Free Republic

Donald Trump’s defenders would love for people to believe that the former president entered into totally normal, by-the-book, run-of-the-mill legal agreements with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to purchase their silence, and that he did so in a way that was agreeable and beneficial to all parties. But that’s not what happened. Trump risks indictment because, allegedly at his behest, an illegal scheme was undertaken to deceive the public at a critical moment before the 2016 election. That was the purpose of the “hush money” payments—not to enrich the women or settle a personal matter,...

In recent days, out-homosexual Tim Miller wrote a piece at the increasingly odd website known as The Bulwark. Miller was writing about the ongoing Sussmann trial where special prosecutor John Durham is making the case that the Hillary Clinton campaign played a direct role in various hoaxes that enveloped our country and the presidency of Donald J. Trump. Without getting too deep in the weeds, former Clinton adviser Robby Mook testified that Hillary approved the spreading of various lies about a computer connection between the Trump campaign and something called the Alfa Bank in Moscow. This was misinformation peddled by...

<p>In a Facebook post this week, Rowe decided to answer a question from one of his fans. The gentleman asked why, since Rowe had gotten a COVID vaccine, he had not used his platform to urge others to do so.</p>

It appears we face two large crises in the United States. We actually are facing only one. The first is the public health crisis. As more of us get our coronavirus vaccinations, it is becoming increasingly apparent that tens of millions of people are refusing to get a shot. So although COVID cases will likely drop significantly, we may not reach the vaccination level necessary for herd immunity—and therefore COVID could dangerously linger in some form for years to come. The second crisis is the anti-democratic movement. We’ve been dealing with this for years, but it reached a dangerous new...

My suggestion last week that perhaps the best way some of us who’ve been conservatives can now help the country is to help the Biden administration succeed, and help the Democratic party move to the center, seems to have stirred up a minor tempest in the conservative teapot. I asked whether one shouldn’t “consider allying oneself with the Biden wing of the Democratic party? Aren’t the Red Dogs worth at least a thought?” And the answer, from several reasonable and honest conservatives, was, “Not really.” That’s fine. I wrote the piece to stimulate debate and I’m glad it did. I...

The safety and security of the 2020 presidential election has been verified over and over, including by the top Republicans in the country. President Trump’s own attorney general confirmed that there was no fraud that would have changed the outcome, and former Trump administration top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs called it “the most secure election in American history.” A great deal of attention has—for good reason—been paid to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed suit in an attempt to strip millions of Americans in four states of their vote. And Paxton was joined by attorneys general in 18 states...

I had an opportunity to ask the president of the United States a question only once in the six weeks prior to the November general election—when, on September 23, I asked him if he would support a peaceful transfer of power following the election “win, lose or draw.” His answer was explosively controversial at the time: “We’ll see what happens.” Well, we have seen. We have seen the president lose the election—by more than 5 million popular votes and by 306-232 in the Electoral College. In 2016, when Trump won the Electoral College by that same margin but lost the...

In a line many on the right love to quote, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused Joe Biden of being “wrong on nearly every major foreign-policy and national-security issue over the past four decades.” Gates isn’t wrong, though he, too, has been wrong on foreign policy questions, and has anyone who’s made enough tough decisions over that many decades (see Churchill, Winston).What conservatives omit is that Gates dedicates most of the passage to praising Biden’s character: Joe is simply impossible not to like. He’s down to earth, funny, profane, and humorously self-aware of his motormouth. Not too many meetings had...

One could almost feel the collective, international gasp at the breaking news of the death on Friday of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at the age of 87, from complications related to pancreatic cancer. Justice Ginsburg was first diagnosed in 2009, beating back for years a demonic malignancy that claims most lives in less than half that time. She was a warrior—a warrior for civil rights, for gender rights, for constitutional rights, to be sure. But in this moment of American history when democracy itself hangs by a thread, with a yawning crevasse of authoritarianism menacingly before us, perhaps...

ABOARD HMS BULWARK -- HMS Bulwark (L15), the Royal Navy's most modern and versatile warship, assumed duties Feb. 28 from USS Cape St. George (CG 71) as the flagship for the Royal Navy staff which leads Combined Task Force 58 (CTF 58), a multinational coalition that conducts maritime security operations (MSO) in the North Arabian Gulf (NAG). Maritime security operations help set the conditions for security and stability in the maritime environment as well as complement the counter-terrorism and security efforts of regional nations. MSO deny the illegal use of the maritime environment as a venue for attack or to...