Free Republic

Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella – the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous “whistleblower" who touched off Trump's impeachment – was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues. Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump’s new...

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michele have signed a multi-million book deal with Penguin Random House. Terms of the deal were not released but Financial Times reported bidding for the two-book deal had reached more than $65 million, a record amount for presidential memoirs.

There are several dozen critical issues that stem from revelations about the DOJ and FBI conduct in/around the Carter Page FISA application (2017) and Steele Dossier writ large; but DOJ official Bruce Ohr still being employed isn’t one of them, and here’s why. (further down) -- Bruce Ohr wasn’t the only non FBI person back-channeling information from corrupt source Christopher Steele into the FBI and Mueller team in 2017. SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner was doing exactly the same thing. Senator Warner was having secret contacts, “would rather not have a paper trail”, with Steele through liaison Adam Waldman, and then...

The Federalist has learned that the now-outed CIA and FBI informant Stefan Halper served as a source for Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, providing more evidence that the intelligence community has co-opted the press to push anti-Trump conspiracy theories. In addition, an email recently obtained by The Federalist from the MI5-connected Christopher Andrew bragging that his long-time friend Ignatius has the “‘inside track’ on Flynn” adds further confirmation of this conclusion.Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian-born English citizen and Soviet-era scholar, told The Federalist that she only realized the significance of her communications with and about Ignatius following the filing of attorney...

In February 2017, the Washington Post’s Miller had the lead byline on a story based on leaks of Trump’s conversations with Australia’s prime minister and Mexico’s president. Six months later, the Post published the entire transcripts of both conversations in another Miller story. It was through such national security correspondents that anti-Trump sources -- intelligence officials -- pushed leaks of classified information and other tidbits intended to damage Trump into the media. There it merged with other anti-Trump currents in nearly every corner of the press, where it blossomed into Russiagate. After a nearly two-year investigation, the special counsel found...

The United States might seem divided over President Donald Trump's policies, but overseas, the American president is loved. According to the data from the Pew Research Centre, Nigerians' confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs was at 59 percent in 2018, higher than some points during the Obama administration. Also, Nigerians are in top five of those actively following Trump on Twitter, a social media platform constantly used by the president, Monti Datta, associate professor of political science from the University of Richmond, claimed. “Some of Trump's foreign policies in Nigeria might explain his relative popularity....

Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the White House in early February 2017 that the bureau was not considering the national security adviser at the time, Michael Flynn, for a potential Logan Act prosecution over conversations with the Russian ambassador before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, government records reviewed by Fox News indicate. McCabe was referring to the rarely prosecuted 200-year-old statute that bars American citizens from engaging with a foreign government without authorization from the current U.S. government. The records also indicate that Flynn reported, on two separate occasions, in the days leading up to his White...

The spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamist militant group Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya Omar Abdel-Rahman has died in his US prison after serving more than 20 years for seditious conspiracy to commit murder. Abdel-Rahman, also known as the “Blind Sheikh”, was serving a life sentence in the United States for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya reported.

An outspoken New York civil rights lawyer who represented clients ranging from small-time criminals to radicals and was released early from prison three years ago because she was expected to die of cancer has died. Lynne Feltham Stewart was 77. Her husband, Ralph Poynter, says Stewart died Tuesday in the Brooklyn home where she lived after receiving a "compassionate release" from prison in January 2014. Stewart was disbarred after she was convicted of helping a terrorist client communicate with followers.

Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff hired a highly placed former Trump White House staffer to his investigative team, and it is raising serious concerns among current and former administration officials who spoke to SaraACarter.com. Abigail Grace is a former National Security Council and was transferred from the Middle East office to the Asia office during her tenure at the White House, according to two former White House officials. The former officials spoke on background as they were not authorized to speak on the matter. Grace, who has a high-level security clearance, was hired Monday by Schiff. Schiff,...

The Russian woman who was indicted on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of Moscow reportedly socialized with an associate of then-candidate Donald Trump's during the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign. Citing documents and testimony that was provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee and later described to the newspaper, The Washington Post reported Friday that Maria Butina had many interactions with former Trump campaign aide, J.D. Gordon, over email. Gordon served as the Trump campaign's director of national security for six months until departing in August 2016 for a role on Trump's transition team. The Post reported...

Government watchdog Judicial Watch has uncovered and released hundreds of documents showing the Obama Justice Department working directly with Fusion GPS, a research firm hired by the Clinton campaign, to frame President Trump. The documents show Fusion GPS' Nellie Ohr, who was specifically hired in 2016 to dig up dirt on Trump and his children Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric, working directly with U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr on a spread sheet linking President Trump to a number of Russian operatives. Nellie and Bruce are married and while Bruce was demoted, he's still working at the Department of Justice in...

cryptic – exchanges occurred when Rep. Jim Jordan fired off a series of heated questions about .. a Maltese professor invariably described as “mysterious,” Joseph Mifsud. Jordan began: The “FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on February 10th, 2017. In that interview, Mr. Mifsud lied. You point this out on page 193, Volume I. Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn't charge him with a crime. Why not?” Mueller was still looking for the page in his binder: “Did you say -- I'm sorry, did you say 193?” “Volume I, 193,” Jordan repeated impatiently. “He [Mifsud] lied three times,...

Here’s the left’s next great idea for bringing down President Trump: another women’s march. Which means another public instance of Trump haters shouting slogans to one another and mistaking it for constructive politics. What progressives need to defeat Trump is outreach, but all they have is outrage. On March 8, organizers seem to be aiming for a different vibe than the librarians-in-pussy-hats element that made the first women’s march after Trump’s inauguration so adorable. Instead of milling around Washington, organizers have in mind a “general strike” called the Day without a Woman. In a manifesto published in The Guardian on...

.@HuffingtonPost why was your writer Ryan Clayton passing out Russian flags @ @realDonaldTrump #CPAC2017 speech? Trying to create #fakenews? https://t.co/lfOuywyHIg— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 24, 2017

Iran removed a powerful missile from a launchpad east of Tehran within the past few days, Fox News has learned, as U.S. and Iranian officials continued trading public barbs about the Islamic Republic's missile tests. The Pentagon is concerned because Safir missiles use the same components as those needed for an intercontinental ballistic missile. Iran’s ballistic program has “expanded dramatically” in the past 10 years, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News. New satellite imagery from Feb. 3, obtained exclusively by Fox News from ImageSat International and verified by U.S. officials, showed Iran preparing a Safir for launch. That...

While special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, some of the key people in creating the Russia-collusion narrative themselves have ties to a foreign nation. Both the Democratic National Committee as well as Fusion GPS—the company hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to research the Trump campaign—were using Ukrainian sources in their efforts to discredit Trump. Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, was a common thread involved in Democratic opposition research efforts into former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the...

If one reads special counsel Robert Mueller’s court filings against George Papadopoulos, it’s hard not to conclude that the former Trump campaign aide lied to FBI agents to hide some sinister plot with Russia. Now, let me be clear: I don’t condone lying to anyone, especially the FBI. But there is a much different version of events than the one spun by prosecutors in court filings, Democrats in Congress, or most reporters. An account kept from the public for more than 18 months. It comes from one of the FBI’s primary sources in the Papadopoulos case, European professor Joseph Mifsud....

**SNIP** In March 2016, the House Inspector General’s Office revealed that Awan bought almost $38,000 in equipment, paid for in installments below $500, apparently to avoid having the equipment logged in the House of Representatives’ inventory. Many of the items were delivered directly to his home. (This itself is not an unusual practice because deliveries to the Capitol building require extra security screenings.) This behavior led the House Sergeant-at-Arms to tell Representatives five months later that they believed this was a case of possible procurement fraud. By October, the Inspector General’s Office had discovered Awan and his family logged into...

The secret account is at the center of a federal racketeering lawsuit brought on by a collective of tobacco farmers who say they were cheated out of $24 million.