Free Republic

Congressional staffers allegedly held their stepmother in “captivity” with violent threats in a plan to use her to access money stashed away in the Middle East. The staffers are suspected of using their positions to enrich themselves. Days before U.S. Capitol Police told House members three Pakistani brothers who ran their computer networks may have stolen congressional data, their stepmother called Fairfax County, Virginia police to say the Democratic staffers were keeping her from her husband’s deathbed. A relative described the woman’s life as being completely controlled by the brothers for months while they schemed to take their father’s life...

Dozens of House Democrats have collectively paid $4 million since 2009 to Pakistani IT professionals now under criminal investigation who had access to House members' email and computer files. Capitol Police is investigating whether five members of the Awan family from Pakistan engaged in criminal activity, including theft, as computer administrators for dozens of House Democrats, some of whom serve on the intelligence, homeland security, and foreign affairs committees. Democratic members from multiple committees "were inexplicably paying" the suspects who "they rarely or never saw," the Daily Caller News Foundation reported Wednesday. The suspects–brothers Imran, Abid, and Jamal, and two...

Two IT staffers who have been under investigation by Capitol Hill police for a month were fired this week by two House Democrats. Politico reports: Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) confirmed to Politico that Hina Alvi’s last day as an IT support staffer in his office was Tuesday. Her husband, Imran Awan, was working for Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) as of Tuesday evening, but a spokeswoman for Fudge said midday Wednesday that Awan was no longer an employee. As of Wednesday, Awan was still working as a technology adviser for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), although he’s been blocked from accessing...

Rogue congressional staffers took $100,000 from an Iraqi politician while they had administrator-level access to the House of Representatives’ computer network, according to court documents examined by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. The money was a loan from Dr. Ali al-Attar, an Iraqi political figure, and was funneled through a company with “impossible”-to-decipher financial transactions that the congressional information technology (IT) staffers controlled. Imran Awan, ringleader of the group that includes his brothers Abid and Jamal, has provided IT services since 2005 for Florida Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman. The brothers...

Congressional aides suspected of criminally misusing their access to House computer systems owed $100,000 to an Iraqi politician who is wanted by U.S. authorities and has been linked to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Middle Eastern terrorist outfit. Imran Awan and four of his relatives were employed as information technology (IT) aides by dozens of House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. The aides’ administrator-level IT access was terminated earlier this month amid a criminal probe by U.S. Capitol Police of a suspected security breach, including an off-site server housing congressional data. The Daily Caller News...

Jay Sekulow is one of the best. He carefully sources his topics and he knows the law as well as anyone. Do not overlook this story, or neglect to pass it on.

On today’s Fox News Sunday, Rush Limbaugh said that “embeds” by former President Obama and Hillary Clinton in the “deep state”—the permanent bureaucracy—are “absolutely” behind the leaks about ties between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Rush added that “the left, which is run by Obama and Hillary and the hierarchy of the Democrat party, is doing everything they can to undermine, sabotage, and to prevent Trump from implementing his agenda. There’s no question about it.” View the video here.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff and #NeverTrump Republican Katie Walsh has been identified as the source behind a bunch of leaks from the Trump administration to The New York Times and other media outlets, according to multiple sources in the White House, media, donor community, and pro-Trump 501(c)4 political group. “Everyone knows not to talk to her in the White House unless you want to see it in the press,” says a source close to the president. “The only question is whether or not she’s doing it at the behest of [White House Chief of Staff] Reince Priebus or...

Not much can get between senators and a recess. Except, perhaps, FBI Director James B. Comey. Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with ex-officio member and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, huddled for a total of more than two hours on Friday with Comey. The FBI director’s visit was not announced publicly, and it’s possible members of the Capitol Hill press corps only found out because he was spotted in the hallways and entered a secure room used for intelligence briefings. But leaving that secure room in the Capitol Visitor Center, senators declined to even confirm the presence of...

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was dismissed amid a torrent of mainstream-media reporting and disgraceful government leaks (but I repeat myself). Among the most intriguing was a New York Times report the morning after Flynn’s resignation, explaining that the former three-star Army general and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was “grilled” by FBI agents “about a phone call he had had with Russia’s ambassador.” No fewer than seven veteran Times reporters contributed to the story, the Gray Lady having dedicated more resources to undermining the Trump administration than the Republican Congress has to advancing Trump’s agenda. Remarkably, none of...

Thomas Victor’s analysis of Trump’s successful STING against the Obama holdovers in the so-called intelligence community, as well as the Monolithic Media enemies!

President Trump has defeated Democrats in the intelligence community (IC) who were leaking classified information to the press. Such leaks have been a problem for many presidents, but Trump is the first who took a proactive approach and set up a sting operation that identified the leakers. It’s highly illegal to leak classified information. It’s also illegal to PUBLISH this information, but Trump is too smart to try and prosecute reporters. I thought that Trump would fire members of the IC until the leaks stopped, but the president solved the problem with a much more imaginative and deadly approach: He...

Washington is abuzz with the saga of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation, the Russia connection, and the melodrama of who knew what, when, and what they did about it. There are, to be sure, myriad aspects of this story that will consume the media, the Hill, civil society, and the like for a while. We want to highlight one—and only one—serious aspect of this story that has been underreported: the unauthorized (and criminal) leaks of highly classified information to the media by a person or persons in the government. We will not weigh in on the panoply of...

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches. The change means that far more officials will be searching through...

Why Was the FBI Investigating General Flynn? There appears to have been no basis for a criminal or intelligence probe. By Andrew C. McCarthy — February 18, 2017 National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was dismissed amid a torrent of mainstream-media reporting and disgraceful government leaks (but I repeat myself). Among the most intriguing was a New York Times report the morning after Flynn’s resignation, explaining that the former three-star Army general and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was “grilled” by FBI agents “about a phone call he had had with Russia’s ambassador.” No fewer than seven veteran Times reporters...

Dozens of House Democrats allowed four Muslim spies to steal security secrets, and paid each of them a salary of $160,000 a year Dozens of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives allowed four Muslim spies to have access to sensitive security information that they weren’t legally authorized to see, and paid each of them a salary of $160,000 a year.The Democrats ignored various red flags, such as their shady real estate dealings, massive amounts of debt, and criminal activities, because they did not want to be accused of “Islamophobia.”Are these the same spies who hacked into Hillary Clinton’s private email...