Free Republic

In multiple embassies around the world, particularly those staffed entirely by career Foreign Service officers, no portrait of President Trump or Vice-President Pence has been hung. Up until last week, the swamp had an excuse – there was no official portrait and the swamp refused to go to the trouble to find unofficial ones. But it’s not just the entrances to embassies where it seems the 2016 election never happened. All throughout the government, Obama-holdovers who rabidly oppose President Trump and his policies still hold positions of extraordinary power. The swamp is alive and well. Consider the National Security...

<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who will accompany President Trump on his trip to Asia, didn’t exactly get a ringing endorsement from the commander in chief – who said “we’ll see” if the top diplomat serves out the duration term.</p>

Congressional representatives and others gather in front of the Capitol to support Kurds in Iraq. Photo: Rudaw WASHINGTON, D.C. - Several US congressmen including war veterans gathered in front of the Capitol to slam the presence of Iran-backed militias within the Iraqi Interior Ministry and call for more US State Department and White House support for Kurds. "A picture is worth 1,000 words. There's the M1 Abrams tank with a Hezbollah flag. I don't care what the State Department says, they can't argue with this. At the best, the State Department has been derelict in its duties,” US Congressman...

President Donald Trump has made it clear to the State Department that he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining Hillary Clinton emails in its possession as soon as possible, according to three sources familiar with the President's thinking. The sources described the President's interest in the release of the emails -- and the testimony of the FBI informant -- as rooted in a commitment to "transparency," with one source adding that "the law requires cooperation with Congress and the courts." . In a memo to State Department employees, Tillerson said that the department will commit more resources and...

We congratulate the Syrian people and the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the Syrian Arab Coalition, on the liberation of Raqqa. The United States is proud to lead the 73-member Global Coalition that supported this effort, which has seen ISIS’s so-called caliphate crumble across Iraq and Syria. Our work is far from over but the liberation of Raqqa is a critical milestone in the global fight against ISIS, and underscores the success of the ongoing international and Syrian effort to defeat these terrorists. In January, ISIS was actively plotting terrorist attacks against our allies and our homeland in Raqqa. Nine short...

In response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit, the State Department claims in a legal document that it has no records involving refugee travel loans that the agency gives foreigners overseas to buy plane tickets to fly to the United States. The program is operated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental group that assists refugees worldwide with hundreds of millions of dollars from Uncle Sam. The money is channeled through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). In fiscal year 2016 the State Department gave IOM  $477,257,564, according to the agency’s report on contributions to...

Defense Secretary James Mattis told the US Army it “must stand ready” and have military options “our president can deploy” in case diplomacy fails to solve the standoff with increasingly belligerent North Korea. “There’s one thing the U.S. Army can do, and that is you have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed,” Mattis told the Association of the US Army’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, on Monday, according to The Hill. “But that means the U.S. Army must stand ready, and so, if you’re ready, that’s your duty...

During the Clinton Administration, the Drudge Report was just an obscure news accumulator site until it became the first news outlet to report the fact that Slick Willie was having an affair with one of his interns in the Oval Office. We found out later that several fake reporters at major mainstream media outlets had had that story, but sat on it for months until the Drudge revelation force them to actually do their jobs. Fast forward to 2017, and we have NBC News issuing a report Tuesday morning, based on nothing but the alleged statements of several unidentified sources,...

Tillerson is a subtle, dignified man working in an administration that does not particularly welcome individuals bragging about their accomplishments. Perhaps that is why the administration’s detractors have found him so easy to attack. But the fact is that Tillerson has conducted a significant amount of critical outreach and diplomatic maneuvering — particularly within Asia. Tillerson has traveled to the region three times, and already twice to China. Senior leaders and Cabinet members have backed these efforts as well, with the likes of Vice President Pence, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others reassuring allies in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere...

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man... 10:30 AM - 1 Oct 2017 ...Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done! 10:31 AM - 1 Oct 2017

The U.S. State Department has backed away from a demand that Israel return $75 million in military aid which was allocated to it by the U.S. Congress. The repayment demand, championed by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was described as an underhanded attempt by the State Department to derail a campaign pledge by U.S. President Donald J. Trump to improve relations with the Jewish state. The dispute is the just the latest example of what appears to be a growing power struggle between the State Department and the White House over the future direction of American foreign policy. The...

The Talk Shows Sep 17th, 2017 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): National security adviser H.R. McMaster; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.THIS WEEK (ABC): British Prime Minister Theresa May; McMaster; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is spearheading an effort to force Israel to give back $75 million in aid allocated by Congress last year, the Washington Free Beacon reported Friday. The funds were awarded in defiance of the Obama Administration’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which increased military aid to Israel from around $3 to $3.8 billion for the next ten years, with several provisos, one of which was a commitment on Israel’s part not to seek additional military aid from Congress. The other, even more devastating, was an eventual block on the money going to Israeli companies, essentially keeping all...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was so disturbed by the clash of protesters in Charlottesville that he made a policy decision he may have to reverse: In a speech at the State Department on August 19, he repudiated hatred and racism before addressing what he called “a great diversity gap” in employment and ambassadorships. He meant that there are too few employees and ambassadors who are “diverse” on account of their race, or ethnicity, or sex, or sexual orientation. He did not say how many of this or that diversity group the department needed among its employees or ambassadors to...

Most of the United States’ special envoys will be abolished and their responsibilities reassigned as part of the State Department overhaul, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Congress on Monday, including envoys for climate change and the Iran deal. Special envoys for Afghanistan-Pakistan, disability rights and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center will be eliminated under the plan. But President Donald Trump’s administration plans to keep envoys for religious freedom, fighting anti-Semitism and LGBT rights, despite speculation from critics that it would seek to downgrade those priorities. Lawmakers of both parties, think tanks and even the diplomats’ association have long...

President Donald Trump will have lunch with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Monday after Tillerson appeared to distance Trump’s statements from the nation’s values. The president isn’t one to take kindly to criticism, but he has yet to publicly comment on Tillerson’s remarks. The White House schedule for Monday says that Trump and Vice President Pence will have lunch with the secretary of state, and later Trump will host a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. Tillerson appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and said that the State Department represents “America’s values, our commitment to freedom, our commitment to...

This is pretty extraordinary, as the startled reaction from Chris Wallace demonstrates. In an interview aired Sunday morning on Fox, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson draws a sharp distinction between the values of the American people and the American government on one hand, and the values expressed by his boss, President Trump, on the other hand. *** “This administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities,” Cohn said, acknowledging the difficulty it has caused for him and others at top...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that Sebastian Gorka was "completely wrong" in his resignation letter's assessment of the battle over Trump administration policy. Gorka unexpectedly resigned his post as Deputy Assistant to the President on Friday; his claim he resigned conflicted with reports that he was pushed out. In his resignation letter, he wrote "forces that do not support the [Make America Great Again] promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House," warning of the impact so-called "globalists" could have on Trump's agenda. "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked Tillerson about Gorka's accusations, especially...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sunday that President Trump "speaks for himself" when he was asked about the president's values and response to the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va. "I don't believe anyone doubts the American people's values or the commitment of the government or the government's agencies to advancing those values and defending those values," Tillerson told Chris Wallace on "Fox New Sunday," adding "the president speaks for himself." The secretary of State was responding to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which recently criticized Trump's response to Charlottesville. "We express America's values...

Startling statement this morning from Sec. Tillerson being interviewed by Fox's Wallace. When Wallace asked him about Trump's commander in chief responsibilities, he essentially dissed Trump and his agenda by making a distinction between what State and the White House think should be done. This discussion after mentioning Gorka's sudden departure from the White House.