Earlier today President Trump was again ‘subtle as a brick through a window’ in a tweetrequesting the senate get serious in exposing Obamagate and the soft coup effort:

Unfortunately, due to the dynamics of the UniParty, Mitch McConnell is very unlikely to take any action to expose prior misconduct; it would be against McConnell’s interests.

The Senate was not a passive entity in the various hoaxes against President Trump.  Factually, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and individual senators themselves, were active participants.  As a result just like AG Barr knows any discussion of SSCI security director James Wolfe’s non prosecution would expose DOJ corruption, so too does Mitch McConnell know senate investigations would expose senate corruption in both parties.

Republican members like John McCain actively participated; and republican members like Richard Burr willfully allowed the framework to continue.  Don’t forget it was Republican Senator Marco Rubio who first came to the defense of Democrat SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner when the covert communication with Chris Steele became evident.

In the big picture, the big ugly picture, republicans are just as complicit as democrats within all of the efforts to remove President Trump.  To this day the GOP controlled Senate Intelligence Committee is still spitting out reports defending the previous administration and proclaiming the vast Russian election conspiracy is genuine and real (it isn’t).

CTH readers are not blind to the DC structure where republicans and democrats are two wings of the same bird.  Co-dependent no more!  This is the Last Refuge because we no longer allow ourselves to suffer from ‘battered conservative syndrome‘.  On these pages we identify our republican abusers openly.

If ever President Trump was to go full wolverine on the corrupt GOP it would be the Big Ugly.  Alas, we are familiar with the political dynamic and fully accept that Mitch McConnell would rather give leadership to Chuck Schumer than lose his power, influence and affluence.

Anxious Trump voters have been understandably frustrated by the lack of speed with which President Trump is able to force the MAGA agenda onto an unwilling DC political apparatus. However, once you understand the Uniparty agenda the scope of the challenge is much easier to see.

How did the House write a $3 trillion legislative spending package when the legislators were not even in Washington DC?    Short version: they didn’t, the lobbyists did.

President Trump’s administration is adverse to the interests of the entire DC political system.  It’s a big club, and he’s confronting it.  Mitch McConnell has no incentive to help President Trump.

Remember…. Congress does not write laws or legislation, special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.

When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.

While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.

This is the way legislation is created.

If our frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding we can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism.

The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.

“we’ll have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009

“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012.

Once you understand this process you can understand how politicians get rich.  Mitch McConnell is not going to disrupt this system.

When a House or Senate member becomes educated on the intent of the legislation, they have attended the sales pitch; and when they find out the likelihood of support for that legislation; they can then position their own (or their families) financial interests to benefit from the consequence of passage. It is a process similar to insider trading on Wall Street, except the trading is based on knowing who will benefit from a legislative passage.

The legislative construct passes from K-Street into the halls of congress through congressional committees. The law originates from the committee to the full House or Senate. Committee seats which vote on these bills are therefore more valuable to the lobbyists. Chairs of these committees are exponentially more valuable.

Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. Legislation is passed based on ideology. In the aftermath of the 2016 election the system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would have been signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation, driven by special interest groups that supported her campaign, that would be flowing to her desk.

Why?

Simply because the authors of the legislation, the originating special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors.

Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.

President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.

The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.

As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.

Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy. There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.

Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices. Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.

Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.

No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.

Politicians were not happy without their indulgences, but the issue was actually bigger. No K-Street expenditures also means no personal benefit; and no opportunity to advance financial benefit from the insider trading system.

Without the ability to position personal wealth for benefit, why would a politician stay in office? The income of many long-term politicians on both Republican and Democrat sides of the aisle was completely disrupted by President Trump winning the election. That is one of the key reason why so many politicians retired immediately thereafter.

When we understand the business of DC, we understand the difference between legislation with a traditional purpose and modern legislation with a financial and political agenda.

Mitch McConnell has the system.  President Trump has the people.

The battle continues….

Former Chief Asst. U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy has an article written today pointing to the primary issue about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn: “The Real Story is When Flynn Was Not Unmasked” – READ HERE.

McCarthy has reviewed the documents; looked at the research; reviewed what the IG said was not happening; and came to the same conclusion as CTH.  The Obama surveillance of Flynn did not include ‘unmasking’ because the collection was not incidental.

McCarthy points the media’s incurious compass needle toward the CIA, but don’t expect any DC media to follow it.  The truth is adverse to MSM interests.  There’s only one way for the Flynn-Kislyak call and content to be tracked, captured, discussed and shared by the Obama administration without the unmasking between 12/29/16 and 01/04/17.  A reverse targeted intercept on Flynn through Kislyak.  [CIA/NSA]  Read McCarthy Column Here

The previous administration, and their resistance defenders in the current administration embedded within the DOJ and FBI, are desperate to avoid any admission that incoming NSA Michael Flynn was under surveillance.  As soon as they can no longer hide the surveillance story, the shift to question the predicate of the Mueller investigation starts.

President Obama’ entire team (staff, officials, politicians); along with Republican allies like Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell et al; along with DOJ, FBI and IC preservationists like Bill Barr, Chris Wray et al; along with the entire DC media apparatus do not want to admit the Trump administration was under surveillance by the Obama administration. However, they can’t hide it because it happened.

On the Flynn 302 (the research evidence and documents are clear):

• The 302 was written by Joe Pientka on January 24, 2017.
• The 302 was edited by Peter Strzok prior to Feb 10, 2017.
• The 302 was re-edited by Lisa Page on Feb 10, 2017.
• Michael Flynn was fired on Feb 13, 2017.
• The 302 was discussed again on Feb 14, 2017.
• Andrew McCabe approved the edits on Feb 14, 2017.
• The 302 was officially finalized on Feb 15, 2017.

The Terror Threat Integration Center (TTIC) was created in 2003 by George W Bush and was first headed by John Brennan. In August 2004, and at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, TTIC was incorporated into the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) by Executive Order (EO) 13354. [LINK]

Friday evening Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard “Ric” Grenell announces some modifications to the NCTC to streamline activity and avoid redundancy.

On the surface the ODNI announcement appears to be a bureaucratic realignment of priorities:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell today announced several organizational changes to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Based on the recommendations of career Intelligence Community (IC) officers, the reforms will increase efficiency by avoiding duplication of effort, strengthen support to and burden-sharing with NCTC’s IC partners on counterterrorism issues, and enhance NCTC’s integration within the broader ODNI organization.

NCTC Acting Director Lora Shiao said the changes will allow NCTC to focus its mission to better address evolving national security needs. (read more)

It has been suspected for several years the activities of the NCTC were part of the system alignment that allowed Obama-era intelligence actors to weaponize the NSA database.

Essentially behind the writing of the FISA court review (footnote 69), there appeared to be a clouding of intelligence distinctions between the CIA (foreign) and FBI (domestic), through the use of counterintelligence and the NCTC.

Knowing the scale of intelligence weaponization for political purposes that we are now aware of; and accepting a nefarious intention on behalf of federal actors looking for unique ways to skirt laws, rules and regulations on domestic surveillance; the morphing of the “sister” agencies to exploit intelligence gathering makes sense.

One approach of this nefarious intent would be “reverse targeting”, which is similar to the Flynn-Kislyak call issues.  Target a foreign person’s communication as an end-around to avoid the necessary warrant for the American on the other end of the contact.  In practice this would look like this:

The FBI (counterintelligence division) knows an American contacted a foreign person.  The FBI wants to know what the contact was about, but doesn’t have evidence to cut through the legal privacy protections.  So the FBI asks their ‘sister’ the CIA, to extract the foreign person’s information from the NSA intercepts (FBI gives specific date and time). The CIA then extracts the result and the NCTC is used as the hub where the resulting intelligence information is stored, then shared.

Obviously we have no idea whether today’s realignment of NCTC priorities has any bearing on the system structure used to carry out prior corrupt intelligence exploits; but it’s possible this issue is a part of the underlying change.

FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka interviewed National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on January 24, 2017. According to documents presented in the court case, agent Peter Strzok did the questioning and agent Joe Pientka took most of the notes.

Following the interview agent Pientka then took his hand-written notes and generated an official FD-302; an FBI report of the interview itself. There has been a great deal of debate over the first draft, the original FD-302 as it was written by Joe Pientka. In the case against Flynn the DOJ prosecutors never presented the original Pientka 302.

On May 2, 2020, the DOJ, using new information gathered by U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, declassified and released a segment of James Comey testimony that was previously hidden.  Within the transcript Comey says Pientka wrote the Flynn 302 on January 24thimmediately following the interview. [Screengrab below – pdf here ]

That January 24, 2017, version of the 302 is the one that has gone missing.

People defending the FBI have even said it never existed.  However, the testimony of FBI Director James Comey proves the 302 was drafted on January 24th.

Additionally, recent evidence from Brady material turned over to the defense by auditing attorney Jeff Jensen showed FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI Agent Peter Strzok rewriting, editing and shaping the 302 on February 10, 2017, more than two weeks later:

Lisa Page is “pissed off” because Peter Strzok previously edited the 302 and she says he “didn’t even attempt to make this cogent and readable.”

Peter Strzok replies back to Lisa Page that he was “trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save Joe’s voice”, because Joe Pientka was the actual author.

Peter Strzok is re-writing the interview notes of Pientka in order to construct the framework to accuse Flynn of lying. Lisa Page is editing the re-write to make it more cogent and readable.

The question has remained: Where is the original 302 report as written by Pientka?

While the question(s) around the missing original 302 have yet to be reconciled, one possible path to discover its location and a copy of its original content lies in the testimony of Sally Yates. Former DAG Sally Yates testified to congress that after the Flynn interview DOJ-National Security Division:

“The DOJ-National Security Division received a detailed readout from the FBI agents who had interviewed Flynn.” Yates said she felt “it was important to get this information to the White House as quickly as possible.”

Yates is describing getting briefed on the same information contained in the Pientka 302. An initial briefing on the evening of January 24th, or and a more detailed briefing the morning of the 25th.  DAG Yates was having meetings about the topic.

The calendar of DOJ-NSD Associate Deputy AG Tashina Gauhar shows meetings with Sally Yates which align with the discussions of the Flynn interview and Yates receiving a summary on the 24th and a detailed summary on the 25th:

Schedule of Associate Deputy Attorney General Tashina Gauhar

In the DOJ motion to dismiss the case against Flynn, the records indicate Yates received a summary of the interview the night of the 24th, and the full detailed record came on the morning of January 25th:

.

Aligning with what Sally Yates previously described, James Comey admits the FD-302 draft was written on January 24th; providing the material for the Yates briefings:

Together with DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord, Sally Yates used briefing from the 302 of m Joe Pientka to travel to the White House on January 26th and brief White House counsel Don McGahn about the Flynn interview contrast against the content of the previously captured call between Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Lt. Gen Mike Flynn.

If the FBI search for the original sentinel entry of the Pientka 302 is mysteriously impossible, perhaps the DOJ should go and get the readout provided to the DOJ-NSD on the evening of January 24th, and morning of January 25th, 2017.

Sally Yates and the original Pientka FD-302 report.

Yates testimony below:

•Wednesday January 25th, 2017, – The Department of Justice, National Security Division, (at this timeframe Mary McCord was head of the DOJ-NSD) – received a detailed readout from the FBI agents who had interviewed Flynn. Yates said she felt “it was important to get this information to the White House as quickly as possible.”

•Thursday January 26th – (morning) Sally Yates called White House Counsel Don McGahn first thing that morning to tell him she had “a very sensitive matter” that had to be discussed face to face. McGahn agreed to meet with Yates later that afternoon.

•Thursday January 26th – (afternoon) Sally Yates traveled to the White House along with a senior member of the DOJ’s National Security Division, “who was overseeing the matter”, that is Mary McCord. This was Yates’ first meeting with McGahn in his office, which also acts as a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).

Yates said she began their meeting by laying out the media accounts and media statements made by Vice President Mike Pence and other high-ranking White House officials about General Flynn’s activity “that we knew not to be the truth.”

According to Sally Yates testimony, she and Mary McCord presented all the information to McGahn so the White House could take action that they deemed appropriate. When asked by McGahn if Flynn should be fired, Yates answered, “that really wasn’t our call.”

Yates also said her decision to notify the White House counsel had been discussed “at great length.” According to her testimony: “Certainly leading up to our notification on the 26th, it was a topic of a whole lot of discussion in DOJ and with other members of the intel community.”

•Friday January 27th – (morning) White House Counsel Don McGahn called Yates in the morning and asked if she could come back to his office.

•Friday January 27th – (late afternoon) According to her testimony, Sally Yates returned to the White House late that afternoon. One of McGahn’s topics discussed was whether Flynn could be prosecuted for his conduct.

Specifically, according to Yates, one of the questions *McGahn asked Yates: “Why does it matter to DOJ if one White House official lies to another?” She explained that it “was a whole lot more than that,” and reviewed the same issues outlined the prior day.

McGahn then expressed his concern that taking any action might interfere with the FBI investigation of Flynn, and Yates said it wouldn’t: “It wouldn’t really be fair of us to tell you this and then expect you to sit on your hands,” Yates claims to have told McGahn.

McGahn asked if he could look at the underlying evidence of Flynn’s conduct, and she said they would work with the FBI over the weekend and “get back with him on Monday morning.”

•Friday January 27th, 2017 – (evening) In what appears to be only a few hours later, President Trump is having dinner with FBI Director James Comey where President Trump asked if he was under investigation. Trump was, but to continue the auspices of the ongoing investigation, Comey lied and told him he wasn’t.

Sally Yates received a detailed briefing from the original 302 (January 25th) via James Comey; and then went to the White House and informed Don McGahn (January 26th) about the nature of the interview.

The Flynn 302 was edited by Page and Strzok on February 10th.  The 302 was changed and altered to match the FBI claims of a discrepancy.  Flynn was fired on Feb 13th.  The Flynn 302 was debated again on Feb 14th and entered into the record on February 15th.

Sally Yates was fired, and later testified to congress on May 8, 2017.

Bottom line the Flynn 302 was written on January 24, 2017.  James Comey and Andew McCabe saw it; and Sally Yates was briefed from it.

So where is it?

First things first: ♦Understand Obama’s Surveillance Operation HERE.  ♦Michael Flynn wasn’t under a FISA (Title-1) HERE …. that’s the background.

The riddle of how the White House discovered the telephone call and subsequent content between Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak appears to have been solved. The FBI used a “Pen Register.”  There was no unmasking, and no warrant.

A pen register is a device/process which records the telephone numbers of outgoing calls.  Monitoring outgoing call numbers does not require a search warrant or FISA.

After the 2016 election Lt. Gen Flynn was given a government issued secure cell phone; a blackberry device for use.  However, with Flynn under a preexisting FBI investigation the phone numbers Flynn was calling in December ’16 and January ’17 were being monitored.

A review of prior testimony by former FBI Director James Comey [HERE]; prior testimony by former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe [Here]; and a cross-reference of recent releases of Flynn unmasking documents [Here] tells the full story.

In December of 2016 incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was under a sketchy FBI Counterintelligence investigation for possible coordination with Russia.  According to recent documents and the Comey transcript, the Flynn investigation began in the summer of 2016; that investigation was ongoing in late December.

After President Obama initiated sanctions against Russia on December 29, 2016. The Obama administration was trying to figure out why Russia was not reacting.  According to James Comey testimony the intelligence community, writ large, was tasked to find out why Russia was not reacting more severely.  See Transcript:

Note:

…”And so we were all tasked to find out, do you have anything [redacted] that might reflect on this? That turned up these calls at the end of December, beginning of January.”

“do you have anything [redacted] that might reflect on this?”  Could pertain to the incoming administration, a person, or an intelligence capability.

However, to identify the “that“, we turn to the McCabe testimony (page 212):

…”in an effort to respond to the tasking from [REDACTED], and so the results of what we found were communicated to the Agency, who I think had the pen on that response.”

The individual or group initiating the task is redacted; however the redaction ends with the letter “f”, so it is most likely “redacted staff.”

Tasking from: NSC staff?  NCTC staff?  White House staff?

However, the other important facet is the “had the pen on that response.”  Meaning had the pen register responsibility on that response.

Pen Registers only monitor ‘outgoing‘ numbers.

It takes ‘trap and tracer’ authority to monitor the ‘incoming.’   Ambassador Kislyak was a foreign official whose surveillance would not require a pen register; however, a warrantless pen register would apply to Michael Flynn.  So the discovery of the contact reflects a review of Flynn’s calls; not just Kislyak (who can be monitored for any purpose).

The FBI discovers the contact via a pen register that was monitoring Flynn’s phone.  Then James Comey takes the information to DNI James Clapper.  Back to Comey transcript:

“And then I briefed it to the Director of National Intelligence, and Director Clapper asked me for copies [REDACTED] which I shared with him.”…

At this point it looks like James Comey uses the pen register to generate a non traditional intelligence product; perhaps a memo or rough draft of the transcript, or the pen register result itself; which, because of the content, contains Michael Flynn’s name.

Director Comey then shares with DNI Clapper.

Clapper then takes the document and uses it to brief President Obama.  This is how President Obama discovers the content of the call between Kislyak and Flynn:

The Clapper briefing of President Obama… likely happening prior to January 5th… using some non regular intelligence documentation…  is almost certainly the impetus for the unmasking request from President Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough which happened on January 5, 2017:

The January 5th unmasking request applies to a document about Flynn where Flynn’s name is unmasked.   That request is almost certainly the result of the White House receiving the official intelligence transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak call.  We know this because the non-traditional document that Comey gave to Clapper was not masked.

So the question becomes, what exactly was that ‘non-traditional’ intelligence document that Comey gave to Clapper to brief President Obama?

For that answer we go back to Andrew McCabe’s transcript as he described it (pg 213):

As you can see above McCabe describes the document as a “summary” of the call that “wasn’t an intelligence product”, and any unmasking would be unnecessary because Michael Flynn’s name within it was not masked.

That information flow is also why Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were saying “incidental collection” is the “incorrect narrative” in their text messages.  There was no unmasking because Flynn’s contact with Kislyak was not picked up as part of incidental collection, it was picked up because the FBI was using a pen registry to monitor all of Flynn’s contacts:

SUMMARY:  Flynn was under FBI investigation.  Per the IG report there was no FISA on Michael Flynn.  In the document generated by James Comey to share with DNI James Clapper,… to brief President Obama… Michael Flynn’s name was not masked.  The document was generated as a result of a pen register monitoring the outgoing contacts and phone numbers of Michael Flynn’s phone.

• Flynn’s call was the subject of a “pen registry”.
• Flynn’s device was government issued.
• Flynn’s “outgoing” calls monitored without warrant.
• Kislyak’s number was known.
• The pen registry identified the specific calls from Flynn to Kislyak.
• An “agency” provided the FBI with call content.
• Comey provided call content (w/ a document) to James Clapper.
• Clapper shared with White House during briefing.
• No unmasking, no warrant, no FISA.

That’s how the White House got the call without unmasking request.