Free Republic

The encrypted messaging app Telegram has raised over $1 billion by selling bonds to foreign investors, its Russia-born founder Pavel Durov said Tuesday. Durov, 36, wrote on his Telegram channel that the bonds were sold to “some of the largest and most knowledgeable investors from all over the world”. He added that this will allow Telegram to grow “while sticking to its values and remaining independent”. Durov said the funds will fuel the app’s monetisation strategy that was outlined in December, according to which the platform will launch paid services this year.

A former Russian intelligence officer has been sentenced to 18 years' hard labour for treason and espionage. Colonel Alexander Zaporozhsky, 52, was found guilty of passing information about Russian overseas intelligence activities to foreign governments for five years. He was also suspected of revealing the identities of more than 20 Russian US-based spies. Since his retirement in 1997, Mr Zaporozhsky had been working for an American company in the state of Maryland, but he was arrested in Moscow in 2001. The court gave Mr Zaporozhsky a tougher sentence than the 16 years demanded by prosecutors. 'Secrets to CIA' He was...

Iran and Venezuela have grown closer in recent years, as both countries seek to counter the intense pressure campaign that the US has mounted against them. US officials have said that Iran's military presence in Venezuela is growing and that if Iranian missiles start to arrive in the South American country, then the US could step in. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. US officials have watched warming ties between Iran and Venezuela with concern, expressing alarm over what they say are Iran's military presence in and arms sales to the South American country.The Trump administration's special representative for...

Authorities in China were expected on Monday to release a citizen journalist jailed for four years after she documented the early phases of the coronavirus outbreak from the central city of Wuhan in 2020. Zhang Zhan, 40, had travelled to Wuhan in early 2020 from Shanghai where she was based, posting first-hand accounts ... After several months of reporting that included videos.. she was detained in May 2020. She went on hunger strike in late June, court documents seen by Reuters said, prompting police to strap her hands and force-feed her with a tube, her lawyers said at the time....

DNI Ratcliffe was scheduled to release his explosive report on Friday. But the Deep State just blocked it. They screwed Trump again. They are not going to release this report on foreign interference on time.

A newly released book claims that allies of former President Trump tried to push a top Defense Department official into overturning the 2020 election. According to the book "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” which was published Tuesday, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell both made calls to Ezra Cohen, who was then acting as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, while Cohen was traveling in the Middle East, ABC News reported. Flynn and Powell were among Trump’s most vocal allies as the former president sought to overturn the 2020 election based...

SEDITION? DC National Guard Whistleblowers Reveal PENTAGON Under Direction of Mark Milley REFUSED to Deploy Guard Until After 5 PM – And Liz Cheney’s Committee Never Called Them to Testify By Jim Hoft Apr. 17, 2024 12:20 pmOn Wednesday morning the House Subcommittee on Oversight held a hearing with National Guard whistleblowers who stepped forward to correct the media lies and dishonest narrative on the January 6 protests and riots. Four members of the National Guard testified on Wednesday that ey were ready to be deployed on January 6 but THE PENTAGON held them back! This directly brings General Milley’s...

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser were both warned about the security situation prior to January 6th and both of them turned down National Guard troops at the US Capitol that day. Pelosi and Mayor Muriel Bowser turned down thousands of National Guard troops at the Capitol on January 6 for political reasons. Chris Wray’s FBI also refused to notify the Trump administration and his cabinet secretaries that they believed there could be violence like the mass protests at the Capitol that took place that day. Nancy Pelosi also refused...

Attorney General Merrick Garland is in trouble. Not just with Republicans, but with Biden. While Republicans are unhappy that AG Garland had been going after Trump and other conservatives, Biden and other Democrats are unhappy at his ineffectiveness. A Politico report from last month cited White House insiders claiming that if Biden wins, Garland won’t get a second term because he didn’t do enough to insulate the Biden family from investigations and that he didn’t move the Trump investigation along fast enough. Biden’s people wanted a Trump trial before the election and Garland failed to give them one. In response...

The State Department has informed Congress that it plans to shutter its last two consulates in Russia over caps set by Moscow on the number of diplomats that are allowed in the country. In a letter to congressional leaders sent Dec. 10 and obtained by The Hill, the administration said it will permanently close its Vladivostok consulate and temporarily halt work at the consulate in Yekaterinburg. The letter confirming the closures was sent three days before news broke of a major hack of U.S. government agencies that is believed to have been conducted by an elite Russian cyber espionage unit....

When Nancy Pelosi appeared on ABC’s Sunday morning talk show “This Week,” the former House Speaker made a dubious claim that would undoubtedly come as a surprise to many of the key decision-makers on Capitol Hill during the events of January 6. Former Speaker Pelosi, who has been less than forthright about her controversial role in the leadup to and during the Capitol Riots, has added a new wrinkle to her story about what she did to secure the Congress on that fateful day. “It’s very clear what happened that day,” she claimed. “And at that same time, from the...

Several storylines related to the events of January 6 have crumbled under closer scrutiny over the past 10 months: the “fire extinguisher” murder of Officer Brian Sicknick; the notion it was an “armed” insurrection and a grand “conspiracy” concocted by right-wing militias; claims that the building sustained $30 million in damages, and so on. In the meantime, the Biden regime has attempted to cover up key aspects of that day, including the name of the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, which was only recently revealed. Justice Department lawyers continue to resist the release of 14,000 hours of surveillance...

In late December 2020, President Trump made a call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to look at some of the items that were uncovered by his auditor. There was plenty of evidence for a competent auditor or any man of integrity to know that the election was uncertifiable. Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger’s office secretly recorded the phone call with President Trump, then lied about its contents later when they leaked it to the far-left Washington Post. Raffensperger’s office ran to the Washington Post and leaked a fraudulent transcript of the call. After they were caught...

A weird thing happened right after the Nov. 3 election: nothing. The nation was braced for chaos. Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for battle. In a poll before Election Day, 75% of Americans voiced concern about violence. Instead, an eerie quiet descended. As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race for Joe Biden on Nov. 7, jubilation broke out instead, as people thronged cities across the U.S. to celebrate the democratic process that...

Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios. Behind the scenes: A top Biden official was unaware of the directive. Administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause. The officials were unsure what prompted Miller's action, or whether President Trump approved. Why it matters: Miller's move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration. What happened:...

In internal memo, Thomas DiNanno, then acting ass't secretary of @StateDept Arms Control, Verification, Compliance bureau documented his team was "warned...“not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.

Navy engineer's wife arrested with her husband for 'selling nuclear sub secrets' to an unknown foreign power posted pro-BLM rants online, raged against Trump and praised Hillary Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and wife, Diana, 45, were charged Saturday with selling secret information to an unidentified foreign country The couple appeared in court in Martinsburg, West Virginia, today and are accused of selling military secrets to an unidentified foreign country The Toebbe's were ordered detained without bail until a detention hearing on Friday at 11am A preliminary examination hearing into their case is slated for Wednesday, October, 20, at...

What Did Jayden X Allegedly Do To Ashli Babbitt?Last Updated on August 21, 2023Leftist infiltrator John Sullivan, known as “Jayden X,” was part of a coordinated operation which included Ray Epps to create chaos at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, Jayden X’s brother James Sullivan told NATIONAL FILE in an exclusive interview.Jayden X’s brother told NATIONAL FILE that Jayden X helped plan the January 6 chaos on “Antifa Discord servers,” that Jayden X previously worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to target his enemies, and that Jayden X was a member of Antifa groups that started riots...

Last week a judge decreed that the Proud Boy must pay a hefty $1.03 million to a historic Black church in Washington, D.C. The reason? In December 2020, amid a tumultuous protest surrounding the U.S. presidential election, Proud Boys members desecrated and incinerated a Black Lives Matter (BLM) banner from the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a revered landmark in the nation’s capital. In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz cited the “emotional trauma” inflicted on the church members due to the incident. He put forth a firm edict, effectively barring the Proud Boys from venturing near Metropolitan AME...

The New York Times article was replete with deceptive narratives, all designed to create the appearance that the investigation into Hunter Biden was politically motivated and lacking in merit.The month before Joe Biden’s inauguration, FBI sources collaborated with The New York Times’ Russia-collusion hoaxer Adam Goldman to falsely portray the investigation into Hunter Biden as a big ole nothingburger. Americans just didn’t know it at the time. However, revisiting Goldman’s article now, in light of recent whistleblower revelations and statements by former Attorney General William Barr, reveals this reality — and more.On Dec. 11, 2020, The New York Times published...