We are all-abuzz about the diGenova revelations with Mike Huckabee last night. Here is the full tape of the Laura Ingraham show, so the reader can understand all details in context. LINK
Here is the video link, again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_yMcVq6-ak
I have transcribed all of diGenova’s comments in the color blue or red, so we can evaluate his words, verbatim. diGenova comments occur at 11:20, 16:20, 19:15. All emphasis is mine. Please note, last night, we learned diGenova was one of the first FISA Court Judges.
One more tidbit, my husband, made an interesting observation last night. Husband is the Boston Lawyer, with several family members who were US Attorneys, Chief Judges, and many employees of DOJ (they argue for sport which makes Christmas exciting). When diGenova was talking last night, husband stopped in his tracks to listen, which is unusual for husband. This morning, he went over diGenova’s words, carefully and rewinding several times. Can’t remember him ever doing that before. Husband said the following thing, “Joe diGenova could not have said what he said, last night, without permission.” Reiterating, “He’s been told it’s okay to talk now, on this specific issue, what to let go of, and where to stop talking.” Implying, Joe knows and has been authorized, by the powers that be, to release the information.
At 11:20, diGenova drops the first bombshell. Four contractors, via the FBI, were allowed to spy on Americans and the information was used for political purposes.
diGenova:
“This is pretty simple stuff for career prosecutors like Rudy and myself.”
“It’s been evident from day one, that there was a brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton, illegally, and then, if Trump won, frame him.
The Dossier was a known part of it. It was created by Hillary Clinton. It was created, knowingly, by John Brennan, as part of a scheme to do everything they could to harm Donald Trump.
The problem for Brennan, and Clapper, and Comey, and Baker, and all of them, now, is, that the FISA Court has already communicated with the Justice Dept about its findings. And their findings are, that for more than 4yrs before the election of Donald Trump, there was an illegal spying operation going on, by FBI Contractors, 4 of them, to steal personal information, electronic information about Americans, and to use it against the Republican Party. 
There’s going to be indictments, there’s going to be grand juries. John Brennan isn’t going to need one lawyer, he’s going to need five.
At 16:20minutes, the convo comes BACK to diGenova.
Paraphrasing
Huckabee asks, “Why is this important to average American sitting at home eating popcorn..”
diGenova: “Because it’s about the rule of law and privacy. The Obama Administration for more than 4yrs before the 2016 election, allowed 4 contractors, working for the FBI, to illegally surveil American citizens. Illegally. The FISA Court has already found that.
By the way, Robert Wray mentioned that there is the Horowitz report coming out in May or possibly early June. There is another report that everyone has forgotten about involving James Comey, alone. That report will be out in 2 weeks. That report is going to be a bombshell. That report is going to open up the investigation on a very high note and there will be criminal referrals in it. The FISA Court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power. And the Chief Judge of that Court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the Justice Dept, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the Asst Attorney for the National Security (Division), all knew about it and lied to the Court, the FISA Court, about it.
Huckabee goes back to “Robert” who was the on the Whitewater Special Counsel, who makes excellent comments. He notes the “leveraging” of information used by the Justice Department and the Intelligence Community against the President and concludes Trump was right, no future President should ever have to go through this again.
DiGenova is back at 19:15 minutes.
DiGenova: There’s a hero in this story and it’s not a lawyer. All the bad people in this story are lawyers. There’s a hero. His name is Admiral Mike Rogers. He was the head of the National Security Agency. He discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA Court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA Court has already been told the Justice Dept who lied to that court and that has been given to Bill Barr already.
There’s so much to unpack, here.

1. diGenova was one of the original FISA Court Judges?
2. Four Contractors, allowed by the FBI to spy on Americans for 4yrs, for the purposes of using the info against Republicans. Still can’t wrap my head around the allegation. We have so many questions. Was it four companies or four people? Who were these ‘contractors’? Are we talking about raw intel from NSA, 702 search queries? How many people were spied upon? Is this part of the Samantha Powers unmasking operation? Is this what Evelyn Farkas meant by “can’t let them discover HOW we got the information”?
3. We all know Admiral Rogers went to Rosemary Collyer the FISA Court Judge, when he learned what was happening, late October 2016, only a few days after Carlin GOT the FISA warrant on Carter Page. We had no idea Rogers worked with Collyer for months to figure out who was doing it.  
4. And we had no idea Bill Barr already knew.
5. Or that the FISA Court had already made a ruling the FBI LIED.
6. Who would be handling this investigation?
7. Was this investigation born from Sessions investigation of the 27 leaks? Or Samantha Powers? Or something else?
8. diGenova specifically named John Brennan and Hillary as the creators of the Dossier. Note that diGenova did not say “Comey”, or “McCabe”, or “Strzok and Page”. Nope, diGenova fingered John Brennan. Brennan could NOT have acted in such a way without express permission from Obama and ValJar.
9. Remember the spook story from John Solomon? When Solomon started investigating, two guys showed up, late one night, by his mailbox. They did not identify themselves. They wanted Solomon to investigate but they were worried about losing the FISA warrant altogether. The FISA warrant was good for them, when it came to tracking terrorist, etc. They needed the ability to get a warrant but were worried about the illegality by political appointees and thought, maybe, the whole program could be in danger. Makes sense now, eh?
10. Michael Caputo was on Tucker, several times, and I vaguely remember him talking about HUNDREDS (600+) people who had been ‘surveilled’. Part of the same Obama Admin effort?
11. When diGenova talks about the Comey report, coming out in 2 weeks, diGenova says it will “open up the investigation on a very high note”…. “with criminal referrals”. Curious sentence, yes? It sounds like the way a coach opens a football game with a trick play, or an entertainer opens a concert with a favorite song. It definitely implies there is MORE TO COME.
12. Finally, since the whole mess centers on the FISA Court, what is the involvement of Chief Justice, John Roberts?

Seems to be quite a bit going on at the Justice Department. Do we have any independent confirmation of diGenova’s comments?
We recall the 99 page release from FISA. We remember Chairman Goodlatte and Nadler fighting and Dan Coats, DNI, released the 99 pages from Collyer. Review here: Link
From the FISA Court ruling:
The October 26, 2016 Notice informed the Court that NSA Analysts had been conducting such queries in violation of that prohibition, with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed to the Court.
The Court ascribed the government’s failure to disclose the IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [Obama’s NSD Director John Carlin – NOT Rogers] to an institutional “Lack of Candor” and emphasized that “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment Issue”.
A non-compliance rate of 85% raises substantial questions about the propriety of using of [Redacted – likely “About”] query FISA data.
There is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015-April 2016 period coincided with an unusually high rate.
The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to a [Redacted].
Is largely staffed by private contractors.
The {Redacted} contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI’s requests.
The FBI discontinued the above-described access to raw FISA information as of April 18, 2016.
Their [contractors] access was not limited to raw information for which the FBI sought assistance – and access continued even after they had completed work in response to an FBI request.
The FBI had given the information to the private entity [Redacted] not to an assisting federal agency.
The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported.
The improper access granted to the [Redacted] contractors was apparently in place [Redacted] and seems to have been the result of deliberate decision-making.
This all points to substantial instances of improper surveillance. Going back to at least November 2015 – probably longer.
We do not have Goodlatte’s letter. But Judge Collyer has already issued a damning Opinionof FISA Court abuse under the Obama Administration.
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At what point should a parent step in to save a child? When is it good for them to learn how to fail? Gosh, it would be so much easier if kids came with a set of instructions.
“What are you going to do?”, I queried. “We’re gonna sell tires to Mr. Dunlop. We think we can get $5/piece for them. Some of ’em, might even be worth $7.50.”, said the boys. They were all dressed up, navy blazers, white starched shirts, and ready to go and make their sales pitch. I was all ears… , “How about practicing your sales pitch on me, first?”
My stepson and his best buddy were about 14-15yrs old, when I came home one day to find 30-40 old tires at the end of the driveway. Because we are a B&B, we’re fairly self-conscious of the appearance of our grounds and gardens. A stack of old tires made us look more like the “Sanford and Sons Garage”. Not exactly the ambiance I was going for. All I could think about was the tires catching fire, black smoke for two days, fire engines, neighbors complaining, and our B&B being designated as the “Little Somalia” of the south. The boys assured me, they had a plan…… They were going to make their fortune on retreads.
A little bit of background…
My stepson was an odd duck. We never knew if he would turn out to be a CEO or the next Unibomber, scathing IQ but kind of scary. His heart was not in the right place and he was a manipulative kid. When coupled with his best buddy, we’ll call him Eric, the two of them presented a challenge to teachers, ministers, and parents. Eric was sharp, naturally intelligent, so handsome the girls swooned, and his grandfather was a millionaire farmer who spoiled him. By age 14, Eric drove a truck to school, could fix equipment, ride a horse, shoot well, and fly a crop duster. My husband owned a construction company. Between the two boys, they had access to, and were comfortable with, all kinds of heavy equipment…. and they had no fear.
Eric’s mom, we’ll call her Susan, was a girlfriend to me but I was in awe of her. She was a former barrel horse racer, wild as any mustang. She was the most fearless person I’ve ever known and the kind of woman who would scare most men. Coming from bubble-wrapped suburbia, I had never met anyone like her. Susan’s mother was a friend to my grandmother, and in my Culture Club. The mother had a silver closet in her home – an entire ROOM filled with fine sterling serving pieces and flatware. The mother was a fine southern woman, but Susan broke the mold. I can’t remember ever seeing Susan in a dress or wearing makeup, but she started a business for home decor and building supplies, the most exquisite pieces for western homes/lodges, etc. Her business thrived and was around the corner from our B&B….. which put the boys together, every afternoon and most weekends.
When the boys were little, I caught them with BB Guns, shooting a skunk in the backyard. The staff loved that skunk, who visited out yard every afternoon with her babies. I broke the butt of the BB Gun across the brick column of the porte cochere, “Don’t shoot our animals.” During their middle school years, the oak trees were particularly prolific and hundreds of oak seedlings sprouted in our gardens. I was pulled saplings every afternoon and the boys were not helping as I thought they should. So, I told them they should pull the saplings, pot them up, and sell them for $1.00 each. They liked the idea, pulled almost all the saplings, and the boys made about $75 selling little oak trees all over town.
Then, Eric ran away from home. I thought the whole thing was settled and he was back home, but my stepson came to me, begging for an intervention. Apparently, Eric, who was about 14 at the time, had run away, three states, and was working on a farm in Missouri. He had been there for 3 weeks and had been in contact with my stepson. Eric was sleeping in the farmer’s barn and fall was approaching. It was getting cold. As my stepson explained, he was ready to come home, but his mom, my girlfriend Susan, was adamant. She would not go and get him. “His parents abandoned him!”, my stepson said, imploring me to “fix it”. I stared at my stepson in disbelief, trying to think of what mountain I would not climb to get to him. Sleeping in a barn? Three states away? What? I talked to Susan the next day. Her response, “He found his way there; he can find his way home.” Wow, tough love.
I recalled the time my stepson ran away from home. I helped him pack his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle suitcase and waved goodbye to him as he took off across the school parking lot. I went into the house, called the local police, had them pick him up, handcuff him, and bring him back home. He wasn’t gone 20 minutes and he was terrified. Point made. The problem with Eric was infinitely worse. Three states away?
My husband was non-committal on intervention. “None of our business”, he said. A few days went by and my step son was increasingly agitated. About the time I made arrangements with the farmer to pick up Eric, halfway, in Arkansas, he showed up, worse for wear, at our back door. He lived with us for about a month…. then found his way home. The following summer, they hatched the tire retread plan.
That morning in the driveway, I sat down on the car bumper to listen to the boys’ sales pitch to Dunlop. They talked about the material cost of re-treads, the ready market for less expensive tires (they had customers lined up and had visited several full serve gas stations), the amount of money they thought they could make, and the estimated profit for Dunlop. They wanted to approach Mr. Dunlop with the idea. The Dunlop plant was fairly close to us, about 30 minutes. The boys were innocent, had no frame of reference for time/schedules/proper business etiquette, and had no concern about the meeting. I had visions of them being kicked out of the office, with adults laughing and mocking them. The defeat would be crushing. At no time did I ever think they would get to see Mr. Dunlop. The factory was huge. I wondered if they would get past the guard gate, and felt badly for them. Their first real effort to enter the business world needed to go well.  Nonetheless, they took off in the old red truck, with “sample tires” bouncing in the back bed.
Walking back to the kitchen, I shook my head. It was a few minutes after 11:00am and I wondered if the bosses would be gone for lunch if the boys dawdled. I knew Bill, or “Mr. D”, but only vaguely for some charity stuff – more like we knew OF each other. On a whim, I called his office, spoke to his secretary, and told her about the boys’ plan, profitability, etc. She put me on hold. A few minutes later, Bill or Robert came on the phone, laughing. I started to explain, but he cut me off, “Don’t worry mom, I got this one. I can’t wait to meet these two.” The way he said it…., I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.
Their meeting went quite well. The boys ended up going to lunch at the local country club with several other bosses. They were introduced as a “new business opportunity”. Of course, the boys felt very important. In the end, they were hired to work in the plant for the summer, on the loading docks, but still a favorite of the big bosses. Not exactly what they envisioned, but they did land a job. For the next week, I acted as a broker, selling used tires out of the end of the driveway. I took a commission, $1/tire.
Today, I look back on the episode and still try to figure out what was the right call to make? Was Susan right in letting Eric perish? Was I right in calling the Dunlop plant? Would it have been better to let them fail all the way round? It’s hard, especially for a mom to let the kids fail, but sometimes, failing teaches them so much more. Dads are much better at making these decisions.

Interesting conversation with my son this weekend. This is the same kid who came up with the Canal Project. Big thinker. I admit, Monday afternoon and I’m still ruminating on what he said.
Here’s his premise:
If 90%+ of the world’s info is available from a smart-phone, college and various curriculums need to be rethought and updated. Our children (because he’s now the adult and thinking of future generations – which was a shock to me – cuz I still think of him as the kid) live in a world with information at their fingertips…. and they need to be taught how to use this information more effectively. His use of the word, “effectively”, snagged me, and implied he knew something I did not. I settled in to listen to him expound on his idea.
“This NEED should bring about a revolution in education because the current model does not account for the SPEED at which we can learn with new technology.”, he said. Okay, I can remember being bored in school at times…. and lost at other times.
He elaborated, “….Think about how people binge-watch Netflix….., why should a 6th grader who is interested in physical sciences STOP, or only learn one chapter a week? Why can’t they take tests on-line in the form of units? He noted when he was in 3rd grade (back in the stone age, I guess) they were already taking tests on-line. Why can’t unit tests be strapped into a local school server?
He had my attention…
… but continued.
“Same thing with foreign language. There are a half-dozen software programs available which are far more effective than a teacher in school, learning by semester….. and we have to RE-LEARN for a month when we return in the fall.” He was now standing, pacing, being expressive, and he was convincing.
Then, he dropped a bomb.
“The classroom is outdated. Teachers are outdated. The model was great, for thousands of years, but the model has not adapted to the new tech available and how much easier it is to learn, now.” To back up his claim, he gave the example of Khan Academy for mathematics, where a student can view a clip, look at different examples, back it up and listen again for clarity. Can’t do that with a teacher in class. He gave another example of the kid who daydreams and misses 80% of what a teacher says on a particular day. With the new tech, even the daydreamer could go back and review. We could substantially increase passing rates for all kids in all grades!”
Playing the role of Devil’s advocate, I questioned him about the socialization aspects of “school”. He quickly shot back, “Oh yeah, mom, let’s save the bullies?”, which was an ineffective argument when weighed against the overall benefits of socialization, the ability to read people, working within a team, etc. Yet, then, he had me, “More importantly, how much of bullying or individual bad conduct is caused because students are bored in class?” Gee whiz, wonder who taught my son to make a persuasive argument?
He was flushing the idea outloud and plugged in the Special Ed component. “We all knew the kids who went to special classes and it was embarrassing for them. Okay, let’s say, they take a unit test and get a 60%% grade, thus failing the test. Before they would be allowed to move on, they have to go through another review, and another test, to master material. Their failure is private, thus no embarrassment in class — but a teacher would know immediately. THEN, that kid would no longer be lost in class, AND the kid who understood the material quickly would not be bored and causing trouble.”
Then, he dropped another bomb.
He said, “Let’s look at it from a cost perspective and a wealthy versus poor school district perspective.” My eyebrow was curling, he was talking about taxpayer dollars. “If there are, let’s say, 25K elementary schools in America (he did not know the exact number), then why do we need 25K 3rd grade science teachers? AND, some of these teachers are wonderful and some stink. Why don’t we take the best ones, for lectures, ensuring ALL 3rd graders get the BEST lectures…. across all zip codes…. and the same great teacher in poor or rich communities?” I asked about the experiments and labs. He said, “Well, then we could have one teacher, 1-5th grade, spend a month with each grade, per semester, doing nothing but experiments and blowing things up. You know, mom, The LAB teacher.”
I said, “Well, to listen to lectures, test in units, students wouldn’t necessarily need to be in school.” He gave me the big eyes, “Yeah, they could be sitting in a treehouse, they could learn it in July instead of waiting until October.” Then, he gave the idea a big boost, “Let’s say a 3rd grader is interested in American Presidents, or astronomy, or bugs. Well, there’s no limit to the content available. Why can’t we have assigned reading on a Kindle or books on audio? Why can’t we design other units for those kids who are interested in ANY subject….. and maybe give them extra credit for other ‘electives’….. cuz you know, mom, not every 3rd grader is interested in the same thing…” Ahhh, the wisdom from a 21yr old….  But then, he gave me the example of 3-500 level classes he is taking in materials engineering. He said his professors are not teaching him anything, because they are electives and the professors are “phoning it in”. So, he signed up for the same class, on line, from MIT, to supplement his learning in the same class….. so he can, at least, understand it. Bizarre, eh? He said, “The MIT professor explains thing easily, as opposed to my professor” at the college he is attending….. the one we are paying for.
He was on a roll, “What we SHOULD be focused on is how to teach children how to THINK critically and recognize bias/propaganda within the information.”, he said, now looking for possible hazards or negatives for which we would have to plan for in “New School”. “New School”……., I thought, gheez, he’s already branded the idea. He continued, “Take any issue, The Civil War, Martin Luther King, Jr., The Environment, and students can source docs to represent both sides of any issue. How is it possible to discern what really happened and make a definitive statement about “who was/is right”? Then, he went into a long diatribe about how science is being corrupted for social ideology, minimizing the value of “pure” scientific method, and the hypothesis/result process.
He sighed, “Only mathematics remains uncorrupted by politics, but within a classroom, students are evaluated and graded based on the bias of a teacher.” He digressed with an example of an honors biology class he took which was taught by a cheerleading coach, when the parents of the boys in the class had to go to school and complain about her bias. He said, “Grading online, would eliminate that problem for multiple choice and true/false tests.” For grading of essays, in advanced grades, he suggested student be forced to write TWO persuasive essays on both sides of any issue and consistently, from 1st grade onward, be forced to identify facts versus opinions.
“New School”…… hmmmm, what are YOUR thoughts on the subject? My son went back to college on Sunday night, but I admit, he still had me thinking about it today.
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