Free Republic

A Boston businessman faced a federal investigation into whether he had bribed contracting officials to steer lucrative deals his way. So he responded the only way he knew how: bribing an FBI agent to call off the case. Unfortunately for the bureau, the agent took him up on it, accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars for trying to prevent charges against the businessman. Now former special agent Robert Lustyik Jr., 51, a 24-year veteran of the agency, has pleaded guilty to eleven counts of fraud, obstruction and conspiracy. “No one is above the law, no matter what rank or badge...

On July 30, 1974, President Nixon released the White House tape recordings to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order. A day earlier, the House Judiciary Committee approved Articles of Impeachment. Article 2 dealt with “abuse of power.” The first impeachment count, 40 years ago, complained that the President attempted to use the Internal Revenue Service to harass his enemies. (1) He has, acting personally and through his subordinated and agents,endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law,...

A recent investigation has uncovered a shocking tale of corruption and adultery at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Susan Taylor, a longtime federal employee and Deputy Chief Procurement Officer at the Veterans Health Administration since 2010, not only used her position to award government contracts to a former business partner, and worked with said company to hide the thousands and thousands of dollars it was making off the government, but conspired with her married boyfriend — who also had close personal ties to the company — to thwart investigations into her misconduct. The salacious story began in 1994, when Taylor...

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Corinna Caron says she wasn’t home Friday night when security cameras captured five pit bulls mauling her basset hound, Elvis. “When we got here, they had Elvis in the garage. His ears were bleeding, his neck was bleeding,” Caron said Monday. Neighbors across the street and next door came running when they heard the commotion. One of the pit bulls was shot and killed. “If they hadn’t been here, we wouldn’t have Elvis. There’s no doubt in my mind that Elvis wouldn’t have survived that attack,” she said. It’s not Elvis’ first encounter with the dogs. We’re told they’ve gone...

The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll says that a clear-cut majority is disgusted with the present political scene and retains little hope that future generations will fare as well as we have. As candidates get down and dirty in the lead-up to midterm elections, 60 percent say the country is in a general state of decline. A mere 19 percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of Republicans in Congress; their Democratic colleagues (or “colleagues”) poll at 31 percent. But the most remarkable number is 79: that’s the percentage of the politicized public that presently voices its discontent...

Eric Holder’s tenure marked one of the most divisive and partisan eras of the Justice Department. From his involvement in the bizarre guns-to-gangs operation (“Fast & Furious”), for which he has been cited for contempt by the House and referred to a federal prosecutor (which referral went nowhere due to invocations of executive privilege), to his refusal to recognize the separation of powers—enabling President Obama’s executive abuses—he politicized an already overly political Justice Department. One thing that differentiates Holder from other notorious attorneys general, like John Mitchell under Richard Nixon, is that Holder hasn’t gone to jail (yet; the DOJ...

On Thursday, September 25, Eric Holder announced that he would step down as Attorney General of the United States. If you are a regular reader of the Weekly Update, you know that since the day he was appointed to office, Judicial Watch has battled day in and day out to prevent Holder from continuing to corrupt the Department of Justice (DOJ). And, in fact, in January of this year, we named him to the Judicial Watch list of the “ Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians ” for the sixth year in a row. Many quickly credited Judicial Watch’s work with...

An already imprisoned ex-Miami police sergeant implored a judge to give him a break on his new sentence for retaliating against fellow officers who helped the FBI in a corruption probe of his drug-fighting squad.

Prosecutors are using a law originally enacted to go after mobsters to accuse former principals, teachers, and administrators of trying to boost their bonuses by conspiring to artificially raise kids' test scores. While only 12 ex-educators are on trial in Atlanta, dozens of teachers and administrators were initially charged and many have since pleaded guilty in exchange for their cooperation. The dozen on trial could get up to 20 years in prison, and they might never have been prosecuted if it weren't for a pair of ambitious reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). Back in 2008, Heather Vogell, now a...

The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part. In the second part of a week-long series looking behind the slump, Guardian City editor Julia Finch picks out the individuals who have led us into the current crisis

The family of a deceased Marine is looking for answers after records from the Department of Veterans Affairs showed that he rescheduled an appointment after his death. Cpl. Jordan Buisman, a former Marine videographer, was medically discharged after developing epilepsy. In June 2012 he saw a neurologist at a Minnesota VA, who instructed him to seek an appointment if there were any changes in his condition. After Cpl. Buisman had a seizure in September, he scheduled an appointment with the VA on Oct. 12, and was confirmed for an appointment Dec. 20, a local NBC affiliate reported.

And now the left bites back. Wisconsin’s wild political ride continued Monday, when a left-leaning group with ties to Hillary Clinton announced it is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Interesting that the American Democracy Legal Fund pushes out its plea to Obama administration top gun Eric Holder just as Mary Burke, the Democrat’s candidate for governor, is embroiled further in a major plagiarism scandal. The American Democracy Legal Fund, run by liberal power brokers David Brock and Brad Woodhouse, wants the Justice Department to investigate whether Walker sponsored and ensured passage of mine...

A Mexican ecologist has blown the whistle on the corruption, lies and incompetence of the wind industry - and on the massive environmental damage it causes in the name of saving the planet. Patricia Mora, a research professor in coastal ecology and fisheries science at the National Institute of Technology in Mexico, has been studying the impact of wind turbines in the Tehuantepec Isthmus in southern Mexico, an environmentally sensitive region which has the highest concentration of wind farms in Latin America.

When a government agency becomes abusive and recalcitrant, that agency calls for the need of vigorous, legal challenge. That’s why Judicial Watch is pleased to report that we have filed a Motion for Limited Discovery in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. Thus far, the IRS has refused to obey federal court orders to provide information that explains how its “lost and/or stolen” records pertaining to the targeting of conservative groups may be retrieved. And we intend to find out. Remarkably, the IRS has filed a total of seven declarations that make an end...

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission (the term “ethics” is used rather loosely in this case) has a plan to get more voters to turn out on Election Day. Basically, they think the city should bribe people to show up at the polls. According to LA Times:Alarmed that fewer than one-fourth of voters are showing up for municipal elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted Thursday to recommend that the City Council look at using cash prizes to lure a greater number of people to the polls. On a 3-0 vote, the panel said it wanted City Council President Herb Wesson's Rules,...

Duke Energy seeks nearly $2 million in Florida electricity rate hikes to pay for a new power plant made necessary by environmental restrictions. The electricity rate hikes became necessary as environmental restrictions force the closing of two coal power plants providing Floridians with inexpensive electricity. ... Aided by $10 million in campaign spending by billionaire liberal activist Tom Steyer, the Charlie Crist campaign is hammering Gov. Rick Scott for not imposing still more stringent power plant restrictions, above and beyond those imposed by the federal government. Steyer and Crist say Florida should impose state-specific power plant restrictions that would close...

Yes, the Democrats are that desperate. Smacked with the guy who has made his business to lead the loyal opposition to policies that hurt the country, the Democrats did something so foul, so mind numbingly stupid and so desperate that it out Nixoned Nixon in his worst of days. And in doing so, theyÂ’ve completed the transformation from political party to caricature. Does Rick Perry's indictment disqualify him for 2016?!!! asks CNN, while fronting for the Dems. No, the indictment probably does not disqualify him. But Marco RubioÂ’s sip of water during a televised address should, right? RubioÂ’s problem...

We all now know what happened with the federal healthcare marketplace, Healthcare.gov. The three-year development was complicated by changing specifications, and the government's convoluted procurement process meant entrenched companies were getting contracts over and over. But a wave of government accountability reports, concluded after months of investigations, is bringing new attention to the meltdown. The Government Office of Accountability released a report earlier this week detailing the security flaws in the site, but a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released yesterday is even more damning.

Attorney General Eric Holder is again asking a federal court to delay the transfer of disputed documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious to a House committee. In a new court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson not to require Holder to turn over any of the roughly 64,000 pages of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until after her rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. "The Department respectfully submits that it would be preferable for the parties, this Court, and...