from The Conservative Treehouse:

In a court filing yesterday [pdf here] the DOJ provided -initially under seal- the Flynn defense team with more exculpatory evidence.  The filing includes hand-written notes taken by FBI agent Peter Strzok in/around key dates in early January 2017.

The filing was unsealed today, and the Peter Strzok notes are released.

One of the reasons CTH has been slow on discussing this release is specifically because I am trying to accurately determine the provenance of the notes (as below).  USAO Jeff Jensen is unsure of the exact date of the notes.  Either January 3rd, 4th, or 5th… and there’s a good reason for that confusing ambiguity; which I am attempting to filter.

The notes are written by Peter Strzok during a conversation with former FBI Director James Comey; that context is important.  What the notes contain are Peter Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with White House officials.

Repeat: The notes are Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with the White House.   Comey is communicating to Strzok the status of opinion from various officials; those officials may include President Obama and Vice-President Biden.

.

However,… it also seems likely from CTH research files that some of the instructions (as written by Strzok) are passing through former ODNI James Clapper; who was in frequent contact with Comey on the key dates within the discussion.

So let me try to make sense of this.

James Comey was not in the room with Obama and/or Biden until January 5, 2017, the date of the Susan Rice memo.  The best guess on the date these notes were written is January 4, 2017, specifically because that’s the date when Strzok is telling his FBI counterpart not to close the Flynn case; and he says “The 7th Floor is involved”, which means James Comey.

We know Comey and Clapper were in conversation on January 3rd and 4th; and Comey provided the “CR cuts” (Flynn is Crossfire Razor “CR”) to Clapper on one of those dates.

The cuts are the rough draft transcript from Flynn’s intercepted phone calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.  Clapper used copies of the CR cuts to brief President Obama.

Comey would have received the CR cuts from Peter Strzok; and then passed them along to Clapper for use in the White House briefing.  Clapper would then be relaying information back to Comey about the White House position on their Flynn concerns.

The most likely scenario is that Clapper informed Comey about the White House position; and then Comey shared that information with Peter Strzok who is taking notes:

Agent Strzoks handwriting is terrible, and there are big blocks of redacted information.

A plausible rough transcript? [Via Stephen McIntyre]

Again, the background of these notes appears to be Comey relaying information to Peter Strzok about what the White House position is following their reception of the CR cuts. I do not believe Obama and Biden have talked to Comey. Instead the most likely scenario is DNI James Clapper relaying to Comey… who then relays to Strzok.

If my researched position is accurate, the day after these notes, January 5, 2017, Comey then meets with Obama and Biden as scheduled to discuss the Intelligence Community Assessment report that was previously requested by the White House.

Read More @ TheConservativeTreehouse.com