The crowd erupts into cheers and chants of “USA, USA” as President Trump and First Lady Melania are introduced during the College Football Championship game between Clemson and LSU in the New Orleans Superdome. WATCH:
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U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is a smart, serious and deliberate professional on a very specific and important mission for the United States. In my opinion Lighthizer is the most under-appreciated member of an exceptionally good economic team. Everything about Lighthizer’s approach is based on enforcement.
Ambassador Lighthizer has been consistent over multiple years, on his intention to create enforceable trade reform between the U.S. and China, or, if needed, decouple the two economies if China fails to accept the necessary structural reforms.
Tonight, as the Chinese delegation arrives, Lighthizer discusses the U.S-China ‘phase-one’ agreement with Lou Dobbs. WATCH:
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Earlier today U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr announced the results of a criminal investigation into the December terrorist attack at Pensacola Naval Air Station. The AG answered press questions at the end of his remarks.
Accompanying AG Bill was FBI Deputy Director David Bowditch. Interestingly, Mr. Bowditch, as SanFran field office head, was the lead investigator of the San Bernadino terrorist attack prior to returning to Washington DC. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – BILL BARR: Good afternoon, and thank you for coming.
We are here to discuss the results of the investigation into the shooting that occurred on Dec. 6, 2019 at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers. Earlier today President Trump and First-Lady Melania Trump departed the White House traveling to New Orleans for the NCAA football championship game LSU -vs- Clemson. President Trump delivered brief remarks
[Video and Transcript Below].
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: So we’re going to the game. It’ll be a great game. It’ll be something that a lot of people want to see. And we’ll be in New Orleans, and we look forward to it.
The stock market way up. The country is doing really well. And we’ll see you at the game.
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As you review this story keep in the back of your mind that U.S. DC Attorney Jessie Liu has been recently moved to head the Financial Crimes Division of the Treasury Department.
CTH noted last year when John Fry, an intelligence analyst with the IRS’s law enforcement arm, was arrested that something more was happening in the background of his case and the DOJ case against Natalie Sours-Edwards. Today Ms. Sours-Edwards pleads guilty to downloading & distributing the financial records of people connected to the Trump orbit.
You might remember back in May 2018 when sketchy porn lawyer Michael Avenetti was releasing U.S. Treasury notifications on Michael Cohen received from an unknown source within the Treasury Department [See Here]. You might also remember when New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow wrote a sympathetic article after talking to the leaking treasury official [See Here]. As a result the Treasury Inspector General began an investigation.

(VIA DOJ) Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards Illegally Repeatedly Transmitted SARs and Other Sensitive Government Information To A Reporter Resulting In Approximately 12 News Articles Over 1-Year Period.
Ms. Sours-Edwards, a former senior adviser at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), pled guilty today to conspiring to unlawfully disclose Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”).
Beginning in approximately October 2017, and lasting until her arrest in October 2018, EDWARDS agreed to and did unlawfully disclose numerous SARs to a reporter (“Reporter-1”), the substance of which were published over the course of approximately 12 articles by a news organization for which Reporter-1 worked (“News Organization-1”).
The transparency of specific media injecting themselves into political races has been obvious for years; the latest example comes from CNN publishing an insider hit piece against Bernie Sanders on behalf of the gender woke community & Elizabeth Warren.

On the eve of another democrat presidential debate; and with diminished support for her presidential ambitions; team Warren plays the gender card as her campaign, together with woke advocate CNN, claim Bernie Sanders said a woman can never be president.
Using the backdrop of a “private meeting” between the two candidates CNN uses four anonymous sources to frame the gender narrative:
(Via CNN) [Warren and Sanders] discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump, and Warren laid out two main reasons she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could make a robust argument about the economy and earn broad support from female voters. Sanders responded that he did not believe a woman could win.
DOJ-NSD lawyer David Kris has been a defender of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation and Lawfare critic of Devin Nunes’s 2018 memo on alleged FISA abuses. Sketchy Mr. Kris was recently picked by FISC presiding judge James Boasberg, to serve as the court’s amicus curiae — a position that is supposed to provide impartial advice to the court.
Mr. Kris will oversee the implementation of “FISA reforms” following the IG report on serious abuses found in the DOJ and FBI’s political efforts to conduct surveillance on U.S. person Carter Page. However, representative Devin Nunes shares his doubts & concerns:
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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.
This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.
President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP
Stephanie Grisham Twitter @StephGrisham45
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
This is a little weedy, but it’s important….
In the second half of Devin Nunes interview with Maria Bartiromo today he was asked his thoughts about the FISA Court selecting David Kris as an FBI surveillance and compliance monitor. The issue is quite important because the FBI FISA reforms and promises are essentially meaningless without some form of structural review process.
However, the new 2020 FISC Presiding Judge James Boasberg selecting David Kris has been noted by several people as a rather weak effort on behalf of the court.

As an outcome of our former FISA-702 reviews CTH has an entirely different reason for questioning the selection of Kris; there’s much more substantive reasons to be alarmed about it; but first here’s the general consensus opposition:
WASHINGTON – The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has stunned court-watchers by selecting David Kris — a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and written extensively in support of the FBI’s surveillance practices on the left-wing blog Lawfare — to oversee the FBI’s implementation of reforms in the wake of a damning Department of Justice inspector general report last year.
[…] “Of all the people in the swamp … this is the guy that you come up with?” Nunes asked. “The guy that was accusing me of federal crimes? The guy that was defending the dirty cops at the FBI? … The court must be trying to abolish itself. There is long-term damage.”
