Earlier today Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin held a press conference in the White House to announce new sanctions against Iran. The secretaries also took questions from the press pool. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here today. I’d just like to make a brief comment before we talk about Iran sanctions. I’m sure everybody saw that the DOW hit 29,000. The President’s economic plans are clearly working. We’re looking forward to the China signing, USMCA, and a very strong economy this year.
As previously announced by the President, we are announcing additional sanctions against the Iranian regime as a result of the attack on U.S. and allied troops.
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Earlier today Republican representative Matt Gaetz espoused his support for a meaningless and non-binding war powers resolution; ridiculously constructed to give the appearance of preventing President Trump from starting a war the President has no plans to initiate.
It was optical theater, manufactured to deliver political damage…. and Gaetz supported it.  To justify his position, Gaetz appears with Tulsi Carlson to explain:

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As with all things MSM it’s worth considering with a dose of salt. However, that said, media are now reporting that U.S. Attorney John Huber has completed his review of the Clinton Foundation and Uranium-One and found nothing worth pursuing.

This would be a major disappointment for Q-decoders and Trusty Planners who claimed John Huber had hundreds of investigators spanning several states and were forecasting: (1) a suspension of Habeas Corpus, (2) military tribunals, (3) mass arrests based on over 60,000 sealed indictments; and (5) pending incarcerations at Guantanamo Bay.

WASHINGTON – A Justice Department inquiry launched more than two years ago to mollify conservatives clamoring for more investigations of Hillary Clinton has effectively ended with no tangible results, and current and former law enforcement officials said they never expected the effort to produce much of anything.

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The nonsense is off-the-charts around this issue.   The DNC media apparatus are playing a game of willful blindness (Mamet Principle) and the RNC media appear genuinely oblivious…  It is beyond silly.

Today Pelosi stutters about releasing the articles sometime “soon”.

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s not withholding articles of impeachment from the Senate “indefinitely” and will probably send them over “soon,” responding to mounting pressure to allow the Senate to open proceedings in President Trump’s impeachment trial.
“You will keep asking me the same question, I will keep giving you the same answer,” Pelosi said in her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning. “As I said right from the start, we need to see the arena in which we are sending our managers. Is that too much to ask?” (more)

The House didn’t contract with two-dozen former Obama legal minds from in/around the Lawfare community (and the Mueller group) back in December ’18 and January ’19 including: Douglas Letter, Mary McCord, Norm Eisen, Barry Berke and Daniel Goldman, for a specific process; and now simultaneously get to pontificate that Speaker Pelosi is in charge of this process.  She ain’t.  Period.
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Speaker Pelosi is once again attempting to create the image of something that doesn’t actually exist; and her DNC media scribes are more than willing to sell it. We are living in Orwellian times.
The House war power’s resolution is ridiculous. It is a non-binding resolution, equivalent to a strongly worded letter, that holds no legal or congressional authority. However, to fool her sheeple base Pelosi pretends the “resolution” has some substantive value and the water-carrying media engineers sell the same intellectually dishonest narrative.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy discusses the nonsense with Lou Dobbs.

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Earlier today Senator Mike “H1B” Lee called the national security briefing “lame” and “inadequate”, saying the military and intelligence leaders ran from hard questions at the briefing.  Well, Senator James Lankford calls those accusations by Senator Lee demonstrably false and untrue.
Senator Lankford noted the briefing included examples of 90 incidents of Iranian proxy attacks against the U.S. and coalition forces in the last month-and-a-half; ultimately leading to the killing of an American. It was after the final attack when POTUS Trump ordered the elimination of Qassim Soleimani.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered some bad news to Speaker Pelosi from the floor of the upper-chamber:

…”There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure. We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment. The House Democrats’ turn is over. The Senate has made its decision.”…

…Now, go make me a sandwich.

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[Transcript] – MITCH MCCONNELL – ‘Late last year, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats sped through a slapdash impeachment of President Trump in 12 weeks. Because, they insisted, the need to undo the 2016 election was urgent. Urgent, they said.
‘Since then, the same people have spent three weeks dragging their heels and refusing to proceed to a Senate trial.
‘Supposedly, the explanation for this shameless game-playing is that Speaker Pelosi wanted “leverage” to reach into the Senate and dictate our trial proceedings to us. I’ve made clear from the beginning that no such “leverage” exists. It’s nonexistent. And yesterday we made it clear it will never exist.
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In a rather bizarre tweet without any background context New York Times columnist Paul Krugman denies responsibility for child pornography found on his computer:

In a follow-up tweet Krugman states: “The Times is now on the case”.   Apparently calling the police for a forensic review was out of the question, or something.  Very odd.
Next up: Crowdstrike!  Wait for it….

Speaker of the House “Tehran Nancy” has announced her intention for a vote on Thursday in an effort to limit President Trump’s authority to defend against attacks by Iran, and increase the democrat effort to protect Iran’s ability to target Americans in the region.

“Mullah Bin Schumer and Tehran Nancy”

“Members of Congress have serious, urgent concerns about the Administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward. Our concerns were not addressed by the President’s insufficient War Powers Act notification and by the Administration’s briefing today,” Pelosi said in a statement.
 

Unfortunately we anticipated the DOJ reversing their prior sentencing recommendations for Michael Flynn and that’s exactly what has happened.
In the 2018 sentencing recommendations prosecutors recommended probation. However following Flynn’s unsuccessful effort to access material evidence favorable to his defense, federal prosecutors under U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr are now requesting Michael Flynn be sent to prison for a sentence of up to six months.

(pdf Link – full DOJ sentencing recommendation)

Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Emmet Sullivan on Jan. 28, 2020.
The irony here is the DOJ used the threat of FARA charges to compel the guilty plea.  The DOJ then went after Flynn’s former partner Bijan Rafiekian on those exact FARA charges Flynn plead guilty to avoid.  Mr. Rafiekian’s sketchy DOJ conviction was overturned and the indictment against him dismissed in September by a federal judge who said there was insufficient evidence to sustain the case.
The case against Rafiekian was dismissed. However, the case against Flynn, which was based on Flynn’s effort to avoid the case against Rafiekian, will likely see Flynn serving prison time.  No prison for Rafiekian, and prison for Flynn.  Go figure.
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