Free Republic

Over the weekend Sen. Mark Warner, the top democrat on the Senate Intelligence community, said (as so many already have) that there is no smoking gun in the Trump-Russia investigation: WASHINGTON – The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee says “there’s no smoking gun” in the Russian collusion investigation and Hillary Clinton leaped to conclusions when she said Americans “guided” the Kremlin ‘s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. “There’s a lot of smoke,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We have no smoking gun at this point. But there is a lot of smoke.”...

The FBI on Friday night raided the Sterling, Virginia, home of a Muslim convert, Sean Andrew Duncan, who, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case, stated that he attempted to join ISIS in Syria and shared bomb-making instructions with a woman currently in international custody. Sterling, about 20 miles from Washington, D.C., is home to a large Muslim community. According to an Instagram post by Duncan, he converted to Islam at age 17 and moved to the area from Pittsburgh this past June. When reports emerged Friday night that an FBI raid was ongoing, there was no indication...

The Resurgent, a blog run by “Never Trump” pundit Erick Erickson, has published its first hit piece on Deep State cheerleader Evan McMullin, ending a nearly 3/4-year bromance between Erickson and the failed spoiler candidate in 2016’s presidential election. Watch the evolution of The Resurgent’s McMullin coverage in 10 headlines from the site too conservative to support Donald Trump in his ultimately successful fight against Hillary Clinton:

Former CIA Director John Brennan had harsh words for House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes on Sunday morning, calling the controversial four-page “FISA memo” created by Nunes’ staffers “exceptionally partisan” and that Nunes has “abused the office” by refusing to allow Democrats on his committee to make their own rebuttal document public. “That Devin Nunes and Republicans denied the ability of the minority, the Democratic members of that committee, to put out its report is just appalling. I think it, it really underscores just how partisan Mr. Nunes has been. He has abused the office of the chairmanship of HPSCI. And...

Mueller’s “Pit Bull” Andrew Weissmann under scrutiny as Rosenstein agrees to turn over documents to Nunes The Department of Justice has agreed to turn over all documents related to the controversial dossier to the House Intelligence Committee after four months of wrangling and legal threats ended in a Wednesday night phone call and agreement. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein spoke at length Wednesday night, just hours before Nunes’ imposed midnight deadline on the Justice Department passed. Rosenstein not only agreed to provide all the documents requested, which include unreacted FBI interviews with witnesses,...

Privacy advocates and journalists want to know what Sen. Ron Wyden is up to -- and whether the Oregon Democrat elicited another lie about surveillance from a director of national intelligence during Wednesday's Senate intelligence committee hearing. Wyden asked one of the final questions at the hearing that dealt with the investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election and with Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires later this year if Congress does not act. Wyden, a forceful privacy advocate, asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, with whom he had sparred earlier, a simple standalone...

Peter Strzok, FBI was a main component of the Hillary Clinton email debacle. It was recently made public that he was on Mueler's Team until a short time ago. He was removed for passing anti-Trump texts with another FBI employee(Lisa Page). People are questioning why Strzok was placed on Mueller's Team after being involved with the Clinton matter. Now we hear Strzok was involved with Lisa Page with the texts and who knows what else, In June of 2017 Lisa Page, Attorney, was added to Team Mueller. She was released recently but after Strzok was released.

I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.

President Trump has submitted to the Senate the nomination of Christopher Wray for FBI director, the White House announced Monday night. If confirmed for a 10-year term, Wray would replace James Comey, who Trump fired in May. (snip) Wray, 50, a white-collar criminal defense attorney, previously led the Justice Department's Criminal Division during two years — 2003 to 2005 — of President George W. Bush's administration. In private practice, Wray's most recent work, he represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the "Bridgegate" scandal, in which two of Christie's aides were given prison sentences after closing down the George Washington...

Two Middle East immigrants in the United States have been arrested in connection with terrorist activities after the FBI found out their chilling ties to the terrorist organization known as Hezbollah. This is a wake-up call to every American. According to a news release from United States Attorney’s Office, District of New York, “Ali Kourani and Samer El Debek, a/k/a ‘Samer Eldebek,’ were arrested on Thursday, June 1, 2017, on charges related to their alleged activities on behalf of Hizballah[sic], a designated foreign terrorist organization. “ Kourani was reportedly living in the Bronx in New York, while Eldebek was living...

As next in line to be king of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Nayef was unaccustomed to being told what to do. Then, one night in June, he was summoned to a palace in Mecca, held against his will and pressured for hours to give up his claim to the throne. By dawn, he had given in, and Saudi Arabia woke to the news that it had a new crown prince: the king’s 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman. The young prince’s supporters have lauded his elevation as the seamless empowerment of an ambitious leader. But since he was promoted on June...

Hezbollah is a greater and more longstanding foundational threat to our homeland than ISIS. This was brought to the forefront last week when two Hezbollah operatives were arrested on charges of surveilling targets for the Iranian-backed terror group on our own soil. They were also naturalized citizens who were admitted from Lebanon as immigrants years ago. Sadly, this story received very little media coverage. President Trump would be wise to give a televised address making the case for his immigration moratorium and travel ban by using this case as a perfect case study for the need for smarter vetting and...

Richards Murphy writes that Boko Haram is the brainchild of some powerful interests targeting the untapped natural resources in Northern NigeriaThe curse of natural resources is apparently real or more accurately, cursed interests in resource exploration are real. This evil often goes about masked as something less sinister. Take for instance the insanity that is todayÂ’s Afghanistan, which began in a fashion not too different from what Boko Haram is acting out in Nigeria today. Somewhere in the convoluted mix of transitions and mishmash of Mujahedeen, Taliban and al-Qaeda was UNOCAL, an oil multinational and its effort to construct pipelines...

Stephen Paddock, who killed at least 58 people and wounded hundreds more in Las Vegas on Sunday with high-powered rifles, was prescribed an anti-anxiety drug in June that can lead to aggressive behavior, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has learned... Records from the Nevada Prescription Monitoring Program obtained Tuesday show Paddock was prescribed 50 10-milligram diazepam tablets by Henderson physician Dr. Steven Winkler on June 21. A woman who answered the phone at Winkler’s office would not make him available to answer questions and would neither confirm nor deny that Paddock was ever a patient. Paddock purchased the drug — its...

Joy Reid, radical leftist news commentator, went Tweet crazy when President Trump announced on Friday he was rescinding much of President Obama’s order loosening diplomatic relations with communist Cuba. And although most of them amounted to outrage that yet another imprudent Obama administration policy was going by the wayside, there is one President Trump should print out and tape to his office wall. “Trump name checks Assata Shakur (calls her by her former name, Joanne Chesimard) as a dog whistle to his people. #Trumping Cuba,” she tweeted. Reid is angry Trump not only rescinded what he called the “completely one-sided...

The federal judge presiding over the case of accused National Security Agency leaker Reality Winner has come down on prosecutors’ side in a dispute over rules of evidence, which defense attorneys have said could jeopardize her right to a fair trial. In a ruling Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Epps said defense attorneys cannot talk about classified information in open court, even if it has already been published in the news media. Epps granted prosecutors’ motion for a protective order designed to keep an alleged leaker from leaking further, and to force those defending her to tread lightly, lest they...

Calling his line of questioning during former FBI Director James Comey’s June 8 testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee “a colossal screw-up,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he got distracted by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just minutes before it was his turn to question Comey. McCain told Esquire that a staffer had given him an iPhone with an email from Graham displayed on it, asking McCain to ask Comey some additional questions. McCain didn’t have the password for the iPhone and claimed that after the phone went black he couldn’t unlock it to keep reading. “I was looking...

WASHINGTON — An American kidnapped two years ago in Yemen while helping coordinate aid for Unicef and the Red Cross also had a second, secret role: He was shipping materials for elite military commandos under a clandestine contract his employer had with the Pentagon. The arrangement with Special Operations forces has never been made public. {snip} Mr. Darden’s work offers a rare look into the shadowy world of military contractors that operate in lawless war zones like Yemen, Somalia and Libya. But arrangements like the one Transoceanic had with Special Operations forces can cast suspicion over aid workers, potentially putting...

Summits of world leaders are usually highly choreographed affairs that leave little to chance. They are held in locations that are easily shielded from demonstrators. And policy differences are papered over by envoys behind closed doors well ahead of time. But the G20 meeting in Hamburg next week will be different. Host German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a high-risk gamble by choosing to hold the summit in the center of the northern port city, partly to show the world that big protests are tolerated in a healthy democracy. This has created a huge challenge for police. On the policy...

BIRMINGHAM, AL (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday slashed $400,000 in federal funding for one of the few U.S. groups that combat white extremism but denied it is now focusing only on fighting radical Islamists. A grant announcement by the Department of Homeland Security eliminated funding for the Chicago-based Life After Hate, which was initially awarded the money in January during the closing days of the Obama administration. (snip) In all, Homeland Security awarded $10 million to 26 police and community organizations, none of which has a specific mission to counter groups in the so-called “alt-right,” a hodge-podge of...