Earlier today Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held a press conference at the White House to announce a new executive order constructed by the Trump administration that would deliver economic sanctions due to Turkish activity in Northern Syria.
“These are very powerful sanctions. We hope we don’t have to use them. But we can shut down the Turkish economy if we need to,” Treasury Secretary Mnuchin tells reporters.

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Additionally, Secretary Mnuchin notes there has been “significant progress” in the U.S-China trade discussions over the past two days. Vice-Premier Liu He is schedule to meet President Trump in the oval office at 2:45pm.
[Transcript] SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Hello everybody. So, I just met with President Trump, and he has authorized and will be signing a new executive order giving the Treasury Department, in consultation with himself and Secretary Pompeo, very significant new sanctions authorities that can be targeted at any person associated with the government of Turkey, any portion of the government. This will be both primary sanctions and secondary sanctions that will be applicable.
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Earlier this evening President Trump held a meeting with senior military leadership prior to a dinner with spouses at the White House. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody. This is a group gathering of very talented people. And somebody was saying before, I think Mark Esper, our new Secretary of Defense — and, by the way, congratulations.
SECRETARY ESPER: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Congratulations on really having done already a really great job. But you were saying this is the first group where just about everybody — they’re appointed by Trump. And that’s good. That’s good. Just about everybody. So we have the people that we want. We’re very happy with them.
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In a series of tweets today, President Trump explains the U.S. position toward the current quagmire in Northern Syria:

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Things are about to get very interesting and very uncomfortable for NATO.  President Trump has announced that Turkey is about to launch a unilateral invasion into Northern Syria… There is going to be a scramble amid many geopolitical interests.

First, the announcement:

[White House]  –  Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey by telephone. Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria.
The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate,” will no longer be in the immediate area.

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Following an executive order signed by President Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin holds a press conference to deliver the details [Video and Transcript]:

More details on Treasury Website Here.
[Transcript] SECRETARY MNUCHIN: So I think, as you know, I just left the Oval Office, where President Trump signed a new executive order authorizing even more expanded sanctions against Iran. So now — along with our existing sanctions authority, we have additional sanctions to go after the Supreme Leader’s Office and lock up literally billions of dollars more of assets. Along with that action today, we are also announcing specific actions targeting those responsible for recent activities.
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In August 2016 a Syrian named Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, now 21, entered the U.S. under President Obama’s refugee program.  Today he was arrested in an ISIS plot to bomb a Christian church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

(Via DOJ) Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, 21, a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was arrested today based on a federal complaint charging him with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization, and two counts of distributing information relating to an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction in relation to his plan to attack a church in Pittsburgh.

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A report in the New York Times, transparently timed and placed by officials within the intelligence apparatus trying to get out ahead of internal investigations, outlines how the FBI sent counterintelligence spies to engage with Trump campaign officials in 2016.
In a stunning admission The New York Times describes how the FBI enlisted a female agent to work the “operation” in the U.K. during August-September 2016 posing as an aide for U.S. intelligence asset/FBI informant Stefan Halper.
Halper was an FBI operative and  Cambridge professor who set up meetings with Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.  The female agent used a fake name, Azra Turk, and presented herself as an assistant to Stefan Halper; however, she was actually an undercover intelligence operative of the FBI.

NYT […] The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it “Spygate.”

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This is something many anticipated in 2017; particularly with the Mid-East visit by President Trump; but it never happened.  However, according to the New York Times, President Trump has a renewed push toward designating The Muslim Brotherhood as an official terrorist group.
The Brotherhood is the political umbrella organization for a variety of extreme Islamist organizations; and was the primary driver of regional uprising during the Islamist Spring (Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen etc). Former President Obama looked warmly upon the Brotherhood and worked earnestly with them to fulfill their ideological goals.
The most visible effort of the political Brotherhood was in Egypt with the election of Mohammed Morsi; which led to widespread violence/chaos and the eventual call by the Egyptian people for General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to step-in.
The Brotherhood leadership was exiled from Egypt, and after a short time in Qatar -and confrontation by the Gulf Cooperation Council-  they were given safe harbor in Turkey by Recep Erdogan.  They likely remain in Turkey today.
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THE UNITED STATES AND OUR GLOBAL PARTNERS HAVE LIBERATED ALL ISIS-CONTROLLED TERRITORY

“American and coalition forces have had one military victory after another over the last two years against ISIS, including the retaking of both Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. We’ve liberated more than 20,000 square miles of territory.”  ~President Donald J. Trump

[White House] LIBERATING ALL ISIS-CONTROLLED TERRITORY: The territory once held by ISIS in Syria and Iraq is now 100 percent liberated.
Upon taking office, President Donald J. Trump empowered our commanders in the field and enabled our allies and partners on the ground to take the fight to ISIS.
The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, including the United States, Iraqi Security Forces, and partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces, have liberated all of the territory previously held by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
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As of today the geographical ISIS caliphate, the open control over territory, has ended.  There is no longer a geographic land mass under the control and ownership of the extremist ISIS group known as ISIS.  All their territory has been removed.
An review of multiple DoD, State and Media reports essentially boils down to ISIS returning to an insurgency, a loosely connected ideological terror group without control over any specific area.
Interestingly, the foreign fighters who traveled to Syria to fight for ISIS were reported as the last ones to give up the caliphate fight.  Presumably because they would be unable to assimilate into the local communities, those foreign fighters were the last to be eliminated.

BAGHOUZ, Syria — The caliphate has crumbled, and the final offensive is over. While the official announcement hasn’t yet been made – Fox News has been told that this village, the last ISIS stronghold, is liberated.

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