Free Republic

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of an investigation in Turkey into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer has testified. The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, told a New York court on December 11 that the Turkish investigation that he led in 2012-2013 initially focused on Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who U.S. prosecutors have said was the mastermind behind the Iran sanctions evasion scheme, but later grew to include dozens of others. He called Erdogan the "No. 1" target in a group that also included...

Six terrorists who carried out attacks were on the FBI's radar previously. The Justice Department's internal government watchdog released a report Wednesday identifying what it described as significant issues with how the FBI handled investigations of extremists based in the U.S. who either sought or successfully carried out attacks against Americans. The report from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz scrutinized how agents investigated so-called 'homegrown violent extremists,' or HVE, and found several instances where individuals who went on to carry out attacks had been previously identified by the FBI but had their cases closed with no further action. "Since September...

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - U. S. Senator Richard Lugar died Sunday morning, according to a release from the Lugar Center. Lugar was a senator from 1977 to 2013, before that serving as Mayor of Indianapolis from 1968 to 1975. After his career in politics, Lugar continued work through the Lugar Center, focused on global food security and aid effectiveness. He was a professor at Indiana University and led the Richard G. Lugar Symposium for Tomorrow’s Leaders at the University of Indianapolis. He held 46 honorary degrees from universities around the country, and Queen Elizabeth bestowed upon him the rank of...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” former Secretary of State John Kerry commented on President Donald Trump’s speech earlier in the day. Trump said the Obama administration’s “foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash.”

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump NO MERCY TO TERRORISTS you dumb bastards! 11:47 AM · Apr 21, 2013

Much of Iran’s media today panicked, attacking WND reports on the Islamic regime’s involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings and claiming Washington is behind the WND reports so the U.S. can attack other countries. WND’s source for the report regarding Iran’s involvement in the bombings, a member of the regime’s intelligence services, said today regime officials fear a campaign in the United States for a retaliatory attack on Iran similar to what happened to Afghanistan after 9/11. How to Remove MalwareRemove all Traces of Malware Fast Follow These 3 Steps Immediately! speedmaxpc.com Goodbye GlucosamineIs it time to throw your Glucosamine...

The Department of Defense granted Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, the status of a special government employee in 2013, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times. Alperovitch held the status for one year starting on Nov. 23, 2013. “He was an unpaid consultant limited to 60 total days in a year and has not provided any consulting services since that time,” Lt. Col. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon press spokesperson, wrote in an email. “In his role as a special government employee, Alpervotich provided services in cybersecurity, forensic cyber analysis, and post-incident remediation.” In 2013 and 2014,...

A senior CIA official has died in an apparent suicide this week from injuries sustained after jumping off a building in northern Virginia, according to sources close to the CIA. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D., Calif.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has said the CIA has blocked efforts by the committee to investigate harsh interrogation of terrorists. Committee staff members working at a CIA facility in Northern Virginia to investigate agency interrogation practices also have charged that the CIA covertly searched the agency’s computers that were being used in the investigation. The agency subsequently reported that several Senate...

6 days before tax day liberal Christmas in 2013 Lois Lerner was emailing with one of her fellow cronies and warning them to be careful, “we need to be cautious about what we say in emails”.

The so-called “chatter” about a terror plot that led the Obama administration to close 22 U.S. embassies and consulates Sunday across the Muslim world goes beyond anything heard before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and Fox News sources. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, of Georgia, said Sunday the so-called “chatter” detected by U.S. intelligence agencies that led the Obama administration to order the closures and issue a global travel warning to Americans is "very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11." [snip] A Mideast diplomat says al-Zawahiri “pressuring” Al Qaeda in the Arabian...

This month’s announcement from Party City that it’s closing more than 40 stores as it grapples with new challenges, including diminishing helium supplies, likely came as unwelcome news to customers who count on the store for their balloon and event planning needs. But for scientists like Mark Elsesser, the announcement was something of a relief, inflating hopes that the public, and the government, might start paying closer attention. “When it comes to helium, we’re at a tipping point,” said Elsesser, who is the associate director of government affairs at the American Physical Society, a nonprofit association of physicists. “Party City...

Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff is connected to a Ukrainian arms dealer. Is this why he’s willing to lie in front of the nation when accusing President Trump of crimes? Adam Schiff is arguably the biggest liar in Congress…. ever. He now leads the House Intelligence Committee and this past week oversaw the Intel Committee where he attempted to align President Trump with some ‘trumped’ up allegations concerning his phone call with the President of the Ukraine. Schiff lied in his opening remarks and claimed numerous falsehoods about the President’s call in spite of the transcript being provided the day before.

Leaked funding documents reveal an effort by George Soros and his foundations to manipulate election laws and process rules ahead of the federal election far more expansively than has been previously reported. The billionaire and convicted felon moved hundreds of millions of dollars into often-secret efforts to change election laws, fuel litigation to attack election integrity measures, push public narratives about voter fraud, and to integrate the political ground game of the left with efforts to scare racial minority groups about voting rights threats. These Soros-funded efforts moved through dozens of 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) charities and involved the active compliance with civil rights groups, government...

A company whose president is “best friends” with Chelsea Clinton received more than $11 million in contracts over the last decade from a highly secretive Department of Defense think tank, but to date, the group lacks official federal approval to handle classified materials, according to sensitive documents TheDCNF was allowed to review.Jacqueline Newmyer, the president of a company called the Long Term Strategy Group, has over the last 10 years received numerous Defense Department contracts from a secretive think tank called Office of Net Assessment.The Office of Net Assessment is so sensitive, the specialized think tank is housed in the Office...

The Independent, 2000: Snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries … Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community … According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit...

Book includes how Steele was commissioned to write dossier Robert Reich: Trump is an international mobster The former journalists Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch are to publish a book on Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia, including an account of how they commissioned the British ex-spy Christopher Steele to write his dossier on the future president. Crime in Progress: The Secret History of the Trump-Russia Investigation will be published in December by Penguin Random House in the US and UK. Simpson and Fritsch founded the Washington intelligence firm Fusion GPS. In summer 2015, it began investigating Trump and Moscow. It hired...

A nearly insignificant reference on the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council’s webpage, under the heading of Washington Watch No. 4, reads this way: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire — Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.” Hmm. Well that’s interesting. Particularly since the Democrats have been busily working to impeach President Donald Trump over supposed nefarious Ukraine wheelings and dealings. Particularly since a couple of Republican senators, as The Washington Times previously reported, have requested the Justice Department to investigate whether or not Ukrainian officials tried to undermine Trump’s presidential campaign —...

In February 2017, the Washington Post’s Miller had the lead byline on a story based on leaks of Trump’s conversations with Australia’s prime minister and Mexico’s president. Six months later, the Post published the entire transcripts of both conversations in another Miller story. It was through such national security correspondents that anti-Trump sources -- intelligence officials -- pushed leaks of classified information and other tidbits intended to damage Trump into the media. There it merged with other anti-Trump currents in nearly every corner of the press, where it blossomed into Russiagate. After a nearly two-year investigation, the special counsel found...

Serhiy Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked evidence of Paul Manafort’s systematic corruption to The New York Times, kicking off the latest round of Trump-Russia scandals, is a former investigative journalist famed for his pedantic and forensic habits in parliament. . .Leshchenko and some of his journalist reformer friends, such as Mustafa Nayem, were brought into Ukraine’s parliament by President Petro Poroshenko on his winning parliamentary slate in 2014 as a way of showcasing his reformist credentials. Leshchenko has since become a fierce critic of Poroshenko, whose parliamentary faction he has never left. . .[Q:] Let’s return to Paul Manafort....

The Senate Finance Committee is probing the Obama administration’s 2015 decision to approve the sale of a U.S. company with insight into “military applications” to the Chinese government and an investment firm run by former Vice President Joe Biden’s youngest son, Hunter Biden. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee’s chairman, sent a letter to the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Thursday requesting documents relating to the sale of Henniges, a Michigan-based automotive company, to Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) and Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). The latter was formed in 2013 by a merger between a subsidiary of the Bank...