Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced today he selected Stacey Abrams to deliver the Democrat rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
Ms. Abrams previously served as Democratic leader of the Georgia state General Assembly and failed in a race for the Georgia Governor losing to Brian Kemp.
Stacy Abrams will likely run for a U.S. Senate Seat from Georgia in 2020. Republican incumbent Senator David Perdue is up for reelection in 2020.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham announced today the postponement of the committee vote on nomination of William Barr for Attorney General by one week, after democrats requested a delay.
Generally, no big deal. Normally, the opposition democrats can call for a week delay. Typically, this stuff happens all the time and is one of those procedural issues no-one pays attention to. However…

Because the spidey-sense political radar is monitoring DC closely; it just so happens that we stood back, looked at the political calendar last night; and predicted this.  Check out the alignment of the political planets for next week:
♦On Tuesday Feb 5th, President Trump is now scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address.  There is absolutely NO DOUBT before Pelosi invited Trump, the democrats have pre-planned something around the event.
♦On Friday Feb 8th, AAG Matt Whitaker is scheduled to appear in front of the most Machiavellian political mind inside the Democrat apparatus, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (aka “The Penguin”).
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The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will be holding a public hearing today covering a variety of topics pertaining to ongoing “world wide threats”.
The participants of the hearing are: FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel; Office of the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats; Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Robert Ashley; National Security Agency (NSA) Director General Paul Nakasone; and Director Robert Cardillo National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).  The anticipated start time is 9:30am
SSCI Website Link HERE – Alternate Livestream Here

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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

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

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 †

According to the DOJ announcement released today three companies: Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Huawei Device USA Inc. and Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. are charged with bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and conspiracy to violate IEEPA, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Huawei and Huawei USA are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice related to the grand jury investigation in the Eastern District of New York.
Additionally Ms. Meng Wanzhou is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracies to commit bank and wire fraud.  Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Wilbur Ross of the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue for the Eastern District of New York, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of the National Security Division, announced the charges:

Transcript of AAG Matt Whitaker announcement HERE.
Details of DOJ Indictment HERE.
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Keep in mind that China has loaned Venezuela over $50 billion in the past five years. In exchange, Venezuela gave China a 49% stake in PDVSA. Venezuela makes payments on the loans via oil shipments to China.

(VIA U.S. Treasury Dept) Today the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13850 for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy. PdVSA is a Venezuelan state-owned oil company and a primary source of Venezuela’s income and foreign currency, to include U.S. dollars and Euros.

“The United States is holding accountable those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline, and will continue to use the full suite of its diplomatic and economic tools to support Interim President Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly, and the Venezuelan people’s efforts to restore their democracy,” said Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin.

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Internal polling and fear of resistance backlash must be significant for the democrats.  President Donald Trump accepted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s invitation to deliver his State of the Union speech on Feb. 5, a week later than originally scheduled.

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Beware of hyped headlines. AAG Matthew Whitaker made some remarks today about the Robert Mueller probe “hopefully, being close to completed”. That’s pretty vague. Watch:

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The Mueller probe will end at the closely coordinated and pre-selected time when Mueller hands off his investigation to Elijah Cummings (WH oversight), Adam Schiff (HPSCI), and Jerry Nadler (Judiciary). That timing looks to be around the end of February if current congressional witness schedules remain unchanged.
The timing will also be dictated by how the resistance view William Barr taking office. Keeping in mind the political pantomime has to build in some hype-time for congress to argue with DOJ (build a narrative) about Mueller’s report while media align with a new found demand for DOJ transparency.
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Devin Nunes dropped a bombshell yesterday in an interview with Maria Bartiromo [Video Here].  Many people are overlooking the implications of his speculation; and, more importantly how Nunes statement answers just about every contradictory question people have carried.  Including:

• Why Rosenstein introduced Mueller to President Trump the day before he was appointed as Special Counsel?
• Why Mueller/Rosenstein are hiding the investigative origination letter?
• Why President Trump has NOT been able to declassify documents? and
• Why President Trump is, and will always be, hamstrung by the Mueller investigation?

In short, Devin Nunes speculated that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein put the substantive allegations from the Fusion-GPS/Ohr/Steele Dossier into his investigative instructions (full pdf below) that he gave Robert Mueller.
If it is accurate that Rosenstein charged Robert Mueller with investigating the dossier claims; and if Nunes is accurate that the DOJ investigative target, a derivative of the dossier, is Donald Trump; well, everything starts to make a hell of a lot more sense.
If the mandate given to Robert Mueller was to specifically investigate the sitting president of the United States as an active participant, and subsequent target, for a counterintelligence operation, then DAG Rod Rosenstein -and Mueller- would have to hide that mandate from everyone and anyone.
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