Free Republic

In his first press conference since being elected president, Donald Trump thanked the media. He praised news outfits that didn't publish a story about a document that describes alleged Russian efforts to compromise him, even though many of those news organizations had the story for months and held on to it. The two press outfits that did publish the story, CNN and BuzzFeed, got whipped by the president-elect. Trump called them "fake news" and refused to take questions from reporters representing their organizations. You almost have to wonder, though, if he shouldn't be going easy on them, especially BuzzFeed, which...

Trump's USA may cooperate with Russia like never before, significantly altering global power equations. The invocation of the "foreign hand" to explain unexpected political developments is quite common in the [Indian] subcontinent. But the last place in the world to have a debate on the "foreign hand" is the United States. Usually, it is Washington that is accused of meddling in the internal affairs of other nations -- from promoting military coups to propping up friendly regimes and engineering regime changes. But right now, it is America that is debating the nature and extent of the Russian President Vladimir Putin's...

President Obama has put Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified material, on his short list for a possible commutation, a Justice Department source told NBC News. A decision could come as soon as Wednesday for Manning, who has tried to commit suicide twice this year and went on a hunger strike in a bid for gender reassignment surgery. "I have more hope right now than I have the entire time since she was sentenced," Manning's aunt, Deborah Manning, told NBC News....

In January, 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Farewell Address after serving two terms as U.S. President; the five-star General chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” That warning was issued prior to the decade-long escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction’s power even further. This...

As the debate over Russian hacking efforts during the presidential campaign continues, voters here generally approve of the job U.S. intelligence agencies are doing but also suspect that they play politics. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters believe America’s intelligence agencies have their own political agenda.  Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagree and think they generally perform impartially. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. 

A US president does not have to be on friendly terms with his spy agencies. On the contrary: US history demonstrates — not only since the services provided false evidence of alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which were cited as a main reason for waging war against that country — that a healthy dose of skepticism, better still, a well-founded mistrust of the intelligence services, is necessary. This applies to US intelligence agencies in their entirety, but also in particular to the current Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who has built up a reputation of occasionally bending...

The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times EST): 12:15 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump says he'll ask Congress to investigate leaks to the media on U.S. intelligence alleging Russia meddled in last year's election by hacking Democratic emails. Less than an hour before he was to be briefed Friday by the directors of the FBI and CIA and the Director of National Intelligence on their findings, Trump tweeted that he was "asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it." NBC aired a report Thursday that said...

U.S. Intelligence officials are arriving at Trump Tower in New York to brief President-elect Donald Trump on election hacking. The officials are Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey. They're preparing to point to multiple motives for Moscow's alleged meddling as they brief Trump on their classified report. They briefed senior lawmakers Friday morning. They briefed President Barack Obama on Thursday.

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday called for lawmakers to investigate U.S. intelligence leaks to NBC about information on Russian interference in the presidential election. “I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it,” Trump tweeted Friday. The NBC report cited “a senior U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge” of the intel report that was delivered to President Obama on Thursday and is scheduled to be delivered to Trump on Friday. "Highly classified intercepts illustrate Russian government planning and direction of a multifaceted campaign by Moscow...

Former President of Mexico Vicente Fox took to Twitter on Friday to question the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump’s election win. "Sr Trump,the intelligence report is devastating. Losing election by more than 3M votes and in addition this. Are you a legitimate president?"

Often dismissed as bird-brains, chickens are showing they’ve got some smartsAs we get ready to launch ourselves into the Year of the Rooster, here’s news that could give you new respect for the humble chicken. Researchers have determined that chickens are smarter than we think, have a good measure of self-control, and might even have Machiavellian tendencies. A study published this week in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Animal Cognition, revealed that those bird-brained chickens are actually pretty smart, as most backyard chicken farmers have long maintained. Neuroscientist Lori Marino authored the paper, which compiled the conclusions of several studies showing...

As you can see President-elect Trump was briefed today, and he now knows, as we all do, that Russia, according to the Intelligence report, directed the cyber attacks which embarrassed the Democrats. However, it must be stressed that no attack or interference occurred within the voting machines or in the Election. This must be stressed. President-elect Trump will become President Trump on January 20, 2016.

President-elect Donald Trump plans to pick former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, overseeing 17 intelligence agencies, according to a transition official. If he is confirmed by the Senate, Coats would face a daunting task as the bridge between Trump and the intelligence community. Trump has begun openly feuding with intelligence agencies over their conclusion that Russia hacked into Democratic computers to influence the election. Coats recently concluded a term in the Senate, after also serving there from 1989 through 1999. He has also served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany. Coats, who served on the Senate intelligence...

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested at a congressional hearing Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump is disparaging the US intelligence community as he refuses to acknowledge Russia's role in election-related hacking. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, asked Clapper during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing who benefits from Trump "trashing the intelligence community" as he expresses skepticism about intelligence assessments that show Russia was involved in hacking Democratic Party organizations in an attempt to influence the election. Clapper said he is "apolitical" and cautioned against disparaging the intelligence community. "I think there is an important distinction here...

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday picked former Indiana Senator Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, two sources briefed on the decision told Fox News. The official announcement is expected later this week, according to the AP, as Trump makes final decisions on some of the major positions he needs to fill before he is sworn in on Jan. 20. Coats, a Republican, served as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee before retiring from Congress last year. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Germany. As director of national intelligence, Coats would oversee an office created after 9/11 to...

President-elect Donald Trump, a harsh critic of U.S. intelligence agencies, is working with top advisers on a plan that would restructure and pare back the nations’ top spy agency, people familiar with the planning said, prompted by a belief that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has become bloated and politicized. The planning comes as Mr. Trump has leveled a series of social media attacks in recent months and the past few days against U.S. intelligence agencies, dismissing and mocking their assessment that the Russian government hacked emails of Democratic groups and individuals and then leaked them last...

Donald J. Trump Verified account ‏@realDonaldTrump The "Intelligence" briefing on so-called "Russian hacking" was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!

GOP Rep. Peter King accused CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday of orchestrating a “hit job” against GOP President-elect Donald Trump. In an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” King, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said while he agrees there should be an investigation into Russian involvement in the election, there should also be an investigation into Brennan for the “hit job he seems to be orchestrating against the president-elect,” Politico reports. This hit job, according to King, has taken the form of Brennan allegedly leaking intelligence assessments to the press and circumventing Congress, in...

The CIA is in really big trouble now over the whole Russia hack thing. Now Congress is coming after them, not because they lied about it, but because they LEAKED a “top secret” document about it. Congressman Peter King told ABC News, “WE HAVE SUPPOSEDLY [CIA DIRECTOR] JOHN BRENNAN LEAKING INFORMATION TO THE WASHINGTON POST, TO A BIASED NEWSPAPER LIKE THE NEW YORK TIMES — FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS THAT HE’S NOT TELLING THE [HOUSE] INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROLXh_llpzg

Although the Obama administration alerted Americans to Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. election in October, a full month before the election, the hacking of Democrats' emails didn't become a big deal until Donald Trump's surprise victory on Nov. 8.