Free Republic

LARRY TRIBE: A SAD CASE I knew Larry Tribe decades ago, when he coached the Harvard debate team and I debated for Dartmouth. We had a friendly relationship then, and also later when I took a course from him at Harvard Law School. The Larry Tribe I knew was a smart and normal guy. Today, unfortunately, he has gone off the rails. One could say that he personifies the descent of much of the Democratic Party into madness. Witness, for example, yesterday’s tweet: Laurence Tribe @tribelaw Not at all. It looks like Russia picked Tillerson to be a Putin puppet,...

President Donald Trump sent a clear message to European allies and senior administration officials Tuesday when he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson:  the President remains steadfast on implementing his strategy to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means dismantling the 2015 Iran nuclear deal established by President Obama, sources told this reporter.Trump, who ‘begrudgingly’ recertified the Iran deal January, will not re-certify in May if Germany, France or Great Britain back down from the conditions the administration set in place at the beginning of the year to hold Tehran accountable for its nuclear program, a White House official...

The abrupt firing Tuesday of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson follows months of infighting between the State Department and White House over efforts by Tillerson to save the Iran nuclear deal and ignore President Donald Trump's demands that the agreement be fixed or completely scrapped by the United States, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon. In the weeks leading up to Tillerson's departure, he had been spearheading efforts to convince European allies to agree to a range of fixes to the nuclear deal that would address Iran's ongoing ballistic missile...

On my first show for MSNBC last June, I sat down at Langley with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now President Trump’s nominee for secretary of state. A quick read of the transcript will not only explain the sudden change at Foggy Bottom but also should reassure any fair-minded person that a much-needed infusion of talent and presidential trust is on the way. It’s been hard to find anyone in the White House to say a bad word about the character or personality of Rex Tillerson or a good word about his leadership at State. The friction between the White House...

The purge at the State Department isn’t stopping with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson. Stephen Goldstein, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, was fired after putting out a statement apparently contradicting the White House’s version of why Mr. Tillerson was fired. Mr. Trump said the parting of the ways was in the works for some time, but a statement issued by Mr. Goldstein Tuesday morning said Mr. Tillerson “did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason” for his dismissal.

It's coming...just wait for it. Any minute now, the press will declare President Trump's ouster of secretary of state Rex Tillerson as "chaos" and "disarray." Such baloney. Tillerson was a good man, and he ably served the country in getting the Saudi Arabians to turn hard toward the West as the Iran threat loomed. That's a real achievement. The result we now see – from Saudis allowing women to drive to Saudis changing their stance toward Israel in a friendly direction to Saudis putting the screws to the local billionaire princeling financiers of Osama bin Laden and other lunatic forces,...

Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced his final day at the Department after President Trump announced his firing earlier in the day. He will hand off his responsibilities to Deputy Secretary John Sullivan. "My commission as secretary of state will terminate at midnight March the 31st," Tillerson said. “What is most important is to ensure an orderly and smooth transition during a time that the country continues to face significant policy and national security challenges.” Tillerson listed off a number of accomplishments at the State Department and thanked agency employees, in addition to military members,...