton said.

“This legislation is a reasonable approach to shielding children illegally brought to our country through no fault of their own while also taking the meaningful steps to ensure nobody finds themselves in the same situation in the future. This is a rare opportunity to fix a real problem and protect the country in a thoughtful and compassionate way. We simply have to correct the loopholes in current law that allow dangerous criminals to enter and remain at large in our country. Our proposal is supported by the President, who’s come a long way to reach a compromise. This is the only Senate proposal that has any chance of passing the House and being signed into law. If my colleagues are serious about actually finding a real and permanent solution to the DACA crisis, they should be ready and willing to support this compromise,” Chuck Grassley said.

“This proposal provides a common-sense, permanent solution for nearly two million people who find themselves in limbo. The Secure and Succeed Act gives us the opportunity to help these individuals and build the trust of the American people by securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws,” John Cornyn said.

“This is a common-sense compromise that accomplishes a number of goals that both parties have long supported. It offers a fair and compassionate solution for DACA youth to earn naturalization, and it effectively secures our borders to help prevent future illegal immigration and stop drug and human trafficking. It also provides a path forward for modernizing our broken immigration system so it can be more merit-based and reflective of the changing economic and labor needs of our nation. This legislation is the only proposal that the President supports, and the open amendment process will give Senators the opportunity to improve the baseline proposal and get it signed into law,” Tom Tillis said.

“President Trump has been very clear on what he will sign into law, and this is it. This is a great deal and the only solution that fully addresses the four pillars in the President’s framework. Now it is up to Republicans and Democrats in both chambers. If people really want to solve the DACA situation, secure our border, and fix the flaws in our current system that incentivize illegal immigration, they should be eager to support this plan,” David Perdue said.

“We have a unique opportunity to finally get something done on the four immigration areas that leaders in Congress and the President agreed must get done – DACA, border security, the visa lottery, and family sponsorship reform. It’s important to do this in a way that prevents repeating this conversation again ten years from now. I call on my colleagues to put aside partisanship and posturing to have an honest debate about decades-long immigration issues and practical solutions that can pass both Houses of Congress and be signed into law. There are many immigration proposals being floated in the Senate that the House will not pass and the President won’t sign. Too many families are counting on us to do the right thing. Now is the time to get this done,” Jim Lankford said.

“We must ensure a path forward for those who were brought here through no fault of their own as children, while also enforcing our laws, putting an end to illegal immigration, and strengthening our border security. This framework is a step toward addressing the legal, economic, and security concerns that are present in the current debate and the unique challenges that the DACA-eligible population faces, and I urge my colleagues to support this proposal,” Jodi Ernst said.

The Secure and Succeed Act includes the four reform pillars agreed to during a bipartisan meeting with congressional leaders and President Trump in January: legal status for DACA recipients; increased border security; an end chain to migration; and an end to the diversity visa lottery.  (link)

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/371305506/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-gFjjFIMQeLO7kunTd5pL

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…”with a moat, and turrets, and sharks with lasers”… “and out of NAFTA”. Please.

~Sundance

It’s always an interesting exercise to take new and confirmed information and go back to see the claims from the key stakeholders when the initial trail of the information was discovered.  This is one such example from July 2017.

Now that Chairman Devin Nunes, Chuck Grassley and the key players themselves, have discovered and admitted the U.S. State Department was heavily involved in passing along Clinton opposition research to Chris Steele to create the “Clinton-Steele Dossier”, it’s interesting to look at how the former State Department spokesperson -in place during all the events- responded last year when the Clinton-Steele Dossier was thought to be part of the underlying evidence for the DOJ/FBI FISA application.

Former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf, a person in direct and continuous contact with all the principle agents during the 2016 information flow, was confronted in July 2017 and adamantly denied the dossier was part of the FISA application. WATCH:

Looking beyond the transparent lying and subsequent collapse of credibility, the key takeaway here is how State Department officials knew what was going on in 2016, recognized the risk presented by that action in 2017, and were willing to walk the plank because they were certain none of it would ever come to light.

Jonathan Winer – […] In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it.

I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele’s reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele’s reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters, and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of events in Russia.  (read more)

(Grassley Memo – page #6)

Mr Winer – WaPo: […] In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier.” Steele’s sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

[…] In late September, I spoke with an old friend, Sidney Blumenthal … While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature.  … On my own, I shared a copy of these notes with Steele, to ask for his professional reaction. … I agreed to let him keep a copy of the Shearer notes. …  I did not expect them to be shared with anyone in the U.S. government. … But I learned later that Steele did share them — with the FBI (link)

The bigger story behind the 2017 interview with Marie Harf, when contrast against 2018 reality, is recognition of how vast the network of people were within the entire effort to launder political campaign opposition research -provided by Hillary Clinton- to create surveillance upon the Trump campaign.

Officials at the top of the FBI and Department of Justice; officials in the intelligence apparatus of the ODNI, CIA and NSA; and officials at the top of the U.S. Department of State – to include Secretary John Kerry; were all working in common political cause.

Beyond the political talking points, when you simply point out the provable facts the Director of the FBI, Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of State, were all deeply within the information loop there’s no way possible to extract President Obama from the network.  This is how the collapsing house of cards eventually brings down the office of the presidency.

What would be the fall-back, or alternative, narrative?

The talking points are still a few weeks away, but there’s only one possible angle: The President was unaware of the action of his Attorney General, FBI Director, Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director and Secretary of State?

Absurd.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/370918981/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-4FYurQaOGkqAtR5CXj4u

There are many people who wonder why any Democrat, particularly Adam Schiff, would continue clinging to a narrative despite all contrary evidence that disproves it.  The answer is really quite simple; there’s nothing to lose.  Much like the bank robber killing a police officer, once that initial capital felony is committed there is no greater punishment for all subsequent actions.

The foundational lies are of such significance there is no punitive, or political, down-side to dissuade further lying built upon the originating falsehood.  Twice in this interview Major Garrett asks the ranking member of the HPSCI if he is certain the DOJ and FBI followed proper procedures, and presented proper evidence, in gaining a FISA court “Title-1” surveillance warrant over Carter Page.  WATCH:

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Note how Adam Schiff is in California (Friday night appearing on Bill Mahr), and maximizing the political benefit of his narrative construction; instead of actually working to clear up his memo construct and release it. It’s not the memo that is important to him, it’s the political narrative he’s created.

Also, don’t be naive not to accept that Major Garrett doesn’t know what Schiff is up to, he does.  Garrett is simply falling back upon the increasingly overused use of the ‘Mamet Principle’, pretending not to know some things (ie. motives and intents).

Garrett’s emotional tribal credibility is in conflict with his intellectual professional responsibility; Garrett knows exactly what decisions he’s making, and so should we.

Ultimately this is one of the saddest outcomes of this entire fiasco.  Much like Joe Manchin inherently wanting to applaud during the State of the Union, but then catching himself mentally as he weighed the pro’s-and con’s, Garrett knows he could deconstruct this Shiff presentation with minimal effort – yet he makes a conscious decision to give up part of his own intellectual honesty in order to remain in the tribe.

It’s pathetic really.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo for an extensive interview discussing the ongoing investigation into the DOJ, FBI and State Department; and their collaboration with the Hillary Clinton campaign to weaponize political opposition research in the 2016 election.

Chairman Nunes describes how the Democrats on the HPSCI put classified information into their memo intentionally in an effort to create political benefit; and now refuse to redact and release their own work product.

Chairman Devin Nunes keeps a big picture focus while also describing how corrupt officials within the DOJ and FBI continued to use the “Title-1” surveillance warrant in 2017 to monitor and track all of the communication between Carter Page and congress. In essence, the ‘small group’ within the DOJ and FBI were likely spying on the congressional investigation into their own unlawful activity.  WATCH:

The game is over. The jig is up. Victory is certain… the trench was ignited… the enemy funneled themselves into the valley… all bait was taken… everything from here on out is simply mopping up the details.  All suspicions confirmed.

Why has Devin Nunes been so confident?  Why did all GOP HPSCI members happily allow the Democrats to create a 10-page narrative?  All questions are answered.

Fughettaboudit.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member Chris Stewart appeared on Fox News with Judge Jeanine Pirro, and didn’t want to “make news” or spill the beans, but the unstated, between-the-lines, discussion was as subtle as a brick through a window.  Judge Jeannie has been on the cusp of this for a few weeks.

Listen carefully around 2:30, Judge Jeanine hits the bulls-eye; and listen to how Chris Stewart talks about not wanting to make news and is unsure what he can say on this…

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Bill Priestap is cooperating.

When you understand how central E.W. “Bill” Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity.  I wrote a twitter thread about him last year and wrote about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.

E.W. “Bill” Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation.  He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss.  If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know everything about everything.

GOP Membership have put together this video to highlight the key points surrounding how the DOJ and FBI put together a FISA Court application to conduct surveillance on political opposition:

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Additionally, constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz discusses the ongoing issues:

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