The following article is very interesting. This may explain a lot:
On March 17, 2017, the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence (SCCI) was given a copy, possibly unredacted, of the FISA application used to authorize surveillance on Carter Page. The SCCI responded by supporting the people who prepared this FISA application.
At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee were literally threatening to sue the DOJ and the FBI to get the same document given willingly to the SCCI.
On the same day this FISA application was delivered to the SCCI, James Wolfe, security staffer for the SCCI took a picture of 82 pages and leaked them to Ali Watkins. The sting was on.
James Wolfe was indicted:
Ali Walkins, the reporter involved, was publicly shamed by the New York Times and reassigned to a position where she will be closely supervised:
https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-reassigns-ali-watkins-reporter-sexual-relationship-source/
Some would assume that the NYT is doing the right thing for the right reasons. But, that would be totally inconsistent with the character of NYT management. Doing the right thing seems very low on their list of priorities. Odds are they did this because Ali Watkins made a huge mistake. She published an article based on a sting operation and the New York Times was humiliated. It seems likely that the copy of the FISA application leaked to the NYT has some very minor changes, probably dates, from the actual application designed to catch the leaker. It worked brilliantly.
Wolfe was charged with lying to the FBI. This means there has been some serious cooperation between the FBI and the intelligence committee. This could easily explain why Trump didn’t just declassify the FISA application in the first place. The current leadership of the DOJ and the FBI may actually be doing exactly what he wants them to do. Trump’s public display of frustration with Jeff Sessions and the FBI may have been a show designed to help them really drain the swamp.
This reminded me of a settlement conference I participated in years ago. The President of the Company involved asked to attend the settlement conference. He was very concerned about the case and wanted me to settle it for big bucks. I told him he could come and listen to the opening arguments, but he could not say anything. Later, I had him sit out in the lobby while the lawyer and I negotiated with the other party’s lawyer. I personally thought the company President would give off body language that showed too much interest in settlement, which is why I put him in the lobby. At one point we were in the final stages of the negotiation and were close to settling the case for about half of what the President of the Company was willing to pay. I went out in the lobby and told him we probably couldn’t get it settled. I knew he would be very upset. I was right. He turned beet red and started mumbling to himself stalking around the lobby. I knew the opponents would notice this. Then I went back in to the negotiations and told them that he was very upset and if we didn’t get this settled there could be serious problems. They dropped down to my last offer and settled. They totally misread why he was angry, which is exactly what I wanted to happen.
Consider this. Every single top FBI official out to get Trump is gone. Some of them are likely to be indicted. All of the top-level intelligence officials who hate Trump are gone. They may still technically have security clearances, but I can guarantee that none of the current leaders in the intelligence community care what they think about anything. This is further evidence that the intelligence community, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray are working together as a team. Remember that John Huber is conducting his own special investigation and absolutely nothing is leaking about that operation. You probably won’t hear from Mr. Huber until he announces some shocking indictments. There will be even fewer leaks out of the intelligence community.
It sure looks like Donald Trump put on a display of anger so that his team had a better chance of handling things. Things like setting up the sting operation that trapped James Wolfe and Ali Watkins. Trump is famous for trolling his opponents and this may be his best performance yet. His job was made easier because liberals believe everyone else, who has an ounce of intelligence, thinks just like them. There are none so vulnerable as those who delude themselves.
TDM