Anastasia Vashukevich (27) is the Belarusian woman connected to Oleg Deripaska who was being held in a prison in Thailand under charges of recruiting women to act as prostitutes and escorts.  [Backstory]  Her name surfaced early in 2018 when CNN claimed she had dirt on Trump and “tapes” of some sort relating to Deripaska and his activities with contacts around the 2016 election.  [More Backstory]
While the outlandish aspects to the storyline pushed by initial media appeared ridiculous; there was something about Ms. Vashukevich’s connections to the larger Deripaska story that also appeared valid.  Ms. Vashukevich has been held in Thailand for almost a year.
Last week the Thai government agreed to release Ms. Vashukevich.  Today she was en route to Belarus when she was intercepted in Moscow:

MOSCOW — A model from Belarus who claimed to have recordings shedding light on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia was detained at a Moscow airport Thursday on prostitution allegations, the police said.

The model, Anastasia Vashukevich, had been deported from Thailand earlier in the day after spending nine months in prison on charges of conspiracy and soliciting prostitution.

She was booked to fly to Minsk, Belarus, but was detained along with three others traveling with her as she changed planes at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, according to her husband and another person traveling with her.

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President Trump stops military aircraft availability for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just minutes ahead of a previously scheduled foreign trip.  Read below:
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John Solomon has a well-written article at The Hill outlining the leaked transcript from Bruce Ohr together with his own sources.  The key point Solomon focuses upon is how Bruce Ohr warned DOJ and FBI officials about the political intents and specifics behind the inbound information from Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS.  [Read Here]

(L-R) Christopher Steele – Bruce Ohr – Glenn Simpson

The primary aspect to Ohr’s testimony is how strongly he warned officials at the FBI (Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Joe Pientka), and officials in DOJ Main Justice (Andrew Weissmann, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad), about the political intents and purposes behind the information that eventually became “The Steele Dossier”.
In essence Bruce Ohr told the FBI and Main Justice, right at the outset of their Crossfire Hurricane operation, that Chris Steele’s work product was an assembly of political opposition research specifically paid for by the Hillary Clinton Campaign.
Under all ordinary circumstances this under oath revelation would be a game changer; particularly because two of those in Main Justice who knew about the political construct, Zainab Ahmad and Andrew Weissmann, are currently officials directly on the Robert Mueller probe.  However, in the highly partisan era of Trump-hate, the media will completely ignore the scale of this admission by Bruce Ohr.
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After losing a key vote to advance her Brexit plan, the U.K. Parliament held a confidence vote.  Despite the lost vote 24 hours earlier, British MPs voted 325 to 306 affirming their confidence in May’s government.
Prime Minister May delivered remarks on the past two days from 10 Downing Street.

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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer met privately with AG nominee William Barr earlier today.  At the conclusion of the meeting Senator Schumer addresses the media.
Schumer appears conflicted and confused as to how to describe his own highly political desires with the answers he received from Mr. Barr.  It does not appear Schumer was pleased with his overall inability to leverage control over the nominee; and that comes out in the early part of his statement.  That’s a good sign.  Watch:

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The issue of how Mr. Barr would produce a summary document about the completed Mueller investigation is an aspect that deserves some clarity and discussion.
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Another day, another leaked congressional transcript.  This time George Papadopoulos.

(You Can Read Here)

Once again the actual transcript is not released, only the Epoch Times authors’ interpretations of the content of the leaked transcript. *Note* the author, Ivan Pentchoukov, does not reveal the name of the “alleged spy”.
Previous leaked transcripts from:

1. Lisa Page
2. Andrew McCabe
3. Bruce Ohr

Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts.  HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018).  Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by DOJ/FBI officials within the current administration. So each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
 

Showcasing the severe political resistance objectives of Democrats, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has sent a politically crafted letter to the White House requesting that President Trump cancel his State of the Union address.
The pretense of the letter surrounds the ongoing partial government shutdown and a concern for security.  However, DHS and the Secret Service have stated nothing in the letter is factually correct; and they were not contacted by Pelosi with questions.
In short, it’s a political stunt by Speaker Pelosi and Democrat leadership.

(link to letter)

Not surprised.

Chairman Graham is very happy with the nomination of William Barr as U.S. Attorney General.  It would appear purposeful Barr will re-balance the DC interests, and return the DOJ to a more ordinary level of corruption.  In this way Barr pushes back the fulcrum tilting the DOJ away from the more violent weaponized lean in the past eight years.

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President Trump’s AG nominee William Barr testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his legal views and perspectives.  Overall post-testimonial punditry converges on the outlook Mr. Barr will be easily confirmed with broad bipartisan support.
Rather than agree or disagree with various opinions CTH is providing a full video of the Barr hearing below with a recap video as presented by Global News:

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My own personal view is that William Barr will likely reset the DOJ ‘status quo‘ to the institutional construct that existed prior to the Obama DOJ (Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch) era. That is to say: Barr will attempt to remove obvious weaponization and overt political motives behind every action taken by the U.S. Justice Department.
However, it also appears the most purposeful goal for Mr. Barr, in direct alignment with his close personal friend Robert Mueller, will be the preservation of the DOJ institution as a historic apparatus. That “preserve-the-institution” at all costs means Barr will necessarily have to bury any/all systemic corruption to achieve a larger institutional goal.
I Do not anticipate Barr will deliver any sunlight to expose how badly corrupted the DOJ has become. Instead he’ll likely apply bondo to cover the rot and apply a fresh coat of paint.
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Well, here we are again; another leaked transcript, this time from DOJ Official Bruce Ohr. And as with the prior two transcript leaks, we don’t get the raw information.  So let me first, necessarily, reassert our CTH position on these “leaks”.
Leaking is bad, period; in all directions. Because *leaking* is simply a method, a mechanism, to direct and control the focus of sunlight upon illicit action. Regardless of whether you support or oppose the message within any individual leak; the leak itself does not expose corruption…. only full and unfiltered information can expose corruption.  That means we need the actual raw transcripts to make determinations for ourselves.
As a factual standard for honesty and sunlight, CTH would never describe a transcript where we could not provide the reader with the raw and underlying material.  We have held this standard for many years; most of you know that. The truth has no agenda.

That said, someone is leaking congressional transcripts and a current tug-of-war exists between two opposing narrative engineers.  The heavily promoted New York Times article last Friday, was based on leaks of James Baker Transcripts, from sources who were responding to the leaks from other sources that were given to the Epoch Times.   Each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts.  HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018).  Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by corrupt cabinet members within the current administration.
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