Free Republic

What do a plastic surgeon with links to Al Qaeda, an oyster fisherman with a Nazi tattoo, a former bandmate of a child sex offender, and a Lutheran minister who took part in a satanic wedding have in common? They’re all Democrat candidates for Congress in this November’s midterm elections. Undoubtedly the most notorious Democrat this cycle is Graham Platner, the first-time candidate in Maine’s U.S. Senate race who defeated establishment favorite Janet Mills and is set to take on incumbent Republican Susan Collins this November. Platner first made headlines after it was revealed that he had a chest...

The FBI arrested three men on Friday on charges of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS), according to a statement from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Bisaam Ghafoor, 21, Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, and Bereen Dzayee, 25, were taken into custody following a complaint filed in the District of Kansas. They were accused of 'conspiring to provide material support to terrorism' after collectively giving over $2,000 in cryptocurrency to an individual believed to be a member of ISIS. The allegations in the complaint were found to be substantiated, and the funds were proven to have...

Concerns are mounting in Washington over Qatar’s expanding financial footprint across key American sectors, where investment flows are increasingly seen as a vehicle for strategic influence and geopolitical leverage, a new study has found. According to a newly released report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Qatar has invested over $400 billion in the United States since 2000, with analysts now raising alarm bells over the scale and strategic reach of its financial ties. While FDD’s analysis uses a conservative baseline, the estimate could even reach roughly $1.2 trillion in investment flows if...

Adam Hamawy, a controversial candidate who previously volunteered with an al-Qaeda-linked group, has won the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s (D-NJ) seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hamawy, who was endorsed by the so-called “Squad,” became a lightning rod for criticism on the campaign trail due to his intense criticism of Israel and his having volunteered with the Benevolence International Foundation in Bosnia, per the New York Post: An Iraq War veteran, Hamawy has made national headlines for saving Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-Ill) life after a helicopter crash as well as for his volunteer work in...

CAIRO – Hundreds...have staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to demand the release of an Egyptian cleric imprisoned in the United States for plots to blow up New York City landmarks. Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, is serving life in prison after a 1995 conviction for his advisory role in conspiracies to blow up the United Nations and several New York bridges and tunnels. ....Thursday, protesters near the heavily fortified embassy held banners reading "freedom for our sheik" and chanted slogans and held prayers. The protest leader was Abboud el-Zomor, who...

Adam Hamawy’s past relationship with terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman has loomed over his rapid rise in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). Their relationship spanned a 1991 road trip the two took together to Detroit, Hamawy’s service as the sheikh’s translator for a press conference in which Abdel-Rahman denied any role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Hamawy’s testimony on the sheikh’s behalf at his 1995 trial, where the Islamist leader was convicted of plotting to carry out a campaign of terrorist attacks in New York City. But just one year before Hamawy...

When Jihad Came to America by Andrew C. McCarthy On May 2 and 3, 1990, the U.S. embassy in Cairo alerted its counterpart in Khartoum that Egypt’s “leading radical,” Omar Abdel Rahman, was on his way to Sudan. Warning that his ultimate plan might be to seek exile in the United States, the Cairo embassy asked its colleagues to pass along any information they might learn about his activities on Sudanese soil. What did U.S. officials already know about Abdel Rahman in 1990? As the 9/11 Commission would later determine, they knew that he had been arrested repeatedly in Egypt...

Two weeks ago, Freedom Center Investigates ran a blockbuster story exposing the troubling background of Adam Hamawy. a New Jersey congressional candidate, who had testified at the Blind Sheikh’s trial. In 1995, ‘Adam’ Hisham Hamawy testified for the defense in the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman: the Egyptian Islamic terror leader linked to the World Trade Center bombing. Now, Hamawy is running for Congress in New Jersey while promising to defund the military, abolish ICE, and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. The Sheikh’s supporters carried out terrorist attacks across Egypt. Others were responsible for the World Trade Center...

In 1995, ‘Adam’ Hisham Hamawy testified for the defense in the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman: the Egyptian Islamic terror leader linked to the World Trade Center bombing. Now, Hamawy is running for Congress in New Jersey while promising to defund the military, abolish ICE, and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. Hamawy, an Egyptian Muslim currently working as a plastic surgeon in New Jersey, has been in the news more recently for his Gaza advocacy, demanding that Israel stop its military campaign against Hamas, and in his recent interview with Hasan Piker, a Turkish social media influencer who...