Free Republic

A strange thing happened when Jeffrey Epstein came back to New York City after being branded a sex offender: His reputation appeared to rise. In 2010, the year after he got out of a Florida prison, Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos dined at his Manhattan mansion with a British royal. The next year, Mr. Epstein was photographed at a “billionaire’s dinner” attended by tech titans like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. A page popped up on Harvard University’s website lauding his accomplishments, and superlative-filled news releases described his lofty ambitions as he dedicated $10 million to charitable causes.

Barack Obama was the first U.S. President to not include a question on nationality in the decennial census. President Trump’s citizenship question on the upcoming U.S. census is, contrary to popular opinion, the norm for the decennial survey. The planned citizenship question asks: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Barack Obama was the first President to exclude a question on citizenship in the U.S. Census. But today, the Trump administration is being assailed from the Left for its efforts to include the question. The Left has responded typically, with accusations of racism. The question of nationality, they...

The hedge fund founded and, until recently, run by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer was involved in a deal to sell a stake in a Russian oil company to a Russian oligarch who is the target of U.S. sanctions. Farallon Capital Management sold a part of its stake in Russian firm Geotech Oil Services to the Volga Group, a Luxembourg-based investment firm owned by Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko, in 2010. Four years later, in April 2014, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it would target Timchenko, Volga, and a number of companies associated with them, in a round of sanctions aimed...

Iran executed an ex-contract employee on charges of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Reuters reported Saturday. Jalal Hajizavar left his post at the aerospace organization of the Iranian defense ministry nine years ago. He was convicted by a military court after an investigation which discovered documents and spying equipment at his home, according to Reuters, which cited an IRIB news agency report. Hajizavar was reportedly executed at the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, west of Tehran.

Considering the upcoming declassification window…between Trump’s state visit in Japan (5/25 – 5/28) and the state visit with the U.K (6/3 – 6/5). Bucket Five – Intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all exculpatory intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court. Presumably this would include the recently revealed State Dept Kavalac email; and the FBI transcripts from wiretaps of George Papadopoulos (also listed in Carter Page FISA). Now that we have significant research files on the...

"Stormy Weather" was Lena Horne's signature song as well as a chillingly apt metaphor for her career. Long celebrated for her striking beauty and silky voice, she overcame profound racism on her way to becoming one of the best-known African American performers in the country. At MGM, she had a seven-year contract in the 1940s when no other African American had such long-term deals. But her movie scenes were filmed so they could be easily excised for release in the Jim Crow South. As a singer in the 1950s, Horne often performed for white audiences in supper clubs then cursed...

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer pleaded guilty today to conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia, Assistant Director for Counterintelligence John Brown of the FBI and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III accepted the plea.

Adrian Lamo, the former recreational hacker who reported Chelsea Manning to authorities, says he’s glad the WikiLeaks source will get a second chance. Lamo elicited a confession from Manning and gave it to military investigators in 2010, resulting in a 35-year prison sentence for the leaker who embarrassed the U.S. government by disclosing a massive number of military and diplomatic documents. The informant says “it was not my most honorable moment,” though he says he made peace with the effects of his decision, even before President Barack Obama on Tuesday granted clemency to Manning, who will be released in May...

RUSH: So Julian Assange has been arrested in the Ecuadoran embassy in the U.K. The Drive-By Media is ecstatic. And for those of you that are not clear on why, the Drive-By Media is again manufacturing a wholesale lie. And the lie is that WikiLeaks was the recipient of data from the computers and networks, the Democrat National Committee, that were hacked by Russians. This is a myth. This is a story. The Russians hacked the DNC computers and then gave whatever they got to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, who then began to publish it in September and October of...

(CRIMINAL EVENT) KIDNAPPING RPT B CO 1-501 PIR : 0 INJ/DAM This apparently was one of the documents compliments of Bradly Manning's leaking. The timeline fits. Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases. In early 2010 she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance. Lamo informed Army Counterintelligence, and Manning was arrested in May that same year. The material included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000...

Woah. Adrian Lamo (the blinking insomniac hacker who snitched out Bradley Manning) answering questions from a mostly hostile audience during the ‘Informants: Villains or Heroes?’ panel at HOPE Conference #8:’The Next Hope/Hackers on Planet Earth’ (NYC July 16-18). Via John Young, Cryptome.org, vigilant-snitch.htm. From TheNextHope.org: [...] The leaker [Manning] had reportedly boasted to hacker Adrian Lamo (after seeing his name in a Wired article) about sending 260,000 U.S. State Department classified documents to wikileaks.org. According to Lamo, that claim was enough to make him decide to call the authorities and become an informant. [...] Let’s jump in at part-3 and...

British police have further arrested WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange on behalf of United States authorities under an extradition request, according to the U.K’s Metropolitan Police. In an update, the Metropolitan Police posted that Assange has been “further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court as soon as possible.”

Cambridge firm scores big backing to produce mystery ethanol-maker. Alternative fuel maker Joule Unlimited Inc. has raised $30 million in venture funding, the largest such deal this year for a clean technology company in New England, according to the National Venture Capital Association. The company, which is based in Cambridge, declined to name the investors, but said the money will be used to help produce its fossil fuel substitutes in larger quantities. Formerly known as Joule Biotechnologies, the firm said it will also begin making what chief executive Bill Sims described as a “high quality’’ diesel fuel.

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, John Podesta, played a central role in another potential Russian collusion scandal that has not yet been investigated. Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, served on the board of Joule Unlimited, a now defunct alternative energy company, from January 2011 to January 2014. He resigned from the company’s board to accept the powerful job of Counselor to President Barack Obama. During Podesta’s tenure on the board of Joule Unlimited, a significant investment in the company by a firm owned by the Russian government escaped review and scrutiny by the Committee on...

NEW YORK — Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing with the author of the controversial, largely discredited 35-page anti-Trump dossier, served as senior vice president of a firm that did lobbying work for Tenex, the U.S. subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow. In 2010, Rosatom infamously purchased a controlling stake in Uranium One, the Canadian uranium mining company with operations in the U.S. The purchase was approved by the Obama administration in a decision that is currently being probed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

On the fringe of the headlines It is not very often that I can say this, but over the past few days I have been on the fringe of a news story that was being reported around the world. A few days ago, on 27th September, the Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji published a story speculating that Kim Jong Il’s grandson, Kim Han Sol, had enrolled in the United World College in Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The story was quickly picked up by news media around the world, including AsiaOne in Singapore, Chosunilbo (South Korea), The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Associated Press...

"Adam Kinzinger is a political fraud who betrayed the Tea Party, for which he's now celebrated by left-wing kooks like the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. It didn't take Kinzinger long either. With dripping contempt for conservatives he solicited in 2010 to first win office, Kinzinger says he welcomes a primary challenge from the Tea Party. Let's hope he gets one and his butt is kicked back to Illinois. Conceit and deceit are not admirable qualities."

February 2, 2011, 3:33 pm Investment Banking | Legal/Regulatory Police Search Deutsche Bank Office in Russia By ANDREW E. KRAMER 6:10 p.m. | Updated MOSCOW — Masked policemen raided Deutsche Bank’s main Moscow office on Wednesday, questioning bankers and unnerving employees. Police said they were searching for documents in a real estate deal linked to a member of the Russian Parliament, now living in exile in the United States. The parliamentarian, Ashot Yegiazaryan, had business dealings with companies tied to the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri M. Luzhkov, who fell from favor and resigned last fall. Deutsche Bank said in...

CIA China Ops Wiped Out By 'Botched; Spy Contact System: Investigation results show indicted spy Jerry Chun Shing Lee was not the CIA's only security breach. Sloppy coding led to a back door hole in the messaging system, used by the Chinese to 'wipe out' our entire spy network. Suddenly, in late 2010, undercover agents in China were being rounded up and hauled off for interrogation. Under Barack Obama's administration, the Central Intelligence Agency suffered what intelligence officers are calling one of the worst disasters in decades. Suddenly, in late 2010, undercover agents in China were being rounded up and...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-medvedev-russia-us-russia-business-summit Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 24, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia at the U.S.-Russia Business Summit U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 3:08 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with my friend and partner, President Medvedev, and I want to thank him again for his leadership, especially his vision for an innovative Russia that’s modernizing its economy, including deeper economic ties between our...