Free Republic

Bureaucracies have successfully evaded congressional budget oversight for years by illegally hiring contract labor to take the place of employees, according to a Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) report released Tuesday. Bureaucracies commit thousands of felonies a day, misappropriating funds not approved by Congress and expanding agency influence at a time when government agencies should cut back. Bureaucracies freeze hiring new employees, ideally to stop expansion and cut costs, when under pressure to reform or adapt to budget cuts. Many agencies continue to grow despite budget cutbacks, however, by illegally hiring outside contract labor. “While contracting for these services is contrary...

Daniel Love, a former special agent for the Bureau of Land Management, gives a radio interview during Burning Man in 2015. (Photo: BLM Nevada/Flickr) A federal agent who had a key role in the armed 2014 ‘Battle of Bunkerville’ standoff no longer works for the Bureau of Land Management. Daniel Love had been serving as special agent in charge for BLM in Utah and Nevada in recent years, but is no longer with the agency, according to the Associated Press. Love still worked there on Aug. 24, when the feds released a report that said he’d handed out valuable rocks...

WASHINGTON — Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home. They took binders stuffed with documents and copied his computer files, looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the expensive suits in his closet. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the...

Was this the “collusion” you were looking for? Just two months into her term as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton’s foundation invited Russian leader Vladimir Putin, along with several other prominent heads of state, to the Clinton Global Initiative’s 2009 annual gathering, emails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch reveal. The March 13, 2009, email from the Clinton Foundation showed that Putin and about 200 other leaders (including others just as controversial) were invited to attend a gathering that occurred at about the same time that the newly appointed secretary of state was attempting a “reset” with Moscow. The...

A federal agent who had been scrutinized for his handling of rare evidence and his behavior at the counterculture Burning Man festival is no longer an employee of the Bureau of Land Management, authorities said Friday. Daniel Love, who played a command role in federal agents' 2014 standoff with Nevada rancher and states' rights figure Cliven Bundy, no longer works for the agency. .... Love still worked for the agency on Aug. 24, when a federal investigative report was released saying he handed out valuable stones known as moqui marbles to colleagues and a contractor "like candy,". The rocks are...

Judge Jeanine Pirro slammed Hillary Clinton ..for continuing to harp on her 2016 loss of the presidency to Donald Trump. "Snap out of it! Do I have to go through this again?" Pirro asked incredulously. Clinton's new book, "What Happened," was released last week, and the former secretary of state has been appearing on television and book signings to promote it. The book provides a lengthy inventory of all entities she blames for her loss, including herself, former FBI Director James Comey, Russia, sexism, Bernie Sanders, the New York Times, and Barack Obama. Anyone who says prosecutors draft an exoneration...

This week, the sorest loser since Dickens’ Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, Hillary Clinton, began peddling her latest book What Happened. (No question mark at the end because it’s didactic, not really an inquiry. She knows the answer and she’s going to instruct us out of her infinite wisdom and years-long expertise, including two such losses.) On Twitter, the actor James Wood offers a visual of the reasons she proffers, feigning regret that he was not included. James Woods‏Verified account @RealJamesWoods Sep 12 Damn! Didn't make the cut... 7:39 PM - 12 Sep 2017 If you think Woods was exaggerating,...

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) slammed former FBI director James Comey on Thursday for "making up his mind" not to charge Hillary Clinton before the investigation into her handling of classified information was complete. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Judiciary subcommittee chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) sent a letter to current FBI director Chris Wray in late August in order to address Comey's actions and collect additional information. The Senate Judiciary Committee had learned, through transcripts of interviews with top Comey aides, that the FBI director drafted a memo exonerating the former secretary of state before...

President Trump said Thursday that efforts by Susan Rice to unmask his associates’ identities in intelligence reports last year are “just the tip of the iceberg,” slamming the former Obama national security adviser days after she spoke to House investigators. “She’s not supposed to be [unmasking], and what she did was wrong … and that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Trump told Fox News, speaking aboard Air Force One on his way back from surveying Hurricane Irma damage in Florida. He added, “I heard she admitted [to unmasking] yesterday.” A senior Capitol Hill source told Fox News that Rice...

(Judge) Kennelly said. . . that a constitutional issue may arise with Gonzales’ claim that there was “vote dilution” in the alleged placement of two fake candidates on the ballot. “The fact that Gonzales argues the effect of this fraud was to dilute the Hispanic vote — the two alleged sham candidates have Hispanic surnames — does not negate the fact that the registration of sham candidates can, on its own, constitute a deprivation of a constitutional right,” Kennelly wrote. Throughout the campaign, Gonzales maintained that he and Madigan were the only candidates on the ballot until he submitted his...

More than five years into his 14-year sentence on corruption convictions, Rod Blagojevich, who once held the highest office in Illinois, finds himself on cleaning duty at a Colorado federal prison. "I've been given the jurisdiction to sweep and mop two floors," he said in an interview with WMAQ-TV in Chicago from prison released Monday, along with an interview in Chicago magazine. "So my jurisdiction has shrunk from the fifth biggest state in America, to these two floors. But I don't care what anybody says, I believe in clean government, and I believe in clean floors."

A former staffer for U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez testified Monday that the Democrat helped with the visa applications of friends of a wealthy doctor who faces bribery charges with him, while defense attorneys sought to show Menendez's actions were unremarkable and part of the duties of his office. Under direct questioning from the government, former senior policy adviser Mark Lopes testified Menendez emailed him in 2008 authorizing a letter of support from Menendez to be sent to consular officials regarding the visa applications of two sisters from the Dominican Republic.*snip*Earlier Monday, a vice president for American Express testified Melgen used...

One of President Trump’s major campaign promises was to Drain the Swamp. It appealed to voters, long worn and tired of the almost constant corruption and misuse of government powers and public money. And the president really did start off well. His Executive Orders on lobbying were seen as a sweeping move that should have been done a long time ago. But as more cases of corruption are being allowed to slip by, it begs two questions: Is the President serious about this? And is it even possible to do? The latest disappointment is the former IRS’s Exempt Organizations Unit...

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and his “campaign donor” Salomon Melgen are currently on trial for political corruption—the Senator for taking bribes and Melgren for paying them. Menendez argues that the “bribes” in exchange for pursuing legislation favorable to Melgren was “just ordinary politics—no worse than the actions of my many peers in Congress.” As a case in point, the Senator pointed out that “former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) was able to fatten his bank account through ‘sweetheart’ real estate deals with one of his donors. And he inserted language in the Affordable Care Act in exchange for money...

(Christian News Alerts) – George Soros, the owner of one of the deepest and most secretive wallets in the Democrat Party, may have finally extended his reach too far. He is helping North Korea and Kim Jong-un. Refuse Fascism, a group funded by Soros, is attempting to pull the Democrats away from working in the interests of the United States, according to The Daily Caller. Back in July, Refuse Fascism released a statement that said the US is bullying and demonizing Kim Jong-un, and needs to reconsider. The statement urged the need to “stop thinking like an American,” and “start...

Booker attended Menendez’s bribery trial on Wednesday in Newark to sit up front to support his Democratic colleague. If Menendez is convicted on any of these serious charges, will Booker return the cash? GotNews editor-in-chief Charles Johnson revealed in 2013 Booker did not live in Newark or at any of the Newark residences he owned. Multiple neighbors who spoke to Johnson said they believed the junior senator actually lived in New York, calling Booker a “liar” and a “fake mayor.” Fake news reporters smeared Johnson for years over his accurate reporting on both Booker and Menendez. Cat pornography site Buzzfeed...

Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his wealthy donor Salomon Melgen engaged in "a corrupt pact spanning seven years," federal prosecutors allege. It was a "bribery scheme," in which Menendez got campaign contributions, chartered flights, luxury accommodations, and more. In return, the senator allegedly took "official action advancing the South Florida eye doctor's personal whims and business interests." Menendez denies all these accusations, and in his defense he will argue that the hundreds of thousands in contributions and the millions worth of gifts he received, combined with the millions in taxpayer cash he tried to get for Melgen,...

For the first time in nearly four decades, a sitting US senator goes on trial Wednesday on federal bribery charges in a case that could have profound political impact. Prosecutors have laid out a strong case against New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez in their indictment. But in the two years since it was unveiled, the Supreme Court has made it much harder to win a conviction. The senator is charged with taking nearly $1 million in personal gifts and campaign cash from a longtime friend, allegedly in return for political favors.

Where’s the wall-to-wall coverage … Something hidden in the New York Times … An initial version of a story about the corruption trial of Senator Robert Menendez in the New York Times didn’t mention that he is a Democrat. According to Josh Jordan on Twitter, the information was “quietly added” to the story. If this was a Republican, the headline would have screamed “GOP Senator faces corruption trial tomorrow.” This is the Times’ subtle bias at work. Unfair to Democrats … The Hill published a laughable op-ed by defense lawyer Joel Cohen that said prosecuting Menendez for corruption “unfairly punishes...

Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) is about to go on trial in New Jersey for corruption offenses. Both he and the government are entitled to a fair trial, whatever the charged offenses, just as in the case of every criminal defendant. No defendant deserves special treatment because he’s a big shot public figure — even the former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and current member and ranking member of several other committees, as Menendez is.