Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the latest round of sanctions against Iran.  Secretary Mnuchin notes the economic engagement by China with Iran may open up Beijing to countermeasures for violating sanctions.
Additionally, Secretary Mnuchin outlines some aspects of the U.S-China ‘phase-one’ trade agreement and affirms the key point of enforcement mechanisms built into the agreement by U.S.T.R. Robert Lighthizer.  The official signing is this coming Wednesday.

With increased scrutiny toward the actions, and lack thereof, from current FBI Director Christopher Wray, another sketchy aspect deserves some scrutiny.
Hat Tip Techno-Fog for noting some remarkable FBI activity.

Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Pientka III was first identified by Senator Chuck Grassley in May of 2018 as the second FBI agent involved in the 2017 interview of Lt. General Michael Flynn.
Frustrated by the FBI stonewalling his Senate inquiry, Chairman Grassley dropped the revelation publicly on May 11th, 2018, in a letter to the FBI.

[…] the Committee’s oversight interest in the underlying documents requested more than a year ago now outweighs any legitimate executive branch interest in withholding it. So too does the Committee’s interest in learning the FBI agents’ actual assessments of their interview of Lt. Gen. Flynn, particularly given the apparent contradiction between what then Directory Comey told us in March 2017 and what he now claims.
[…] In addition, please make Special Agent Joe Pientka available for a transcribed interview with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested documents… (link)

The FBI never produced Supervisory Special Agent (SSA-1) Joe Pientka for Chairman Grassley’s committee, and the conflict between the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI was never reconciled.  (The DOJ/FBI made it to the safety of the mid-term election.)
Additionally, every single document containing information about the investigative activity of FBI agent Pientka has kept his name redacted.  Not a single DOJ/FBI document has ever included his name.
However, around two months after Grassley outed his identity; we discover from the Inspector General that the DOJ-NSD (National Security Division) admitted to the FISA court that Agent Pientka was significantly less than forthcoming with “factual omissions” in the Title-1 surveillance application he assembled against Carter Page.
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President Trump asks: “Are these “dirty cops” going to pay a big price for the fraud they committed?” 

However, the only person who can honestly answer that question is the person in the mirror when President Trump brushes his teeth.   Perhaps forgotten…
In the spring of 2018 a group of congressional reps led by Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Lee Zeldin and Bob Goodlatte, asked President Trump to declassify a series of documents so the public could see how former officials in the DOJ & FBI abused their offices and conducted political surveillance.
In September of 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked President Trump not to declassify those same documents until after the Mueller probe was complete.  Rosenstein informed the President (confirmed in later POTUS interviews) that declassifying the material could be interpreted as impeding the Mueller investigation.
Two months later, in November 2018, the mid-term election took place.  Republicans lost the House and their committee chairs.  Many people suspected (I concur) the mid-term election was the real motive for the Sept. 2018 request from Rosenstein.  Four months after the mid-term, March 2019, the Mueller investigation of President Trump ended.
Two months after the Mueller probe ended U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, a profoundly supportive voice for DAG Rosenstein, asked President Trump to grant him unilateral declassification authority to assist the purposes and intents of his DOJ effort.  President Trump granted U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr with the authority to declassify on May 23rd, 2019; granting access to the same documents requested by congress a year earlier.
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The results of a massive turnout vote in Taiwan reflect the country wishes to remain free from the overbearing influence of communist China.

(Hong Kong Free Press) […] Taiwan’s incumbent leader Tsai Ing-wen has won Saturday’s presidential election, defeating her Beijing-friendly rival Han Kuo-yu by a wide margin.
[…] With 8.1 million votes as of 10:30pm, Tsai won the highest number of votes of any presidential candidate in Taiwan’s history of democratic elections. Han, on the other hand, received just over 5.5 million votes, according to the Central Election Commission (CEC).

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Amid mounting pressure, and considerable laughs in her general direction, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced her intention to appoint impeachment managers next week and release the impeachment articles to the Senate:

Release the Flying Monkeys

…”I am very proud of the courage and patriotism exhibited by our House Democratic Caucus as we support and defend the Constitution. I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the Floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate. I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further.”… (link)

Marianne Williamson, the self-help author and spiritual guru for Oprah Winfrey who was going to initiate the U.S. Department of Peace, has announced today she is ending her bid for the office of the president.

“I ran for president to help forge another direction for our country. I wanted to discuss things I felt needed to be discussed that otherwise were not. I feel that we have done that. I stayed in the race to take advantage of every possible effort to share our message.”

According to Politico: “Williamson struggled to push back on the perception that she’s a “crystal woo woo lady” and expressed frustration after her debate performances that she was not being taken more seriously in the campaign. “A politics of conscience is still yet possible,” she concluded. “And yes….love will prevail.”
With Ms. Williamson’s exit the Democrat front-runners remain: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and possibly Qasem Soleimani.
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Tonight President Trump heads to Toledo, OH for a massive Keep America Great rally at the Huntington Center. President Trump is expected to speak at 7:00pm ET.
UPDATE: Video Added

One of the key sectors gaining benefit from the USMCA trade agreement is the auto sector.  Rules on steel and aluminum smelting/origination, and rules on part origination from North America are key aspects to the trade agreement that shifts focus from the import of Asian manufactured parts for assembly to manufacturing in North America.
Essentially, seventy-five percent of the component parts for the auto industry must be manufactured in North America.  This shift directly puts U.S. auto-workers at the forefront for job gains & stops the process of using manufactured parts from China, Asia or the EU.
The goal of the agreement was/is to make manufacturing investment in North America the main consideration for auto-manufacturers who want access to the U.S. market.  Today, as a direct result of future investment considerations, General Motors and Ford unexpectedly surprise 1,500 auto-workers with the announcement their jobs have gone from part-time to full-time status.  Great news for these families:

DETROIT – General Motors’ worker Adarrey “Ace” Humphrey was blindsided Sunday. That’s when his life changed.

Humphrey, 27, has been a part-time temporary worker at GM’s Flint Assembly in Michigan for the last three years. On Sunday morning, he and about 250 of his co-workers crowded into UAW Local 598’s union hall. Most thought they were there for a routine meeting.

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The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has released Q4 (November) import/export data showing a considerable drop in the U.S. trade deficit. [Release Here]  Exports increased approximately .7 percent ($208.6 billion) while imports dropped one percent ($251.7 billion.  Lowering the overall trade deficit to $43.1 billion.

While the pundits are surprised at the strong result, it should not come as a surprise to many CTH readers.  During Q2 (June) and Q3 (July, Aug, Sept) the rate of GDP growth was impacted -in part- by inflated U.S. purchases as companies bought holiday merchandise earlier than normal.  This was an effort to avoid looming tariffs, and as a result companies increased their overall inventory.  We predicted Q4 purchases (Oct, Nov, Dec) would be lower specifically because of this backlog of retail inventory.
With the massively successful holiday season now over, those inventories have sold.  Specifically because the value of imports are deducted from the GDP calculations, there will likely be a much stronger Q4 GDP growth resulting from less import activity.
The Wall Street financial pundits are too focused on the multinational side of the ledger; and they simultaneously don’t review data from a Main Street perspective; therefore they don’t see -or pretend not to see- the common sense equation staring them in the face.
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley held a mark-up hearing today to review the USMCA and vote the agreement out of committee.  After debate the agreement passed with a 25-3 vote.  Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) voted against the agreement (full hearing video below)

The USMCA is now sent to the full Senate for a vote this month; however, it is interesting to hear the reasons why Toomey, Cassidy and Whitehouse oppose it.
Senator Whitehouse (D) opposes USMCA because it doesn’t address climate change and have the provisions within it to support the Paris Climate Treaty.  Senators Toomey (R) and Cassidy oppose USMCA because it is not friendly to the Wall Street multinationals.
Senator Toomey doesn’t like that the Senate cannot change the USMCA to make it more favorable to the Wall Street multinationals who are invested heavily in China.  Toomey, speaking on behalf of several, noted the Trans-Pacific-Partnership (TPP) is a better trade construct.  Quite a remarkable mask-dropping was visible during the hearing.
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