Free Republic

It’s easy to find timelines that detail Trump-Russia collusion developments. Here are links to two of them I recommend:Politifact Russia-Trump timelineWashington Post Russia-Trump timelineOn the other side, evidence has emerged in the past year that makes it clear there were organized efforts to collude against candidate Donald Trump–and then President Trump. For example: Anti-Russian Ukrainians allegedly helped coordinate and execute a campaign against Trump in partnership with the Democratic National Committee and news reporters.A Yemen-born ex-British spy reportedly delivered political opposition research against Trump to reporters, Sen. John McCain, and the FBI; the latter of which used the material–in part–to...

At that time, then Senator Barak Obama, already a presidential candidate, inserted himself into the crisis by calling for UN condemnations and urging Georgia to “refrain from using force” in Abkhazia and Ossetia, where the Russians had already occupied nearly a third of Georgia’s territory. So much for the interference of political candidates in foreign affairs, undermining US policy!

In the wake of the horrific slaughter in Parkland, Florida, a cadre of energized and understandably traumatized teenagers has flooded Washington and the airwaves to say remarkably passionate, occasionally extreme things about guns and the need for gun control. Because these teens are politically effective, a bunch of goons, buffoons and trolls have floated conspiracy theories aimed at discrediting them. I won't be more specific than that because it's all reprehensible bilge. At the same time, quite a few advocates of gun control, including many who claim the mantle of "objective" journalism, have taken the view that these kids cannot...

There's a case to be made that in every way, save rhetoric, the president has been tougher on Russia than his predecessor. This week, CNN fact checked Donald Trump’s recent claim that he had been tougher on Russia than Barack Obama. “(No he wasn’t)” maintained the cheeky chyron. Though the network fancies itself the arbiter of truth in the Era of Trump — apples and bananas and all that — this particular contention is, at the very least, debatable. In fact, there’s a good case to be made that in nearly every way, save rhetoric, the president has been tougher...

According to the indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Russian trolls, operating out of St. Petersburg, took American identities on social media and became players in our 2016 election. On divisive racial and religious issues, the trolls took both sides. In the presidential election, the trolls favored Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein and Donald Trump, and almost never Hillary Clinton. One imaginative Russian troll urged Trumpsters to dress up a female volunteer in an orange prison jump suit, put her in a cage on a flatbed truck, then append the slogan, "Lock Her Up!" How grave a matter is this? This...

McCarthyism describes an event in American history where a Senator claimed to have in his briefcase evidence that high-ranking government officials were colluding with Russia. Lives were destroyed based solely on the accusation. Finally, when people had had enough, the attorney representing the U.S. Army turned to the Senator and said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” That ended it. The present Russian investigation hit its “have you no sense of decency” moment last week when Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians for defrauding America. By all appearances, they are the sort of unsophisticated internet trolls who,...

One of the revelations in Friday’s indictment handed down by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was that alleged Russian attempts to sow disunity in 2016 included the organization of both pro- and anti-Trump rallies in New York City on the Saturday after Election Day. A check of their November 12 coverage showed both CNN and MSNBC gave enthusiastic coverage to the Russian-organized anti-Trump rally that day, with live reports every hour. Correspondents celebrated the idea that it was “a love rally,” and repeated the marchers’ anti-Trump mantras, such as: “We reject the President-elect.”

One of the revelations in Friday’s indictment handed down by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was that alleged Russian attempts to sow disunity in 2016 included the organization of both pro- and anti-Trump rallies in New York City on the Saturday after Election Day. A check of their November 12 coverage showed both CNN and MSNBC gave enthusiastic coverage to the Russian-organized anti-Trump rally that day, with live reports every hour. Correspondents celebrated the idea that it was “a love rally,” and repeated the marchers’ anti-Trump mantras, such as: “We reject the President-elect.”

The president (Trump), who has been dismissing this attack on our country as a “hoax” and “fake news” for over a year, leapt to defend, not the country, but himself. “Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” he tweeted, dodging the point. (By 2013, Trump had already spent $1 million exploring a potential bid.) “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!” Maybe yes. Maybe no. More indictments will come, and we’ll see who among Trump’s inner circle, or Trump himself,...

How many Mexican nationals from both within and without our borders should be indicted for meddling and conspiracy to defraud the American people? And shouldn't Hillary and the DNC and the entire Democrat congressional caucus be investigated for colluding with foreign nationals (including Mexico's current and past presidents) to interfere in our elections? How many Mexican nationals have fake-named facebook and twitter troll accounts that are used to affect our elections? How many Spanish only radio and TV stations are there that urge Mexican nationals to interfere in our elections with money, rallies, protests, etc, mostly for socialist democrats and...

The unveiling today of indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities has raised speculation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be nearing the end of – or has effectively finished – his probe into collusion between the Trump administration and the Russian government. But sources are telling Bloomberg that this isn’t true. In addition to obstruction and the various financial improprieties of certain Trump associates, Mueller is still actively investigating collusion. Earlier today, Trump tweeted in response to the indictment’s release that it effectively vindicates the Trump campaign, since many of the activities cited in the document began...

RUSH: Something else, that if the shooting hadn’t happened today, that I would have led with today. There’s a great piece at The Federalist today by Lee Smith. I’ve got some pull quotes from it. But the primary point of his piece is, why isn’t the media covering the exculpatory things that have been uncovered about the Steele dossier and Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia? Why aren’t they reporting it? Why aren’t they reporting that it was Hillary Clinton opposition research? Everybody thinks they’re not reporting it because it’s liberal bias. In Smith’s view, that’s not the reason. It’s something...

The Department of Homeland Security made the rare move Monday to officially discredit an NBC News report that claimed a top Trump official found that “Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election.” In a statement, DHS said the “breaking news” report was not only wrong and hyped but is also being ripped by other media. In the report, NBC interviewed Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, who said, “We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually...

Christopher Steele’s unproven dossier is a mix of felony charges against President Trump and his people, as well as supposed gossip inside the Kremlin over computer hacking and personnel firings. For the ongoing special counsel investigation into suspected Trump-Russia election coordination, it is helpful to separate what counts: Dust away the atmospherics — supposed Kremlin intrigue — and focus on the collusion charges brought by the former British spy based on his paid intermediaries and Moscow sources. None is identified. Funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party, these specific dossier charges of secret spy missions and criminality...

Professor Paul Kengor, quoting from a top-secret KGB report about Soviet contacts with Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), in his new book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism,” reveals that Kennedy offered to work with the Soviets to take some joint measures against the militaristic policies of Ronald Reagan in the interest of world peace. Kennedy justified his actions as the continuation of “the mandate the American people have given my family to carry out policies in the best interest of the United States and the world.” “My brother Jack didn’t get to finish what he started,” Kennedy...

For months and months, our fake news media have been freaking out over a meeting Donald Trump Jr. took with a Russian lawyer in the hopes of getting some dirt on Hillary Clinton. Again and again, we have been told that this is the smoking gun of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Of course, that is nonsense. Moreover, Don Jr. and the others in attendance caught on to the scheme within a few minutes, and as far as we now know, that was the end of that. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of others, who...

It’s getting tiresome –but best I can decipher from all this FISA stuff: the Dept. of Justice, the FBI and Democrats claim it’s very bad for a U.S. presidential candidate to seek help for their campaign from a foreign regime—especially a hostile one, even if the hostility is mostly covert, as in the case of Putin’s Russia.Hope I haven’t missed anything but it seems that: in seeking to investigate and prosecute foreign collusion with the Republican presidential candidate, the FBI and DOJ relied on evidence kindly proffered by the Democrat candidate who colluded with foreigners (as in paying them) for...

WASHINGTON — Rachel L. Brand, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, plans to step down after nine months on the job as the country’s top law enforcement agency has been under attack by President Trump, according to two people briefed on her decision. Ms. Brand’s profile had risen in part because she is next in the line of succession behind the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who is overseeing the special counsel’s inquiry into Russian influence in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump, who has called the investigation a witch hunt, has considered firing Mr. Rosenstein. Such a...

The Clintons created a media and law enforcement echo chamber of Russia collusion. Earlier this week we wrote about the possible involvement of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal in feeding information to Christoper Steele, author of the infamous Clinton/DNC funded dossier. That dossier formed a key part of the FBI’s presentation to the FISA court to obtain a warrant to surveil Carter Page.One of the key links in the Blumenthal-Steele stories was former State Department employee Jonathan Winer: Devin Nunes has a new target: Jonathan Winer, the Obama State Department’s special envoy to Libya, and longtime Senate aide to John...

Every day, we learn about more corruption on the part of Hillary.  Lying about Benghazi, selling 20% of our uranium to Russia, and using an unsecure email server and lying about it are only the most recent.  We can look back on Whitewater; FBI Filegate; Travelgate; and attacking the female victims of her husband, Bill Clinton.  There is so much corruption that we are becoming numb to more disclosures. The latest is that Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer, friends and associates of Hillary and Bill Clinton, supplied information to Christopher Steele for his smear job referred to as a "dossier." Congressman Trey...