Free Republic

House Republicans are demanding the FBI turn over records related to the federal government’s indictment of a once-trusted confidential human source (CHS), according to a joint congressional letter shared exclusively with The Federalist. On Friday, House Oversight Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent the letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray to request documents related to Special Counsel David Weiss’s indictment of CHS Alexander Smirnov. Smirnov was charged two weeks ago for allegedly making false statements about President Joe Biden’s involvement in a criminal bribery scheme with a Ukrainian oligarch. Republican lawmakers, however, are left with questions about...

Hunter Biden’s abandoned MacBook was a window into the Biden family business, a secret international influence peddling operation. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, who exposed many of Hunter’s secrets in her book “Laptop from Hell,” returns with “The Big Guy,” the story of how the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, the IRS and the Department of Justice conspired to protect Joe Biden and his family. Here, in a second exclusive excerpt, she explains the Ukrainian intrigue that surrounded Joe and Hunter:

Hunter Biden sought the State Department’s help for a Ukrainian energy company while President Joe Biden was vice president, according to the New York Times, which obtained the information from the agency via a FIOA request dating back to 2021. The release of the document is significant for three reasons. First, the agency released the document after Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, underscoring concerns among Republicans that the Biden administration covered up Hunter’s foreign business dealings that enriched the Biden family while Joe Biden was vice president. Second, Hunter did not register as a foreign agent for...

First son Hunter Biden, acting on behalf of a Ukrainian energy company, requested help from the US Embassy in Rome to land a lucrative business deal, while his father, Joe Biden, was vice president, according to a report. Hunter’s big ask and apparent attempt to use his father’s position of power to land the deal for Bursima — the Ukrainian gas giant that he sat on the board for — came to light only after State Department records were released to the New York Times after Joe Biden ended his 2024 re-election bid last month. “I want to be careful...

Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to NATO membership, the 32 members of the alliance affirmed in a joint communique released Wednesday on the second day of the summit being held in Washington. Allies had negotiated for months over what language would be published in the joint communique, but discussions on specific words — including “irreversible” — had continued in D.C. throughout the first days of the summit.

The 32-members of NATO on Wednesday formally declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership in the Western military alliance, offering a bare but more binding assurance of protection once its war with Russia ends. NATO member countries individually and in Wednesday’s joint statement from their summit in Washington announced a series of steps aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s defenses. That includes the U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark announcing that the first NATO-provided F-16s would be in the hands of Ukrainian military pilots by this summer. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted his appreciation of the effort to strengthen his air force,...

The Biden administration is moving toward lifting a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine, four US officials familiar with the matter told CNN, to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems.The change would mark another significant shift in the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, as the US looks for ways to give Ukraine’s military an upper hand against Russia.The policy is still being worked on by administration officials and has not received final sign-off yet from President Joe Biden, officials said.

The new emails were gathered by the FBI in 2016 and show a degree of coordination with then-Vice President Biden top advisor and Burisma. Biden would later brag about quelling the investigation, but still insists he had no knowledge or relationship to his son's business. Hunter Biden's team arranged for a senior Burisma Holdings executive to meet with one of his father Joe Biden's advisers at the State Department a decade ago, just months after the Ukrainian energy firm's owner was targeted in a high-profile and U.S.-backed corruption investigation, according to documents secretly gathered years ago by the FBI. The...

A smoking gun email backs up Devon Archer’s previous testimony on Burisma’s pressure campaign to intervene and stop the Ukrainian prosecutor from investigating its owner Mykola Zlochevsky. The email exchange, obtained by Just The News, came from a cache of documents Devon Archer gave to the House Oversight Committee. “Target: Us ambassador communicates to Ukraine officials I.e. President administration formally/informally that he/U.S. government is ok with NZ, supports him and Burisma. Other U.S. High ranking officials communicate this message to President Administration. President Administration and other agencies ( general prosecutors office ) do not pursue NZ. NZ freely travels home....

President Joe Biden reportedly believes Hunter Biden is a victim of the weaponization of justice following his gun conviction on Tuesday. A Delaware jury found Hunter guilty of all three gun charges. He faces up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. The octogenarian pledged last week in France he would not pardon Hunter. He has not, however, spoken about whether he would deliver a commutation. The president feels guilty over Hunter’s legal predicament, two people not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations about Hunter told Politico. They also told the outlet Joe Biden believes he contributed...

@RepThomasMassie Hunter might deserve to be in jail for something, but purchasing a gun is not it. There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm against current laws.

President Joe Biden is having trouble focusing on work because he is obsessing and worrying about his son’s gun trial in Delaware, a report by Politico claims. The White House claimed twice Joe Biden will not pardon Hunter if found guilty in his gun or tax cases. Joe Biden, who is in France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, is closely following Hunter Biden’s trial, which Politico characterized as a “distraction,” according to three people familiar with his conversations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Russian media on Thursday that former Secretary of State John Kerry approved of Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, believing the residents were overwhelmingly in favor of “reuniting” with Russia. According to Lavrov, Kerry’s main criticism of Russia’s actions was to suggest holding another referendum to reinforce the legitimacy of annexation. Russia’s RT.com summarized Lavrov’s comments to the RBK news service: I won’t reveal a big secret if I say that John Kerry was telling me in April 2014: ‘Everything is clear. Everything happened the way the Crimean people...

Hunter Biden helped the U.S. law firm that employed him secure a lucrative retainer with Burisma Holdings a decade ago, and its lawyers proceeded to draft a 58-page plan to try to extricate the controversial energy company from an ongoing criminal investigation in Ukraine that relied heavily on trying to influence his father’s administration in Washington, according to evidence gathered by the FBI. The “legal defense plan” memo by Boies Schiller & Flexner, obtained by Just the News, was part of a collection of 3.39 million pages of evidence that federal agents seized during the 2016 election as part of...

WASHINGTON — Indicted first son Hunter Biden suggested in a new interview that he didn’t introduce his father to an executive from a Ukrainian gas company that was paying Hunter a million-dollar salary — despite testifying to Congress that then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with the very same Burisma Holdings executive. The 54-year-old brazenly backpedaled days after a fresh report that “sugar brother” Kevin Morris, who has bankrolled Hunter since meeting him at a presidential campaign fundraiser in late 2019, is “completely tapped out” after giving or loaning the scandal-plagued Biden at least $4.9 million. President Biden’s son told The...

President Biden argued that it never occurred to former President Trump to take a competitive stance against China, while rolling out a slew of actions Wednesday intended to protect the U.S. steel industry from Chinese exports. Biden was in Pittsburgh at the United Steelworkers headquarters touting the new actions, which involves him calling on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to consider tripling the existing 7.5 percent tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The president also said to boost competition with China, he has revitalized partnerships in the Pacific with countries like India, Australia, South Korea, the...

Two House Republicans leading their chamber's President Biden impeachment inquiry sent a new letter Monday to the White House seeking documentation about the developments that led to the then-Vice President Biden demanding Ukraine fire its prosecutor developed.The new request follows a March 1 briefing provided by White House staff to the the members' respective committees detailing then-Vice President Biden’s infamous December 2015 speech to the Ukrainian parliament and the “non-public context” surrounding it.“Unfortunately, the briefing was inadequate, and White House lawyers peddled demonstrable falsehoods rather than providing substantive and verifiable information. As such, the committees are now compelled to request...

G'day Legends, I hope you're doing well, Today we talk about the Russia's winter offensive and look at the war map updates. If you're new here thanks for coming across, I served in the Australian Infantry from 2014-2021, With a tour to Afghanistan as a crew commander of a Armoured Mobility Vehicle. Upon my Return I was unexpectedly diagnosed with a Incurable and Inoperable Brain tumour that is slowly killing me. I was also awarded the Queens Order of Australia Medal (OAM) hence the post nominals after my name. Then Being medically separated from the Army I flew to Ukraine...

The effort to revive Russian collusion claims in Joe Biden's impeachment probe is running into an inconvenient truth for Democrats: Hunter Biden and his business partners waged a concerted campaign to squeeze oligarchs in Vladimir Putin's country for investments, an effort that ultimately paved the way for the first son to score a big payday from Burisma Holdings in neighboring Ukraine. Hunter Biden and his partners' pursuit of Russian riches began as early as 2010 with payments from a Moscow-based machinery firm and its "patriarch," and they intensified a few years later at a time when Joe Biden's son was...

Earlier this month, special counsel David Weiss filed charges against former longtime FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was the confidential human source (CHS) who reported that Joe Biden received bribes from the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma. Those allegations were first documented on the infamous FD-1023 form in 2020 but went uninvestigated for three years. It was only reviewed after Sen. Charles Grassley released it publicly and Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart. I was immediately suspicious of the indictment. For one thing, the Biden administration had fought to keep the FD-1023 from being released — an action that...