Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) initiated a massive anti-corruption operation last year.  Today, just as a Qatari delegation arrives in DC and concedes to the terms of the alliance, Reuters is reporting the resulting Saudi asset seizures total more than $106 billion.

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s government has arranged to seize more than $100 billion through financial settlements with businessmen and officials detained in its crackdown on corruption, the attorney general said on Tuesday.

The announcement appeared to represent a political victory for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who launched the purge last November and predicted at the time that it would net about $100 billion in settlements.

Dozens of top officials and businessmen were detained in the crackdown, many of them confined and interrogated at Riyadh’s opulent Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Well over 100 detainees are believed to have been released.

Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owner of global investor Kingdom Holding, and Waleed al-Ibrahim, who controls influential regional broadcaster MBC, were freed last weekend.

“The estimated value of settlements currently stands at more than 400 billion riyals ($106 billion) represented in various types of assets, including real estate, commercial entities, securities, cash and other assets,” Sheikh Saud Al Mojeb said in a statement.

[…] Some detainees are believed to have been moved from the hotel to prison after refusing to admit wrongdoing and reach financial settlements; they may stand trial.

[…]  Prince Mohammed appears to have won widespread approval for the purge among ordinary Saudis, partly because the government has said it will use some of the money it seizes to fund social benefits.

“What has happened is great, it will be counted as a win for the government. Whoever the person is, he is being held accountable, whether a royal or a citizen,” said Abdullah al-Otaibi, drinking at a Riyadh coffee shop on Tuesday.

An international financier visiting the region said authorities’ tough approach might ultimately prove effective.  (read more)

In related regional news, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hosted a delegation from Qatar to Washington DC.

 **nudge**nudge**wink**wink**say.no.more**say.no.more**

Rex Tillerson: […] “The United States and Qatar will be signing three documents today outlining our cooperation in the important bilateral and regional areas mentioned, including three at this ceremony.

•The first is a memorandum of understanding that establishes the convention for this U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue on an annual basis going forward, so that we can continue to build on the close partnership between our two countries.

•The second document is a joint declaration outlining the United States cooperation with Qatar on matters of shared regional and security interests.

•The third document is a memorandum of understanding that creates a framework for the cooperation between the United States and Qatar to combat human trafficking.

I look forward to the outcomes of today’s inaugural U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue and our continued collaboration over the years to come. And with that, I’d welcome remarks from Foreign Minister al-Thani.  (read more)

Important Watch:

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What does this mean?  Qatar has conceded to terms:

ie.  The Muslim Brotherhood has been brought to heel.

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The House of Representatives GOP leadership team held a press briefing earlier today.  During the Q&A Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, was asked about the House Intelligence Committee memo that has been released to the Executive Branch.The full presser is below.

The memo remarks by Speaker Ryan occur at 15:00 of the video.  Notice the appropriate, constitutional, and purposeful explanation of the process.  The executive branch (President Trump) and legislative branch (Ryan, Nunes, etc.) are continuing to emphasize the structural framework of U.S. government, and the seperation of powers therein, to return the rule of law during the Trump administration.  This is NOT accidental. [Video prompted to start @15:00]

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The prior administration weaponized the executive branch against its political enemies.  Repeat: The prior administration weaponized the executive branch against its political enemies.  U.S. citizens, Americans, were targeted by corrupt officials within the Justice Department for political purposes.  Never lose this critical reference point and context.

Batting Order: Chairman Nunes (aggregate IC focus) got a lead of single by strategically presenting the classified documents in a 4-pg summary form.  Next up came Chairman Chuck Grassley (FBI focus).  As Grassley questioned the FBI, Nunes stole second with release of the House Intel memo.  Grassley remains at the plate comfortably ahead in the count; while Chairman Goodlatte (Justice oversight) is on on deck circle sending signals:

Washington, D.C. — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) released the statement below regarding reports indicating that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Deputy Director Andrew McCabe will step down from his position.  Additionally, Chairman Goodlatte today sent a letter urging FBI Director Christopher Wray to preserve Mr. McCabe’s emails, and all other communications, before his official departure from the agency:

(pdf link – Judiciary Press Release Link)

♦No-one out. ♦Nunes on second. ♦Grassley at the plate (count 3-0), ♦Goodlatte in the on deck circle and ♦Horowitz chomping Bazooka Joe ‘in the hole’ (steps to dugout).

Grassley is cleared to swing big timber.

{{{spit}}}

According to most media reports the Justice Department viewed the House Intelligence Committee memo yesterday; and with Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe being removed, there’s a myriad of reasons why FBI Director Wray and Deputy AG Rosenstein could be visiting the White House.

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Two possibilities include:

•Candidate recommendations for replacement FBI Deputy Director.
•Discussion with NSC, or OLC, about House Intel memo content/release.

You can generally tell when the house of cards begins collapsing by how deep CNN’s Jake Tapper is forced to reaches into his bag of disingenuous tricks.

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As David Mamet famously stated, in order for liberal ideologues to retain their narrow views, against mounting evidence to the contrary, they must pretend not to know a lot of things. Mr. Tapper’s default position is disingenuous, cognitive dissonance.

As widely anticipated the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has voted to release the majority ‘FISA Memo’ as led by Chairman Devin Nunes.  According to reports it was a party-line vote.  The memo now goes to the executive branch for release approval.

Additionally, the politically constructed counter-memo, led by minority leader Adam Schiff, received a supportive committee vote making it available to the full house of representatives.  However, following the same procedural process as before – the Schiff Memo was not approved for public release (via executive branch), until the full house has an opportunity to review it.

Because the Schiff Memo was not released to the public; and because the committee is making Schiff follow the same rules applied to Nunes; and because the content of the approved release is adverse to Democrats corrupt interests; Adam Schiff rushed to the microphones to complain.

Paul Sperry is breaking some news that will generally be lost on most who are not deep in the weeds; however, this news is exceptionally important and explains the back-story to why Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley called the FBI’s bluff.

(LINK)

It is important to understand what Chairman Chuck Grassley has done with the criminal referral and how he is calling out the FBI.  Taken at it’s face value, which is what the tweet does, it seems that Christopher Steele lied to the FBI by saying the “dossier” information was not shared with media, therefore the dossier was not opposition campaign research.

The intent of this FBI claim (to the FISA court) is to give the “dossier” enhanced value as source material for a FISA warrant (request for surveillance authority). However, the underlying facts behind the FBI assertion are false; and it’s not Steele making the claim.

The FBI is the entity attempting to inflate the credibility of the application by claiming  Steele never shopped the dossier, ergo it is not political opposition research.  There is ZERO evidence Steele made any such claim to the FBI. There is ample evidence from the senate testimony of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS) to the contrary.

Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS heavily shopped the ‘dossier’ to the media.  A big part of that shopping was putting people in contact with Christopher Steele to discuss the underlying content.   The same approach was taken to distribute the material to Senator John McCain, who sent his intermediary, David Kramer, to meet with Steele, get briefed, and then pick up a copy from Glenn Simpson.

It is the FBI who lied to the FISA Court in the application.  It is the FBI who are claiming in their FISA application the dossier was not ‘shopped’.  It is the FBI attempting to enhance the dossier credibility by making statements/claims about what Chris Steele presented to them.  It is NOT Christopher Steele making these claims. Christopher Steele knew the ‘dossier’ was being presented to media.  Christopher Steele briefed media.

Now can you see the play by Chuck Grassley?

Setting aside factual dossier authorship for a moment [as we all know Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS, via Nellie Ohr, were the scriptwriters of the dossier content]….  Chairman Chuck Grassley knew the motive to enhance the credibility of the ‘dossier’ was within the FBI, not Christopher Steele.   So when the FBI presents the ‘dossier’ to the FISA Court and swears and affirms the story behind it, it is the FBI lying about the underlying source documents.

THAT is why Chuck Grassley took the position to say: OK, well, if the presentation of the dossier, to the FISA court, was as the FBI claims (ie. Steele made promises etc.), then the FBI needs to prosecute Christopher Steele for lying to them about it.

Chuck Grassley knows it’s not Steele lying to the FBI about the dossier origination and back-story, it’s actually the FBI lying to the FISA court.  That’s why Grassley called the FBI’s bluff.

Now does this earlier outline make more sense?

[REPOST Below from January 5th, 2018]

Yup, the walls are closing in.

In a brilliant move of strategery, Senate Judiciary Chairman, Chuck Grassley, and Senate Judiciary member, Lindsey Graham, send a criminal referral of Christopher Steele to the DOJ for investigation. But things are not what they seem…

Today Senators Grassley and Graham sent a letter of criminal referral to the Department of Justice, based on information -provided by the FBI- their investigation has uncovered.

However, the actual motive for the criminal referral is not exactly what it appears.

Highlighting two pertinent passages (emphasis mine) from the New York Times article will explain what’s really going on:

[…] Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they urged the department to investigate. The committee is running one of three congressional investigations into Russian election meddling, and its inquiry has come to focus, in part, on Mr. Steele’s explosive dossier that purported to detail Russia’s interference and the Trump campaign’s complicity.

[…] The criminal referral appears to make no assessment of the veracity of the dossier’s contents, much of which remains unsubstantiated nearly a year after it became public.

[…] Mr. Grassley’s decision to recommend criminal charges appeared likely to be based on reports of Mr. Steele’s meetings with the F.B.I., which were provided to the committee by the Justice Department in recent weeks.

It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already.

The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified. (full article)

Can you see what is really going on here?

The criminal referral is based on FBI reports of meetings the FBI has given to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the FBI meetings with Christopher Steele.

Within those FBI reports (presented to the committee) are conflicting statements and accounts that do not align with known evidence.

The FBI is attributing claims to the meetings with Christopher Steele that do not match known evidence about the Steele Dossier and use therein.

Remember what Senator Graham said recently about his review of the evidence surrounding the Steele Dossier and how it was used, by the FBI in gaining the FISA warrant? –Refresh Memory Here–

What Grassley and Graham are now doing is forcing the DOJ to reconcile the conflicts between the FBI presentations to the judiciary committee -about the origin of, and their use of, the Steele Dossier- against known evidence.

Someone is lying.

Graham and Grassley know the motive to lie about the Steele Dossier does not necessarily belong to Christopher Steele. The motive is within the corrupt FBI.

In order to accurately prove ownership of the the falsehoods Grassley and Graham are saying: ‘If what the FBI says is true then Chris Steele is lying, because the evidence doesn’t support what the FBI previously said to us, and attributed to Christopher Steele’…

Grassley and Graham are calling the bluff of the FBI.

“Based on the information contained therein, we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, for statements the Committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained.” (link)

The “information contained therein” is the FBI presentation of statements and evidence the FBI is attributing to Christopher Steele.

By referring a criminal complaint to the DOJ the Senators are, in essence, forcing the DOJ to outline that material presentations by the FBI, to the committee, were false…. OR, that Christopher Steele is lying. The former is likely, the latter not-so-much.

Additionally, by asking Rod Rosenstein (DOJ) and Christopher Wray (FBI) to investigate the conflicting evidence and FBI statements Grassley and Graham are also providing political cover for Rosenstein and Wray to showcase the corruption within both the DOJ and the FBI.

Strategery.

The walls are closing in.

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) referred the author of the “Trump Dossier,” Christopher Steele, to the Justice Department for investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for false statements investigators have reason to believe Steele made about the distribution of claims contained in the dossier.

“I don’t take lightly making a referral for criminal investigation. But, as I would with any credible evidence of a crime unearthed in the course of our investigations, I feel obliged to pass that information along to the Justice Department for appropriate review,” Grassley said. “Everyone needs to follow the law and be truthful in their interactions with the FBI. If the same actions have different outcomes, and those differences seem to correspond to partisan political interests, then the public will naturally suspect that law enforcement decisions are not on the up-and-up. Maybe there is some innocent explanation for the inconsistencies we have seen, but it seems unlikely. In any event, it’s up to the Justice Department to figure that out.”

“After reviewing how Mr. Steele conducted himself in distributing information contained in the dossier and how many stop signs the DOJ ignored in its use of the dossier, I believe that a special counsel needs to review this matter. The rule of Law depends on the government and all who work on its behalf playing by the rules themselves. I hope the Department of Justice will carefully review our letter and take appropriate action,” Graham said.

Yesterday evening, Grassley and Graham delivered to Senate Security a letter and classified memorandum for delivery to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray containing information that forms the basis of the referral.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, individuals are prohibited from making false statements to the federal authorities of the United States. Grassley and Graham are referring Steele for making potentially false statements about the distribution of claims from the dossier. (LINK)

On Sunday night the Justice Department was granted access to view the House Intelligence Committee memo known as the ‘Nunes Memo’.  In unusual timing, last night FBI Director Christopher Wray went to the secure facility (SCIF) in the basement of the House of Representatives to view the content of the House Intel Committee memo.

Today, the FBI releases an announcement saying Deputy FBI Director Andrew “Andy” McCabe has stepped down (been removed) from his position effective immediately.

Narrative engineers immediately began applying a typical spin to the announcement away from recent discoveries of corrupt behavior of the FBI, and inferring President Trump’s admonishments of Deputy Director McCabe were the impetus for removal.

Via NBC [Andrew McCabe] … served a brief stint as acting director of the bureau after Trump fired ex-FBI chief James Comey, will remain on the payroll until March, when he is eligible to retire with full benefits, NBC said. He had been expected to leave.

Trump and some Republicans in Congress have accused McCabe of political bias, citing his role at the FBI during investigations related to Hillary Clinton and Trump. They question his role in the Clinton email probe and the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin.

Trump did not answer when asked by reporters Monday afternoon if he knew about McCabe’s move.  (read more)

It is interesting, perhaps important, to note a few things within this latest development and overlay them.

♦First, in February of 2017 we drew attention to a story of how Deputy Director Andrew McCabe approached then chief-of-staff Reince Priebus to state that the FBI saw no evidence of any Trump-Russia collusion, and the reports within media about leaks from the intelligence community toward that narrative were based on nothing.

(link)

Priebus asked if the FBI could then knock down all of these media reports by issuing a statement outlining the same.  After some quick communication with FBI Director Comey, Deputy Director McCabe responded back to Priebus saying no, the FBI couldn’t issue that statement.

Within a day CNN was reporting that Reince Priebus tried to “pressure” Andrew McCabe and James Comey.   Obviously that story to CNN came directly from McCabe and/or Comey.   This example of FBI leaking to media (in 2017) is contained within a book that was just mentioned yesterday.

♦Secondly, it is not coincidental that now the Justice Department has had an opportunity to preview the Nunes memo content, we begin seeing leaks about it in the New York Times.

The Black Hat operatives within the DOJ and FBI are desperate to get out ahead of the stories.

Think about it.  The Nunes memo was available to congress for over a week, and not a single -substantive- material leak came out.  Yet, within HOURS of the Justice Department having access to the memo, the New York Times is writing about specific details contained within the memo:

WASHINGTON — A secret, highly contentious Republican memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate shortly after taking office last spring, according to three people familiar with it.

The renewal shows that the Justice Department under President Trump saw reason to believe that the associate, Carter Page, was acting as a Russian agent. But the reference to Mr. Rosenstein’s actions in the memo — a much-disputed document that paints the investigation into Russian election meddling as tainted from the start — indicates that Republicans may be moving to seize on his role as they seek to undermine the inquiry.

The memo’s primary contention is that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials failed to adequately explain to an intelligence court judge in initially seeking a warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.  (read more)

More on that angle a bit later….