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A House Intelligence Meeting, a Resignation & a Chat with Bob Goodlatte

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The House Intelligence Committee is scheduled to meet today at 5:00pm and will vote on release of the House Memo.

Republicans comprise thirteen members of the Committee. Democrats have nine members.

Expect the vote to be 13-9 in favor of a release.

Following the House Intelligence vote, members will await a formal decision from President Trump who has already stated his intention to allow the Memo’s release – and may have already signed a formal release statement.

Step one will be release of the Memo.

Step two – at a later time – will be release of the classified documents underlying the Memo.

Note: when the Memo is made public, the footnotes are likely to prove a worthy point of focus.

We may also see Democrat members call for a vote on the release of their “counter-memo”. Democrats will be hoping for a “no” vote from Republicans – which may make this “counter-memo” vote mildly interesting.

Once President Trump gives formal approval, the actual release of Nunes’ House Memo could happen quickly.

It will be interesting to see if President Trump chooses to allow the Memo’s release in front of his State of the Union speech on January 30, 2018. My guess is he will wait as there is likely too much to be digested and absorbed.

But it could, theoretically, be released tonight.

Which is precisely why I found this interview with House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte intriguing.

Bob Goodlatte – one of the key Congressional players – appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss his role in investigating the DOJ/FBI.

You can find the full transcript – annoyingly released after I finished transcribing – here.

Goodlatte makes a number of important points and Bartiromo does a good job allowing Goodlatte to speak.

At two specific points during the interview, Bartiromo asks several pointed questions that indicate the next steps that may take place in the investigation. All quotes are attributable to Goodlatte unless otherwise noted.

Some quotes:

The more we see of these texts, the more concerning it is.

Hats off to the Inspector General at the DOJ who had these texts that were missing – these five months – and has figured out how to get access to them – which he has now made available back to the FBI.

We already – last week – requested them [FBI texts] and we requested them unredacted because its very clear that as information is being put out, it’s people that are involved in the investigation that are determining what the Congress and ultimately the American people should see.

This filtering of information is coming to an end. Now.

So we’ve asked for these documents unredacted so that can make the judgement ourselves what is pertinent to this investigation and what is not.

I do believe we’ll get them and I must say the DOJ has cooperated far more than the prior Department did. We have these text messages and we have seen the underlying documentation that relates to the FISA application to the FISA Court.

I could be mistaken but this may be the first actual confirmation we’ve had that Congress has seen this FISA evidence.

This investigation has to go forward. We’ll continue to interview key people in the DOJ and the FBI to get to the truth.

It is alarming that in the latest batch of texts that we have received and examined, the same two people go on and talk about a Secret Society that is clearly engaged in trying to alter the course of investigations and in fact possibly alter the course of an election and alter the course of a Presidency. It is very concerning.

Goodlatte slips in the crux of the entire investigation in an almost overlooked manner.

Clearly engaged in trying to alter the course of investigations and in fact possibly alter the course of an election and alter the course of a Presidency.

Think about what Goodlatte is actually referencing here. This is a serious statement.

At this point, Bartiromo asks a key question:

BARTIROMO (At 3:38): After the election, they talked about this Secret Society, did they also talk about destroying evidence. I’m told there are some texts that haven’t been released yet about “We gotta get our hands on the hard drive” or “We gotta get our hands on the thumb drive”.

Goodlatte’s clearly not ready to discuss this phase of the investigation – but he hints at it in his response.

GOODLATTE: There’s certainly a lot of questions about things we do know about with regard to the earlier investigation led by former Director Comey where evidence was destroyed before anybody outside of the FBI could get a look at it. Including evidence destroyed by people working for the Democratic Presidential Candidate.

Translation: Yes, they destroyed evidence.

This Administration is cooperating with us more because we have lots of information and have had access to lots of classified information that we have not had from the prior Administration.

They have said “we’re waiting on the report of the Inspector General” – and we are too…we expect his report in the not-too-distant future.

We have got to continue to pursue this investigation because the Inspector General has one responsibility – the Congress has another responsibility to the American people.

Goodlatte refers to The Unfolding of a Congressional Strategy.

Months ago I called for…the DOJ to appoint a second Special Counsel to look at how matters were conducted last year with regard to former FBI Director Comey, former Attorney General Lynch and all the things that swirled around that investigation. Now, with the Page-Strzok texts, we’re seeing these things blend together in one long continuum with the two of them at or near the center of what was going on at the FBI.

The activity has been ongoing since at least November 2015 – and almost certainly longer.

It’s here that Bartiromo asks the question many Americans have been asking:

BARTIROMO (At 8:15) : Let me ask you about accountability here. Do you believe that if we were to see that there was real moves to obstruct justice, get rid of thumb drives, hide evidence, and just basically rally around Hillary Clinton and try your hardest to Paint Donald Trump into a corner. Are there going to be indictments? Are we going to see people go to jail?

GOODLATTE: That’s where a Special Counsel comes in. Because of the fact that neither the Inspector General nor the Congress can indict people. We do not have prosecutorial authority. If this continues along the lines that it is, where there are a lot of questions, where there’s an intersection of public information and classified information, you have to have someone who not only can investigate, but also can take action on their investigation.

Goodlatte clearly believes information he’s seen warrants prosecution of multiple people.

That’s why I have for many months called for a Special Counsel on the other part of this – the Clinton side of this – and we’re continuing to do our own investigation.

There is a serious problem with leadership at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is very concerning.

Indeed there is.

As I was transcribing the video it was announced that McCabe had just been forced out of the FBI.

Interesting timing:

For some background on McCabe see here.

Reports indicate McCabe’s termination is not the last:

From Carter’s article:

Current and former FBI officials said McCabe’s resignation is the beginning of more resignations to come.

“There are people lining up in the bureau to go after McCabe,” said a former FBI official, with knowledge. “There will be a clean up at the Bureau of his cronies.”

According to several U.S. officials, McCabe’s government communications were collected as part of the ongoing DOJ Inspector General investigation, which is expected to be completed by March.

It would seem the Inspector General’s been busy.

For more on Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his year-long Investigation see:

The Inspector General’s Quiet Investigation

An Introduction to Inspector General Michael Horowitz

Additional Inspector General reference information here, here, here and here.

A brief side note.

On January 19, 2018, Vice-President Pence made an unexpected trip to the Middle East.

On January 24, 2018, House Speaker Paul Ryan visited Saudi Arabia:

The delegation then visited the Royal Court to meet with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, and later toured the Global Center for Combatting Extremist Ideology.

Ryan was accompanied by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes.

The timing seemed a bit odd – particularly with the unfolding drama in Washington and the pending release of the House Memo.

By rights, Nunes should be near-buried with his own ongoing investigation.

Speaker Ryan tweeted out a video of his visit:

Note Ryan’s video. Nunes is standing back – at ease. He’s seen all this before. Ryan has not.

The Conservative Treehouse noted Ryan’s visit – and some potential reasons for it.

Here’s another picture from the Conservative Treehouse article:

Ryan looks a bit…taken aback.

Note Nunes in the background – quietly observing Ryan’s reaction.

At this point nothing seems coincidental – or incidental.

Keep alert for news of the House Intelligence Committee meeting at 5:00 EST.

And don’t forget, Senator Grassley has his Senate Judiciary Memo – the Steele Referral – all ready to go.

Grassley referred Christopher Steele to the DOJ for investigation of false statements.

At the time of Grassley’s initial announcement I made the following observation:

Grassley and Graham have come across inconsistencies in stories. Between Christopher Steele and the DOJ and FBI…

Today we have this:

Steele didn’t lie. The FBI lied.

Events are unfolding rapidly now.

This link may prove helpful as a reference to those wanting to look into the unfolding FBI/DOJ/Obama Administration scandal surrounding illegal surveillance and collusion. Scroll towards the bottom for a Timeline of Events.

 

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