Right after the McGonigal story broke, Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee. Schiff is expert on Russian influence operations. It exhibits carelessness about national security to exclude him. It is downright suspicious to exclude him now. 16/20

This was no ordinary FBI surveillance operation: The “acquaintance” Grishin referred to was himself an FBI agent—a man who, out of greed, desperation, and spite, had begun an affair with Ogorodnikov and agreed to sell classified information to the Soviet government. Eventually, this man—Richard W. Miller, a 47-year-old Los Angeles-based counterintelligence agent on the Bureau’s Soviet squad—would become the first FBI agent ever convicted of espionage.

And the man who would finally secure Miller’s conviction in 1990—after three trials over the course of six years—was a young U.S. attorney in Los Angeles: Adam Schiff. [snip]

Schiff accepts that Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy between Trump associates and the Russian government (though he has said there is “plenty of evidence of collusion.”) For the congressman, the Trump-Russia affair goes beyond the domain of the potentially prosecutable, and broaches the broader question of compromise—whether, say, one’s financial or personal entanglements can create improper levers of influence for a hostile foreign state. In the counterintelligence world, behavior need not be criminal to represent a threat to the country’s national security interests.

Schiff, unusually for someone in Congress, first learned this lesson decades ago. To fully understand why he has continued to ring the alarm on Trump-Russia, we need to travel back to Los Angeles in 1984, and the strange, sordid saga of Richard Miller.

On September 4, 1971, the Costa Rican National Geographic Institute was taking aerial photos from 10,000 feet of Lake Cote, the small body of water that would later become the larger Lake Arenal, as part of preliminary studies for the future hydroelectric project.

The study was funded by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) to determine water sources in the area for their planned hydroelectric project.

Photographer Sergio Loaiza, along with Costa Ricans Juan Bravo and Francisco Reyes, traveled on a twin-engine Canadian F680 with a special 100 lb map-making camera donated by the German government rigged onto the floor of the plane snapping a photo about every 13 seconds.

It was during this aerial inspection that what is considered to be the best photograph of a UFO in the world was taken.

Sherrilyn Ifill @SIfill_
Out of order. Also, @RepRosendale she is Rep. Waters or Maxine Waters to you unless you are in personal conversation with her. Rep. Waters is not your servant. Disgusting display. But congratulations, you got your fundraising clip. B/c nothing sells better.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar
Rosendale calls out Maxine Waters by name but then denies he did so just seconds later. Very weird.
[video]
3:34 PM · Jan 5, 2023

3:47 PM · Jan 5, 2023

anthony rei 🥟 @anthonyberteaux
Rep. Maxine Waters: "Matt Rosendale, get it together."

#SpeakerVote #118thCongress
[video]
4:26 PM · Jan 5, 2023

[In my best Willie Nelson]

🎶Lost the vote again
#KevinMcCarthy lost the vote again
7 times, it seems it's never gonna end
So Kremlin McCarthy lost the vote again

/2 🎶Lost the vote again
Even Hakeem Jeffries brought more votes together
Lost the vote again
Masochistic Kevin just break out the leather
Sing together
Lost the vote again...