Free Republic

MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government...

Anthropic said its latest artificial intelligence model resorted to blackmail when told it would be taken offline. In a safety test, the AI company asked Claude Opus 4 to act as an assistant to a fictional company, but then gave it access to (also fictional) emails saying that it would be replaced, and also that the engineer behind the decision was cheating on his wife. Anthropic said the model “[threatened] to reveal the affair” if the replacement went ahead. AI thinkers such as Geoff Hinton have long worried that advanced AI would manipulate humans in order to achieve its goals....

During a swearing-in ceremony for Paul Atkins as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, President Donald Trump was asked point-blank about the long-awaited release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein. A reporter asked, “When can we expect the Epstein documents to be released?” Trump replied, “Which documents?” “The Epstein files,” the reporter clarified. President Trump responded calmly but pointedly: “I don’t know. I’ll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don’t know.”

A large group of U.S. House Republicans sent a letter on Friday questioning Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the presence of a Chinese Fuzhou police service station in New York City.“We are writing to express our grave concern over reports of the law enforcement presence of the People’s Republic of China in New York City,” begins the letter from 21 lawmakers, including Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).The letter states, “The Public Security (Police) Bureau of Fuzhou, China, announced in January 2022 that...

The U.S. government must launch a probe into the Chinese overseas law enforcement operation in New York City, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation, as other countries raise the alarm over reports of police stations on their soil. “How in God’s name could they openly have these communist police stations in our country?” Beau Dietl, retired NYPD detective, told the DCNF. “This shows the Chinese Communist Party is not afraid to exert its will outside of China, and we should do all that we can to counter this behavior,” Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch of Idaho...

An American businessman arrested in Communist China over a decade on apparently flimsy charges of drug trafficking will be put to death, Chinese government officials have announced. Mark Swidan, a Houston, Texas businessman, was arrested in November 2012 and sentenced to death in 2018 on charges he was in China to smuggle illegal drugs. John Kamm, chairman of the Dui Hua human rights foundation, tells Newsweek “the only ‘evidence’ against him is that Swidan once visited a factory where Chinese authorities allege the meth was manufactured, and that he had been in a room rented by another person where drugs...

When all our lives are online, there is an abundance of content available for malicious actors to exploit with AI-powered tools, says RSIS’ Dymples Leong.News emerged in late November that over 100 Singaporean public servants, including five ministers, received extortionary emails with deepfake images. The messages demanded US$50,000 of cryptocurrency in return for not publishing “compromising” videos. The emails contained purported screenshots of those videos showing the victim’s faces, which seemed to be taken from public sources such as LinkedIn. This is not the first extortion plot against public servants in Singapore. Earlier this year, several members of parliament received...

On Thursday's "American Agenda," Greg Kelly discussed his opposition to Pete Hegseth's Defense Secretary nomination.

Hunter Biden’s Pardon Is All About Protecting Joe Biden, Not His SonBy pardoning his son for more than a decade of potential crimes, the president is protecting himself above all.President Joe Biden didn’t pardon Hunter because he’s a loving father who thinks his drug addict son was treated unfairly by the Justice Department. He pardoned Hunter to help cover up his own crimes, just as he’ll likely pardon other members of his family before he leaves office in January. He’s trying to protect himself, and this is one of the only ways he has left to do it.After all, President...

Republican Senator John Cornyn (TX) said he “absolutely” wants to review the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of Matt Gaetz. Fresh off of losing his bid to be Senate Majority Leader, RINO Cornyn told reporters that he wants to see Matt Gaetz’s ethics report after Trump nominated him as US Attorney General. Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress on Wednesday evening after President Trump announced his nomination for US Attorney General.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An acquaintance of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning in London said in a television interview that Alexander Litvinenko, who accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, had planned to blackmail a wealthy Russian businessman. Russian Julia Svetlichnaya said she was a graduate student in London when she spoke to Litvinenko -- a former Russian state security officer who died on November 23 in London after ingesting polonium 210 -- about a book she was writing. "He told me ... he's doing a project for blackmailing one of the Russian oligarchs (exiled...

EVIDENCE OF CORRUPTION: Evidence of Obama, CIA Brennan, FBI Comey blackmailing Hillary Clinton with a bribe of $18 million dollars which she accepted. Garland and FBI Wray destroyed child porn evidence from Ukraine that was to be planted on Trump. Evidence Epstein was murdered.

In a federal indictment unsealed today, Diddy was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Drugs fueled days-long 'freak offs,' videos used to 'ensure ... obedience,' prosecutors say

This interview by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner is buckets of interesting and simultaneously very revealing. Playing along with the big club intelligence game as framed by Margaret Brennan, HPSCI Chairman Turner showcases his weasel nature and alignment with the worst actors in the Intelligence Community from the outset. Watch it closely and you will notice that Turner frames national intelligence activity as a political product. ..... Snip..... Representative Mike Turner really is one of the worst members of congress. I would rank Turner’s corrupt and Machiavellian status right next to SSCI Chairman Mark Warner. Turner will defend the...

The headquarters of the Republican National Committee was put on lockdown Wednesday morning after two vials of blood were discovered in a package addressed to former President Donald Trump — with the party’s chairman calling the incident a “biological attack.” “Today, vials of blood were sent to RNC Headquarters in DC. We are thankful to law enforcement, who responded quickly and ensured everyone’s safety. The lockdown has been cleared and staff has resumed their office duties because we remain unintimidated and undeterred in our efforts to elect President Trump to the White House,” RNC boss Michael Whatley said in a...

Just because it's not front page news at the moment doesn't mean this may not be one of the most important stories in the world right now. As discussed here and here, the conflict between China and the Philippines has been escalating for most of the past year. China claims that all of the islands in the South China Sea belong to it and the Philippines refuses to comply, especially with regard to island that are within its Exclusive Economic Zone.China has been harassing Philippines' ships and fishing vessels for months but last week it threatened to release proof of...

Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of documents Monday that appear to reveal a coordinated effort within the Biden administration to target Donald Trump with political prosecution after he left office. Special Counsel Jack Smith and other federal prosecutors in President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Trump in June 2023 for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home. The indictment followed an unprecedented raid on a former president’s home the prior summer. President Biden also retained classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Yet he was not charged because prosecutors say they believed he would “present himself to...

Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2 Newly unredacted FBI interview btw FBI and unidentified Mar-a-Lago employee from Jan 2023 shows agents trying to get information about the personal life of Walt Nauta, Trump's close personal aide DOJ wanted to flip.

Tucker Carlson just ignited a firestorm with his latest statement, suggesting that the U.S. might not be a Democracy but "something else" resembling tyranny

Political commentator Tucker Carlson said that politicians are “terrified” of intelligence agencies framing them with “kiddie porn” if they oppose warrantless spying on Americans. Carlson made the stunning allegation on an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” that aired on Friday. The former Fox News host told Rogan that lawmakers have personally told him they fear retaliation from the intelligence community if they oppose reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). “People don’t say that because they’re worried about being punished,” Carlson said. “They’re worried about someone putting kiddie porn on their computer. Members of Congress are...