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:

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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Breaking reporting out of Chicago indicates a special prosecutor in Chicago has indicted hate hoax actor Jussie Smollett.
The construct of the hate crime itself appeared to be connected to a DC scheme to advance the presidential ambitions of Kamala Harris who launched her bid for office simultaneously with the racially driven hoax.

CHICAGO – Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was indicted Tuesday in Chicago by special prosecutor Dan Webb, stemming from the alleged racist and anti-gay attack on him that occurred in January of 2019, a source confirms to FOX 32 News.
He is due in court February 24.
Smollett told Chicago police last year that two men physically attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs. But prosecutors insist Smollett faked the racist, anti-gay attack on himself in the hopes that the attention would advance his acting career. (read more)

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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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 †

Moments before the massive Manchester, New Hampshire rally, President Trump gave an exclusive interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business.

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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