Alleged FISA abuse is now the subject of a revamped investigation by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who last month demanded from the Justice Department a wide array of documentation related to the surveillance of Page and other members of the 2016 Trump campaign.

"[T]he Committee is concerned that the Woods procedures and a full presentment of material and relevant facts may not have occurred with regard to the applications for FISA warrants for (and the opening of the underlying investigations on) Carter Page and other individuals associated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump," Graham wrote in a letter. Enacted in 2001, the Woods Procedures were intended to protect U.S. citizens from improper surveillance by the government, seeking to "ensure accuracy with regard to the facts supporting probable cause."

For years there has been suspicion of intelligence agencies waging a political campaign against candidate and then President Trump. Allies of Trump often seize on a breadcrumb trail of odd activity, such as the infamous 2016 tarmac meeting between Obama-era Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton when his wife Hillary Clinton was a presidential candidate and under investigation for her unauthorized email server. Also fueling speculation are comments such as that from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who in January 2017, just before Trump's inauguration, warned the president-elect that intelligence officials "have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

By now everyone knows there were two parallel operations, two investigative paths, at work in the 2016 election. There was an official government investigation, Crossfire Hurricane via the FBI; and an unofficial investigation, dossier assembly via Chris Steele and Fusion GPS. Both operations originated in synergy with the vast Russian conspiracy narrative.

One operation was a function of elements outside the traditional framework of government via Fusion GPS. The second operation was specifically happening inside government spurred by CIA Director John Brennan and with the delivery of his "EC" officially creating the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation.

Crossfire Hurricane, began on July 31st, 2016. Later in the year, the FBI investigation merged with the Fusion GPS investigation through the use of the Steele Dossier; and that led to the FISA application on Carter Page as a way to enmesh the two tracks.

Devin Nunes does an excellent job explaining the Fusion-GPS network, which includes: Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele and eventually DOJ official Bruce Ohr. Bruce was the bridge to import opposition research (The Dossier) from the private sector and inject it into the FBI intelligence apparatus.

This Fusion-GPS operation, as Nunes correctly describes, culminated with the Steele Dossier being transferred into the FBI. Again, I strongly urge everyone to read the Op-ed.

However, there is a stark absence within Nunes outline; there is something completely missing, "the second operation". The operation that originated from within the U.S. government in early 2016. The CIA operation started by John Brennan.

The external team, Glenn Simpson and Nellie Ohr et al, could not instruct Joseph Mifsud (Maltese Professor, FBI/CIA asset), or Alexander Downer (Australian Diplomat), or Stephan Halper (U.K. Academic and FBI/CIA asset), or Charles Tawil (Israeli CIA asset) to make contact with George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn or Carter Page. Those contacts were covert and (un)official government missions for the weaponized U.S. intelligence apparatus.

I can understand why Devin Nunes would want to avoid attention on the second 'inside government' operation due to collateral damage that might hit our intelligence capabilities, ie. FISA. Indeed, with Mr. Nunes in charge of keeping those intelligence capabilities intact, he has somewhat of a conflicted professional interest in full exposure.

However, let me state clearly I'm very concerned the U.S. intelligence system is going to take the same approach toward defending their conflicted interests that Devin Nunes is taking inside this op-ed.

Heck, it would not be a leap to anticipate CIA Director John Brennan, ODNI James Clapper and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe counting on exactly this inherent conflict helping their own escape from accountability.

The Steele Dossier did not originate Crossfire Hurricane. CIA Director John Brennan ran an operation from February through July 2016 to create the Crossfire Hurricane investigation run by FBI Agent Peter Strzok. The Dossier was on an entirely different track.

Devin Nunes has been a solid and trustworthy patriot throughout. Unfortunately, while many people might not notice the gaping hole inside his op-ed, those of us who do notice have a reason to be concerned....

Do not let the Deep State bad actors escape by only holding outside conspirators accountable.

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European leaders unimpressed by May's Brexit extension request

Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, said the request "raises many questions" and the letter is not enough to grant a further extension. Rutte added that he hopes the UK will give more clarity before the next EU summit on April 10.

"We, as the European Union, have set very clear deadlines and there is no reason to further extend those deadlines," Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told the Straubinger Tagblatt newspaper.

"Unless the facts in Britain change. But we have not yet reached this point."

Those comments were echoed by Germany's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, who said that there are "many questions still to clarify in London".

"We will come together with our European colleagues at the next council meeting and come to an opinion over the question of an extension and how long such an extension should be," Maas said.

This prompted a pointed remark from a diplomatic source close to French President Emmanuel Macron, who decried the rumors of Brussels granting Britain another extension to the deadline for leaving the union as "clumsy" and "premature."

"[There is a] need for a credible alternative plan justifying this request. We're not there today," the source told Reuters. "In any case, we need a clear plan from London by Tuesday."

'Be careful what you wish for'

The European Parliament's Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, also cast doubt on Brussels' appetite for prolonging the Brexit crisis by referencing a tweet from prominent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg which argued that the UK should be "as difficult as possible" if an extension leaves it stuck in the EU. "Be careful what you wish for," Verhofstadt quipped.

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