President Trump Nominates Ambassador Kelly Knight Craft as U.N. Ambassador…


President Trump has nominated current U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Kelly Knight Craft, to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations replacing Nikki Haley.

Washington – […]  Craft is set to succeed Nikki Haley, pending Senate confirmation, and is Trump’s second pick to replace Haley, who left the U.N. post at the end of last year. The president’s earlier candidate, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, withdrew from consideration last week.

Trump praised Craft’s tenure representing his administration in Ottawa as “outstanding” as he made the announcement on Twitter. (more)

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Video: President Trump Meets With U.S-China Trade Negotiation Teams in Oval Office…


This is the best video to adequately review the full nuance and scale of consequence within the oval office meeting between the Chinese trade delegation and the U.S. team.  Aspreviously noted, President Trump delivered brutally honest remarks about expectations to both teams that likely, strategically and purposefully, caught Chinese Vice Premier Liu completely off guard.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, AG Secretary Sonny Perdue, NEC Chairman Larry Kudlow, U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Brandstad, Trade Adviser Peter Navarro with China’s Vice Premier Liu He, and multiple Chinese vice ministers/senior officials were all in the Oval Office for a discussion of current trade status…. and the outcome was epic.

ENJOY:

HOLY CATS !! Epic Open Press Oval Office Meeting Between President Trump and Vice Premier Liu…


Jumping Ju-Ju Bones….  I’ll get a video and transcript downloaded soon, but boy howdy… Thirty years of President Trump -vs- China trade just roared to the surface in the Oval Office.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, AG Secretary Sonny Perdue, NEC Chairman Larry Kudlow, U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Brandstad, Trade Adviser Peter Navarro with China’s Vice Premier Liu He, and multiple Chinese vice ministers/senior officials were all in the Oval Office for a discussion of current trade status…. and the outcome was epic.

Secretary Mnuchin announces the Chinese delegation will be staying in DC for an additional two-days of negotiations.   Heck, he’s got em.  The Chinese team can’t leave, not without a preliminary deal, because Trump is going to Vietnam next week and the phase-two tariffs kick in March 1st.

While Vice Premier Liu is seated directly in front of him POTUS Trump answers a reporter question about Chinese technology and cyber-security.  Trump notes that he wants open and fair tech competition, but if China represents a security threat… well, that changes the dynamic.  Liu is seated right in front of President Trump….  EPIC !

USTR Lighthzer notes that they are making great progress toward the six-step Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), and POTUS Trump says he ain’t buying any of that MOU nonsense; Trump wants a cemented, contractual, binding trade agreement, nothing less… In essence: stuff that MOU nonsense, enough with the talk, talk, talk plans; get a granular binding deal that he can review.

GULP.

Yesssir…

Hilarious, considering the Chinese delegation have been working toward the duplicitous MOU panda scheme for months, and Trump just eviscerated it.

President Trump and Secretary Mnuchin also announced they’re working toward a summit between Chairman Xi and President Trump in March, likely in Mar-a-Lago.

[Fava beans, Chianti and a nice Diet Coke, I presume].

CNBC Now

@CNBCnow

BREAKING: U.S. and China discussing late March summit between Trump and Xi at Mar-a-lago, sources say. (via @KaylaTausche) http://cnbc.com/id/105731056 

Trump, Xi discussing late March summit at Mar-a-Lago, sources say

cnbc.com

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Sarah Sanders Impromptu Presser on Current Events….


White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds an impromptu press conference with media on the north lawn.

Uranium One: Shady Money and the Clinton Foundation | America Uncovered


Published on Dec 14, 2018

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President Trump Participates in Reception Celebrating African American History Month…


Tonight President Donald Trump addressed a reception audience celebrating National African American History Month in the east room of the White House.

Joining President Trump on the stage was First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, Clarence Henderson, Catherine Toney and Bob Woodson.

One Week Left – Intense Nine Hour U.S-China Trade Negotiation Session Today….


With about a week left before the second phase of U.S. tariffs is scheduled to hit Chinese imports both the U.S. and China trade delegations met today in an ongoing effort to hammer out details about enforcement mechanisms.   The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife…

Beijing’s Red Dragon team is focused on putting together a six step Memorandum of Understanding, the Panda MOU, they hope will convince President Trump to delay any tariff action.  This cunning procedural approach is China’s historic tactic when confronted about the reality within their trade behavior and economic duplicity.   However, USTR Robert Lighthizer is well aware and unwilling to follow the path of historic failure.

These talks are intense; it is difficult to appropriately frame how consequential these negotiation sessions are. Because the trillion dollar stakes are so high; and because China is unfamiliar negotiating with a government delegation they have not purchased; this is the type of hard-line negotiation that could never be attempted by any other administration other than President Donald Trump.  It is rather epic when you stand back and consider the larger landscape.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators haggled on Thursday over the details of a set of agreements aimed at ending their trade war, just one week before a Washington-imposed deadline for a deal expires and triggers higher U.S. tariffs.

Reuters reported exclusively on Wednesday that the two sides are starting to sketch out an agreement on structural issues, drafting language for six memorandums of understanding on proposed Chinese reforms.

If the two sides fail to reach an agreement by March 1, U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports are set to rise to 25 percent from 10 percent. Tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two largest economic powers have disrupted international trade and slowed the global economy since the trade war started seven months ago.

Negotiators have struggled this week to overcome differences on specific language to address tough U.S. demands for structural changes in China’s economy, two sources familiar with the talks said. The issues include an enforcement mechanism to ensure that China complies with any agreements.

Chinese officials did not answer questions as they left the U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Thursday evening after more than nine hours of talks on Thursday.

The discussions began with a photo opportunity where U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He faced each other silently across a table in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House.

WATCH/FEEL THE TENSION

It was unclear whether Liu would meet with U.S. President Donald Trump after the scheduled end of talks on Friday, as they did during Liu’s last visit to Washington for talks in late January.

The two sides remain far apart on demands by Trump’s administration for China to end practices on those issues that led Trump to start levying duties on Chinese imports in the first place.

Chinese President Xi Jinping would need to undertake difficult structural economic reforms to meet U.S. demands. The United States is offering no real concessions in return, other than to remove the tariff barriers Trump has imposed to force change from China. (read more)

CTH doesn’t throw around financial predictions loosely; however, it would be a prudent idea to get out of the Wall Street stock market from now until after the first week in March.

The financial twitches outside these negotiations, some likely intentional by the multinational community, will make things increasingly volatile.

Remember, Donald “Tariff Man” Trump doesn’t bluff.

Yes, President Trump, the man and his policy team, is an existential threat to the elitist hierarchy of things well beyond the borders of the DC Swamp. In the era of explaining the complex it’s a planetary economic reset almost too massive and consequential to encapsulate in words.

There are massive international corporate and financial interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s “America-First” economic and trade platform. Believe it or not, President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.

President Trump will not back down from his position; the U.S. holds all of the leverage and the issue must be addressed.  President Trump has waiting three decades for this moment.  This President and his team are entirely prepared for this.

We are finally confronting the geopolitical Red Dragon, China!

The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war. The symbol in any figure’s right hand has more significance than one in its left hand. Also important is the direction faced by the symbols central figure. The emphasis on the eagles stare signifies the preferred disposition. An eagle holding an arrow also symbolizes the war for freedom, and its use is commonly referred to the liberation fight of righteous people from abusive influence. The eagle on the original seal created for the Office of the President showed the gaze upon the arrows.

The Eagle and the Arrow – An Aesop’s Fable

An Eagle was soaring through the air. Suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt the dart pierce its breast. Slowly it fluttered down to earth. Its lifeblood pouring out. Looking at the Arrow with which it had been shot, the Eagle realized that the deadly shaft had been feathered with one of its own plumes.

Moral: We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.

 

IRS Intelligence Analyst John Fry Charged With Leaking Cohen Financial Records to Creepy Porn Lawyer…


You might remember back in May 2018 when sketchy porn lawyer Michael Avenetti was releasing U.S. Treasury notifications on Michael Cohen received from an unknown source within the Treasury Department [See Here].  You might also remember when New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow wrote a sympathetic article after talking to the leaking treasury official [See Here].

As a result the Treasury Inspector General began an investigation.

John C. Fry, 54, was an intelligence analyst with the IRS’s law enforcement arm in San Francisco.

According to the North California U.S. Attorney’s Office (full pdf below) after searching for IRS activity reports related to Michael Cohen, Mr. Fry shared the information with creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti and was also a source for Ronan Farrow.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/400201106/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-fk9HW5L4UiMg8E8oPlRw

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CTH NOTES – There’s more here than currently surfacing…. I’m not sure what it is, but if you review the left-wing granular reporting carefully, (CNN HERE), there’s a bigger story hiding under the umbrella of this one.

The IRS has an Obama-era history of being weaponized by political activists inside the organization in concert with the Eric Holder’s DOJ.  The location of this story; plus a reminder that Eric Holder was hired by the State of California as their legal counsel; plus the participant Mr. Fry failing to accept a plea deal; equals: there’s someone/something larger attached to this story.  It just doesn’t past the initial review ‘sniff test’.

VIA CNN – […] The bank transactions of Cohen became public last May when Avenatti posted a memo online outlining numerous payments to Cohen from a company linked to a Russian oligarch, pharmaceutical giant Novartis, AT&T, which owns CNN, and others.

Fry’s hearing date was pushed back several times as federal prosecutors were engaged with Fry’s attorney on plea negotiations, according to a person familiar with the talks. As of Thursday, Fry declined to plead to felony charges in exchange for probation.

As a result, prosecutors will seek an indictment of Fry on February 28, this person said, and are expected to seek two additional charges, including misuse of a Social Security number and misuse of a government computer. (link)

The professional leftist media is reporting on the story, but there’s just something missing.

Remember, Avenatti also received the tax records of the wrong Michael Cohen, a random guy in Canada was caught up in the original issue. The affidavit reveals that John C. Fry, placed several phone calls to Avenatti before and after he accessed Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by Cohen’s banks with the Treasury Department.

[Via Daily Caller] … Avenatti, the attorney of record for Stormy Daniels, had posted a dossier of Cohen’s financial reports on May 8, 2018. Those records showed that Cohen received payments from several companies, including Novartis and AT&T, as well as a company associated with Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch. (read more)

Mr. Fry is not the only Treasury Department employee who has previously engaged in leaking financial information relating to President Trump affiliates.

Back in October 2018 a U.S. Treasury employee named Natalie Mayflower Sours-Edwards was arrested and charged with leaking to numerous reporters multiple financial reports about suspicious financial transactions related to: Paul Manafort, Richard Gates, Maria Butina, and others.   [DOJ Notification HERE]

EDWARDS, 40, of Quinton, Virginia, is charged with one count of unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports, both of which carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

The statutory maximum penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencings of the defendants would be determined by the judge.  (read more)

According to the 2018 DOJ release Ms. Mayflower Sours-Edwards “was in possession of a flash drive appearing to be the flash drive on which she saved the unlawfully disclosed Suspicious Activity Reports, and a cellphone containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted SARs and other sensitive government information to” journalists.

She was charged with unlawfully disclosing financial reports, and conspiracy to do the same. The 40-year-old resistance leaker will face criminal charges in New York.

Located within the indictment documents – there is also a Co-Conspirator.  It appears Ms. Sours-Edwards’ boss was also in on the plot to leak the information. [See Page #13 of the indictment]

(Source pdf)

Ms. Sours-Edwards boss, one of the Associate Directors, was also in contact with journalists and leaking financial information…. so that makes three.

The Treasury Department was a source for a myriad of resistance articles written by multiple journalists.  Some of the more transparently obvious examples come from Buzzfeed via Jason Leopold, in addition to Ronan Farrow:

♦ October 6th, 2017 –  The Treasury Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis has been illegally rifling through and filing away the private financial records of US citizens, Treasury employees alleged. “This is such an invasion of privacy,” said one official. (read more)

♦ October 29th, 2017 – BuzzFeed News has learned of a series of wire transfers, made by companies linked to Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, that federal officials deemed suspicious. Many of the wires went from offshore companies controlled by Manafort to American businesses. (read more)

♦ May 16th, 2018 – Ronan Farrow […] there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department’s inspector general has launched a probe to find the source. That source, a law-enforcement official, is speaking publicly for the first time, to The New Yorker, to explain the motivation. (read more)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Discusses Chinese Trade Negotiations, North Korea and Controversy Surrounding ISIS Bride Hoda Muthana…


Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the cyber threat from China and ongoing trade negotiations, along with concerns over Iran’s threat to stability in the Middle East, ‘ISIS bride’ Hoda Muthana, the decision to pull troops out of Syria and nuclear talks with North Korea.

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Secretary Pompeo also appeared on NBC morning to discuss similar issues.

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Lou Dobbs and Gordon Chang Make the Case For Enhanced Chinese Tariffs…


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?

THE PRESIDENT: And the talks are going very well.

Our group just came back and now they’re coming here. I can’t tell you exactly about timing, but the date is not a magical date. A lot of things can happen.

The real question will be: Will we raise the tariffs? Because they automatically kick in to 25 percent as of — on $200 billion worth of goods that they send. So I know that China would like not for that to happen. So I think they’re trying to move fast so that doesn’t happen. But it’s — we’ll see what happens.

I can only say that the talks with China on trade have gone very, very well. In the meantime, our economy is very strong. We’re doing well.

I don’t know if you noticed, but deficits seem to be coming down. And last month it was reported, and everybody was surprised, but I wasn’t surprised. We’re taking in a lot of money coming into our Treasury from tariffs and various things, including the steel dumping. And our steel companies are doing really well. Aluminum companies also. So we’re very happy about that.

I think that it’s — they’ll be coming very shortly. They’re going to have very detailed discussions on subjects that have never really been even discussed by people that sat in this chair and they should have been. Very important subjects. And I think we’re doing very well. Okay?

(link)