This is one of those instances where if CTH doesn’t write it down, our spidey senses tell us we shall regret it…  There is a mysterious case in Washington DC that has perplexed almost everyone; and now Chief Justice Roberts has injected an administrative stay against lower court punitive damages upon the defendant (likely a company).

The case is being heavily guarded by the DOJ and administrative state.  The case revolves around activity by state-owned company (unknown country); with a triggering illegal action external to the U.S.A; but harm to the U.S. was incurred.

… […] the matter “‘is based upon … an act outside the territory of the United States in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere’ and that the ‘act cause[d] a direct effect in the United States.'”  (link)

The case is also related in some manner to Robert Mueller’s team.
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The announcement of The United States drawing down troop deployment from Northern Syria – with the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia sending in replacements to bolster the region, highlights a much larger backstory.

President Obama’s February ’09 Cairo speech began a sequence of events that led to what was called the “Arab Spring“; factually an extremist uprising.  Bolstered by the resulting chaos the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt behind Mohammed Morsi.
However, a majority of the Egyptian people rejected President Morsi’s sharia governance, and asked a well respected General Fattah al-Sisi to step in.  Accepting the request of a desperate people Sisi removed Morsi, disbanded the Muslim Brotherhood and went on to win a landslide election in 2014.   The leadership of the Brotherhood fled to Qatar.
President Obama and his policy team was not happy with this outcome.  Obama supported Morsi, not al-Sisi.  Another person who was not happy, was Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who also supported Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Undeterred, and understanding the need for urgency, Egyptian President al-Sisi then began a long process of confronting extremism.  Sisi destroyed the Hamas terror tunnels on the border between Egypt and Israel; and, despite the anxiety expressed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Sisi brokered an interim peace agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israelis.
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CTH has some new readers, so against the backdrop of the UniParty in Washington DC jumping into action to criticize President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria; perhaps a little factual historic refresher is in order….

On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:

[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)

When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
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There’s a rather extensive backstory to the Turkish lobbying efforts that involved Michael Flynn.  [BACKSTORY HERE] Much of the Flynn issue was before the election of 2016 {Go Deep} and recent events align exactly as we would expect {Go Deep}. As CTH predicted the day after the original Flynn plea, the Turkish lobbying was used by Mueller as leverage.

It would appear, as CTH has predicted for well over a year, that Flynn brokered a deal with Robert Mueller to admit to misleading statements to the FBI in exchange for Mueller agreeing not to prosecute Flynn for FARA (lobbying) violations.
As CTH warned in November of 2016 Flynn was involved in lobbying efforts on behalf of the Turkish government via Bijan Rafiekian, aka Bijan Kian, 66, of San Juan Capistrano, California, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 41, of Istanbul. The financial constructs surrounding the payments to Flynn were sketchy, very sketchy.
In 2016 CTH anticipated this sketchy behavior would come back to bite Flynn and -by extension- could be an issue for the White House if he took a high level position.  None of that had anything whatsoever to do with the fictitious vast Russian conspiracy story.
It is increasingly clear that Mueller used the sketchy financial arrangement between Turkey and Flynn -specifically how Flynn maneuvered the money- as the leverage in the unrelated Russian conspiracy investigation.
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The defense team for Michael Flynn presents their sentencing memo [see here] to support the special counsel recommendation.  However, within the memo the Flynn team smartly uses pre-approved (by Special Counsel) language to highlight how the FBI structured the set up  Yes, Flynn’s lawyers had to get permission to write this:

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The transcript from the first James Comey interview with the joint house committee is rather revealing for several measures.  One of the more interesting aspects surrounds Comey claiming the FBI never investigated the Trump campaign; and yet also claiming four Trump campaign officials had FBI investigative files opened on them simultaneously.
Apparently, Comey wants everyone to believe it was a coincidence or something.
Additionally, within his ‘interview’ Comey confirmed our previous hunch on a very specific redaction within the Nunes memo:

Chuck Ross expands: The FBI opened counterintelligence investigations into four Trump campaign associates in late July 2016, earlier than previously known, former FBI Director James Comey told Congress Friday.

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Representative Jim Jordan discusses his perspectives on the closed-door testimony of former FBI Director James Comey.

Within a sentencing memo filed today (full pdf below) the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York recommends “a substantial term of imprisonment” for Michael Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges and campaign finance crimes, as well as lying to Congress.
Reading through the memo – the content of cooperation, and the details that surface as a result therein, are entirely different from all previous media claims:

Additionally, special counsel Robert Mueller filed a second memorandum, recommending no additional prison time for Cohen’s guilty plea for lying to Congress, saying it would be “appropriate” for Cohen to serve any sentence in that case concurrently with the sentence in the SDNY case.
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There is a great deal of suspicion and analysis surrounding the latest developments in the Mueller case, or lack thereof, against Michael Flynn.   Consider this a summary addendum to the CTH initial review.  This is the Occam’s Razor that explains some contradictions.
We cannot view these actions through the transactional prism of modern judicial proceedings as they relate to you and me. These are political struggles taking place inside the venue of the legal system. The players use the legal system to game out the optics and narrative of political battles for ideological wins and losses.

After the November 8th, 2016, election everyone within the Obama network who was associated with the surveillance operation against the Trump campaign was at risk. This is the impetus for the “Muh Russia” conspiracy narrative that was used as a mitigating shield. Within a few weeks ODNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan began pushing the Russia election interference narrative in the media.
NSA Director Mike Rogers went to Trump tower on November 18th, 2016, and essentially informed the principals within the campaign they were under some forms of surveillance.
By mid-December the Obama administration was deploying a full-court-press using their media allies to promote the Russia conspiracy.  However, despite their public proclamations Clapper and Brennan were refusing to give any specifics to congress.
The hard narrative was that Russia interfered. That was the specific push from within the Obama intelligence apparatus writ large.  All IC officials, sans Mike Rogers (NSA)  had a self-interest in pushing this narrative; after all, it was the defensive mechanism to justify their illegal spying operation throughout 2016.  This was their insurance policy.
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A lengthy interview (recently released) between Greta Van Susteren and President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Argentina.  The topics include: the USMCA trade agreement; the conflict between Russia and Ukraine; overall global trade; issues within the global climate change economy; Brexit, China, the U.S. economy and immigration.
As most CTH readers are aware MAGAnomic policy, economic nationalism, is the largest focus of President Trump.  Beyond all other issues, this is the POTUS priority. Within this interview the president walks through the geopolitical issues and interests for the U.S. economy.  Well worth watching: