Free Republic

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says he was reassured in a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha that Ukraine’s attack on an Iranian ship “was unintentional and Ukraine seeks no escalation”. In a post on X, Araghchi wrote that “Iran does not seek escalation either, but made clear any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable”. “There must be restitution for losses,” he said. Sybiha earlier described the call as “frank” and “direct”.

A federal judge on Thursday agreed to toss a lawsuit from former CIA Director John Brennan, arguing he did not yet have standing to sue over an investigation targeting him for his role in reviewing the 2016 election. Brennan brought the suit in July, seeking to compel the Department of Justice (DOJ) to preserve records related to the investigation, saying they would be needed for an expected vindictive prosecution filing if an indictment was brought. But U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb said the matter was not yet ripe, agreeing with the Trump administration to toss the suit. “To have standing...

Administration prepares sweeping sanctions that would cut the court off from much of the global financial system The Trump administration is preparing to impose sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court, according to officials, a sharp escalation in Washington’s efforts to dismantle the institution after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The sanctions would forbid most transactions with the ICC after a grace period of six to seven months, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal and U.S. officials. That could potentially cripple the court by prohibiting it from conducting transactions in U.S. dollars,...

Christian@InTheTrenchesUK·7hTHIS MORNING. RAF FAIRFORD. 00:45.A pensioner called 999. Not MI5. Not GCHQ. A villager spotted three suspicious vans heading toward a US bomber base and dialled 999.Five men arrested under the Explosives Act, then upgraded to Section 5 of the Terrorism Act: preparation of a terrorist act. Three vans. 85 homes evacuated at 1.30am. Army bomb disposal robot inside a 400-metre cordon. Counter Terrorism Policing now leading. Major incident declared.The operation was not intelligence-led. A resident made a phone call. That is what stopped it.The IRGC already told you this was coming.In July 2026, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued...

ANDY Burnham has given the go-ahead to the US to use British military bases for “defensive strikes” against Iran, it has been reported. The new PM has continued with Keir Starmer’s controversial policy – with Donald Trump vowing today he is “not finished yet”. RAF bases like Fairford and Diego Garcia can continue to be used by the Americans to strike the Islamic Republic, Bloomberg reports. It is the first major judgment by the Labour leader, who risked coming to blows with Donald Trump if he declined access to US aircraft.

British cops on Sunday arrested five suspected terrorists accused of plotting a van bombing attack at a UK military base used by the US Air Force for its strikes on Iran. Dramatic pictures show the suspects being held at gunpoint while stripped to the waist, after officers suspected they may have been wearing suicide vests for their alleged plot, according to reports. A bomb disposal robot was later seen moving between three vans after chemicals and suspected explosive devices were found during the operation at Royal Air Force Fairford in Gloucestershire, Southwest England, the UK Sun reported. The base, roughly...

Former CIA Director John Brennan sued the Justice Department and top Trump administration officials Wednesday, seeking a court order to force the preservation of records in the ongoing federal investigations targeting him. The lawsuit represents an unusual step for Brennan, a longtime political opponent of President Trump who has been the focus of two Justice Department criminal probes since the beginning of Mr. Trump's second administration. One is centered on allegations that Brennan lied to Congress in 2023 about the U.S. intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The second is a sprawling "grand conspiracy" probe examining...

Canada and China held their Fifth Defence Coordination Dialogue in Canada on Friday, the first session of that channel since April 2018. Beijing’s defense ministry provided this anodyne announcement: “The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on international and regional issues of mutual interest, expressed willingness to strengthen practical exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries, and enhanced mutual understanding and trust.” Notably, Canada’s government-beholden media have not mentioned the meeting. https://x.com/cbcwatcher/status/2096915174376558702? "Why do Canadians always have to find out from foreign media? What other negotiations is Carney hiding? Even a major South Korean newspaper writes...

Strategic patience for the win? Iran's regime leaders thought they could force the US to buckle by strangling the global economy at the Strait of Hormuz. The US, however, has an actual blue-water navy, and that tends to matter in blockades involving a country entirely reliant on sea trade for its only valuable export economy. As the Wall Street Journal concedes, Donald Trump's Hormuz blockade is a lot less "leaky" than the IRGC's. And as Trump himself pointed out yesterday, the Strait may not matter for very much longer anyway:By squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, both the U.S. and Iran...

Insane, but true. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a flawed but fairly sensible piece of legislation, put into places measures like the ability to classify foreign terrorist groups and ban funding to them, as well as keeping terrorists out of America, and it also created the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC). That was 30 years ago. ATRC had the ability to remove terrorists based on secret evidence, but was never used despite the obvious need for such a thing. Then Judge James Boasberg suggested that the DOJ go to the ATRC instead of going to...

A senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence official is the new owner of a historic building overlooking the White House Complex, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered. Located approximately 650 feet northeast of the White House grounds, the 100-year-old Securities Building on 15th Street was purchased on July 21, 2026 for $8.4 million by the Philip Qiu and Family Foundation, filings show. The building’s new owner, Philip Qiu, has held numerous positions within Chinese intelligence and state security arms, according to university records and DCNF translations of Chinese government announcements. Qiu did not respond to multiple requests for comment....

Iran knew remarkably specific details about Trump's stay in Ankara during the NATO summit, including where he was staying and even which floor of the building he was on, according to two U.S. officials. U.S. intelligence picked up multiple streams of information on July 8, including a specific threat against whichever aircraft was carrying the president and a report that someone near the summit had been spotted with a shoulder-fired missile. Air Force One departed separately with senior administration officials, government employees, military personnel, and JOURNALISTS aboard.

The Department of War on Friday revoked former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall's eligibility for access to classified intel after he leaked classified information about Air Force One to the media. The Biden-era Air Force Secretary leaked sensitive information about President Trump's Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet to The New York Times. Full statement from Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell: Effective immediately, the Department of War has REVOKED former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s eligibility for access to classified information and his ability to hold any sensitive position. This action follows his unauthorized disclosure of classified information...

An Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump prompted an extraordinary operation last month in which he flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard Air Force One, The Washington Post has learned. The clandestine mission, which has not been reported previously, was carried out unbeknownst to journalists and some White House staff members who believed they were on the same plane as the president, according to material reviewed by The Post, a U.S. official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president’s travel. These people spoke...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since 2022 and allegedly tortured and injected with mind-altering drugs, slipped into a stupor in June and may be close to death, according to two hostage advocacy groups and his sister. The White House and the State Department have urged Moscow to release Robert Gilman, 32, so he can receive urgent medical treatment in the U.S., said Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach, an advocacy group representing his family. Gilman is being fed through a tube, he said. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters they had...

An instructor for the University of Maryland's (UMD) School of Pharmacy was detained by immigration officials last month at Dallas Fort Worth airport, according to the university and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). A statement by UMD said that on July 21, Dr. Berhanu Kibret was arrested at the airport after attending a job-related conference in the city. "He was returning from a meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, where he received a Teacher of the Year award." "Dr. Kibret has a valid Work Authorization, so it is our hope that any issues surrounding his...

Riyadh strikes Yemeni airport (Sana’a) after Trump backs military action against Houthis The strike on Monday (13 July) damaged the runway and prevented an Iranian airliner from landing in the Yemeni capital, which is controlled by the Houthis, a pro-Tehran proxy militia... ...Two US officials told Axios that Donald Trump gave Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia his support for the military action... ...The incident breaks a four-year truce between Riyadh and the Shia militia, which followed a decade-long war that killed approximately 377,000 people, according to United Nations estimates, most of which were caused by starvation and...

Move comes amid concerns that Trump delegation could help Bolsonaro family cast doubt on electronic voting ahead of October’s presidential election SÃO PAULO—Brazil has denied visas to two senior Trump administration officials who were planning to travel to the country, amid concerns that they sought to undermine confidence in the electronic-voting system before October’s presidential election. The move comes as fears deepen in Brazil that the Bolsonaro family is working with President Trump and his allies to unseat leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and help return the Brazilian right to power. Former president Jair Bolsonaro is serving a...

When President Donald Trump talked about some of the things China has done to literally steal our democracy by seeing to it that, in 2020, its Manchurian candidate was elected in the form of a semi-comatose Joe Biden, many of the things he mentioned had already been in the news, but they may not have been covered by the legacy media.Case in point: Trump mentioned in his July 16 address to the nation that China stole TikTok data to create fake U.S. driver’s licenses.If you follow conservative media, you may have known this. If you get your news from the...

Neville Roy Singham, the wealthy husband of the founder of the progressive nonprofit Code Pink and benefactor of far-left political causes, is under criminal investigation by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. The investigation began by looking into possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and has since expanded into a criminal tax probe over whether money was unlawfully funneled through nonprofits he controls and whether he lied on the tax forms for those nonprofits, known as "990s," the sources said. The criminal investigation was first...