Complicated business folks, complicated business....

WASHINGTON – President Trump is withdrawing his nomination for former U.S. attorney for D.C. Jessie Liu to serve as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, a top position overseeing economic sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge.
[…] This was “the president’s call,” according to a former administration official familiar with the situation. The decision, which was made today, has administration officials questioning the circumstances that led to Trump changing his mind — with the developments in the Roger Stone case today being the only one they are aware of.  (read more)

Great job folks. Apparently the Senate will not have  to ask Ms. Liu any pesky questions…. Imagine that.

Earlier today President Trump signed a bill supporting the retraining and re-skilling of military service members for important Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs. S. 153, the “Supporting Veterans in STEM Careers Act,” which promotes veteran participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, computer science, and scientific research.
At the conclusion of the remarks celebrating the bill, President Trump took questions from the media (press remarks @21:10) [Video Below – Transcript Will Follow]
During the press portion President Trump took questions on a variety of topics to include the DOJ, the outrageous Roger Stone sentence, Michael Bloomberg, the upcoming trip to India and interestingly President Trump says he is aware who “anonymous” is, but doesn’t want to say… “you’d be surprised, you’d be surprised”. Much more:

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It is now obvious the Mueller prosecutors in the Roger Stone case intentionally inflated the sentencing recommendation (7 to 9 years prison) in a coordinated Lawfare effort to set-up a narrative of Attorney General Bill Barr interference.
After lying to main justice officials, in an effort to deploy their plan, all four prosecutors, Michael Marando, Aaron Zelinsky, Jonathan Kravis and Adam Jed have resigned from the case.  Their resignations follow the DOJ filing a supplemental sentencing memorandum rebuking the prior sentence recommendation:

Ultimately responsibility for the  the issues created by this internal “resistance” deployment falls directly on the shoulders of Attorney General Bill Barr who refused to purge the DOJ of corrupt and politically motivated lawyers.
These Lawfare-minded legal activists weaponized the DOJ against their political enemies and used the cover of former special prosecutor Robert Mueller to carry out their misdeeds.  Ironically this Friday will be the one year anniversary of AG Bill Barr being sworn into office.   Full DOJ filing below:
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CBS News Catherine Herridge reported earlier that top DOJ officials were stunned by the 7 to 9 year prison sentence recommendation; and that DC prosecutors were rogue in this decision and had not informed DOJ leadership.
Additional reporting from Herridge said the DOJ informed the court “they would clarify its position later today with the court after calling the 7-9 year sentencing recommendation for lying and obstructing congress “extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate to Stone’s offenses.”
Hours later Aaron Zelinsky, who worked as a prosecutor for Team Mueller, “resigned effective immediately… as a Special Assistant US Attorney for the District of Columbia,” according to a filing in the Roger Stone case:

It looks like the over-the-top sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone was a planned set-up by Aaron Zelinsky et al, to force AG Bill Barr to step-in and reduce the sentence; thereby giving fuel to those in media/lawfare who are accusing AG Barr of political influence.  This reeks of Lawfare scheming.
However, Zelinsky is only departing the special assistant to DC role, and it appears he is still an assistant US attorney for the District of Maryland.
The Robert Mueller team assembly was a den of snakes.  However, they may have just overplayed their hand on this one.  The seven to nine year sentence recommendation for Roger Stone is so over-the-top even Democrats are admitting it.
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Former U.S. Attorney for DC, Jessie Liu, is scheduled for a Senate confirmation hearing this upcoming Thursday at 10:00am.  There’s also an unreported background story connected to the DOJ, Rod Rosenstein and Ms. Liu so controversial, it’s as big as Spygate.
In the event any Senator on the approval committee would be brave enough to question the participant here’s the story:

EVENT ONE – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.  In 2017 and 2018 Mr. Waldman represented the interests of dossier author Chris Steele and Russian Billionaire Oleg Deripaska.
There was some initial media discussion of the text messages, and some eyebrows raised over why the Vice-Chairman of the SSCI would make statements saying “he would rather not have a paper trail” around the Steele communication, but generally speaking the DC media dropped the story quickly.  It just didn’t fit the anti-Trump narrative in early 2018.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of media curiosity some rather elementary questions were never asked (let alone answered).  Questions including: •Why were the 2017 text messages between Mark Warner and Adam Waldman captured?  •Who captured them?.. and, perhaps more importantly: •why were they released?
The February 2018 story soon disappeared, and no-one ever paid enough attention to go back and see the answers to the questions….
We did.
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Moments before the massive Manchester, New Hampshire rally, President Trump gave an exclusive interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business.

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U.S. President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi form a trilateral group within President Trump’s Indo-Pacific economic strategy.  Essentially a geopolitical alliance based on economic interests.
PM Abe and PM Modi have visited the U.S. several times since the alliance was formed. President Trump has also visited Japan several times but not visited India. (There has been a sticky issue with Modi’s protectionist trade tariffs.) However, today the White House announced President Trump & First Lady Melania will be traveling to India:

[White House] – President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will visit India on February 24 – 25, 2020. The President and The First Lady will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, which is in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat and played such an important role in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and leadership of the Indian independence movement.

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Earlier today President Trump hosted a business luncheon with U.S. governors to discuss economic expansion and administration policy efforts to assist the states.
[Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Wow. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. It’s a great honor to have you at the White House, a very special place. Beautiful and so meaningful in so many ways. And our country has never done better. You’re all doing really well. Every state is doing well. I can say most every state in the room today is setting records. And we’d like to think that the federal government has been helping you a lot.
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Instead of running the ’15/’16 splitter plan that worked in 2012 for Mitt Romney; if the GOP Club had planned with Jeb in the 2016 cycle to hang back until Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio could launch attacks against Donald Trump – then enter the race in March for the Florida splash… that would be somewhat analogous to what we are seeing within the revised plan currently underway within the 2020 DNC Club.
Right now, in the entry primaries, the DNC priority is ‘Never Bernie’; and toward that end Pete Buttigieg is the tool. However, in the background the DNC Club is positioning Bloomberg to save the day, and that is becoming visible in new national polling.

(Quinnipiac Poll Link)

Forget Biden.  Joe Biden’s current “national polling position” is merely a reflection of months of media narrative building on behalf of the former VP.  As voters tune-in Biden is not in the picture. Sleepy Joe is dissolving daily & that shows up in these early primaries.  So on a national scale just remove Biden and reassess.   Now we see Bloomberg coming in.
That’s the plan visible within the narrative construction.  Warren is inauthentic; the media and Club organizers gave her a shot and it didn’t work.  Right now Warren’s value is in keeping Sanders from gaining more far-left momentum as many, likely most, Warren progressives’ will go to Sanders.  Remember, national delegates are proportional.
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Judge Emmet Sullivan has postponed the February 27th sentencing hearing until the prosecution and Flynn’s current defense can litigate attorney-client privilege issues surrounding the DOJ effort to evaluate Flynn’s original defense presentations.

Last week the DOJ (sans Brandon Van Grack) filed a motion for an order to waive Flynn’s attorney-client privilege surrounding Flynn’s withdrawal plea and inefective/conflicted counsel claims.  In essence the prosecution wants to see the background of Flynn’s original defense communications to evaluate if Flynn was compromised by his original lawyers.
The prosecution request was made in response to arguments inside Flynn’s motion to withdraw the plea.   Because the issues of attorney-client privilege are sensitive, the DOJ asked the court to issue and order allowing the prosecution to penetrate the privilege.
As a consequence the DOJ asked for a postponement of the Flynn sentencing hearing until they have time to evaluate the expressed argument of Flynn’s current defense.  Today, Judge Emmet Sullivan has agreed to that postponement, and set a schedule for the prosecution and defense to come to an agreement on the privilege material.
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