Free Republic

Dominion Voting Systems plans to sue attorney Sidney Powell "imminently" for defamation, and it's continuing to explore similar suits against President Trump and others, company founder and CEO John Poulos told the Axios Re:Cap podcast on Monday. ... Between the lines: Dominion, which makes the voting machines used in Georgia and elsewhere, has been the subject of baseless accusations of malfeasance during last November's elections. Dominion says that the rhetorical barrage has led to death threats against its employees, including one who remains unable to return to his home.

The Trump administration is declassifying as-yet uncorroborated intelligence, recently briefed to President Trump, that indicates China offered to pay non-state actors in Afghanistan to attack American soldiers, two senior administration officials tell Axios. The big picture: The disclosure of this unconfirmed intelligence comes 21 days before the end of Trump's presidency, after he has vowed to ratchet up pressure on China, and months after news reports indicated that the Russians had secretly offered bounties for Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The Chinese embassy in D.C. did not respond to a request for comment. Trump is not believed...

Axios must like propping up Democratic senators as crusaders against fossil fuel special interests while ignoring their own deep ties to special interests, including dark money. Axios climate and energy reporter Amy Harder praised how Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) was “calling on the incoming Biden administration to have the Justice Department investigate organizations that fossil-fuel companies have in the past funded.” Harder said Whitehouse was accusing these organizations of “propagating ‘climate denialism and climate obstruction and political ownership of the Republican Party.’” Harder herself took aim at the conservative Heartland Institute, reportedly a Whitehouse target, and attacked it as “an...

Axios published a yearlong investigation last week about an alleged Chinese spy who developed ties to politicians at both the local and national level between 2011 and 2015, including with Congressman Eric Swalwell, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “Through campaign fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, [Christine] Fang was able to gain proximity to political power, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and one former elected official,” Axios reported. Federal investigators had to step in and give Swalwell a briefing about Fang, after which he “cut...

With just weeks to go to President-Elect Joe Biden’s being inaugurated on January 20, Axios reports that Israel is preparing for the possibility that Trump will launch a preemptive attack on Iran. Axios’ Barak Ravid reports from Tel Aviv that “The Israel Defense Forces have in recent weeks been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Trump leaves office, senior Israeli officials tell me.” While not citing specific intelligence, Ravid says Israeli military and intelligence leaders are anticipating “a very sensitive period” just ahead of the inauguration and Trump’s...

One near-certainty about Joe Biden's Cabinet: Pete Buttigieg will be in it. Biden officials have made clear to donors and party officials the question surrounding Buttigieg is not if, but where, he lands, Democrats close to Biden tell Axios. The intrigue: Behind that certainty, though, are a range of questions about how to put his obvious political talent to use. The multilingual Buttigieg has told friends he wants U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but he may face internal competition from Julie Smith, a longtime Biden foreign policy confidant. Former diplomats Wendy Sherman and Linda Thomas-Greenfield are other possibilities. Rep....

Traffic to President Trump's presidential campaign website is more than 4x greater than traffic to Joe Biden's presidential campaign website, thanks in large part to traffic referrals from right-wing outlets like The Gateway Pundit and Citizen Free Press, according to data from SimilarWeb. Why it matters: The data speaks to the enormous role the far-right web plays in promoting the president's ideas and his re-election campaign. Web traffic to campaign websites is important because it can help campaigns fundraise, sell merchandise, and rally enthusiasm amongst voters. Details: Nearly 60% of traffic to Trump's website from May to July of this...

The Lincoln Project, a GOP anti-Trump group, on Wednesday launched a $4 million ad buy targeting Senate contests in Maine, Alaska and Montana. The buy, which was first reported by Axios, will air for seven to 10 days in key markets in the three states. The ads in Alaska and Maine express support for challengers to Republican incumbent Sens. Steve Daines (Mont.) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska). The spots are dubbed "Real" in Alaska and "Strong" in Montana. The group endorsed Democrat Al Gross in its ad in Alaska ahead of the state's Democratic and independent primary on Aug. 18. Meanwhile,...

State Sen. Randy Feenstra defeated incumbent Rep. Steve King in Tuesday's Republican primary for Iowa's 4th congressional district, according to the Cook Political Report. Why it matters: King's history of racist remarks has made him one of the most controversial politicians in the country and a pariah within the Republican Party. House Republican leadership stripped the nine-term congressman of his committee assignments in 2019 after he questioned in an interview with the New York Times how the terms "white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization" became offensive. The big picture: The Republican establishment coalesced around Feenstra beginning in January, when the...

Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's principal deputy inspector general, submitted his resignation on Tuesday. Why it matters: President Trump removed Fine as the Pentagon's acting inspector general in April 7 after a group of independent federal watchdogs selected him to lead the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which was set up to oversee the rollout of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. The move effectively sidelined Fine from serving as chair of the panel, since the law only allows sitting inspectors general to fill the role. The big picture: His ouster as the Defense Department's acting inspector general came amid Trump's continuing...

A former deputy national security adviser to President Trump denied Sunday that she was the author of a book and New York Times op-ed written by an anonymous senior official claiming to be part of the "resistance" within the administration. An attorney for Victoria Coates told Axios that Coates had no connection to the op-ed, published in 2018, or its follow-up book, "A Warning," published in 2019. Her denial comes as Real Clear Investigations published a piece on Wednesday citing claims from Trump administration officials involved in the probe to out the anonymous author of the book and op-ed, which...

Opponents of job outsourcing are making a holiday-season appeal to President Trump: Stop U.S. companies from forcing American workers to train the very same cheaper foreign laborers who will soon replace them.Why it matters: Trump promised voters he'd end abuses of worker visa programs and save U.S. jobs — but as he campaigns for re-election, advocates say he hasn't done enough. Driving the news: AT&T is poised to send thousands into the new year hunting for new jobs after assigning them to train their own foreign replacements, according to conversations with current and former workers and documents obtained by Axios....

Have Democrats shot themselves in the foot with impeachment? Sure looks like it with this damning piece about voter sentiment for them in this Axios focus-group piece: SAGINAW, Mich. — Some swing voters here who voted for Barack Obama and then Donald Trump are firmly in Trump’s camp now — and they're sick of impeachment. Why it matters: The two-plus hour conversation revealed major warning signs for the Democratic Party in a crucial swing county that will be a pivotal area to win in 2020. This was the biggest takeaway from our Engagious/FPG focus group last week, which included 10 voters who...

Joe Biden asserted that his childhood stutter is not the source of his much-publicized verbal stumbles on the campaign trail. “I don't think of myself as continuing to stutter," Biden said in an Axios on HBO interview that aired Sunday. "But apparently people will say occasionally say [in fact when] I'm tired, I'll go, I'll say, um, uh, and I'll find myself searching for a second." **SNIP** During the July Democratic presidential primary debate, Biden had numerous stumbles. He told viewers to "go to Joe 3-0-3-3-0" when he likely meant to say to text the number to show support for...

State Department lawyers found President Trump and the White House Office of Management and Budget had no legal ground to block the department sending military aid to Ukraine, Bloomberg reports. What's happening: The State Department "quietly authorized releasing $141 million" of the approximately $400 million withheld by the White House several days before Sept. 11 — the date Trump says he released the funds, per Bloomberg. The White House hold on funds "provoked consternation, if not panic, at the State and Defense Departments," Bloomberg reports — "because the law required them to spend the money by the end of the...

Outgoing Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), the only black Republican in the House, warned in a new interview that the GOP needs to adapt and start looking like the rest of America or "there won’t be a Republican Party in this country." In an interview with Axios that aired Sunday, Hurd said that "we know where the trends are going" regarding demographics in America and that Republicans "know what we need to do."

<p>A growing number of Republicans are privately warning of increasing fears of a total wipeout in 2020: House, Senate, and White House.</p> <p>Why it matters: All of this is unfolding while the economy still looks strong, and before public impeachment proceedings have officially begun.</p>

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, took a series of shots at President Trump in an interview that aired Sunday, saying that some of the president’s rhetoric appealed to racism and claiming that under his leadership, the US was abandoning allied Kurdish fighters in Syria. Romney, who said he wrote in his wife, Ann, when he voted in 2016, told “Axios on HBO,” “The places where I would be most critical of the president would be in matters that were divisive, that appeared to be appealing to racism or misogyny, and those are the kinds of things I think that have been...

President Trump is pushing the limits on how much Congress will tolerate of a president using his office to target political rivals. Why it matters: Ukraine is reportedly at the center of a whistleblower's concerns over Trump's contact with a foreign leader, the WashPost and N.Y. Times report. The phone call: Trump reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "about eight times" to cooperate with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on investigating Joe Biden's son Hunter, the WSJ reported Friday afternoon. The whistleblower: While few specifics are known about the whistleblower complaint, Trump's call with Zelensky was two weeks before the...

Former Vice President Joe Biden called for President Trump to release a transcript of his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, amid reports that Ukraine is at the center of a whistleblower's complaint over Trump's contacts with a foreign leader. "If these reports are true, then ... It means that he [Trump] used the power and resources of the United States to pressure a sovereign nation—a partner that is still under direct assault from Russia—pushing Ukraine to subvert the rule of law in the express hope of extracting a political favor." — Biden's statement on Friday...