Free Republic

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee spent Monday’s Manhattan field hearing blaming guns, not people, for crime. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee spent Monday’s Manhattan field hearing blaming guns, not the criminals behind them, for the nation’s crime epidemic. The committee held a field hearing in Manhattan as New York City deteriorates from an American centerpiece of capital ingenuity into a treacherous urban jungle where far-left prosecutors allow criminals to control the streets. “Today’s hearing is about the administration of justice, and keeping communities safe, something that has always been a central focus of the House Judiciary Committee,” opened...

A federal judge has asked former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to turn over the names of the individuals hired to search four properties for documents late last year, a source familiar with the order told CNN. The names were handed over Wednesday night, two sources told CNN. It’s the latest twist in the Justice Department’s efforts to use the court to enforce a subpoena from May that sought to collect all classified records Trump kept in his possession ... ...Last month, federal judge Beryl Howell, the chief of the DC District Court, declined to hold Trump in contempt of court...

GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says that the newly announced special counsel investigations of former President Donald Trump will be "defunded" after Republicans seize control of the House.... ...The Holman Rule, which was introduced to the House in 1876, allows members of Congress to propose amendments to appropriations bills... ...Republican lawmakers attempted to use the rule multiple times in 2017 and 2018, with none of their amendments ultimately passing.,,,

....Garland announced at a news conference Friday that John "Jack" Smith will be the special counsel tasked with investigating and deciding whether charges should be brought. He called Smith an "impartial and determined prosecutor." Smith is currently the chief prosecutor for the special counsel in the Hague. ...

"Did you conspire with the Trump family?" Allen Weisselberg was asked by a Trump lawyer. "No," he replied.... ...Allen Weisselberg, 75, testified for a second day in the criminal trial of Trump's family business in New York City... ....Under questioning from Futerfas, Weisselberg said the only person who knew he wasn’t paying the proper taxes on the perks was McConney.

(CNN)The House select committee investigating January 6 has stood down on its requests for some documents from the Trump White House, after the Biden administration convinced the panel to scale back its pursuits. As a result, the committee won't be getting hundreds of pages of National Security Council records. But the documents may not have been all that helpful, anyway. The revelation comes in a new round of letters about the status of Trump-era documents held by the National Archives. It's the first time the Biden administration appears to have pushed back significantly against the House select committee....

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Trump administration overpaid corn farmers by about $3 billion in federal aid in 2019 and farmers in the South were paid more for the same crops than those elsewhere in the country, a federal watchdog agency has found. The Government Accountability Office said in a report released Monday that international disputes resulting from tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump hurt farmers but that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s county-by-county methodology for computing the extent of damage was flawed, leading to overpayment....

Washington (CNN)Members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol believe that former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an "AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY" ... ...The text was first presented publicly on the House floor Tuesday night by Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, and reads: "HERE's an AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY: Why can t (sic) the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is...

A probe into a $400 million border wall contract found that there was no undue influence when it was awarded to a North Dakota-based firm, according to audit results released Monday by the Pentagon's inspector general. Tommy Fisher, the president of Fisher Sand and Gravel Co., made multiple appearances on Fox News to campaign for the job ahead of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to give his firm the contract, the Associated Press reported. Building a wall along Mexico's shared border with the U.S. was a top campaign platform and administration priority for former President Donald Trump. Trump...

(CNN)The horse patrol incident in Del Rio, Texas, that drew swift condemnation from senior Biden administration officials will not be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, the department announced Tuesday. US Customs and Border Protection had referred the incident -- where Border Patrol agents on horseback aggressively confronted migrants -- to the watchdog, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Instead, CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility is now investigating the incident, the department said, adding that the office has reviewed videos and photographs and interviewed witnesses, employees and CBP leadership....

The Treasury Department has hired a former JPMorgan Chase executive to head a new government program aimed at addressing racial inequality issues in banking and other financial services industries. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Monday that Janis Bowdler will be the department’s first counselor for racial equity. Bowdler’s hiring is a part of a multipronged strategy...

Halloween is still a few weeks away, but in New Jersey, the witch trial started early. It began on social media, our latter-day Salem: Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad took to Facebook to inform her followers that evil was afoot in the town of Maplewood. “Yesterday,” wrote Muhammad,... “Tamar Herman, a teacher at Seth Boyden Elementary in Maplewood, NJ, forcibly removed the hijab of a second-grade student. The young student resisted, by trying to hold onto her hijab, but the teacher pulled the hijab off..." Only, that likely isn’t at all what had happened: In a statement, Herman gave a perfectly...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Republicans while traveling abroad in the United Kingdom Thursday, saying that they are bad for America and members of a "cult." "I say to my Republican friends and I do have some," Pelosi said at an event in Cambridge, England, prompting laughter from the audience. "Take back your party. You’re the Grand Old Party of America, you’ve done wonderful things for our country. You now have been hijacked by a cult..."

...New York prosecutors... have evidence that Barry Weisselberg, a Trump Organization employee, avoided taxes by living rent-free in a luxury apartment Trump owned, The Daily Beast reported on Sunday. ..Weisselberg, the manager of Trump's Wollman ice rink in Central Park, is the son of Allen Weisselberg.. Now prosecutors have evidence - delivered by Barry Weisselberg's ex-wife, Jennifer - that he avoided paying taxes... ..."In 2018, Weisselberg's family member was allowed to occupy a different Trump-owned apartment on East 61st Street in Manhattan, with no reported rent at all," the indictment said. "The value of lodging provided to [Allen] Weisselberg's family...

The Justice Department inspector general could not find evidence that FBI employees leaked non-public information to Rudy Giuliani about the Hillary Clinton email investigation in the lead-up to the 2016 election, according to a new report... When the inspector general further reviewed information from their FBI phones, the office found that those agents had been in contact with numbers that were not "specific to Giuliani." "Accordingly, the purported investigative leads provided by the FBI based on alleged FBI employee contacts with Giuliani were inaccurate," the inspector general report said... ...The new report said that the "number of employees in communication...

Congressional Democrats' years-long attempt to nail down whether then-President Donald Trump lied to special counsel Robert Mueller effectively ended on Friday, with the US Supreme Court wiping away court decisions where the House Judiciary Committee was told it could access secret grand jury records from key witnesses in the Mueller investigation. The House now won't get those grand jury records -- bringing to a close Democrats' pursuit of what witnesses in the Mueller investigation said confidentially under oath about their interactions with Trump and others during the 2016 campaign....

The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg have been indicted and charged with tax-related crimes. Weisselberg, 73, who began working for Donald Trump's father Fred in 1973, will appear in court on Thursday, two sources told The Washington Post. His charges are related to the failure to pay taxes on benefits obtained as part of his work for Trump. ... ... the Manhattan district attorney's office has apparently failed to 'flip' Weisselberg, who was spotted driving from his home to Trump Tower on Tuesday....reports suggest prosecutors have spent months building a case against Weisselberg, a senior executive,...

Our federal government is now suffering from what one might call Mass Paranoid Disorder of Psychotic Proportions. After 35 years, I retired my license to diagnose and treat individuals and families for behavioral health issues. But as a retired clinical psychologist tracking news and social media, I believe that, since the 2020 election, our federal government is now officially insane. It suffers from what one might call Mass Paranoid Disorder of Psychotic Proportions. This is not an official psychiatric disorder, but if it were, primary symptoms would be similar to those of individual paranoid disorders, but on a massive collective...

Full Title: Ex-mob prosecutor working for Manhattan's DA is trying to flip Trump's 'eyes and ears' CFO in tax probe by investigating his sons' ties to the Central Park Ice Rink and firm that loaned former president $270million NY prosecutors are trying to 'flip' Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to cooperate with their probe into the former president and his company Weisselberg, 73, has served as CFO to the Trump Organization for more than two decades and could provide prosecutors invaluable information To secure his acquiescence, prosecutors are said to be delving into his personal and financial affairs, as well...

Former Democratic presidential candidate and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday called on President Biden and all members of Congress to "denounce" the new administration’s efforts to root out domestic terrorism, which she argues will take away Americans’ civil liberties and "turn our country into a police state." "If you don’t stand up to them now, then our country will be in great peril," Gabbard said in a series of tweets. "Trying to undermine our constitutionally-protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB-style "surveillance" are also domestic enemies—and much more powerful, and therefore dangerous, than the mob...