Free Republic

Since last summer, we’ve witnessed a firestorm of nonstop media coverage about alleged Russian meddling in our election process. Questions arose regarding targets of Russian hacking and communications. Certain outlets (incorrectly) reported that Russia went so far as to hack voting machines and/or paper ballots in battleground states. A liberal shibboleth no less impressive than Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe has been quoted by the Washington Post as stating Trump’s presidency has been “rendered illegitimate by treasonous or otherwise unlawful manipulation.” While I completely disagree with Prof. Tribe’s assertions on presidential legitimacy, I think his mention of “treasonous or otherwise unlawful...

Richmond Fed President Lacker says he was involved with Medley leak, announces immediate resignation Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker announced his immediate resignation Tuesday, admitting that he discussed sensitive information with an analyst regarding the Fed's plans for economic stimulus.

WASHINGTON—Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution, according to officials with knowledge of the matter. As an adviser to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, and later one of Mr. Trump’s top aides in the White House, Mr. Flynn was privy to some of the most sensitive foreign-policy deliberations of the new administration and was directly involved in discussions about the possible lifting of sanctions on...

Devin Nunes Chief of the House Intelligence Committee has put the Committee on hold in their investigations of Trump Transition Team leaks and Russia/Trump probe. So Comey and Rogers are holding up major investigations. It seems this would be embarrassing to Comey, but honestly after just watching his questioning on Capitol Hill on March 20, 2017 by Trey Gowdy, I am questioning the mental health of Comey. In trying to understand who could have briefed President Obama of the Trump surveillance which ended up in two newspapers, Gowdy repeatedly questioned Comey and gave him every chance to tell the truth....

Former Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Evelyn Farkas, made some stunning admissions during an interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski. While discussing the mad scramble by the Obama administration to collect and preserve intelligence on alleged Russian election hacking before Obama left office, it appears that Farkas accidentally implicated the Obama White House in the surveillance of Trump's campaign staff: {..snip..}

The Gang of Eight is a colloquial term for a set of eight leaders within the United States Congress who are briefed on classified intelligence matters by the executive branch. Specifically, the Gang of Eight includes the leaders of each of the two parties from both the Senate and House of Representatives, and the chairs and ranking minority members of both the Senate Committee and House Committee for intelligence as set forth by 50 U.S.C. § 413(b). The President of the United States is required by 50 U.S.C. § 413(a)(1) to "ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully...

The judges were wrong to base their decisions in part on the leaked document. President Trump had clear constitutional and statutory authority to issue the travel order, and whether the judges, or some anonymous person at DHS, agreed with his judgment is irrelevant. But Leahy skillfully unpacks what happened here. The draft report came from DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which was headed by David Grannis, an Obama holdover bureaucrat. Grannis is a partisan Democrat who previously worked as a staffer for Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Jane Harman. A DHS spokesman “would neither confirm nor deny that Grannis was...

This idiot made such a fool of herself as a spokesgirl for the prior administration's bureaucracy that she was transferred to some less visible role. Now Fox has her as a regular contributor, no thanks. Now there is no refuge from the garbage of the left.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is highly regarded within political circles for his ability to capture the mood of the moment and milk it to his advantage. However, whether Senator Schumer should command respect based upon consistency and willingness to put principles ahead of "politics of the moment" is another matter. This can be seen clearly by the Senator's statements in the current flap over whether a White House official - Karl Rove is the one taking the rap in press allegations -- had permitted disclosure of a CIA agent's name. Don't take my word for it. Let Senator Schumer's...

FBI Director James Comey declined to say Monday whether his team has launched an investigation into the leaks that led to former White House national security advisor Mike Flynn's ouster. Comey was pressed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to say whether he could confirm such an investigation is taking place, but Comey said he could not because it might confirm that classified information was leaked. "I can't, but I hope people watching know how seriously we take leaks of classified information," he said during Monday's hearing on Russia's influence on the election. "But I don't want to confirm it by...

Rep. Trey Gowdy grilled FBI Director James Comey on the several intelligence leaks that made headlines this year. The leaks to the liberal media were meant to damage Trump administration officials. Rep. Gowdy: I thought it was against the law to disseminate classified information. Is it? Director Comey: Oh yes. It’s a serious crime. Gowdy then reminded Comey that the Obama officials who leaked the classified information face up to ten years in prison.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul over the weekend offered a unique solution to the problem of government leaks, which have plagued President Donald Trump’s administration in its first two months. Speaking on ABC “This Week” Sunday, Paul suggested that to find the source of the leaks, such as the transcripts of conversations Michael Flynn had with Russian officials — which eventually led to his resignation — the Trump administration should conduct lie detector tests. “It is very, very important that whoever released that go to jail because you cannot have members of the intelligence community listening to the most private and...

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

While explaining exactly how the Deep State is attacking Trump Loren DeJonge Schulman describes himself as a “card-carrying former member of America’s vast national security bureaucracy.” (They give cards for that?) He doesn’t like people claiming there is a “Deep State” that’s out to sabotage Donald Trump. He thinks the whole idea of a Deep State is a lurid fantasy that gets people’s hackles up but has no basis in reality.

Political sabotage will continue to threaten President Trump until he finally acts decisively. Another week passes, another slew of devious political attacks on President Donald J. Trump by political operatives inside the government. Regardless of legalities, politically motivated leaks are being routinely and systematically fed to the hostile news media. The illegal leaking of damaging and/or embarrassing information puts President Trump’s administration perpetually on the defensive, therefore unable to really focus on their agenda and enacting the policies that were promised on the campaign trail. This behavior by government insiders (saboteurs) demonstrates the attitude of those who served in the...

If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel then it has become a all-inclusive resort for Obama appointees.This would have been the big story earlier in the week had the Washington Post not launched a feeding frenzy on Jeff Sessions’s tangential contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States. From the New York Times in a story headlined Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking. In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates...

Over the last few weeks, the “Deep State” has been conducting war against President Trump and his administration. Democrats in congress and their stenographers in the mainstream media are celebrating “victories” over political adversaries by means of drawing fake news from anonymous leaks. Facts, it seems, have no place in these contrived assaults on the White House. During just over five weeks in office this president has been under near constant attack by the unelected bureaucrats who pose a direct threat to America’s democratic institutions. It literally represents a threat to the peaceful transition of power and directly undermines both...

Advisers to President Donald Trump are urging him to purge the government of former President Barack Obama's political appointees and quickly install more people who are loyal to him. A number of his advisers believe Obama officials are behind the leaks and are seeking to undermine his presidency, with just the latest example coming from reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice last year with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and apparently misled senators about the interactions during his confirmation hearing. That was coupled with a New York Times story that Obama appointees spread information about the investigation...

The House Intelligence Committee has released the “Scope of Investigation” for its inquiry into the alleged Russian active measures campaign targeting the 2016 U.S. election. One item on the agenda is, “What possible leaks of classified information took place related to the Intelligence Community Assessment of these matters?” That is an easy one. One of the answers lies with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who “broke” the story regarding illegal surveillance of Trump national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. Ignatius received illegal leaks of classified communications involving Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the United States. The...

President Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin used his first senior staff meeting last month to tell his new aides he would not tolerate leaks to the news media, sources familiar with the matter said. Current and former officials said that in a departure from past practice, access to a classified computer system at the White House has been tightened by political appointees to prevent professional staffers from seeing memos being prepared for the new president. Washington career civil servants say the clampdown appears designed to try to limit the flow of information inside and outside government and deter officials...