They are called “decepticons” for a reason. McConnell is king, and Cornyn, Thune and Barasso are his praetorian guards.  {Go Deep}

Senator John Cornyn (TX), a key member of the Senate GOP leadership; and a member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees; warns the White House that a vote to immediately dismiss articles of impeachment and avoid a trial won’t work.

“There’s some people talking about trying to stop the bill, dismiss charges basically as soon as they get over here. I think that’s not going to happen. That would require 51 votes,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday. “I think it would be hard to find 51 votes to cut the case off before the evidence is presented.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Senate Republican, John Cornyn, said on Wednesday that should the U.S. House of Representatives vote to impeach President Donald Trump, he doubts a motion in the Senate to immediately dismiss the charges would succeed.

Cornyn, who spent years as the Senate’s no. 2 Republican, said such a motion would not receive the 51 votes necessary in the Republican-controlled Senate to pass. He said he was confident that ultimately, a vote in the Senate to remove Trump from office would fail. (read more)

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, is one Republican senator who previously hinted at the possibility of advancing a motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment. However, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told GOP colleagues during a lunch meeting last month any motion to dismiss would have to come from the president’s defense team after the impeachment managers deliver the articles to the Senate.

…Senate Republicans, even though they control 53 seats, don’t think there would be enough unity within their conference to dismiss charges against Trump before the prosecutors and defense have a chance to lay out their arguments and senators have a chance to ask questions and deliberate. (link)

One of the problems in the Senate trial is the participation of the SSCI within the network of interests working to eliminate candidate Trump and then President Trump from office.

SSCI Chairman Richard Burr doesn’t go on an political targeting expedition like that without the approval of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.   Yes, it really is that simple.

To remind ourselves how Minority and Majority Senator McConnell took down the threat of the Tea Party revisit these old articles:  CNN Part I and CNN Part II  both showcase how McConnell works.   Then do some research on how McConnell worked with Haley Barbour in Mississippi [SEE HERE].

The Tea Party was a risk to McConnell in 2010-2014 the same way MAGA coalition is to McConnell in 2016-2020.   Take nothing for granted.

The Washington Post jumps-in to the Horowitz ‘principal review’ timeline adding that some of the opportunities for witnesses to review the final draft report are “still being negotiated”, likely by the attorney’s for the principals.

Take all reporting on this two-week review phase with a grain of salt. Despite the NDA’s there will be a rush to control the narrative.  “People familiar with the matter” will start popping up in the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Buzzfeed and CNN.

There is likely to be a flood of spin from the PR teams behind each principal outlined in the report.  Lawyers for James Comey and Andrew McCabe will be using every angle of Lawfare imaginable to attempt to shape their clients image within the report.

Lawyers, Lawfare legal teams, and DC-based PR consultants for Sally Yates, John Carlin, Mary McCord, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Hillary Clinton, James Baker, Michael Kortan, Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Chris Steele, Glen Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, John Brennan, James Clapper and many more will all be working at courtroom rates to control any report damage for their clients.

The Obama administration will be working in the background, while Fusion-GPS takes in fees and pays their primary journalists and narrative engineers premium rates for column inches that protect their client interests.  This is one big confab of interests all positioning to control any negative impressions and highlight their magnanimous patriotic activity.

Watch and we will see full deployment of the justification defense and “outrage trap“.  After all, according to their predictable defenses, there was evidence, even if slight, that President Trump was a Russian asset belonging to Vladimir Putin…. it had to be taken seriously, etc.  Even the Republicans in congress were alarmed.

We are going to see the Intelligence Community Assessment deployed as a shield… see, even the entire intelligence community was concerned about Russia; so we had to use the FISA process…. because these were unprecedented times, unprecedented threats, etc.

Spying, surveillance, unmasking, electronic monitoring, all of it will be deemed as necessary because the system of our entire governmental apparatus was under attack…

You know the routine.

Watch for it in the next two weeks; watch who is protesting the loudest; and we will be able to identify where Horowitz’s report was targeting the hardest.  Look for the tell-tale signs of ‘justifications’ and who is deploying those justifications to excuse their involvement.

WaPo – The Justice Department inspector general has begun scheduling witnesses to review draft sections of his report on the FBI’s investigation of President Trump’s 2016 campaign — the clearest indication yet that the long-awaited document will soon be released publicly, people familiar with the matter said.

Several witnesses have been scheduled or are in talks to review sections of the report dealing with their testimony in the next two weeks, the people said on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. That could mean public release is imminent, though the witnesses will be allowed to submit feedback — which could spark more investigative work and slow down the process.

We finally have confirmation of a procedural process that allows us to anticipate the timing for public release of the FISA report from Inspector General Horowitz.

According to the Associated Press:

The Justice Department’s watchdog is nearing the release of its report on the early stages of the FBI’s Russia investigation, a document likely to revive debate about a politically charged probe that shadowed President Donald Trump’s administration from the outset.

The inspector general in recent days has invited witnesses and their lawyers who were interviewed for the report to review portions of a draft this week and next, a critical final step toward making the document public, according to multiple people familiar with the process who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.

As part of that process, the people will have opportunities to raise concerns or suggest potential edits, making it unclear precisely when in the coming weeks a final version could be ready for release. Inspector General Michael Horowitz told Congress in a letter last month that he did not expect a lengthy review period and that he intended to make as much of the report public as possible, with minimal redactions. (read more)

Generally speaking, and using the 2018 IG report on FBI conduct as a guide, the ‘Principal Review’ phase under Horowitz usually lasts 10 business days, or two weeks. All principals, and lawyers who review the report, are required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Presuming this is principal review week one (seems certain), that would put the final report publication after the week of November 25th through November 29th. [NOTE: Thanksgiving day is November 28th]

The inspector general may allow principal comments to be added to the final report; however, the IG usually adds rebuttal information for any principal additions. Once the principal review and final OIG referencer check is complete the report moves to publication and public distribution.

In the example of  the 2018 report on FBI conduct in the Clinton investigation, the principal review was 10 days from start to finish.  It seems like Horowitz is following the same schedule.  With Thanksgiving on Thursday November 28th, it is likely the resport will be released the week after Thanksgiving week; however it is possible for the report to be released during Thanksgiving week if IG Horowitz limits principal additions.

Best guess is the week after Thanksgiving.

As the public impeachment hearings begin tomorrow, here’s the transcript of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy.

[White House September 25th] President Donald J. Trump released a declassified, unredacted transcript of his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from July 25th, 2019. The transcript can be read HERE.

.

You can see when you read the transcript, despite the media narrative to the contrary, President Trump did not ask President Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden.

It looks like the House impeachment is now a foregone conclusion.  To wit the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Chairman Richard Burr has announced the schedule outline for the upcoming Senate Impeachment Trial.

The trial of President Trump will run from 12:30pm to 6:30pm Monday through Saturday and will last approximately six to eight weeks:

Generally it appears the SSCI is positioning for a conclusion of a guilty verdict where President Trump will be removed from office and President Mike Pence will select Nikki Haley as his vice-presidential candidate for 2020. [Hence the book and MAGA narrative]

Senate Chairman Richard Burr’s forward-lean into the impeachment process takes us back to something previously outlined when it seemed like this was the preferred direction for the professional political class.

…A branch of the United States government (Legislative) is attempting a coup against the leader of another branch of government (Executive); by using the Senate Intelligence Committee and designated corrupt agents within the executive branch cabinet.

In the first part of our research into the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) we outlined how the committee was engaged in the 2017 effort –with specific evidence of communication– to support Robert Mueller and the ‘soft coup‘ team. [See Here] When you understand what the group was doing in early 2017, you understand why the FBI had to use DOJ official Bruce Ohr as a go-between to contact with Chris Steele.

The problem for Attorney General Bill Barr is not only investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of…. A branch of the United States government (Legislative) is attempting a coup against the leader of another branch of government (Executive); by using the Senate Intelligence Committee and designated corrupt agents within the executive branch cabinet.

This 2017 and 2018 time period covers Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, Jeff Sessions as AG, Rod Rosenstein as Deputy, Chris Wray as FBI Director, David Bowditch as Deputy and Dana Boente as FBI legal counsel.  I’ll lay out the evidence, you can then determine who was powerful enough to have made these decisions.

As a result of a FOIA release in Mid December 2018, Judicial Watch revealed how the State Department was feeding “classified information” to multiple U.S. Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration:

The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).

Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a June 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department after it failed to respond to a February 2018 request seeking records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Democratic Senator Ben Cardin (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-01381)).

The documents reveal the Obama State Department urgently gathering classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.  (read more)

The impeachment program was a plan, an insurance policy of sorts; a coordinated effort between corrupt politicians in the Senate and hold-over allies in the executive; however, because she didn’t want to participate in this – Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her vice-chair position to Senator Mark Warner.  [Background Here]

This is the pre-cursor to utilizing Robert Mueller.  A plan that was developed soon after the 2016 election.  The appointment of a special counsel was always the way they were going to hand-off and continue the investigation into Trump; but they needed a reason for it.

The continued exploitation of the Steele Dossier was critical; thus they needed Chris Steele to be solid.  And the continued manipulation of the media was also critical; thus they needed Fusion-GPS to continue.  [Dan Jones paid both]

While Mark Warner was communicating with Adam Waldman and Dan Jones as a conduit to Chris Steele, the FBI/DOJ team was communicating through Bruce Ohr to Chris Steele (and by extension to Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS).

Part of Warner’s role was to weaponize the Legislative branch to advance the ‘Muh Russia conspiracy’, a fundamental necessity if a special counsel was going to have justification.

The SSCI, and the security protocols within it, were structurally part of the plan; hence the rapid information from Obama’s State Dept. to the SSCI and Senate participants in the last moments prior to departing.

♦ On March 17th, 2017, the Senate Intelligence Committee took custody of the FISA application used against Carter Page.   We know the FISA court delivered the read and return Top-Secret Classified application due to the clerk stamp of March 17, 2017.

(Page FISA Application, Link)

The FISA application (original and first renewal) was delivered to Senate Security Director James Wolfe.  Senator Mark Warner entered the basement SCIF shortly after 4:00pm on March 17, 2017, the day it was delivered (texts between Warner and Waldman):

Now, when SSCI Security Officer James Wolfe was indicted (unsealed June ’18), we could see the importance of the March 17th date again:

(Wolfe Indictment Link)

We can tell from the description within the indictment FBI investigators are describing the FISA application.  Additionally Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with his reporter/girlfriend Ali Watkins.  The FISA application is 83 pages with one blank page.

The logical conclusion was that Wolfe text Ali Watkins 82 pictures of the application.

FBI Investigators applied for, and received a search warrant for the phone records of journalist Ali Watkins.  Ms. Watkins was notified in February 2018, three months after Wolfe was questioned by FBI investigators in December 2017.

However, despite the overwhelming (public) circumstantial evidence that Wolfe leaked the FISA application, he was never charged with leaking classified information.  Wolfe was only charged with lying three times to federal authorities, and he pled down to one count of lying to the FBI.

CTH made the case in mid 2018 that someone at the DOJ had influenced a decision not to charge Wolfe with the leaking of the FISA application; despite the FBI and DOJ having direct evidence of Wolfe leaking classified information.

The logical reason for the DOJ not to charge Wolfe with the FISA leak was because that charge could ensnare a Senator on the powerful committee, likely Mark Warner.

Remember, the SSCI has intelligence oversight of the DOJ, DOJ-NSD, FBI and all associated counterintelligence operations. Additionally, when the FBI was investigating Wolfe for leaking classified documents, according to their court filings they had to inform the committee of the risk Wolfe represented.  Who did they have to inform?.. Chairman Burr and Vice-Chair Warner.

D’oh. Think about it.  A gang-of-eight member (Warner), who happened -as a consequence of the jaw dropping implications- to be one of only two SSCI members who was warned by the FBI that Wolfe was compromised…. and he’s the co-conspirator.  The ramifications cannot be overstated.  Such a criminal charge would be a hot mess.

Thus, the perfect alignment of interests for a dropped charge and DC cover-up.

Then, in an act of serendipity, James Wolfe himself bolstered that suspicion when he threatened to subpoena members of the SSCI as part of his defense. [See Here]

[…] Attorneys for James A. Wolfe sent letters to all 15 senators on the committee, notifying them that their testimony may be sought as part of Mr. Wolfe’s defense, according to two people familiar with the matter.

[…] Mr. Wolfe’s defense lawyers are considering calling the senators as part of the proceedings for a variety of reasons, including as potential character witnesses and to rebut some of the allegations made by the government in the criminal complaint, these people say.  (link)

Immediately after threatening to subpoena the SSCI (July 27, 2018), the DOJ cut a deal with Wolfe and dropped the charges down to a single charge of lying to investigators.  However, someone doing the investigative legwork wasn’t happy with that decision.

Our overwhelming CTH circumstantial evidence that Wolfe leaked the FISA application went from a strong suspicion, to damn certain (after the plea deal) when the DOJ included a sentencing motion in mid-December 2018.

On December 15th, 2018 the DOJ filed a response to the Wolfe defense teams’ own sentencing memo (full pdf), and within the DOJ response they included an exhibit (#13) written by the FBI [redacted] special agent in charge, which specifically says: “because of the known disclosure of classified information, the FISA application”… Thereby admitting, albeit post-plea agreement, that Wolfe did indeed leak the damn FISA:

(link to document)

Right there, in that FBI Special Agent description is the bombshell admission that James Wolfe leaked the Carter Page FISA application to his concubine Ali Watkins at Buzzfeed.

We know the special agent who wrote exhibit #13 in the December filing was Special Agent Brian Dugan, Asst. Special Agent in Charge, Washington Field Office.  The same investigator who originally signed the affidavit in the original indictment.

So with hindsight there was absolutely no doubt that James Wolfe leaked the 83-page Carter Page FISA application on March 17, 2017.  Period.  It’s all documented with circumstantial and direct evidence; including the admissions from the FBI agent in charge.

So, why was James Wolfe allowed to plea to a single count of lying to investigators?

Back to where this started….

A branch of the United States government (Legislative) is attempting a coup against the leader of another branch of government (Executive); by using planted and designated corrupt agents within the cabinet…

Now do you see why I say: the problem 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….

Then again, if Barr waits a little longer it will all be a moot point.

ICIG Michael Atkinson is the link that connects Spygate to the Schiff Impeachment Effort

Chad Pergram noted that Intelligence Community Inspector General (IGIC) Michael Atkinson was spotted today going into HPSCI Chairman Schiffs’ basement bunker for discussions with the impeachment inquisitors.

This is interesting because it was reported today that ICIG Atkinson has now received an ethics complaint about a GoFundMe account set up by the CIA ‘whistleblower’ attorney, Mark S. Zaid, to finance the ongoing efforts of CIA operative Eric Ciaramella.

The dirty dealing is getting thick.  Attorney Mark Zaid has claimed to be working pro-bono for his CIA client.  Meanwhile Adam Schiff is threatening anyone and everyone about keeping the CIA client hidden and anonymous; and the media is all-in with efforts to support the protection.  A narrative created by a CIA operative favorable to the coup.

So what exactly is this current $228,000 for? (goal $300k) And who is this group “Values United” who is organizing it?  That’s where the letter to ICIG Atkinson comes in:

(Source)

It appears “Values United” is a laundry operation, established in coordination with lawyer Zaid, to fund the coup against President Trump.  However, the issues start to take on significance when we overlay the background of ICIG Michael Atkinson.

Keep in mind ICIG Atkinson has dirty hands here.  Within the ongoing OIG FISA investigation by Michael Horowitz and John Durham, Atkinson has a conflict of interest that has not yet been disclosed and could very likely be influencing his decision-making.

The CIA ‘whistle-blower’ Eric Ciaramella had no first-hand knowledge; everything within his originating complaint was based on hearsay. The CIA operative never informed the ICIG about prior contact and coordination with the House Intelligence Committee (Adam Schiff). The CIA operative never disclosed congressional contact on the complaint form; and the complaint forms were changed specifically to accommodate this CIA operative.

ICIG Michael Atkinson never reviewed the Trump-Zelenskyy call transcript and facilitated the complaint processing despite numerous flaws.  Additionally Atkinson ignored legal guidance from both the director of national intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel that highlighted Atkinson’s poor decision-making.

This makes the activity of ICIG Atkinson very questionable.  What exactly is his purpose within this enterprise?  Well… given the nature of Atkinson’s background, it appears his prior work in 2016, during his tenure as the lead legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, likely played a role in his decision.

The center of the 2016 Lawfare Alliance election influence was/is the Department of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016 operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901) originated.

Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.

Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA court (Judge Rosemary Collyer) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations as tools for political surveillance and political targeting.

Yes, that means Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very epicenter of the political weaponization and FISA abuse.

If the DOJ-NSD exploitation of the NSA database, and/or DOJ-NSD FISA abuse, and/or DOJ-NSD FARA corruption were ever to reach sunlight, current ICIG Atkinson -as the lawyer for the process- would be under a lot of scrutiny for his involvement.

Yes, that gives current ICIG Michael Atkinson a strong and corrupt motive to participate with the Pelosi-Schiff/Lawfare impeachment objective.  Sketchy!

It now looks like the Lawfare network constructed the ‘whistle-blower’ complaint aka a Schiff Dossier, and handed it to allied CIA operative Eric Ciaramella to file as a formal IC complaint.  This process is almost identical to the Fusion-GPS/Lawfare network handing the Steele Dossier to the FBI to use as the evidence for the 2016/2017 Russia conspiracy.

This series of events is exactly what former CIA Analyst Fred Fleiz said. Fleitz has extensive knowledge of the whistleblower process. Fleitz said last week the Ukraine call whistle-blower is likely driven by political motives, and his sources indicate he had help from Congress members while writing it.

“I can promise you, because we are not going to let him go; [Atkinson] is going to tell he truth about what happened”…

~ Devin Nunes

Senator Chuck Grassley has questions:

There is a background story happening in DC where re-authorization of the USA Freedom Act is needed prior to expiration on December 15th. Techno Fog points out the bulk NSA data collection and FISA(702) surveillance programs are part of this reauthorization.

On November 6th, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the reauthorization.  “Senators expressed their displeasure Wednesday with the Trump administration’s inability to answer questions about the National Security Agency’s collection of data records” (link). Which begs the question:

Is the current Inspector General report on FISA abuse being delayed due to the need for congress to reauthorize the very same programs the IG is about to criticize?

(READ MORE)

For context to this question, and considering the potential for some surprising revelations within the IG report on FISA, it is worth noting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence held back the the findings of FISA Judge James Boasberg that strongly criticized the FISA-702 process for a year.

The Judge Boasberg report was written in September of 2018 but not released (redacted) until last month.

There is a serious problem here…