Free Republic

For 74 years, the NATO has been America’s most important military alliance. Presidents of both parties have seen NATO as a force multiplier enhancing the influence of the United States by uniting countries on both sides of the Atlantic in a vow to defend one another.Donald Trump has made it clear that he sees NATO as a drain on U.S. resources by freeloaders. He has held that view for at least a quarter-century.In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” Trump wrote that “pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually.” As president, he repeatedly threatened...

WASHINGTON — The limping conclusion to John Durham’s four-year investigation of the Russia inquiry underscores a recurring dilemma in U.S. government: how to shield sensitive law enforcement investigations from politics without creating prosecutors who can run amok, never to be held to account. At a time when special counsels are proliferating — there have been four since 2017, two of whom are still at work — the much-hyped investigation by Durham, a special counsel, into the Russia inquiry ended with a whimper that stood in contrast to the countless hours of political furor that spun off from it. Durham delivered...

MIAMI — In her just over 20 months as a federal judge, Aileen M. Cannon worked mostly in obscurity, becoming nominated and appointed to her position during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and at the end of a turbulent presidency. Then, last month, she was assigned the most prominent case of her short judicial career, involving the very person who put her on the bench: former President Donald J. Trump. On Monday, Judge Cannon granted Mr. Trump’s request to appoint an independent arbiter known as a special master to review materials seized last month from his private Florida club....

WASHINGTON — Leading senators of both parties have struck a deal over a draft bill that would expand a 1996 war crimes law to give American courts jurisdiction over cases involving atrocities committed abroad even if neither party is a U.S. citizen, in the latest response to Russia’s apparent targeting of civilians in Ukraine. The idea behind the draft, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, is that if someone who committed war crimes abroad later comes to the United States and is discovered, that person could be prosecuted for those actions by the Justice Department.Killings...

One week ago today, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion in the government’s criminal case against former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann. That motion, in requesting the court obtain Sussmann’s waiver of any conflicts of interest held by his lawyers on the record, provided in excruciating detail the factual basis for the purported conflicts. In doing so, it revealed that “enemies of Donald Trump surveilled the internet traffic at Trump Tower, at his New York City apartment building, and later at the executive office of the president of the United States, then fed disinformation about that traffic to...

Analysts have used other evidence to conclude that the transfers were most likely part of an effort to offer payments to Taliban-linked militants to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan. American officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, evidence that supported their conclusion that Russia covertly offered bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence. Though the United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before, analysts concluded from other intelligence...

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department’s conduct in abruptly deciding to end the case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn was so unusual that it raised a “plausible question” about the legitimacy of the move, a lawyer for the trial judge overseeing that case told a federal appeals court on Monday. In a 36-page filing, the lawyer for Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia asked a three-judge panel not to cut short his review of the factual and legal issues surrounding the case. A defense lawyer for Mr....

How does Watergate differ from Obamagate? Journalists led the charge to uncover the first. But now? Now journalists are leading the coverup of the second. J. Peder Zane has illustrated the media coverup exactly: “This week’s news that at least 39 Obama officials had unmasked Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s private conversations during the last month of their administration seemed a little shocking. Today, major media outlets are telling readers and viewers that the practice is “routine.” A CNN headline told readers, “Trump pushes 'Obamagate' conspiracy based on routine intel activity.” Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, now a CNN...

WASHINGTON — Critics of President Trump cheered on Monday when a federal judge ruled that the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II must testify to Congress — and scathingly labeled “fiction” the administration’s arguments that top White House aides are immune from congressional subpoenas. Indeed, the outcome was the latest in a string of lower-court losses for Mr. Trump as he defends his stonewalling of lawmakers’ oversight and the impeachment investigation. Other fights are playing out in the courts over Mr. Trump’s financial records and grand-jury evidence in the Russia investigation. But from a realist perspective, Mr. Trump...

The battle for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as Justice on the Supreme Court has resulted in a great tragedy. Michael Avenatti's appearances on television are likely due to be sharply cut back. Why? Because liberals in the mainstream media are now placing the blame for the failure of the Democrats to derail the Kavanaugh confirmation squarely at the feet of Avenatti. One example was on MSNBC Live on Saturday as Kavanaugh was being confirmed. Charlie Savage of the New York Times claimed that Avenatti "did a huge favor to the Trump White House" by tossing wild charges into the mix. 

These are not happy times at the F.B.I. Morale at the country’s premier law enforcement agency plummeted months ago, after James B. Comey, its director, revived the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in October and plunged the bureau back into the political maelstrom just before the election. Then President Trump fired Mr. Comey on Tuesday, saying he had mishandled the Clinton investigation, and the mood darkened again. Agents said they were stunned that Mr. Trump would fire Mr. Comey in the midst of an F.B.I. investigation into whether any of the president’s associates had conspired...

Everyone proposes drinking games for the State of the Union speech. But it’s not just the president that can drive you to drink. It’s the opportunistic media elites deciding which branches of government have too much power, depending on which branches the Democrats presently control. After a lot of stalemate in 2013, the partisan media think it’s high time for the executive branch to go completely around the legislative branch. They think that now that Congress has proven itself unwilling to provide Barack Obama with the historical greatness he deserves, they should and must be driven around like roadkill. They’ll...

Charlie Savage, a reporter for The New York Times, violated the newspaper’s own code of ethics by printing a false story about the ongoing congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious on Tuesday evening. For the Times, Savage reported late on Tuesday that House Speaker John Boehner had “opened direct negotiations with the Department of Justice aimed at resolving a dispute over subpoenaed information related to the botched gun-trafficking investigation dubbed Operation Fast and Furious.” The story ran under the headline “Boehner in talks with Justice Dept. on gun-running inquiry,” implying that the speaker was directly participating in talks. Boehner...

by Mark Finkelstein September 15, 2006 - 15:23 The Boston Globe refers to Charlie Savage as a "staff writer." But judging by the hyper-partisan comments he made on Fox News Channel this afternoon, Savage belongs over on the opinion page. Interviewed with two other legal reporters by FNC's Martha MacCallum, Savage took these shots at President Bush and his fellow Republicans: President Bush is "terrorizing" Americans with the terrorism issue for political gain. Speaking of the current rift between the president and Sen. McCain over interrogation rules for suspected terrorists, Savage snidely observed that McCain had been a POW in...