Free Republic

In the aftermath of the bombing of a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, the Obama administration included an Iranian-American anti-Israel group in a White House meeting and characterized the terror attack as a “tit-for-tat” reprisal by Iran. Wednesday, officials from the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) attended a White House roundtable event for Iranian-American community leaders that featured Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s closest advisers. NIAC bills itself as an Iranian-American community organization, but its work focuses on softening U.S. policy toward Iran. It advocates removing sanctions on Iran and attempted to scuttle Dennis Ross’s promotion to an Iran...

Vice President Biden’s national security adviser met with Iranian officials as far back as the summer of 2012, a new report reveals. Jake Sullivan secretly traveled to Oman in July 2012 to meet with Iranian officials, The Associated Press reported Tuesday. This would mark one of the earliest in-person meetings the U.S. held with Iran in recent years. Sullivan joined the State Department in 2009 and served under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as deputy chief of staff for policy. Although he moved to the White House in February, he continued to partake in backchannel discussions with Iran. The AP...

On Tuesday morning, a plane owned in trust by the Bank of Utah showed up in a very visible area of the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What was it doing there exactly? Nobody knows, reports The New York Times. Under President Barack Obama, the United States has eased some of the long-standing punitive economic sanctions against Iran. Still, very little American — or European — economic activity is allowed inside the religious theocracy. The Bank of Utah is certainly no Wells Fargo. The Ogden-based community bank has all of 13 branches including...

A Delta flight that was headed to Spain from Kennedy Airport turned around in the air and made an emergency landing after some cut wires were discovered in the plane's bathroom, sources said. Delta Flight 126 took off for Madrid at about 8:10 p.m. When an air marshal on board was alerted to some cut wires in a lavatory on the plane, officials decided to bring the plane back to Kennedy.

Weeks before he was abducted, alleged members of a kidnapping network tied to ISIS were busted in London. Syrian extremists saw it as a reason to accelerate abductions. American journalist James Foley was captured in Syria in November 2012, just weeks after the British government arrested and charged three British citizens, who were alleged members of a group of foreign fighters associated with the Islamic State, for the kidnapping of two other Western journalists. It remains unclear whether these accused terrorists who later slipped through the fingers of the British legal system were part of the same extremist cell that...

"In his new book, “Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Ben­ghazi” (Broadside Books), writer Kenneth R. Timmerman explains how the US government’s efforts to arm the Libyan rebels backfired, flooding weapons into Syria, and as he ­reveals here, Afghanistan: The Obama administration isn’t only giving the Taliban back its commanders — it’s giving them weapons. Miliary records and sources reveal that on July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Kunar province successfully targeted a US Army CH-47 helicopter with a new generation Stinger missile...."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, told President Obama Thursday he’d like to interview seven current and former administration officials who may know something about a spate of national security leaks. The request follows suggestions by lawmakers a day earlier that they’re interested in potentially pursuing a congressional investigation into the leaks, on top of the Department of Justice-led probe. “Concern about these leaks knows no party line. When national security secrets leak and become public knowledge, our people and our national interests are jeopardized. And when our enemies know our secrets, American lives are threatened,” Smith said in...

New evidence reveals the Obama administration’s version of the events that took place in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 was based on a tissue of lies. The Weekly Standard’s Steven Hayes has obtained a timeline and a series of emails revealing the self-serving efforts made by administration officials, who heavily edited CIA talking points about the attack that cost four Americans, including ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, their lives. Also revealed is who made the changes and why they made them. The revelations are part of a report published by the five Republican Committee chairmen that has been largely dismissed...

Two days after Plotnikov's death, Tsarnaev flew to Moscow on July 16 last year, and the next day to the US. "It seems that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to Dagestan with the aim of joining the insurgents," said the source. "It didn't work out. First you need to contact an intermediary, then there is a period of 'quarantine' – before they take someone, the insurgents check him out over several months. "After Nidal and Plotnikov were destroyed and he lost his contacts, Tsarnaev got frightened and fled."

Syrian rebels have acquired shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, NBC News reported late Tuesday night. According to the report, Free Syrian Army rebels claim they now have nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Turkey. The exact type of missile was not mentioned in the report. Such a weapon, however, would offer a significant defense against helicopter gunships that Syrian government forces have deployed against rebel strongholds such as Aleppo, where intense fighting has raged for nearly two weeks.

SolarCity (SCTY), another “green energy” company and recipient of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds, in under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), sources reveal. The company, which recently filed for its initial IPO, has disclosed that it received subpoenas in July from the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury Department is investigating whether companies overstated the market value of solar panel arrays they installed when claiming the 30% federal cash grant. The IRS also notified SolarCity that it is auditing two of its investment funds and reviewing the claimed value of solar systems submitted to receive the federal cash...

In an often heated congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and witnesses alike pointed to State Department official Charlene Lamb as the person most directly responsible for rejecting multiple requests for increased security at the U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya prior to the Sept. 11 attack. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) excoriated the State Department for rejecting requests from the U.S. Embassy in Libya for an extension of temporary security forces that were withdrawn in the months prior to the attack that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In a dramatic moment at the hearing, Issa released unclassified...

Rights: The U.S. government no longer includes religious freedom in its annual Human Rights Report. We won't embarrass anyone by pointing to burnt out churches abroad while suppressing religious liberty at home. The declared reason for dropping the coverage is to avoid duplicating another document, the annual Report on International Religious Freedom. We suspect the reason is that an administration that's been apologetic about our leadership role in world affairs no longer wants to offend those nations who tolerate or even foster assaults on religious liberty, even as the administration suppresses it at home. The Pew Research Center has produced...

I spoke with a well-placed journalist last night whose sources describe the situation at the State Department in one word: “Chaos.” The working assumption is that several American embassies may have been penetrated, or are vulnerable to attack, because so many of them rely on local residents for staff needs at the embassy, and as such may be in a position to breach security if they have been recruited by Al Qaida. ...The consulate in Benghazi was an interim facility, with only a standard door lock for security, and worse, Ambassador Stevens was traveling with only a light security detail,...

A militant Islamist leader whose forces have just conquered two-thirds of the West African state of Mali vows to launch holy war against the West. Omar Ould Hamaha, the military commander of Ansar Dine, or "Defenders of the Faith", which has scored a stunning victory in Mali against the failed state's armed forces, now controls a region larger than France which includes three paved runways that could be used to fly in weapons or drugs. He said: "Even if they (western forces) don't come here, when we have finished conquering France, we will come to the USA, we will come...

President Barack Obama’s top civil rights official repeatedly declined to support religious free speech during a July 27 congressional hearing, despite repeated questioning from Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who chairs the House’s constitution subcommittee. Tom Perez, the progressive who runs the Justice Department’s civil rights office, refused to answer the questions posed by Franks. “Will you tell us… that this administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?” Frank asked four times. Perez refused to answer, saying “it is a hard question, in the sense that when you make threats...