Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

Asia expert Gordon Chang discusses the U.S.-China trade negotiations with Lou Dobbs and why President Trump should consider raising tariffs on Chinese imports on March 1st.
Massive pressure is being applied by Chinese purchased interests including Wall Street, the multinational corporate lobbying groups; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and all of the global financial elite, to oppose President Trump’s confrontation with Beijing.

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President Trump Yesterday:
Q How confident are you that it will be finished by March 1? Or are you considering extending that deadline?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they are very complex talks. They’re going very well. We’re asking for everything that anybody has ever even suggested. These are not just, you know, “let’s sell corn or let’s do this.” It’s going to be selling corn but a lot of it — a lot more than anyone thought possible. And I think the talks are going very well — with China, you’re referring to?
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There is a unified plan amid the resistance movement to use the impeachment process for political gain. Part of that plan includes the exploitation of testimony from Michael Cohen to facilitate their designed sequencing of events.  Robert Mueller is scheduled to deliver his final report on the Trump-Russia probe sometime in the next week.  And now:

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was granted a few more weeks of freedom Wednesday after his lawyers said he’s still recovering from surgery and hasn’t had time to get his affairs in order because he’s preparing to testify before Congress.

U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III approved delaying the start of Cohen’s three-year sentence until May 6. Cohen’s lawyer said he was undergoing intensive post-surgery physical therapy and spending substantial time getting ready for testimony his attorneys say he will deliver to three congressional committees this month.

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UPDATE 8:00pm EST – Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday evening with felony disorderly conduct after allegedly filing a false police report about his assault in Chicago last month, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. “Detectives will make contact with his legal team to negotiate a reasonable surrender for his arrest.” (more from WaPo)
Jussie Smollett is now officially a suspect for filing a false police report claiming an alleged attack.  Chicago police are delivering evidence to a grand jury and have announced that Smollett is suspected of organizing an elaborate attack against himself.
This development surfaces on the same day CBS Chicago has located CCTV video showing the two brothers Smollett hired purchasing a red hat and ski masks from a local store.

CHICAGO – “Jussie Smollett is now officially classified as a suspect in a criminal investigation by #ChicagoPolice for filing a false police report (Class 4 felony),” Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi wrote in a tweet. He added that detectives were “currently presenting evidence before a Cook County Grand Jury.” (read more)

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Earlier this afternoon President Donald Trump met with Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz [Video and Transcript below] Additionally, the president answered questions from the White House media on current events and issues including the section 232 auto-tariffs, the upcoming visit to the DPRK, AG Bill Barr and Andrew McCabe.

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[Transcript] – Oval Office 1:52 P.M. EST – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Hello, everyone. Thank you very much. And it’s great to be with the Chancellor of Austria. We have a tremendous relationship, long term, with Austria. And we’re going to be discussing numerous things — immigration — today. But we’re also discussing trade. We have a very big trade presence and a very good relationship on trade. We do a lot of business with each other.
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A John Solomon article today points out the circumstances of Fusion-GPS contractor Nellie Ohr delivering a memory stick to her DOJ husband Bruce Ohr, who then turned around and gave it to the FBI team.  The memory stick contained Nellie’s Trump-Russia research files.
As Solomon writes: “The way Ohr described it, his wife’s research was like an additional dossier assembled from Fusion GPS research to augment what Steele was separately providing the FBI.”  However, Solomon stops short of explaining the full story.

Since 2017 CTH research has outlined that Christopher Steele was never the factual source of all the material inside the Clinton financed dossier.  Instead all indications of the granular details point toward Christopher Steele as the laundry process where Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson’s collaborative work was formatted into an intelligence product known as the “Steele Dossier”.
Our research of central dossier claims, suppositions, accuracy and inaccuracy, points toward a process where Nellie Ohr provided Chris Steele with her research material and then Chris Steele was tasked with verifying, finding second sourcing, and formatting the final product into a series of intelligence documents that could be passed back to the FBI.
In essence, Nellie has always been the material dossier author.
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Multiple media outlets are reporting that Robert Mueller’s probe has concluded and his report to DOJ is anticipated next week.   While the media reports are just that: reports based on sources, the timing does make sense.

For two years CTH has drawn attention to a very specific pattern; the large ‘Sypgate-centric’ releases are always when President Trump is outside Washington DC.  Next week President Trump is traveling to Vietnam for a second summit with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un, so the timing fits the historic pattern.
Today President Trump was asked about the possibility of a Muller report release and he stated: “that will entirely be up to the Attorney General”, William Barr.  The new AG told congress it would be his statutory role to provide a summary report of the Mueller conclusions with his intent to provide as much substance as possible.
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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

Sidney Powell is one of a very few people who tenaciously keep reminding media pundits about the origin of the political surveillance efforts in the 2016 election: the FBI and NSA FISA-702(16)(17) abuse scandal.
In this report broadcast by Sharyl Attkisson and Full Measure News, Ms. Powell reminds everyone of the 2017 published FISA court review by Judge Rosemary Collyer that lies at the origin of the political surveillance deployed by hidden FBI contractors.

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The suspicion has always been that Fusion-GPS was one of the FBI contractors with access to the FBI/NSA database; and was using their access to conduct political opposition research.  According to the Collyer report 85 percent of all database searches were unlawfully carried out by FBI contractors.  There were thousands of searches in 2015 and 2016 during the presidential election campaign season until NSA Director Mike Rogers ordered an audit and eventually halted contractor access.
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