FOIA...

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in federal court, seeking all records of communication about the Clinton-DNC-financed Trump "dossier" among NSA James Clapper,  CIA  John Brennan, and the cable news outlet CNN.

The infamous dossier was one of the primary documents used to launch the special counsel investigation of collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign -- collusion that did not occur.

James Clapper, the chief intelligence official in the Obama administration, has admitted that he discussed the salacious and unfounded claims in the dossier with CNN reporter Jake Tapper, and may have discussed it with other journalists as early as January 2017.

Clapper later signed on to be an analyst at CNN in August 2017. The dossier was written by ex-British spy Christopher Steele.

Stay...

Secrecy...

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-1800s, and used by African-American slaves to escape into free states, Canada and Nova Scotia with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.

Now there may be a new case for abortion seekers in certain areas

Joe...

The latest RCP average stacks up like this:

• Joe Biden — 38.3%
• Sen. Bernie Sanders — 18.8
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren — 8.5
• Sen. Kamala Harris — 7.3
• Mayor Peter Buttigieg — 7.0
• Robert "Beto" O'Rourke — 3.8
• Sen. Cory Booker — 2.5

All the rest of the candidates are polling at less than 2%.

Illusory...

If this happened to you at work, don't feel that bad. It usually end up bad for the illusory.

IP...

President Trump was the only president who stood up to the threat of China regarding the theft of intellectual property and transfer of wealth.

Intellectual property, or IP, theft has been a major contentious issue in trade talks between the Trump administration and China.

IP theft—use of patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and copyrights without permission—may seem dry to many. But it represents big money. Intangible assets, which include IP, make up 80% of the value of S&P 500 companies, according to the Harvard Business Review.

Probe...

AG

AG. William Barr, a name will be visibly engraved in the hidden world of Intelligence.

President Trump issued a grave warning to those who allegedly "spied" on his 2016 campaign, calling their actions "treason" and saying “long jail sentences” are in order.

“My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics.  TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!” Trump tweeted.

In AG Bill Barr's testimony he said that "spying did occur" against the Trump campaign in 2016.

The attorney general is leading a formal review into the conduct of that investigation.  It was revealed that Barr had appointed John Durham, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut, to lead that investigation to cover “all intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election and any misconduct during the early stages of the FBI’s original Russia probe.

The results will be available right at the neck of time for the preparations for 2020. It is not going to be pretty. Some will go to jail, and others in the media will be sued for millions of dollars. Just a thought.

Rubric...

Attorney General William Barr is working closely with the CIA to review the origins of the Russia investigation and surveillance issues surrounding Donald Trump's presidential campaign.  US attorney John Durham in Connecticut is heading up the effort with Barr.  

At a hearing last month, Barr said, "I think spying did occur" on the Trump campaign.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is near the end of his investigation into possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) with respect to targeting former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. 

Since the FISA warrant was the predicate for subsequent surveillance, the impending IG report potentially will reveal whether it was legitimately obtained. Recently revealed text messages between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe show that the issue of biased sources was being hotly contested even days before the warrant application. 

If the warrant was in fact issued on the weight of the notorious “Steele dossier,” which was underwritten by the Clinton campaign, then all that followed could fall under the “improper surveillance” rubric, especially if some FBI employees knew it was bogus all along.

Why..

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the decision in a White House briefing. Reading a statement from Trump that accused Brennan of making “a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations  wild outbursts on the internet and television  about this Administration

In his May 2017 testimony before the intelligence panel, Brennan emphatically denied the dossier factored into the intelligence community’s publicly released conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election "to help Trump’s chances of victory.” 

Brennan also 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.

Intel...

Here’s one way to be recognized as ‘award-winning’ journalists – collude with intelligence officials to get their best leaks and then hire them later. 

Now, the question is…are Brennan and Clapper leaking top intel to MSNBC and CNN as paid analysts?

Reporters Jake Tapper and others won the Merriman Smith Award for their broadcast work and reporting on the dossier.

James Clapper was suspected by Congress of leaking the information to CNN, after he asked  FBI Director James Comey to give Trump the private briefing on Jan. 6, 2017.

Clapper's resignation "was expected and does not "today" appear to indicate that Clapper is in any trouble or is being forced out," NPR National Security Editor Philip Ewing says. Clapper has told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that he keeps a calendar counting down the days until he is out of government service.