"CYA" Is a Washington Tradition, and Susan Rice Tried to Use it to Cover Herself and President Obama from Steele Dossier Complicity

IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY. What better way to celebrate than to think about the love letter that Susan Rice wrote to herself on January 20, 2017. • • • WHAT DID SUSAN RICE WRITE TO HERSELF? Fox News journalist Alex Pappas said on Monday that : "Former President Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice sent an 'unusual email' to herself the day President Trump was sworn into office describing private comments made weeks earlier by President Barack Obama about how law enforcement should investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, two Republican Senators said Monday." • In the email, Obama's national security advisor said : “President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book.’ The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.” • According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham, the partially unclassified email was sent by Rice on January 20, 2017 -- and appears to document a January 5 meeting that included Obama, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Vice President Joe Biden and Rice. • Importantly, the email also appears to reflect Obama's guidance on sharing sensitive information with both the Russians and the incoming administration. Rice wrote that Obama said "he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia." • • • THE GOOD OLD DAYS VS TODAY. Back in the "good old days," anyone who was a political appointee, as we called ourselves then, kept a personal notebook of comments about meetings and phone calls and anything else that could, in later unfriendly hands, seem self-damaging. The notebooks were always handwritten and dated, and they never got very far from the person who created them. They were, in effect, Cover-Your-A** memoranda, and any good chief of staff would remind his or her boss when to make notes, just in case the boss forgot. They were even called CYA notes. • Today, the CYA notes take the form of emails or text messages, or Director Comey's infamous expanded CYA notes on his meetings with President Trump before Trump fired him. • That's what Susan Rice was doing when she wrote this email to herself on January 20, 2107. She had undoubtedly, in the rush of packing and exiting the White House, forgotten to memorialize the January 5 meeting and somebody reminded her to do it before Trump took over. Rice covered her own backside by saying in so many words 'this is what happened at the January 5 meeting and I was there so you can believe my version is the truth.' Rice covered the backside of her boss, Obama, by saying "He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.” • Two CYAs for the price of one -- but Susan Rice could not help putting in a ProgDem hint about the other things said at the January 5 meeting : "he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia. The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would." • Susan Rice must have been pressed for time because she was usually more circumspect in what she said about her boss Obama. But, here, on January 20, 2017, she let the cat out of the bag -- there was already an ongoing FBI investigation into the "collusion" between the Trump team and Russia. Rice knew about it. Obama knew about it. Comey knew about it. And so did Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and then-Vice President Joe Biden, who were present at the meeting. The CYA email instantly became a piece of evidence in the congressional investigation into the FBI and DOJ -- and the Obama White House -- FISA surveillance of Trump and his transition team, and later surveillance of President Trump, all illegally obtained by means of the salaciously Fake Steele Dossier presented to the FISA court as reliable evidence, as "truth." • • • GRASSLEY FOUND THE RICE EMAIL, BLOWING THE LID OFF THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE. Chuck Grassley, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, and Lindsey Graham, a key subcommittee chairman, released the Susan Rice email Monday. They said they uncovered it as part of their oversight of the FBI and the Department of Justice, and said it raises new questions. • Grassley and Graham said the released email revealed the January 5 meeting followed a briefing by the intelligence community on Russian hacking during the 2016 election. Grassley and Graham knew the meeting included a discussion of the now-infamous Steele Dossier. So, they wrote a letter to Rice, stating : “It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation. In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book.’ ” • Breitbart's Pete Souza wrote on Monday that the redacted top secret Susan Rice email was obtained from the National Archives. Souza also lists the questions in the Grassley-Graham letter sent to Rice on the same day they announced their discovery of the email. The public version of the letter includes a redacted version of Rice’s email, indicating it once held a “top secret” classification. The letter makes reference to an unredacted still-classified version of the email. Grassley and Graham are demanding that Rice provide their Committee answers about her email by a February 22 deadline. The questions included are : "1. Did you send the email attached to this letter to yourself? Do you have any reason to dispute the timestamp of the email? 2. When did you first become aware of the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia? 3. When did you become aware of any surveillance activities, including FISA applications, undertaken by the FBI in conducting that investigation? At the time you wrote this email to yourself, were you aware of either the October 2016 FISA application for surveillance of Carter Page or the January 2017 renewal? 4. Did anyone instruct, request, suggest, or imply that you should send yourself the aforementioned Inauguration Day email memorializing President Obama’s meeting with Mr. Comey about the Trump/Russia investigation? If so, who and why? 5. Is the account of the January 5, 2017 meeting presented in your email accurate? Did you omit any other portions of the conversation? 6. Other than that email, did you document the January 5, 2017 meeting in any way, such as contemporaneous notes or a formal memo? To the best of your knowledge, did anyone else at that meeting take notes or otherwise memorialize the meeting? 7. During the meeting, did Mr. Comey or Ms. Yates mention potential press coverage of the Steele dossier? If so, what did they say? 8. During the meeting, did Mr. Comey describe the status of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele, or the basis for that status? 9. When and how did you first become aware of the allegations made by Christopher Steele? 10. When and how did you first become aware that the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded Mr. Steele’s efforts? 11. You wrote that President Obama stressed that he was “not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.” Did President Obama ask about, initiate, or instruct anything from any other perspective relating to the FBI’s investigation? 12. Did President Obama have any other meetings with Mr. Comey, Ms. Yates, or other government officials about the FBI’s investigation of allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russia? If so, when did these occur, who participated, and what was discussed?" • • • WHAT NEXT? BRENNAN UNDER INVESTIGATION. American Thinker published an article by Rick Moran on Monday, stating that : "Obama appointee and former CIA director John Brennan is the target of a perjury investigation by the House Intelligence Committee, according to an exclusive Real Clear Investigations report. Chairman Devin Nunes is turning his attention to the role the CIA played in promoting the Steele Dossier. The FBI and Justice Department relied heavily on the unverified Dossier in their applications for a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Brennan said under oath that he didn't know who commissioned the document and that the Dossier was not used to come to the conclusion that Russia had meddled in the 2016 presidential campaign. Brennan swore that he did not know who commissioned the anti-Trump research document, even though senior national security and counterintelligence officials at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year that the Dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign." • Nunes plans to soon release a separate report detailing the Obama State Department's role in creating and disseminating the Steele Dossier that is now shown to have been the foundation of the Obama administration's Russia "collusion" investigation. Among other things, the report will identify Obama-appointed diplomats who worked with partisan operatives close to Hillary Clinton to help ex-British spy Christopher Steele compile the dossier, sources told Moran. • "Those are the first two phases" of Nunes' multipart inquiry, a senior investigator said. "In phase three, the involvement of the intelligence community will come into sharper focus." The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Nunes will focus on Brennan as well as President Obama's first CIA director, Leon Panetta, along with the former President's intelligence czar, James Clapper, and national security advisor, Susan Rice, and security advisor-turned UN ambassador Samantha Power, among other intelligence officials. • "John Brennan did more than anyone to promulgate the dirty Dossier," the investigator said, adding "He politicized and effectively weaponized what was false intelligence against Trump." • Moran said we should expect a lot of "I don't knows" and "I can't recalls" from Brennan during questioning. It will be very hard to prove he lied when he said he didn't know the provenance of the Dossier, nor was he aware of the importance attached to the document in the CIA's analysis of Russian meddling. But, said Moran, "you can bet he is going to be squirming. The whole crew -- Brennan, Panetta, Power, Rice, and Clapper -- may all plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying. That will only make them look guiltier. But it will serve the purpose of stymieing the investigation. The strategy will be to hope the Democrats take over the House in November, thus making all these investigations into anyone but Trump campaign officials disappear." • Moran's warning is well-taken -- the House elections in November are critically important to uncovering the corruption rife in the Obama FBI, DOJ, and national security group. Moran asks : "Is it likely Brennan was unaware of where the dossier came from? No. Is it possible? Yes. On that, the former CIA director will hang his hat." Read Moran's entire article at < http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/02/former_cia_director_brennan_under_investigation_for_perjury.html#ixzz56znxcBb0 >. • • • REMEMBER GOP SENATOR TED STEVENS? American Thinker's Clarice Feldman wrote on Tuesday that she has been asking herself "why, shortly after Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused from hearing the Michael Flynn case and Judge Emmet G. Sullivan took over, special counsel Robert Mueller agreed to postpone the sentencing until May, after the DOJ inspector general's report is due. I have no assurances that my suppositions are correct, but I'm beginning to think that at the next hearing of this case, Judge Sullivan will hear Mueller dismiss the case." Feldman argues that : "The only reason I can imagine why Judge Contreras was recused -- note: did not recuse himself -- is that he was a member of the FISC, the court that grants surveillance warrants under FISA. As the evidence mounts that the warrant was improperly granted, someone -- perhaps the chief judge of the district -- removed him from further participation in the case, likely because Contreras approved the warrant and its extension. If the warrant was improperly issued, all the evidence it garnered is tainted." As to why the agreed upon delay, Feldman believes that "Mueller wants to wait until the inspector general report so that, in a sense, his hands will be clean if the case is dropped, that he was compelled by the record to do so." Fldman noted that on December 12, Judge Sullivan "issued a tough demand of the prosecution." They are compelled immediately to turn over all exculpatory material in their possession to General Flynn. The last paragraph of the order is particularly strong : "Finally, if the government has identified any information which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes is not material, the government shall submit the material to the Court for in camera review. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan." Feldman says such an order is not "standard. Most courts rely on the government counsel to follow the dictates of what is known as the Brady Act, which requires them to provide such material to the defendant." • Feldman cites the fact that some years ago Judge Sullivan "was made aware -- too late for the trial -- of the unethical conduct of the Department of Justice lawyers who prosecuted Senator Ted Stevens. He has proposed that all federal judges issue the same sort of orders, specifically noting how the government abused its powers and withheld evidence against Senator Stevens that would have cleared him of the charges brought against him. Judge Sullivan wrote : 'In 2008, Senator Theodore "Ted" Stevens (R-AK) was running for re-election for his seventh term. He was also a criminal defendant in a case over which I was presiding. After a four week trial, and about one week prior to election day, a jury found Senator Stevens guilty of lying on Senate disclosure forms. Stevens lost the election, a Democrat replaced him, and the balance of power shifted in the Senate. This consequential chain of events may well have turned out differently had the government followed the law because during the course of post-trial proceedings, it became clear that the Stevens prosecution was permeated by systematic concealment of evidence favorable to the Senator in violation of the law, the Constitution, and the prosecutors' ethical duties. About six months after the verdict was returned, then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. moved to dismiss the indictment against Senator Stevens with prejudice. As it appeared to me that prosecutorial misconduct had tainted the proceedings in my courtroom...I appointed a highly regarded lawyer and former Assistant United States Attorney, Henry F. Schuelke, III, to investigate what went wrong in the investigation and prosecution of the Stevens case, and to recommend whether there was a basis to prosecute the prosecutors for criminal contempt of court. After an investigation of nearly three years, during which both Senator Stevens and one of the attorneys who prosecuted him died, and following extensive collateral proceedings, Mr. Schuelke's report was made public. Based on his exhaustive investigation, Mr. Schuelke and his colleague William Shields concluded that '[t]he investigation and prosecution of US Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated [his] defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness.' Mr. Schuelke further found that at least some of the concealment was willful and intentional, and related to many of the issues raised by the defense during the course of the Stevens trial. Despite his findings of significant, widespread, and, at times, intentional misconduct, Mr. Schuelke did not, however, recommend prosecution for criminal contempt. This was because he found that the court had not issued an order specifically instructing prosecutors to obey the law by turning over any exculpatory evidence. Noting that, 'it should go without saying that neither Judge Sullivan, nor any District Judge, should have to order the Government to comply with its constitutional obligations, let alone that he should feel compelled to craft such an order with a view toward a criminal contempt prosecution, anticipating its willful violation,' Mr. Schuelke nevertheless recommended that, without disobedience of a 'clear and unequivocal' order, the prosecutors not be charged with criminal contempt. As a result of the Stevens trial and its aftermath, I suggested that an amendment to Rule 16 be revisited to require the government to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, as set forth in Brady and its progeny. I have also suggested that certain changes to the local rules of the District Court for the District of Columbia would ensure that the government is fully aware of its disclosure obligations. Finally, I now issue a standing Brady Order in each criminal case on my docket, which I update as the law in the area progresses." • Feldman asks whether "Mueller knew he'd have to provide exculpatory evidence to the defendant prior to the sentencing hearing, and it's hard to imagine that his big, well financed crew didn't have it in hand. Unless, of course, as I suspect, the exculpatory evidence is being collected by the Office of the Inspector General. And if it is and is made public before the sentencing hearing, Mueller will have hands-off reason to dismiss the case, without anyone being able to credibly charge that he threw it." • What sort of eculatory evidence could have been withheld? According to Byron York in the Examiner : "In March 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed a number of Capitol Hill lawmakers on the Trump-Russia investigation. One topic of intense interest was the case of Michael Flynn, the Trump White House national security advisor who resigned under pressure on February 13 after just 24 days in the job....According to two sources familiar with the meetings, Comey told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional. As a result, some of those in attendance came away with the impression that Flynn would not be charged with a crime pertaining to the January 24 interview." • We will have to wait until May to see if Feldman is right and the charges against General Flynn will be dismissed by a Mueller motion. BUT, what we now know, thanks to Clarice Feldman's superb investigative piece, is that the Obama White House and its Attorney General Eric Holder were engaged in highly questionable politicized tactics aimed at Republicans long before the Trump candidacy threw their caution to the wind and they went full-bore to the FISA court with a Fake Dossier whose lies the FBI touted as truth, to get a surveillance warrant for Carter Page and through him, the entire Trump team. • • • WHO IS BILL PRIESTRAP? The Conservative Tree House published an article last Friday that said : "The game is over. The jig is up. Victory is certain...everything from here on out is simply mopping up the details. All suspicions confirmed." That's a lot, but the point made by Sundance is that Devin Nunes has been very confident, and the GOP House Intelligence committee members happily allowed the Democrats to create a 10-page narrative because : "Bill Priestap is cooperating. When you understand how central E.W. 'Bill' Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity. I wrote a twitter thread about him last year and wrote about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines....Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in Congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know everything about everything." • Sundance says the investigation into candidate Donald Trump "was a counterintelligence operation. That operation began in July 2016. Bill Priestap would have been in charge of that, along with all other, FBI counterintelligence operations. FBI Deputy Peter Strzok was specifically in charge of the Trump counterintel op. However, Strzok would be reporting to Bill Priestap on every detail and couldn’t (according to structure anyway) make a move without Priestap approval. On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016. FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.* I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail. Again, notice how Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s actual name, but refers to his position and title. FBI Director James Comey was caught entirely off guard by that first three minutes of that questioning. He simply didn’t anticipate it. Oversight protocol requires the FBI Director to tell the congressional intelligence “Gang of Eight” of any counterintelligence operations. The Go8 has oversight into these ops at the highest level of classification. In July 2016 the time the operation began, oversight was the responsibility of this group, the Gang of Eight : Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can all see why the FBI would want to keep it hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate. After all, as FBI Agent Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an 'insurance policy.' " • So, according to Conservative Tree House, a reputable online site : "we have FBI Director James Comey telling congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn’t inform the statutory oversight “Gang of Eight” was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn’t do it. Apparently, according to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation simply by recommending he doesn’t do it. Then again, Comey’s blame-casting there is really called creating a “fall guy.” FBI Director James Comey was ducking responsibility in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began in July 2016 (9 months prior). At that moment, that very specific moment during that March 20th hearing, anyone who watches these hearings closely could see FBI Director James Comey was attempting to create his own exit from being ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance operation of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and eventually President Donald Trump. "In essence, Bill Priestap was James Comey’s fall guy. We knew it at the time that Bill Priestap would likely see this the same way. The guy would have too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up." • So, we should again think about the Susan Rice CYA email, while considering the Comey congressional testimony CYA job. Is it any wonder there are CYA notes all over Washington? You can be sure Bill Priestrap has his own set of them." You can access the Comey testimony at < https://youtu.be/HlXXZQgh72Y > . • And, Conservative Tree House says that : "Immediately there was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations. Why should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the operation. Our suspicions were continually confirmed because there was NO MENTION of Bill Priestap in any future revelations of the scheme team, despite his centrality to all of it. Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the “Russian Dossier;” Bill Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying investigative process used for both FISA applications (June 2016, and Oct 21st 2016). Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of arranging, paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application. Without Bill Priestap involved, approvals, etc. the entire Russian/Trump Counterintelligence operation just doesn’t happen. Heck, James Comey’s own March 20th testimony in that regard is concrete evidence of Priestap’s importance. Everyone around Bill Priestap, above and below, were caught inside the investigative net. Above him: James Comey, Andrew McCabe and James Baker. Below him: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Jim Rybicki, Trisha Beth Anderson and Mike Kortan. Parallel to Priestap in main justice his peer John P Carlin resigned, Sally Yates was fired, Mary McCord quit, Bruce Ohr was busted twice, and most recently Dave Laufman resigned. All of them caught in the investigative net....Only Bill Priestap remained, quietly invisible -- still in position. The reason was obvious. Likely Bill Priestap made the decision after James Comey’s testimony on March 20th, 2017, when he realized what was coming." The decision wazs to be the indiser who cooperted with Congress, and specifically with Nunes. That is CYA in its highest form. Sundance says : "Priestap is well-off financially; he has too much to lose. He and his wife, Sabina Menschel, live a comfortable life in a $3.8 million DC home; she comes from a family of money. While ideologically Bill and Sabina are aligned with Clinton support, and their circle of family and friends likely lean toward more liberal friends; no-one in his position would willingly allow themselves to be the scape-goat for the unlawful action that was happening around them. Bill Priestap had too much to lose....and for what? With all of that in mind, there is essentially no-way the participating members inside the small group can escape their accountability with Mr. Bill Priestap cooperating with the investigative authorities. Now it all makes sense. Devin Nunes interviewed Bill Priestap and Jim Rybicki prior to putting the memo process into place. Rybicki quit, Priestap went back to work. Read all about it at < https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/nunes-memo-priestap.jpg > . "Bill Priestap remains the Asst. FBI Director in charge of counterintelligence operations. It’s over. I don’t want to see this guy, or his family, compromised. This is probably the last I am ever going to write about him unless it’s in the media bloodstream. I can’t fathom the gauntlet of hatred and threats he is likely to face from the media and his former political social network if they recognize what’s going on. BP is Deep-Throat x infinity...nuf said." As Sundance and ConservativeTree House see it : "The rest of this entire enterprise is just joyfully dragging out the timing of the investigative releases in order to inflict maximum political pain upon the party of those who will attempt to excuse the inexcusable. Then comes the OIG Horowitz report. Then the grand jury empaneled (if not already); and while Democrats attempt to win seats in the 2018 election, arrests and indictments will hit daily headlines. Oh, lordy..." • • • DEAR READERS, as always, the redoubtable Thomas Lifson at American Thinker put it all in perspective on Tuesday in his article titled "The Outlines of the Story Are Coming into Focus." Lifson writes : "Thanks to the work of smart and hardworking (non-mainstream) journalists, we can peek just a bit over the horizon and see where the story of the weaponization of the FBI via a senior-level cabal is going from here....The cast of the story is now set, and some dramatic plot points have been identified. The ending hasn't been written yet, of course, but the villains are identifying themselves or being exposed, and some of the heroes are emerging. We are on the cusp of a drama much bigger than Watergate breaking open, and its story elements are compelling." Lifson states with assurance : "In the calm before the storm breaks, the mainstream media and the Democrat attack squad from the House Intel committee [i] are in the midst of utterly discrediting themselves. Once the story breaks into the open, indictments will be handed down, and the witnesses, hostile and cooperating, will be heard in hearings and in court. They have worked together to cover up and distract from the story, but the truth will out, and now it is becoming clear how that will happen." Lifson says the ten-page Schiff memo "is keeping the morale of the #resistance crowd up, but Schiff himself will go down in history as the guy who kicked sand in the eyes of the investigators. All that media effort in pushing the phony narrative of Russia collusion will make them into dupes and laughingstocks, once the solid evidence is brought to light that a conspiracy to push that phony narrative was run with key members of the Clinton machine working hand in glove with the cabal." • Sharyl Attkisson -- see Monday's blog -- has identified the "dramatis personae" who formed the FBI "secret society" that protected Hillary and spied on Trump. She has organized a chart depicting the senior-level personnel changes at the Justice Department during the campaign, the Russia probe, and the Clinton email probe, highlighting in yellow the individuals James Comey appointed. You can acces it at < http://admin.americanthinker.com/images/bucket/2018-02/204179_5_.png >." • Lifson's timeline is chilling : "As the presidential campaigns got rolling in the fall of 2015, James Comey moved his team into top positions in the intelligence and counterintelligence apparatus of the FBI. That's where the surveillance capacity exists. Thanks to the efforts of Chairman Devin Nunes of the House Intel Committee and Senators Grassley and Graham, we have the basic story already outlined and have received the first installment of the plot : the issuance of the FISA warrants on the basis of a fiction pushed by the Clinton campaign. Disclosure of some of the lovebird texts of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page already has provided plenty of drama...and there are more texts to come. Strzok's firing from the Mueller special counsel's team was the first manifestation of the cabal being busted, and last week's flurry of senior-level FBI officials departing is another sign that insiders know that the jig is up. Meanwhile, our own Clarice Feldman presents evidence that the guilty plea of General Michael Flynn, the pre-eminent scalp hanging from special counsel Robert Mueller's belt, may be thrown out of court when he appears for sentencing by Judge Emmet Sullivan, following the mysterious recusal of Judge Rudolph Contreras and the equally or even more mysterious request by Mueller to delay sentencing. Something's up, and it is big. The forthcoming Department of Justice inspector general's report, believed to be slated for next month, is a wild card. With a staff of 250, IG Michael Horowitz should have uncovered much, and Horowitz has a sterling reputation. But then again, so did James Comey at one point. Lots of people putatively on our side have vouched for Horowitz, but we don't know the scope of the report, nor do we know what evidence of corruption will be presented. However, a game-changer is about to drop. Last Saturday, we got the first indirect, inferential evidence of a major revelation on its way : there is an informant from among the cast of characters Sharyl Attkisson highlighted in yellow, a canary singing to save himself. This mystery figure is the man who, a number of observers noticed, has never been mentioned as the information has dripped out of the FBI. His name is Bill Priestap, and he was brought in by James Comey as assistant director of the FBI, Counterintelligence Division, in December 2015. Preistap's identity as the DOJ's informant was inadvertently and indirectly confirmed Saturday night by Chris Stewart, a member of the Nunes committee, under informed and targeted questioning by Judge Jeanine Pirro, a former prosecutor and skilled courtroom interrogator....she blindsides Stewart with Priestap's name, he deflects the question, and then she circles back in, softening him up by saying, 'I don't like that I haven't heard of him.' Then she went in for the kill, laying out the way Comey 'threw him under the bus' [see Sundance and Conservative Tree House above] and then says, 'The fact that we haven't heard from Priestap tells me that he's cooperating with someone or...what?' Poor Stewart, an honest man, then gives away the game by responding, 'Well, look, I'm gonna be careful because I'm not sure what we can say on this, and believe me, I don't want to be the headline when Chris Stewart reveals a bunch of sensitive or classified information[.]' Okay, he didn't say, Yes, Priestap's a cooperating witness, but it's clear to me that such an inference is justified." • Already, says Lifson, despite the mainstream media's best effort, half of the public now believes that senior law enforcement officials broke the law to hinder the Trump presidency, according to a Rasmussen poll : "A grand narrative of breathtaking conspiracy and corruption awaits us as the biggest political scandal in American history unfolds. The story now has a face and a narrator named Priestap, even though his information can't yet be revealed. All in good time, but preferably before November." Read Lifson's full article at < http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/fbigate_the_outlines_of_the_story_are_coming_into_focus.html#ixzz56zoakA8L >. • Senator Graham got it right on Monday when talking with Fox News : "Do you think Comey mentioned to the President that the chief source of information regarding a FISA warrant on Carter Page came from a paid operative of the Democratic Party, Mr. Steele, who was on the payroll of Fusion GPS, that was being paid by the Clinton campaign, the Democratic Party, and that the Dossier came from Russian sources, very unreliable and still hasn’t been verified?” Graham added : "“What I’m worried about is that this is an effort by the President [Obama] to basically get himself on the record through Susan Rice, and make sure that, from his point of view, everything was done by the book.” • We can be sure that Senator Graham knows, as do Susan Rice and Barack Obama, all about the decades-old CYA system in place in the Swamp.