Free Republic

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...

Hillary Clinton purchased some of the BlackBerries she used as secretary of state on eBay, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz said on Wednesday.“That’s what she liked, so she did it. It creates this huge vulnerability. And it’s unnecessary,” Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said during a forum hosted by the American Enterprise Institute.The forum was held to discuss last year’s hack of the Office of Personnel Management.“I don’t want to get into this too much, but part of what was happening with the secretary of state is, she was acquiring technology that wasn’t even supported by...

California's illegal alien-supporting attorney general, Xavier Becerra, has been curiously silent about that fake server he handed over to cops to obstruct their Imran Awan investigation, according to a new report from the Daily Caller. The broader scandal was outlined in this piece by Thomas Lifson yesterday. Becerra's role is worth noting because he is considered top Democratic talent, a Democratic Party star, with many Democratic leadership positions, including a seat on the House Ways and Means committee, chairmanship of the House Democratic Caucus (now at the center of the Imran Awan secret server scandal) and lately a post as...

A secret server is behind the Capitol Police’s decision to ban a former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the House network. Now-indicted former congressional IT aide Imran Awan allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server. Police grew suspicious and requested a copy of the server early this year, but they were provided with an elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations. The falsified image is what ultimately triggered their ban from the House network Feb. 2, according to a senior House official with direct knowledge of the investigation. The secret server was connected...

The Senate Judiciary Committee has discovered FBI transcripts that reveal former FBI-Director Comey was ready and prepared to completely exonerate Hillary Clinton way before the investigation had concluded, before key interviews with most of the witnesses had occurred, before they had interviewed Hillary Clinton, and before the Lynch-Clinton tarmac meeting took place which was the excuse for Comey's public exoneration of Hillary Clinton. Grassley and Graham say they have transcripts of two FBI officials saying Comey was prepared to exonerate Clinton BEFORE FBI interviewed her — Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 31, 2017 In a letter to the new FBI Director Christopher...

EMAILID 41841 John Podesta on On Mon, Mar 2, 2015: On another matter....and not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later Cherly Mills think you just got your new nick name :) Paul Combetta, an employee of Platt River Networks used BleachBit to dump 33K emails between March 25-31 according to press reports. Shortly after having a phone conversation with Cheryl Mills . Was Podesta talking about deleting the emails here?https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/41841 A short little email from someone called Tina to John Podesta on 2015-04-08...

A Kansas judge ordered some of the 107 charges filed against Planned Parenthood for engaging in illegal abortions and covering up those cases thanks to the destruction of records that took place during the Sebelius administration.The case with 107 charges against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri came about when former state attorney general Phill Kline brought the charges after obtaining evidence in patient records showing Planned Parenthood committed illegal late-term abortions and then manufactured documents to cover up their crimes. The charges allege the abortion business potentially engaged in illegal abortions and violated state record-keeping laws. Kline, as the...

President Trump was sworn into office six months ago. Senate Democrats have had plenty of time to come to terms with the election results. Unfortunately, they are channeling their disappointment through the confirmation process by engaging in an unprecedented level of obstruction of President Trump’s well-qualified nominees. It’s nearly August, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have only allowed us to confirm 55 of President Trump’s 242 nominees – or 23 percent. By the August recess of President Barack Obama’s first term, the Senate had confirmed 313 of his 454 nominees – or 69 percent. At...

Former Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Fla) is in the midst of deciding whether or not to cooperate with DC police investigating possible violations of national security laws by her former top information technology (IT) aide, Imran Awan. Awan and several of his relatives are accused of abusing access granted by their Democratic Party employers to obtain and sell classified information. Thus far, Wasserman-Schultz has been refusing to turnover computers used by Awan so police can examine them. She has claimed exemption from law enforcement saying that "according to the Constitution, members of congress are privileged from arrest....

President Trump may cancel Congress‘ summer recess and demand that lawmakers stick around through August to force Democrats to confirm more of his nominees, the White House said Monday, throwing down a challenge to senators who have tried to obstruct him at nearly every turn. Democrats have mounted filibusters on 90 percent of the president’s picks that have reached the Senate floor — much higher than the 10 percent rate that Republicans mounted for President Obama’s, the White House said. Republicans said it is the worst treatment of any president’s nominees in modern political history. “The president has every right...

The decision by Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe (D.) not to cooperate with a White House commission examining voting processes in federal elections comes after a year in which the governor circumvented the commonwealth's supreme court to restore voting rights for convicted felons and stalled efforts by the Virginia legislature to fight voter fraud.McAuliffe announced on Thursday evening he has "no intention of honoring" a request for publicly available voter data made by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was established through a May executive order and is being led by Vice President Mike Pence.McAuliffe stated in his rejection...

An FBI agent has been indicted on accusations that he lied about firing at a rancher in 2016 when officers arrested leaders of an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in rural Oregon. Sources familiar with the case say the agent will face allegations of making a false statement with intent to obstruct justice, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Tuesday. The indictment stems from more than a yearlong investigation by the U.S. Justice Department inspector general. The agent will be identified when summoned to appear Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland. Authorities moved in on Ammon Bundy and other leaders...

Trump did not obstruct a valid FBI investigation; he demanded the exposure of a false one. The “collusion” narrative was a fraud, plain and simple. We know that now. Hopefully, it won’t take another six months to grasp a second plain and simple truth: Collusion’s successor, the “obstruction” narrative, is a perversion. The Left loves narrative. The ever-expanding story manipulates time, space, and detail to fit a thematic framework. Political narrative has some surface appeal, but it is deeply flawed. It obscures plain and simple truth. So let’s stick with the plain and simple: The essence of obstruction is to...

“The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.” -- DOJ opinion, October 16, 2000 The Department of Justice has long held that it would be unconstitutional to criminally charge and prosecute a sitting president. The Constitution itself expressly states that “indictment, trial, judgment and punishment” can occur only after a president is convicted upon impeachment (Article 1, Section 3). However, there is nothing to prevent a special counsel from investigating a president and leveling an accusation with no formal charge. The accusation could be...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that the National Security Council (NSC) on May 23, 2017, informed it by letter that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” have been removed to the Obama Library. The NSC will not fulfill an April 4 Judicial Watch request for records regarding information relating to people “who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.” The agency also informed Judicial Watch that it would not turn over communications with any Intelligence Community...

On Friday morning, when Trump lashed out at what appeared to be Rod Rosenstein on Twitter, many took his statement as confirmation of last week’s WaPo report that Trump is under investigation for obstruction of justice by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller: “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.” On Sunday, however, Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow made the media rounds to explain that Trump’s tweet was not an admission, and that Trump is not under investigation in the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the...

"EXCLUSIVE: FBI Used Agents As Pawns To Insulate Hillary, Aides & Clinton Foundation From Prosecutions" In mid-summer a wave of panic and despair began to wash over key rank-and-file FBI agents who were doggedly working the Hillary Clinton investigations. Agents reluctantly pondered a potential, brutal reality that was creeping into the fabric of the high-profile case. What if their collective work wasn’t meant to bring this case to a grand jury for indictments and justice? What if they themselves, FBI agents sworn to uphold the law, were being used as intelligence pawns by superiors and higher powers to actually shield...

The Senate Intelligence Committee will not investigate whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice as part of its probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, CNN reported. The decision came after leaders of the Senate panel met with special counsel Robert Mueller. "Obstruction is criminal —​ there's a criminal aspect to that," committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, told CNN. "It's never been part of our" investigation.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will support subpoenaing James Comey to testify if needed, arguing it is crucial for the former FBI director come before the panel.  Feinstein sent a letter Thursday to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the committee, saying they are on the same page about the need for Comey to testify before their committee, which has oversight of the FBI.    "We unanimously believe that Director Comey should testify before our Committee regarding serious concerns that have been raised about political interference with FBI investigations and possible obstruction of justice. ... Be assured...

“This Russian investigation has gone nowhere, so they’re coming up with new charges,” said Jay Sekulow, one of President Trump’s attorneys. Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, was reacting to a report in Thursday’s Washington Post that says Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump “for possible obstruction of justice.” The report, based on five anonymous sources, describes the latest (alleged) development in the investigation as a “major turning point.” The newspaper said investigators also are looking for evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates. “If this is true that five individuals inside...