THREAD: Yesterday @danbongino made seemingly extreme hypothesis that operation to extract and expose Flynn-Kislyak call originated in Obama White House. His suggested mechanism was open to valid criticism e.g. Wauck. But I think that he may be over target
2/ let's start with what we know. There were dozens of requests to unmask Flynn during transition, but none in the critical few days after the Flynn-Kislyak call. We also know that Obama Chief of Staff McDonough met on Aug 10 (a critical Crossfire day) with Moffa, Thrasher etc
3/ from dozens of unmasking requests re Flynn during transition, we know that Obama White House was aware that Flynn was talking to foreign leaders and were tracking/spying on what he was saying.
4/ from McCabe book, we pretty much know the precise mechanism by which details of Flynn-Kislyak call got into hands of Obama White House and distributed far and wide into leaky intel community. The "PDB Staff" (Presidential Daily Briefing) issued a seemingly innocent and natural 
5/ request to "intelligence community" to explain supposed mystery of Russian non-retaliation to US sanctions on Russian intel agencies and officials and expulsion of 35 diplomats. The FBI "came across" the conversation between Flynn and Kislyak on Dec 29 (surprise, surprise)
6/ FBI analyst stovepiped "tech cuts" of Flynn-Kislyak conversation to McCabe, thus to Comey, thus to Clapper and Obama White House. Obama himself was aware of tech cuts by Jan 4, before Sally Yates. Flynn's name was not redacted in tech cuts, thus no need for unmasking request
7/ the tech cuts were not a finished "intelligence product". This distinction later gives rise to some unresponsive denials and misdirections about intelligence products that one has to watch out for.
8/ the surveillance of Russian embassy which gave rise to tech cuts will have been done under a legal FISA or something equivalent. There is color of justification for not "minimizing" Flynn's name under 50 USC 1801(h)(2). (Exception under 1801(e)(1) is inapplicable).
9/ in summary, Obama Presidential Daily Briefer purported to be mystified at Russian non-retaliation to sanctions/expulsions, commissioned intel investigation which, to everyone's surprise, yielded Flynn-Kislyak tech cuts, which were disseminated thru intel community and leaked.
10/ but let's start at the beginning. With the supposed mystery. Let's be real here. There was zero mystery about non-retaliation. It was not a secret that a new govt was being installed in 3 weeks. Entirely reasonable for Russia not to retaliate, but to wait.
10/ one doesn't need to do a deep dive with all hands on deck at all intel agencies to know that. Aside from that, and US commenters don't generally understand this, other countries often just absorb aggressive US actions (even if unjustified) because they don't want a fight.
11/ so, in reality, there wasn't any mystery at all about the Russian non-retaliation. So why did PDF staff put out an all-hand-on-deck alert for intelligence on the Russian non-retaliation? One obvious explanation is that this was a slick way of excavating Flynn-Kislyak call.
12/ Obama insiders and/or Clapper DNI were aware of Flynn transition calls. They would be pretty much certain that Flynn and Kislyak would talk after sanctions/expulsion announcement and that call would be easily excavated in response to request.
13/ McCabe and Comey were only too happy to accommodate request thru direct supply of tech cuts - the supply of which even gave some pause to Strzok and Page on Jan 3.
14/ turn to Jan 4 when Strzok learns that Barnett had initiated procedures to close Crossfire Razor. If CR were closed, Comey and McCabe, maybe even DNI, WH, could be vulnerable on turnover of raw (unminimized) tech cuts. So Strzok was desperate to keep it open.
15/ seems to me that Obama White House was far too slick to have their fingerprints on a direct Presidential surveillance order (Dan's first guess), but they are easily slick enough to launder a surveillance operation through a seemingly innocent PDB request.
15/ Pence later did their operation a huge favor by taking the bait on poison question from CBS and giving a far more detailed and elaborate answer than he needed to. He should have just said that it was Flynn's job to talk to other countries in transition, including Russia, and
16/ flanneled on the details - on which he had no obligation to explain to a reporter anyway. Experienced politicians flannel questions all the time. Pence should have done so. Worse, Pence appears to have added a specific denial which went slightly beyond Flynn's probable brief
17/ even so, neither Comey nor Yates had any business investigating Pence statement to CBS. Even if Pence was not merely mistaken, but lying to the public. Neither of them launched investigations every time a politician in Obama admin "lied".
16/ ideas in this thread commented on today by @dbongino See
