Free Republic

Susan Crawford, the retired judge in charge of determining which Guantanamo detainees should be tried by a U.S. military commision, has refused to refer the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani to prosecutors because of that assessment, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. "We tortured (Mohammed al-) Qahtani," Crawford told the Post. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. Military prosecutors have accused al-Qahtani of helping to plan the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, and believe he may have sought to participate, possibly as the "20th hijacker." The United States had...

U.S. Judge Reduces 'Va. Jihad' Sentences New Terms Still Called 'Draconian' By Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, July 30, 2005 A federal judge yesterday reduced the sentences of three members of a "Virginia jihad network," ordering the resentencings to comply with a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed judges more discretion on such issues. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema was pleased that she had the chance to lessen sentences she had criticized as excessive...

[Subtitle: “I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests,” Browder writes.]The financier Bill Browder has emerged as an unlikely central player in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney Browder hired to investigate official corruption, died in Russian custody in 2009. Congress subsequently imposed sanctions on the officials it held responsible for his death, passing the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government retaliated, among other ways,...

A team of former high-level intelligence computer geeks has concluded that Russia never hacked the Democratic National Committee servers in 2016. This story might come as a surprise to you since the mainstream media is engaged in a total news blackout of any information that damages their insane Russia collusion conspiracy theory. After every aspect of Hillary Clinton’s bought-and-paid-for “Russian dossier” has been exposed as a complete hoax, we’re now learning that the “Russian hack” was likewise fake news. William Binney is the former Technical Director of the NSA, and Larry Johnson is a former CIA counterterrorism analyst. I don’t...

"Obama's Assistant Attorney General Tells Senate: Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights" SNIPPET: "“Does that infer that these individuals have constitutional rights?” McCain asked Kris. “Ah, yes,” Kris answered. “What are those constitutional rights of people who are not citizens of the United States of America, who were captured on a battlefield committing acts of war against the United States?” McCain asked. “Our analysis, Senator, is that the due process clause applies to military commissions and imposes a constitutional floor on the procedures that the government sets on such commissions …” Kris said. “So you are saying that these...

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists. The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system. The tapes depict Binalshibh’s interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely...

Do the Democrats have an anti-Semitism problem? Seems that Rep. Ilhan Omar's "pioneering" on that sick front has drawn other anti-Semites to the party. Daniel Greenfield at Frontline has a report: Just as the Dems were recovering from their anti-Semitism controversy with Rep. Omar, they've got an anti-Semitic bigot with name recognition running for Senate in New Mexico. It's yesterday's lefty heroine, Valerie Plame, covert secret agent and inspiration for James Bond who inspired one of the more unintentionally hilarious lefty Bush era movies (one that Aaron Sorkin would probably like to forget.) Plame was force to apologize after sharing...

A federal judge was aghast over the Trump administration’s assertion it could indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant without providing access to a lawyer, saying the Justice Department’s defense of the practice amounted to “an end run” around the man’s Constitutional rights. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is weighing a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to allow the group access to the man in order to provide him legal representation. “He wants counsel, which is an assertion and a request that I don’t think I can ignore,” Judge Chutkan said Monday, adding that she plans...

Republican presidential contender Donald Trump doubled down Monday night on his support for waterboarding terrorist suspects, saying the interrogation method worked – and even “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they’re doing to us.” Speaking at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, Trump returned to a topic that caused a stir when he said on ABC “This Week” on Sunday that as president he would bring back waterboarding. “Would I approve waterboarding? And I said, well, let me ask you a question. On the other side, they chop off our young people’s heads, and they put them...

Russia has called on the United States to punish those responsible for the use of “inquisition-style” interrogation methods in the “global war on terror”, as revealed in the US Senate report on torture this week. Konstantin Dolgov, the human rights ombudsman of Russia’s foreign ministry, said the results of the “shocking” report were “the latest confirmation of gross, systemic human rights violations by the American authorities”. .... The Senate report showed that “prisoners in secret torture chambers were subjected to inhuman, humiliating treatment” including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and threats against suspects’ families in order to “beat confessions out of often...

Here come the hyper-partisan hounds. A new nonprofit called American Oversight launched this week to combat President Trump's "culture of impunity." The outfit declared itself "nonpartisan" and claims its crusaders will fight for a "transparent and ethical government." But like Waylon Jennings once crooned, "Baby, that dog won't hunt." These Democrat operatives aren't interested in accountability. Their mission is to attack, obstruct and destroy their political opponents at all costs. Executive Director and Obama donor Austin Evers is certainly familiar with the "culture of impunity." He worked as a lawyer at Williams and Connolly -- the firm representing Hillary Clinton...

Roger Stone's lawyer on Friday clashed with a key witness in the longtime Trump adviser's trial over charges of lying to Congress. During a heated cross-examination, Stone's lawyer questioned the credibility of radio host and political activist Randy Credico, with the judge at numerous times intervening. Stone is accused of lying to lawmakers about his claims of having an intermediary with WikiLeaks as the organization was preparing to release stolen emails from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. He told the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that Credico was his back channel to WikiLeaks. Credico has denied having...

“Dopey” Prince Alaweed Was Warned — Now He Sits In Prison In December 2015 Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal slammed Donald Trump for proposing a ban on Muslim immigrants in the US after the San Bernardino attacks. Donald Trump hit the “dopey prince” back twice as hard. "Detained members of Saudi elite have been hung by their feet and beaten by interrogates, source says. Among those hung upside down are Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor worth at least $7 billion who is being held at Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton. Saudi princes and billionaire businessmen arrested in a power grab earlier...

Al Qaeda Recruiter Reportedly Tortured (Ex-Inmate in Syria Cites Others' Accounts) CASABLANCA, Morocco -- In January 2002, Driss bin Lakoul, a 38-year-old Moroccan committed to jihad, was arrested in Syria after unsuccessfully attempting to reach Afghanistan, where he wanted to fight against U.S. forces. For three months, the soft-spoken, bearded man with glasses recounted in an interview here, he was held in Damascus at the Far' Falastin detention center run by Syrian military intelligence. In the prison, inmates spoke of a German citizen held in the rat-infested basement, a warren of lightless cells each barely three feet long, three feet...

SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found. Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq. An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either...

The general leading the force to free the captive enemy from the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, and inflict a humiliating defeat on the United States is so-called “civil rights” and “Constitutional” attorney Michael Ratner. It was Ratner who led the way in recruiting elite lawyers to defend the enemy combatants being interrogated at Gitmo. But Ratner is a long-time leader of two pro-Communist and anti-American organizations who have for decades lent aid and comfort to America's enemies in the Cold War and beyond. Michael Ratner began his legal career in the late 1960s at the National Lawyers Guild,...

A medic testifying in the trial of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher – who is accused of killing an injured ISIS prisoner of war in Iraq – has shockingly testified Thursday that he is the one who killed the militant, not Gallagher. The medic told a court at Naval Base San Diego that he killed the fighter by asphyxiation. He also testified that Gallagher stabbed the fighter, but did not kill him. Gallagher, 40, has pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder and aggravated assault charges stemming from the alleged killing of a wounded ISIS fighter and alleged instances of firing sniper...

Here’s the left’s next great idea for bringing down President Trump: another women’s march. Which means another public instance of Trump haters shouting slogans to one another and mistaking it for constructive politics. What progressives need to defeat Trump is outreach, but all they have is outrage. On March 8, organizers seem to be aiming for a different vibe than the librarians-in-pussy-hats element that made the first women’s march after Trump’s inauguration so adorable. Instead of milling around Washington, organizers have in mind a “general strike” called the Day without a Woman. In a manifesto published in The Guardian on...

Michael D’Andrea goes by many names. To those in the CIA, he’s the Undertaker, the Dark Prince, Ayatollah Mike. To Hollywood, he’s the Wolf, immortalized in Zero Dark Thirty, a film about the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden. To the general public, he is nobody, as he is still undercover, a man who has spent 38 years toiling at the CIA, his dutiful service resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people. He is stubbled and gaunt, with a preference for dark suits, his colleagues say, and he has a bad smoking habit and a bad attitude. {..snip..}

NSA whistleblower Russel Tice – a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping – told Peter B. Collins on Boiling Frogs Post (the website of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds): Tice: Okay. They went after–and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things–they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial. But they went...