Reports of new late-night U.S. airstrikes north of Baghdad are starting to be confirmed.  According to developing reports a convoy of two or three vehicles carrying Iran-back Shia Militia leaders was targeted near Taji in Northern Baghdad. [Convoy pic below]

The strike is reported to have killed Qais Khazali, one of the people the US named as responsible for storming of US Embassy in Baghdad.  Also Shibl al-Zaydi is now confirmed to have been killed. Shibl was the leader of Kata’ib al-Imam Ali or the Imam Ali Battalions.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said late on Friday.
Two of the three vehicles making up a militia convoy were found burned, the source said, as well as six burned corpses. The strikes took place at 1:12 am local time, he said. (link)

It would appear the U.S. has ongoing excellent intelligence on the movements of key Iranian militia leadership operating in Iraq, and are now working through a list of those targets as they attempt to move around.
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Today President Trump is speaking at an “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition kick-off event in Miami, Florida.  Anticipated start time 5:00pm ET
Fox News Livestream – Fox Business Livestream – Alternate Livestream

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This court case is the background to remove President Trump.  Everything else, including the impeachment effort, is chaff and countermeasures. Conservatives are oblivious.
Today the DC Circuit Court heard oral arguments from House legal subcontractors representing lawmakers, in their attempt to unseal grand jury testimony and documents from the Mueller investigation. [Remember, the subcontracted lawyers were part of Nancy Pelosi’s changed House rules in 2018… These moments were all pre-planned.]

To give further indications of the landscape, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr sent his weakest constitutional lawyers, Mark Freeman, Justice Department Civil Division Appellate Staff Director, and Deputy Asst Attorney General Hashim Mooppan to face-off against Douglas Letter, U.S. House of Representatives General Counsel, and approximately two dozen House contracted lawyers.
The hearing lasted for an hour and thirty-seven minutes.  [Full Audio Here] The three panel judges are tackling the unprecedented attempt by House lawyers to gain access to the Mueller material.
During one segment of the hearing House Lawyer Douglas Letter discussed the serious possibility of sending armed House officers to the DOJ to engage in a gun battle with the Dept. of Justice if needed. Not joking – serious stuff:
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This afternoon President Trump delivered a statement on Iran outlining the successful preemptive strike against Iranian terrorist leader Qasem Soleimani.

…“We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.”…

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[Rough Transcript] Thank you very much, and good afternoon.
As president my highest and most solemn duty is the defense of our nation and its citizens. Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qassem Soleimani.
Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.
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After a U.S. airstrike kills Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells ‘Fox & Friends’ that President Trump’s decision was necessary to deter further aggression and disrupt an ongoing terror plot.

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Details are starting to emerge about the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.  As with all early reports a modicum of skepticism toward the details should be applied. However, here’s the expanded reporting from the Associated Press.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Pentagon said Thursday that the U.S. military has killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, at the direction of President Donald Trump.

An airstrike killed Soleimani, architect of Iran’s regional security apparatus, at Baghdad’s international airport Friday, Iranian state television and three Iraqi officials said, an attack that’s expected to draw severe Iranian retaliation against Israel and American interests.

The Defense Department said Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” It also accused Soleimani of approving the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week.

A statement released late Thursday by the Pentagon said the strike on Soleimani “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

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2020 is the year when a variety of prior democrat operations will converge with a single goal in mind.  Predictably we will see several years of prior effort beginning to merge, and it begins today.

NOTE: For interested readers it will be impossible for me to summarize the background for each step prior to putting the next puzzle piece into place.  Therefore I strongly suggest bookmarking posts for later reference because it would take tens of thousands of words to understand for anyone who steps into the light mid-way through. [Just an FYI]

Tomorrow, January 3rd, 2020, the House Judiciary Committeee (HJC) will be presenting oral arguments in the DC court of appeals for their effort to obtain the Mueller grand jury information [6(e) material], and also compel testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn.
The House has a group of dozens of various DOJ and former Obama officials working on their behalf.  That House network also has several currently employed DOJ, FBI, State Department and Intelligence Community officials feeding them information on current real-time events.   The HJC are currently arguing the Mueller material and the McGahn testimony are needed for the impeachment trial of President Trump.
If the HJC team wins the argument to the three member DC Appellate Court, the DOJ will likely file for a full ‘en blanc’ review by the entire panel.  If the HJC wins the ‘en blanc’ argument the DOJ will likely appeal for an administrative stay by the Supreme Court.
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Nuttery.  Abject Lawfare nuttery.  Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lied four times to internal FBI investigators, three times under oath, in 2017.  This led to his firing in March 2018.

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In a remarkable act of hubris, in late 2018 Andrew McCabe sued the DOJ for wrongful termination through Lawfare lawyer Michael Bromwich.  The legal argument was/is essentially that McCabe was allowed to lie to FBI investigators because he was the head of the FBI (an employee of the agency).
In response to the McCabe lawsuit the DOJ filed a motion for summary dismissal due to McCabe’s lying, and an Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) affirmation, saying the termination was valid.
In today’s response motion opposing the summary judgement [cloud pdf here], using a new batch of lawyers, McCabe’s legal team argues President Trump called McCabe a “dirty cop” last month, and that proves McCabe’s firing in March 2018  was wrongful.
Yes, that is their argument.
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The 2020 Davos economic conference will be a little more important to watch this year (as it was in 2017) due to the completed U.S. Trade Agreements (S Korea, Japan, Mexico, Canada, and China) and the predicted focus for the Trump administration to pivot from Asia to the EU and U.K. for the next critical phase of the ‘America-First’ global trade reset.

As a result of the recent U.K. election, pending Brexit, a favorable $7.5 billion WTO ruling and USTR Lighthizer’s new $2.4 billion EU targeted tariff program, the administration has significant advantages going into a trade discussion with the EU in 2020.
Team USA has the world’s strongest economy, the largest market, legally bolstered tariff authority and a quiver full of powerful economic arrows.
Meanwhile Team EU has: (1) the UK leaving; (2) severe drops in German industrial manufacturing; (3) a shrinking French economy; (4) yellow-vests in the streets; and (5) demands for greater economic autonomy from many key member states.
Overlay Germany, France and Italy large economy challenges such as: their promise to meet NATO obligations – and their attachment to the strangling Paris Climate Treaty, and the EU’s collective economic position is precarious at best.

WHITE HOUSE – Today, President Donald J. Trump announced the Presidential Delegation that will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from January 20 to January 24, 2020.

The Honorable Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, will lead the delegation.

Members of the Presidential Delegation:

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In the aftermath of National Security Council usurper Lt. Col. Vindman helping to orchestrate a joint DoD, CIA and State Dept soft-coup against President Trump, several pointed questions were asked about why the NSC was allowed to undermine the office they were created to support.
In response to those questions, newly appointed National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien announce the White House was in an ongoing process to reduce the size of the NSC.
A follow-up article within the Washington Times highlights the downsizing so far.

WASHINGTON DC – The White House National Security Council staff is being downsized sharply in a bid to improve efficiency within the policy coordinating body by consolidating positions and cutting staff.
A second, unspoken thrust of the overhaul is a hoped-for end to what many critics see as a string of politically damaging, unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information. Leaks of President Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders and other damaging disclosures likely originated with anti-Trump officials in the White House who stayed over from the Obama administration, according to several current and former White House officials.

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