U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced a media availability today at 2:30 p.m. EST to make a statement and possibly answer questions regarding the Jeffrey Epstein arrest and prosecution in Washington, DC.

Acosta was the former U.S. Attorney in Miami during a prior plea agreement.  Democrats are calling for him to resign.  It’s possible this presser may provide answers.

UPDATE: Video Added

Fox News Livestream – Fox Business Livestream – CNBC Livestream

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Comey FBI apologist, Fusion GPS co-conspirator and Lawfare Alliance media narrative engineer, Natasha Bertrand, has an outline published today on the background interview of dossier author Christopher Steele.

From within the article, beyond the sympathetic propaganda, some overarching details are interesting:

♦(1) As expected Mr. Steele would only talk to OIG investigators from Horowitz’s office; Steele would not speak to speak to U.S. Attorney John Durham.

♦(2) The interview took place at the same time President Trump traveled to the U.K (June 3rd-5th) for a state visit.  Likely coordinated so FBI officials could travel innocuously without media scrutiny (lots of security officials traveled on behalf of U.S. interests at the time); likely the preferred timing of Steele himself.

♦(3) The interview(s) took place over two days for a total of sixteen hours of conversation. The recent reports of IG delay and follow-up interviews are almost certainly related to the outcome of the investigative findings (ie. Kathleen Kavalec cooperation etc.).

♦(4) Current officials within the DOJ/FBI; with obvious interests related to the corrupt activity surrounding the FBI and DOJ use of Steele (ie. McCabe and Comey apologists); are leaking the content of the investigative interviews to their notorious Lawfare Alliance media cohorts, ie. Natasha Bertrand.

WASHINGTON DC – Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind the infamous “dossier” on President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, was interviewed for 16 hours in June by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The interview is part of an ongoing investigation that the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, has been conducting for the past year. Specifically, Horowitz has been examining the FBI’s efforts to surveil a one-time Trump campaign adviser based in part on information from Steele, an ex-British MI6 agent who had worked with the bureau as a confidential source since 2010.

The extensive, two-day interview took place in London while Trump was in Britain for a state visit, the sources said, and delved into Steele’s extensive work on Russian interference efforts globally, his intelligence-collection methods and his findings about Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who the FBI ultimately surveilled. The FBI’s decision to seek a surveillance warrant against Page — a warrant they applied for and obtained after Page had already left the campaign — is the chief focus of the probe by Horowitz.

The interview was contentious at first, the sources added, but investigators ultimately found Steele’s testimony credible and even surprising. The takeaway has irked some U.S. officials interviewed as part of the probe — they argue that it shouldn’t have taken a foreign national to convince the inspector general that the FBI acted properly in 2016. Steele’s American lawyer was present for the conversation.  (read more)

Steele’s American lawyer is likely Adam Waldman (far left), the same U.S. lawyer/lobbyist who was working to put Steele in touch with SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner in 2017.

Attorney Waldman has interests in alignment with the Lawfare network and direct connection to Daniel Jones, Dianne Feinstein’s former chief-of-staff who also took millions from resistance operatives (more Lawfare and Fusion-GPS allies) to continue funding Steele’s work afer the Trump inauguration.

Attorney Adam Waldman was also the lawyer representing Oleg Deripaska (pictured above on right); who we now know was paying Christopher Steele for research in 2016 while Steele was writing the dossier.

It’s one big convoluted network of allied interests, mixed with current and former DOJ and FBI officials who have a self-interest in hiding their illicit behavior.  Almost all of the people within this network have ideological allies in the media, and depending on the subject issue at hand they are described in relative terms:

“Beach friends” (Christine Blasey Ford); “Lawfare Alliance” (Benjamin Wittes et al); FBI Washington Field Office and Main Justice officials are all part of this group and were also the officials within the Mueller probe.   This network is all the same people, running in the same circles, meeting at the same parties, vacationing in the same areas and leaking to the same primary media contacts to project their narrative and defend their interests.

The article in Politico by Natasha Bertrand is a singular example. Quite simply this entire network is confident in their outlook that all of their behavior operates above the law.

Unfortunately, if the tone of the article is generally their position, it would appear they feel remarkably confident the investigation by IG Horowitz is nothing to fear.  This overall outlook is bolstered by the historic track record of the OIG with regard to the two most recent investigative summaries: (1) Andrew McCabe leaking to media, and (2) DOJ and FBI conduct in the Hillary Clinton investigation.

In October 2016, Main Justic and the FBI needed the Steele dossier to get the FISA warrant.  They needed the 2016 FISA warrant to cover-up for all of the unauthorized and illegal surveillance activity that was already underway throughout 2016.

The Russian election interference narrative; the use of Joseph Mifsud, Stefan Halper, the London and Australian embassy personnel; Erika Thompson, Alexander Downer, U.S. DIA officials; everything around Crossfire Hurricane; and everything after to include the construct of the Steele Dossier; all of it was needed for the creation of an ‘after-the-fact‘  plausible justification to cover-up what Mike Rogers discovered in early 2016, AND the downstream unmasked records that existed in the Obama White House SCIF.

Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 to research Donald Trump.  The intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. They already knew everything about the Trump campaign.

The Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a justification for pre-existing surveillance operations.  Fusion fulfilled that objective by contracting for the Steele Dossier.

That’s why the FBI, and later the Mueller team, were/are so strongly committed to, and defending, the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content.  Once they had the dossier in hand the FBI proceeded forward for an ex post facto FISA warrant.

The goal was surveillance authority.

The FBI used the Carter Page FISA application. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the dossier in the system, and the FISA authority as justification to execute the “insurance policy”.

President Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani appears on Fox News with Laura Ingraham to discuss the 2020 democrat candidates; the upcoming appearance by Robert Mueller; the recent arrest of Jeffrey Epstein and the race-baiting of Nancy Pelosi:

Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend and fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, likely has many of the answers DOJ wants….

In a new report Fox News journalist Catherine Herridge outlines a “reluctant witness” who has recently agreed to cooperate with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his review of potential FISA abuse by the Obama DOJ and FBI.

Fox News – Key witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the 11th hour, Fox News has learned.

Sources familiar with the matter said at least one witness outside the Justice Department and FBI started cooperating — a breakthrough that came after Attorney General William Barr ordered U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the bureau’s 2016 Russia case that laid the foundation for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

[…] Late-breaking information is known to delay such investigations. Horowitz’s office similarly encountered new evidence late in the process of the IG review into law enforcement decisions during the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation.

In this case, additional FISA information came to light late in the process – including October 2016 contact (first reported by The Hill and confirmed by Fox News) between a senior State Department official and a former British spy Christopher Steele, who authored the infamous and salacious anti-Trump dossier. (read more)

While the “reluctant witness” is not specifically identified by Herridge in her reporting, as you can see above there is enough background material to identify it is likely former State Department official Kathleen Kavalec.

Kathleen Kavalec was the Deputy Assistant Secretary – Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, serving under Victoria Nuland and covered Russia as part of her State Dept. duties.  Kavalec was contacted by Christopher Steele prior to the FISA application on Carter Page being sought by the FBI and DOJ.  Kavalic wrote a series of notes and emails to the FBI undercutting the dossier central claims made by Steele.

The original reporting on the Kavalec emails and Steele contact was done by John Solomon.  Here’s the basic background that explains why Inspector General Michael Horowitz would be interested in interviewing Kathleen Kavalec.

According to a leak provided to John Solomon, State Department information -deconstructing Chris Steele- was presented to FBI Agent Peter Strzok a week before they used Steele’s sketchy dossier to prop up the FBI FISA application on Carter Page.

John Solomon – […] The officials declined to say what the FBI did with the information about Steele after it reached Strzok’s team, or what the email specifically revealed. A publicly disclosed version of the email has been heavily redacted in the name of national security.

While much remains to be answered, the email exchange means FBI supervisors knew Steele had contact with State and had reason to inquire what he was saying before they sought the warrant. If they had inquired, agents would have learned Steele had admitted to Kavalec he had been leaking to the news media, had a political deadline of Election Day to get his information public and had provided demonstrably false intelligence in one case, as I reported last week. (read more)

It’s almost guaranteed the reason Kavelec’s email to the FBI was redacted is specifically because Ms. Kavelec used her State Dept. portal to check on travel records and noted the “Michael Cohen in Prague” story was false.  Kavalec would have easy access to State Dept. travel records.

Chris Steele told Ms. Kavalec about Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen traveling to Prague to communicate/coordinate with the Russians.  Kavalec made note of the claim:

(Page #11, pdf link)

Michael Cohen has denied ever traveling to Prague.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller has supported Cohen on this issue; passport records show Cohen has never traveled to Prague. It appears Ms. Kavalec checked her State Dept. travel records and confirmed the same.

However, the CURRENT FBI wants to hide Ms. Kavalec’s warning/notification that Steele was delivering false information about Cohen traveling to Prague:

(Page #2, pdf source – Kavalec email)

So put it all together.  Chris Steele was producing the dossier for the FBI to use.  Steele told State Dept. official Kavalec about the same information in his dossier.  The State Dept. checked, and found out the information was false. The State Dept. warned the FBI.  However, the FBI ignored the warning; and a week later used the dossier in the application for a retroactive Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. Person Carter Page.

To cover themselves; and because the claim was so central to the purpose of the Steele Dossier; the FBI then redacted the State Dept. warning about Michael Cohen traveling to Prague in the public email from the State Department.

Worse yet, in the application itself the FBI said the information proving Carter Page was an agent of a foreign power came from the State Dept:

(Page #2 Carter Page FISA Application – pdf source)

The false claim about Cohen’s travel to Prague has been discussed here for well over a year. [January 2018]

So, the question is:  Why is the FBI so damned committed to this Steele Dossier?

That answer is simple.  In October 2016, they needed the dossier to get the FISA warrant.  They needed the 2016 FISA warrant to cover-up for all of the unauthorized and illegal surveillance activity that was already underway throughout 2016.

The Russian election interference narrative; the use of Joseph Mifsud, Stefan Halper, the London and Australian embassy personnel; Erika Thompson, Alexander Downer, U.S. DIA officials; everything around Crossfire Hurricane; and everything after to include the construct of the Steele Dossier; all of it was needed for the creation of an ‘after-the-fact‘  plausible justification to cover-up what Mike Rogers discovered in early 2016, AND the downstream unmasked records that existed in the Obama White House SCIF.

Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 to research Donald Trump.  The intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. They already knew everything about the Trump campaign.

The Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a justification for pre-existing surveillance operations.  Fusion fulfilled that objective by contracting for the Steele Dossier.

That’s why the FBI, and later the Mueller team, were/are so strongly committed to, and defending, the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content.  Once they had the dossier in hand the FBI proceeded forward for an ex post facto FISA warrant.

The goal was surveillance authority. The FBI used the Carter Page FISA application. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the dossier in the system, and the FISA authority as justification to execute the “insurance policy”.

In our opinion the content of the diary by former FBI Director James Comey, as outlined in what has formally been called “The Comey Memos”, is devastating to the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI.   How do we know? Because the FBI is fighting like hell to keep even descriptions of the memo(s) content from becoming public.

Rather complex backstory with citations HERE and HERE and HERE.

In the background of what was The Mueller Investigation, there was a FOIA case where the FBI was fighting to stop the release of the Comey memos.  Within that courtroom fight Mueller’s lead FBI agent David Archey wrote a series of declarations to the court describing the content of the memos and arguing why they should be kept classified.

The FOIA fight shifted.  The plaintiffs argued for public release of the content of the FBI agent’s descriptions, now known as the “Archey Declarations”.

After a lengthy back-and-forth legal contest, on June 7th Judge James E Boasberg agreed to allow the FBI to keep the Comey memo content hidden, but instructed the DOJ/FBI to release the content of the Archey Declarations.

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice -under Attorney General Bill Barr- while waiting until the last minute (28 days since prior ruling), filed a motion [full pdf below] to block the release of the Archey Declarations, despite the June 7th court order.

Again, if transparency in conduct of the DOJ and FBI during 2016 is the expressed goal of Attorney General Bill Barr, then his current department fighting to keep descriptions of FBI memorandum hidden from public review runs exactly counter to that intent.

This DOJ activity does not bode well for a narrative of Bill Barr is an honest broker.  This is an example of how to cover-up material that is damaging to the institution.

To be fair, Attorney General Bill Barr may not be aware the United States Department of Justice Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch, is fighting this court ordered release.

However, the DOJ Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division is Jody Hunt.  That name might be familiar to you because Jody Hunt was Jeff Sessions former chief-of-staff.

Asst. AG Jody Hunt most certainly knows his office is fighting to keep the FBI descriptions of the Comey memos hidden from the public.

Despite the original media FOIA lawsuit coming from CNN -vs- DOJ, there is no-one in the MSM covering this story.   Here is today’ DOJ filing:

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Here’s the background on the June 7th, 2019, ruling as we shared at the time:

Judge Boasberg was deciding what could be publicly released, meaning current redactions removed, based on two connected events: (#1) The content of the Comey Memos; and (#2) the declarations of lead FBI agent for Robert Mueller’s special counsel, David Archey, in describing those memos.  CNN had filed a lawsuit to gain full access.

[Note: the descriptions of the Comey memos by FBI agent David Archey are known as the “Archey Declarations” – Read Here.]

For those who may not be aware, there are so many memos (dozens) when assembled they seem to make up an actual diary of moment-by-moment events, during the FBI investigation of Donald Trump, as documented by FBI Director James Comey.

♦ In the issue of the redactions within the Comey Memos, the judge doesn’t remove them. Some are ordered to be removed, some are approved to stay in place.  The Comey memo aspect, and the redaction decision, is basically a splitting of the baby 50/50.  It will be interesting, but meh, maybe not too much detail. – CNN ARTICLE

(Pdf Link)

The issues argued by the FBI lawyers to keep the Comey memos hidden surround sources and methods.  The judge generally agreed to the potential for compromise, but also outlined several sections of redactions within the Comey memos where that argument doesn’t hold up.  [The judge has read the fully unredacted memo content.]

♦ However, on the issue of the Archey Declarations there’s an opportunity for some very interesting information to surface. Here’s an example of currently existing redactionswithin the Archey Declarations:

And stunningly, yes, STUNNINGLY, Judge Boasberg has ordered the Archey declarations to be fully released to the public WITHOUT REDACTIONS. See pages 34 and 35 of the ruling.

That means all those black boxes in the example above will be removed and CNN will be allowed the fully unredacted content of the declarations by FBI Agent David Archey.

This should be interesting.

Hopefully we don’t have to add Bill Barr’s picture to the graphic of corrupt DOJ and FBI officials; however, time is running out…

A new John Solomon article today, based on an interview with Russian Billionaire Oleg Deripaska, is essentially confirming a May 2018 article where it was presumed that Oleg had hired Christopher Steele at the same time Steele was working with Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS to write the Trump dossier.  Here’s the interview:

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The report on the FBI contacting Oleg Deripaska in September 2016 for help to structure a narrative of Russian involvement in the Trump Campaign via Paul Manafort has some ramifications.

♦In 2009 the FBI, then headed by Robert Mueller, requested the assistance of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in an operation to retrieve former FBI officer and CIA resource Robert Levinson who was captured in Iran two years earlier.  The agent assigned to engage Deripaska was Andrew McCabe; the primary FBI need was financing and operational support.  Deripaska spent around $25 million and would have succeeded except the U.S. State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, backed out.

♦In September of 2016 Andrew McCabe is now Deputy Director of the FBI, when two FBI agents approached Deripaska in New York – again asking for his help.  This time the FBI request was for Deripaska to outline Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort as a tool of the Kremlin.  Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money. However, according to the 2018 article, despite Deripaska’s disposition toward Manafort he viewed the request as absurd.  He laughed the FBI away, telling them: “You are trying to create something out of nothing.”

Was the DOJ/FBI trying to use Deripaska to frame candidate Donald Trump? Was this part of their 2016 insurance policy?

John Solomon reports that Deripaska wanted to testify to congress in 2017, without any immunity request, but was rebuked.    Who blocked his testimony?

In 2017 Oleg Deripaska was represented in the U.S. by Adam Waldman.  Mr. Waldman was also representing Christopher Steele, the author of the Dossier.  Waldman was the liaison Senator Mark Warner (Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman) was using to try and set up a secret meeting with Christopher Steele. {Text Messages}

As you can see from the text messages (more here), the House Intelligence Committee wanted to interview Deripaska.  However, based on their ongoing contact and relationship Deripaska’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, asks Senator Mark Warner for feedback.

If Deripaska was blocked from testifying to congress, it was obviously not from the HPSCI (Nunes Committee), but rather by the Senate Intel Committee, Mark Warner.   Why?

Adam Waldman and Oleg Deripaska

Attorney and Lobbyist Adam Waldman represented both Oleg Deripaska and Christopher Steele. This does not seem accidental.  Especially given the confirmation that Deripaska contracted Steele to represent his interests in a U.K. case.

Did Robert Mueller omit any mention of Oleg Deripaska from his 2017 Manafort indictment purposefully? Was Deripaska’s denial of any information about Manafort actually Brady material that Mueller and Weissmann intentionally kept from Manafort’s defense team?   And/or was Robert Mueller hoping to hide his prior professional work relationship with Deripaska?

Now that we know Deripaska was employing Chris Steele; and now that we know the FBI was aware that Deripaska was employing Chris Steele, this set of questions from Tom Cotton to FBI Director Christopher Wray has additional context.

WATCH (first minute):