Free Republic

Political action committees that fundraised for President Barrack Obama during the 2012 presidential election, bused protesters to Republican town hall events nationwide earlier in February, according to a Sunday report from The Washington Post. Democrats nationwide continue to search for ways to oppose President Donald Trump after the 2016 election, and they are digging deep into funding from years ago. An unnamed pro-Obama super PAC organized protests at several town halls, going so far as busing protesters outside the member’s districts. Since super PACS were legalized in the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, this marks the first time that...

Today Citizens United is releasing 612 pages of State Department emails relating to the Clinton Foundation, Dennis Cheng, Doug Band, Haiti, and more. These emails were produced to Citizens United by the State Department on October 21st, 22nd, and 25th as a result of FOIA requests and litigation and cover the following: "Do you know if there’s ever been or if there’s been talk of organizing official business delegations for S trips abroad?" "We need to start inviting members soon..." "Who among our strong Hispanic supporters could we nominate for Amb to the Vatican?" "I am told I am not...

Chelsea Clinton begged her mother for assistance in getting a visa for a friend – and the then Secretary of State’s top aides scrambled to help, new emails published on Thursday reveal. The tranche of emails were forced out of the State Department by campaign group Citizens United in lengthy litigation, and cast new light on Clinton’s use of her secret server, and her relationship with her daughter. In January 2012, Chelsea emailed Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, and her top aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills asking them for help in obtaining a visa for a 'distraught' friend...

ABC Breaking News Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field, a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff. The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later. Copies of dozens of internal emails were provided to ABC News by the conservative political group Citizens...

In a 2009 email recently declassified and released by Citizens United, longtime Hillary Clinton aide and confidante Huma Abedin told a Clinton Foundation executive that there was an unspecified “disaster” involving the then-Secretary of State. ‘Where are you,” read the subject line of an email from the foundation’s Doug Band. “I’m with her, we had a disaster,” Abedin emailed back. “U?”(continued)

A key Federal Election Commission Republican warned Wednesday that liberals are moving aggressively to "amend the First Amendment" so that conservatives are silenced and businesses are chased "out of the democracy." In some the toughest criticism leveled at Democrats, Commissioner Lee E. Goodman said that the attack started once the Tea Party changed American politics in the 2010 election and now dominates the politics of the Left. "It has triggered a very aggressive movement by people to amend the First Amendment, left intellectuals have placed it on the table," Goodman said on Boston's Howie Carr show.

David N. Bossie, the veteran conservative operative who has investigated the Clintons for more than two decades, has been named Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager. The Republican presidential nominee revealed his hire in a phone call with The Washington Post. "A friend of mine for many years," Trump said, speaking from his office in New York. "Solid. Smart. Loves politics, knows how to win." Bossie participated Thursday in strategy sessions at Trump Tower in New York where he was introduced to campaign aides and Trump associates, according to Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. ADVERTISING Conway said Bossie would be assisting...

A series of newly released State Department emails obtained by ABC News offers fresh insight on direct contact between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton's inner circle while she was Secretary of State. The emails -– released as part of a public records lawsuit by conservative group Citizens United and shared exclusively with ABC -- reveal what the group claims is new evidence Foundation allies received special treatment. In one December 2010 email chain with Clinton's closest aide Huma Abedin, then-top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band offers names for a State Department lunch with Chinese President Hu Jintao scheduled for...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been forced to acknowledge over the past week that the former secretary of state did not, as she had claimed, turn over all her work-related email to the State Department. The new story is that her deletion of these emails was an oversight. Team Clinton is hoping therefore that you won’t hear the story of Rajiv K. Fernando, which would suggest the oversight tale to be yet another untruth. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of Mr. Fernando, because you arguably never should have. Mr. Fernando is a one-time Chicago securities trader who in July...

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the State Department to produce the e-mail records of Hillary Clinton’s scheduler during her tenure as secretary of state, expanding an investigation being pursued by conservative nonprofit Citizens United into the overlap between Clinton’s official travel and her meetings with foreign Clinton Foundation donors. Citizens United is slated to receive all e-mails sent to and from Lona Valmoro, Clinton’s State Department scheduler, in the two-week periods before each of 14 international trips Clinton took during her four years in office. David Bossie, president of Citizens United, hopes to confirm suspicions that Clinton maintained an...

The 2016 presidential election will be the second since the court’s disastrous Citizens United decision and the first without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act in place. That means big donors will have more sway over elected officials to dictate the agenda. Already the wealthy are pouring money into the election: Politico reports that the 67 biggest donors, who have each given a million dollars or more have donated three times more than 508,000 small donors combined. A new report from Every Voice Center finds that individuals living in 1 percent of the nation’s zip codes (equal to...

Citizens United: 'The public has a right to inspect these emails before November' A watchdog group asked a federal court on Thursday to order the State Department to expedite its release of Chelsea Clinton-related records, arguing that at the current rate it would take the department 38 years to produce all the documents. Citizens United has been suing the State Department to turn over correspondence between department officials and Chelsea Clinton, who used the pseudonym “Diane Reynolds” in many of her emails. It is also asking for emails between State Department officials and the Clinton family’s long-time aides Amitabh Desai,...

Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field, a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff. The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later. Copies of dozens of internal emails were provided to ABC News by the conservative political group Citizens United, which obtained...

U.S. Sen. John McCain wrote the rules on dark money when he sponsored campaign finance reform, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Now he’s using millions of dollars in dark money in a bid to hold on to his tightly contested Arizona seat. An investigation into the various PACs supporting McCain brought to light some stunning conclusions. First, the vast majority of McCain campaign donations are not from the Arizonans he represents but from people and corporations outside of Arizona with a vested interest in McCain’s continued support and votes for their interests. Second, several of the PACs supporting McCain...

The Conservative versus the Corporatist: Justice Rehnquist’s Opposition to Justice Powell’s Drive To Create “Corporate Speech” Rights September 3, 2014 Guest Post by Jeff Clements. The writer is the Co-Founder and Board Chair of Free Speech For People and the author of the 2014 updated and expanded edition of Corporations Are Not People: Reclaiming Democracy From Big Money and Global Corporations) In the November 2012 election, the same Montana voters who gave the State’s presidential electoral votes to Republican Mitt Romney by a wide margin also approved a ballot initiative that called for a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United...

In his, shall we say, ‘defeat’ statement following his Wisconsin loss, Donald Trump leveled some pretty heavy accusations at his opponent, Ted Cruz. This time, he’s accusing the Republican presidential hopeful of flat-out violating election law. ... According to opensecrets.org, there are 12 pro-Ted Cruz super PACs (independent-expenditure only committees) that have raised millions of dollars. A group called Keep The Promise III has raised the most funds at over $16.5 million. However, to date, we have no evidence that Cruz openly coordinated with these groups, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. The rules on what counts as coordination...

Newt Gingrich laid it out perfectly on Sunday. The forced ouster of Mozilla co-founder and CEO Brendan Eich this week was a sign of the "new fascism" of liberalism that's sweeping American life. "People need to realize, if you're a young faculty member, in a lot of places if you're a young member of a news department and you have the wrong views – meaning conservative – you have no career," Gingrich said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "This is just the most open and blatant example of the new fascism, which says, 'if you don't agree with us...

Ultra-Left Dems are habituated to derangement about Conservs. Now it's Cruz--Trump' s God-Talk is just old timely Pol, even Chelsea spouts it. Before it was Cruz, it was Sarah Palin Derangement Syndrome, before her it was Dubya Derangement (W). That's just preaching to the Leftist Choir. But Citizens United, now demanding answers about Bubba in N. Korea, that's a SCOTUS Decision, that was the last Dem Senate Majority's focus for overthrowing the 1st Amendment. When leftists finally own up to owning guns, start openly stockpiling and get Bill Ayers to organize national street fighting training, you know Citizens United will...

Pointing to the effects of "horrible" super-PACs, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday said America needs to come up with a solution to keep big money out of politics. "Well, I think you need it, because I think PACs are a horrible thing," Trump said on CNN's "State of the Union" when asked if he would pursue campaign finance reform. The billionaire businessman, who said he is self-financing his campaign, said the wall separating super-PACs and candidates running for public office is illusory. "First of all, everyone's dealing with their PAC. You know, it's supposed to be like this...

The latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department early Friday contain what may be the smoking gun that forces the Justice Department to charge the former secretary of state with a crime, according to former federal prosecutor Joseph diGenova. "This is gigantic," said diGenova. "She caused to be removed a classified marking and then had it transmitted in an unencrypted manner. That is a felony. The removal of the classified marking is a federal crime. It is the same thing to order someone to do it as if she had done it herself." On the June...