Free Republic

Sarah Palin’s family attorney John Tiemessen has written a letter to Maya Mavjee, the publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, that Palin may sue her, the company, and the book’s author Joe McGinniss “for knowingly publishing false statements” in his book released last week, “The Rogue,” ABC News has learned.READ THE ENTIRE LETTER HEREThe book was widely panned by critics for using unnamed sources to criticize Palin and her family. Tiemessen cites an email they have access to in which McGinniss writes that attorneys from Crown Publishing told him “nothing I can cite other than my...

Erik Wemple reports that Fox News says it tried to book Joe McGinniss to talk about “The Rogue,” but he said he was “too busy.”That’s an interesting decision, given that McGinniss has been friends with Roger Ailes for 44 years.McGinniss wrote in May about their friendship, which started when he was writing a column and the Philadelphia Inquirer and Ailes was producing the Michael Douglas Show in Philadelphia.The post was sparked by Gabriel Sherman’s story on Ailes, which quoted an anonymous associate of the Fox News boss saying that he thought Sarah Palin was “an idiot” – a claim that...

On the heels of our report that Michele Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins is stepping back into an advisory role, citing health concerns, comes word that his deputy, David Polyansky, is leaving the campaign. "I wish Michele nothing but the best, and anyone who underestimates her as a candidate does so at their own peril," Polyansky told POLITICO. Continue Reading But a GOP source familiar with the situation said that Polyansky had "strategic differences on the path forward" with the candidate, who has struggled to gain traction in the last few weeks. Polyansky and Rollins led the team that brought...

Sarah Palin hit the stage in Indianola, Iowa this afternoon to keynote the Tea Party of America’s “Restoring America” rally. And she certainly pulled no punches. Palin took on President Obama’s failed policies and proclivity toward crony capitalism, stood firm in her support for tea party principles and rekindled the 2008 RNC speech she gave exactly three years ago today. Consistent with her 2008 message, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee reminded Americans today of the danger of politicians who follow a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do motto. Palin, whose record features persistent and successful efforts to tackle a corrupt political class,...

Fox News released its first poll Thursday since Rick Perry's entry into the presidential race, showing the Texas governor drawing 26 percent of the GOP primary vote and leading Mitt Romney by 8 points. What caught one reader's attention, though, wasn't the size of Perry's lead, but the name of Fox's Republican pollster: Shaw & Company Research, a Texas-based firm that conducts the Fox survey in cooperation with the Democratic pollster Anderson Robbins Research. Continue Reading The Shaw in Shaw & Company is Daron Shaw, a University of Texas political science professor and veteran of several GOP campaigns, whose name...

Two years ago, John McHale, an entrepreneur from Austin, Tex., who has given millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes, did something very unusual for him: he wrote a $50,000 check to a Republican candidate, Rick Perry, then seeking a third full term as governor of Texas. In September 2010, he did it again, catapulting himself into the top ranks of Mr. Perry’s donors. Mr. McHale, a Perry spokesman said after the initial donation, “understands Governor Perry’s leadership has made Texas a good place to do business.” Including, it turned out, for Mr. McHale’s business interests and partners. In...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania man and his son have been arrested on charges of harassing Sarah Palin’s family and lawyers. [...] The pair were indicted by a federal grand jury in Alaska on Wednesday. They are accused of harassing members of the former Alaska governor’s family as well as her attorneys and employees of the law firm.

Sarah Palin outlasted most of the few dozen reporters, photographers, and camerapeople who mobbed her on a visit to the Iowa State Fair that seemed aimed first of all at meeting the national press. By the time she trudged up a dirt parking lot to the fair's VIP area, only ten or so reporters were left, and we'd run out of questions. She looked up, seeming a bit startled by the silence, and drew a few more. Then she vanished to shake hands with the Fair's sponsors and other worthies. Her staff, though, returned with corn dogs for the...

ABC News has confirmed that Sarah Palin will re-launch her “One Nation” bus tour in Iowa tomorrow, the same day that Republican presidential contenders will take the stage for a debate in Ames, Iowa. [...] A SarahPAC fundraising email obtained by ABC News details the former Alaska governor’s plans to “meet folks at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines this week.” “The heartland is perfect territory for more of the One Nation Tour as we put forth efforts to revitalize the fundamental restoration of America by highlighting our nation's heart, history, and founding principles,” Palin writes in the email....

TAMPA -- Mitt Romney has dispatched three senior campaign officials to hold strategy briefings with Republican National Committee members at the RNC’s summer meeting here, as Romney tries to consolidate the party establishment around his 2012 candidacy. No other Republican presidential candidate has a presence at the four-day meeting, according to multiple RNC members. Romney’s team arrived in Tampa -- which will host the 2012 Republican National Convention -- to present the case for his candidacy to the RNC’s 168 state party chairmen and other committee members, the vast majority of whom are unaligned in the presidential contest. Romney’s deputy...

We'll have more on this shortly, but Kay Henderson reports that Rick Perry and Sarah Palin have been left off the Ames Straw Poll ballot after a meeting of the Iowa GOP's state central committee today:

A Politico reporter who often penned stories about Sarah Palin and other Republicans has quit journalism to work with the Democratic Party in Arizona, sources tell The Daily Caller. That reporter, Andy Barr, has covered national politics for the publication since 2008. Barr leaving to help elect Democrats will likely fan the flames of critics who say Politico has a liberal bias. It’s not exactly clear what his new job duties are. Barr wouldn’t say, but told FishbowlDC, which first reported that Barr was leaving, that he left Politico on “very good terms.” That report said Barr, who is from...

President Obama raised a mammoth sum for his campaign in the second quarter collecting $86 million to support his reelection, a figure that should far surpass the fundraising totals for his Republican challengers. Obama campaign manager Jim Messina announced the haul in a web video posted Wednesday morning, outlining for supporters the president's second quarter numbers, as well as a bit of the campaign's fundraising strategy. The $86 million figure represents a sum that includes contributions directly to Obama's campaign, along with money collected by the Obama Victory Fund, the joint-fundraising account established to benefit the president's campaign and the...

Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann may represent competing visions of the direction of the Republican Party, but both their presidential campaigns are relying on legal advice from partners at Patton Boggs, the Washington power law firm that pioneered innovative fundraising strategies for 2008 GOP White House hopefuls that left advocates for reducing the role of money in politics crying foul. [...] And law firm signings are as closely watched as those of top campaign operatives or pollsters. Take Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman initially written off by some handicappers as a fringe anti-establishment candidate whose appeal was limited to tea party...

Sen. Jim DeMint, whose push for more conservative senate candidates in the 2010 cycle lead to several primary challenges, is open to endorsing Mitt Romney. “I endorsed Romney last time, and I think he’s a good candidate,” DeMint tells National Review Online today in an office visit. “I’m not going to hold any one or two things against a candidate that they’ve done. I’ve had some bum votes in my life.” Instead of a perfect voting record, DeMint is looking for “the ability to inspire and show some courage and I think, take on our own party in some cases.”...

The Los Angeles times did a lengthy takeout on Michele Bachmann's income from government and farm subsidies, a piece that prompted questions from Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace during the congresswoman's announcement-eve appearance today. Bachmann insisted that the family farm in question never profited her direct family."Number two, regarding the farm, the farm is my father-in-law's farm. It's not my husband and my farm. It's my father-in-law's farm. And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm," Bachmann said. But her financial disclosures in 2009 and 2010 show her getting between $15,000 and...

Republicans, including Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani, made a "strategic blunder" by making a joke of Barack Obama's work as a community organizer, Newt Gingrich says in a new book about the radical ACORN group. It was "not helpful" for Palin and Giuliani to mock community organizing in their speeches at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Gingrich tells investigative reporter Matthew Vadum in his new book, Subversion Inc. The GOP's mockery "trivialized Obama and Obama is not a trivial person," Gingrich said in an exclusive interview with Vadum featured in the book:

Morning Score and Jonathan Martin report: The Iowa Republican Party will start the countdown clock today for the Aug. 13 Ames straw poll, holding what is effectively a real estate auction among the presidential candidates for space at the event. The party has provided the 2012 campaigns with maps of the straw poll grounds, including the possible spots that candidates can occupy there. The cost of a spot is $15,000 – but not all spots are created equal, with some closer to the main entrance, and the bidding only increases from there.Each campaign is allowed to send two representatives to...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Friday that it's her sense that Republican voters are "very satisfied" with the field of presidential candidates. Following Monday's debate in New Hampshire, Bachmann said voters were happier with their options. "I think people, especially after the debate on Monday night, were very satisfied with what they saw with the candidates," she said on Fox News. [...] She passed, though, both at the debate and on Fox, at leveling tough criticism at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) state healthcare law. [...] Rather, Bachmann suggested she's more likely to train her sights on President Obama...

Yesterday's column on Tim Pawlenty's feebleness in criticizing Mitt Romney's version of ObamaCare prompted several readers to write with the suggestion that Pawlenty is pursuing the vice presidential nomination. We doubt it. We've met with Pawlenty twice in recent months, and he has a well-considered (if, thus far, not so well-implemented) plan to win the presidential nomination. Further, if he was sucking up to the former Massachusetts governor Monday night with a Romney-Pawlenty ticket in mind, that would represent a one-day change in strategy, since it was only Sunday morning when Pawlenty referred to "ObamneyCare." Furthermore, if Pawlenty were angling...