Free Republic

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” NBC News Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Ken Dilanian argued that the signatories of the Hunter Biden laptop letter have “been proven correct” by the indictment of Alexander Smirnov because “we know now that Russian intelligence, at least according to the statements of this informant, bolstered somewhat by this indictment, were feeding him information, false information” even though the laptop’s contents “weren’t” made up and “Many of them have been now corroborated.” Dilanian stated, “[T]hose 51 former intelligence officials, they paid a steep price for signing that letter. The House Republicans conducted an investigation....

Antony Blinken represents neither the beginning nor the end of the info ops run to convince voters the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Revisiting the contemporaneous coverage of the laptop story in light of last week’s revelations about Blinken reveals the scandal extends far beyond the Biden campaign and involves government agents. Last week, news broke that a former top CIA official, Michael Morell, testified as part of a House Judiciary Committee investigation that Blinken, now-secretary of state and then-Biden campaign senior adviser, had contacted Morell to discuss the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. Blinken and Morell...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's National Security Council is preparing for "a very professional transition," because it looks like Joe Biden has won the election, national security adviser Robert O'Brien said in comments that aired Monday. His remarks stood in stark contrast to those of the president, who tweeted falsely just before midnight Sunday, "I WON THE ELECTION," as he continued to make baseless claims of widespread fraud. Twitter put a warning label on the tweet, noting that "official sources have called this election differently." The president's top security official, known as a Trump loyalist, offered a different view....

A review launched by Attorney General William Barr into the origins of the Russia investigation has expanded significantly amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis, multiple current and former officials told NBC News. The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News. Durham has also requested to talk to CIA...

In liberals' imaginations, there are only four ways to lose elections -- and none has to do with their leftist turn, their hysterics or their one-dimensional identity politics. Democrats say they lose because of gerrymandering, voter suppression (sometimes known as asking for ID), Russian mind-control rays deployed by social media, and our antiquated and unfair Constitution. That last excuse is becoming increasingly popular among pundits who continue to invent new crises to freak out about. Take Vox's Ezra Klein, a longtime champion of direct democracy: "I don't think people are ready for the crisis that will follow if Democrats win...

NBC News intelligence and national security reporter Ken Dilanian is no stranger to expressing his opinions on social media. Last month, after the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Dilanian advocated for a change in how senators are allotted to the states. Now, he’s openly wondering “how much longer the American majority will tolerate being pushed around by a rural minority.”

WASHINGTON — Sixteen hours after President Trump tweeted about a right-wing media story alleging that China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private email server, an FBI official is refuting the report in a comment to NBC News.

NBC News intelligence and national security reporter Ken Dilanian on Monday dismissed the Daily Caller as "Trump's pet media" after one of its reporters was called on at a join press conference with President Trump and the Prime Minister of Italy. “What was I saying earlier about Trump’s pet media. He actually called on the Daily Caller. Next up: Sputnik," Dilanian wrote on Twitter on Monday after Daily Caller White House correspondent Saagar Enjeti asked Trump about a possible government shutdown if $25 billion isn't provided by Congress for a border wall along the U.S. Southern border. Enjeti shrugged off...

This is how a media smear works. House Republicans view a secret memo on the Obama administration’s spying on the Trump campaign, express outrage at what they learned and demand the memo be released to the American people so they can see what their government was doing. A left wing site, Hamilton68, that tracks alleged, but unnamed, “Russia-linked influence networks on Twitter” announces those alleged networks are promoting the Release the Memo hashtag. Then NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian trumpets the unsubstantiated findings of the left wing group with a false statement accusing House Republicans of working with Russian propagandists,...

Russian propagandists and House Republicans have joined together to embrace #releasethememo.

The FBI is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with a covert Russian operation to interfere with the election, FBI Director James Comey told Congress Monday — and he refuted the president's baseless claim that his predecessor wiretapped his communications. Comey's confirmation in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee that the Trump campaign was the subject of a U.S. counterintelligence investigation was a revelation that could shadow the Trump presidency.