Free Republic

The "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation represents one of the most concerning abuses of power in modern American history. What began as opposition research funded by political opponents evolved into a full-scale intelligence and law enforcement operation targeting Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and later administration. What did John Brennan do?The following individuals played pivotal roles in what many now view as a coordinated effort to surveil, delegitimize, and ultimately remove a duly elected president using the powers of government agencies. Their actions reveal a troubling pattern of bias, conflicts of interest, and legal abuses that threaten our entire Constitutional order. 1....

Ferguson was the ground zero for the BLM movement that destroyed public safety and the race riots that wrecked out cities and led to a wave of radical pro-crime policies that killed thousands. While Ferguson may be in the rearview mirror for many, the Trump administration is moving to shut down the Community Relations Service that was at the heart of it.A little flashback.The Justice Department “sent in its secretive Community Relations Service, all but indistinguishable from a group of community organizers, to train protesters and provide liaison services for them. The so-called ‘Peacemakers’ wear the blue windbreakers, polo shirts...

WTH, Great Britain?President Trump is working to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who has been an organizer of pro-Hamas rallies and who has been committing crimes, recruiting others to commit crimes, and illegally supporting a terrorist organization as an alien. John has been doing yeoman's work covering this case. Immigration law is explicit about the last: you may not have, may not now, nor may you at any point as a visa or green card holder support terrorists. It is black letter law. The Left is going crazy, because, well, the Left. If it is bad, they support...

The FBI released a new batch of heavily redacted Capitol Hill protest records on its website Friday, showing that the bureau executed “disruptions” inside MAGA groups ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Stop the Steal rally. In the context of FBI operations, the term “disruption” was made famous in the 1970s, when the FBI’s controversial Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO, was revealed to the public. “Disruption operations” can include criminal arrests, but in the COINTELPRO era they referred to undercover FBI agents and informants infiltrating political groups to sow discord—employing tactics such as spreading rumors, sleeping with other members’ wives and...

Special Operation Forces Week in Tampa is the premier gathering event for all things related to Special Operations. On May 9, 2024, at the most recent event in Tampa, there was a session on “Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) Symposium”. This title is simply another name for Psychological Operations (PSYOP). Having been to the PSYOP Course at Ft. Bragg (now Ft. Liberty) in 1984, this panel caught my attention. The name, functional areas, doctrine and tactics have evolved a bit since PSYOP was first introduced in the 1950s to fight Soviet Communism that was on a post-World War II...

Joe Rogan suggested that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a set-up by the US government’s intelligence agencies to take down former President Donald Trump. “The Jan. 6 thing is bad, but also, the intelligence agencies were involved in provoking people into the Capitol Building. That’s a fact,” the controversial podcaster said during a nearly three-hour episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” on Friday. Rogan also speculated that a 61-year-old man named Ray Epps — who found himself at the center of conspiracy theories surrounding the attack after videos showed him breaching Capitol grounds — could have been a federal...

Many find it shocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) could be capable of ginning up false allegations against a former president in a previous election and would again do the same prior to the 2024 election. This shock, however, is a mark of just how drastically conservatives have failed to recognize the long decline of the DOJ and its ultimate transformation into a political subsidiary of a radicalized Democratic Party. Conservatives would do well to observe seminal moments that have led the country’s top law enforcement entity to its present dire state. In that review, all roads ultimately lead back...

With the recent revelations that the FBI paid an informant who inserted himself into Denver racial justice protests in 2020 and encouraged protesters to commit crimes, COINTELPRO is back in the spotlight. So is the Church Committee, the group of senators who investigated that FBI program, now that Representative Jim Jordan has compared it to his own committee looking into how President Joe Biden treats Republicans. The FBI's Counterintelligence Program — COINTELPRO — ran from 1956 to 1971 and targeted advocacy groups associated with political and social movements that the FBI viewed as a threat to American stability. The goal...

A new podcast out today called “Alphabet Boys” documents how the FBI disrupted racial justice organizing after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, including paying an informant at least $20,000 to infiltrate and spy on activist groups in Denver, Colorado. The informant also encouraged activists to purchase guns and commit violence, echoing the FBI’s use of the COINTELPRO program to sabotage left-wing activist groups in the 1960s. For more, we’re joined by three guests: journalist and creator of the “Alphabet Boys” podcast Trevor Aaronson, Denver-based activist Zebbodios Hall, who was one of many activists targeted by the FBI’s...

One of the ringleaders in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced to more than 19 years behind bars Wednesday — a day after an accomplice was slapped with a 16-year prison term, federal prosecutors said. Barry Croft Jr., 47, was handed the 19½-year sentence by Michigan federal Judge Robert Jonker four months after his conviction for conspiring to kidnap the Democratic governor from her Elk Rapids vacation cottage in 2020. Croft, a trucker from Delaware, was the fourth and final defendant in the plot to learn his fate. The judge described him as “the idea guy”...

In 2019 the FBI received, investigated, and eventually closed an investigation into a tip on the gunman who opened fire inside Indiana’s Greenwood Mall on July 17, 2022. Breitbart News reported the gunman exited a bathroom near the mall’s food court and began firing at innocents. Greenwood Police Chief James Ison noted that 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken pulled a concealed carry handgun, opened fire on the mall shooter, and “neutralized” him just 15 seconds after the attack began. The attacker was able to kill three innocents during the 15 second-duration of the attack.

The F.B.I. had as many as eight informants inside the far-right Proud Boys in the months surrounding the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, recent court papers indicate, raising questions about how much federal investigators were able to learn from them about the violent mob attack both before and after it took place. The existence of the informants came to light over the past few days in a flurry of veiled court filings by defense lawyers for five members of the Proud Boys who are set to go on trial next month on seditious conspiracy charges connected to...

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes reportedly said he wanted to hang U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “from the lamppost” in a recording obtained by the FBI and played during his trial this week. In the Jan. 10, 2021, audio recording played by the FBI Wednesday in the trial against the far-right militia leader, Rhodes told members of his group that his “only regret is they should have brought rifles” to the riot on the Capitol four days earlier. “We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang F–— Pelosi from the lamppost,”...

Three men accused of supporting a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor were convicted of all charges Wednesday, a triumph for state prosecutors after months of mixed results in the main case in federal court. Joe Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico, and Paul Bellar were found guilty of providing “material support” for a terrorist act as members of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen. They held gun drills in rural Jackson County with a leader of the scheme, Adam Fox, who was disgusted with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other officials in 2020 and said he wanted to kidnap her. Jurors read...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Fighting back tears and finally given the chance to confront conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the parents of a 6-year-old killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting described being put through a “living hell” of death threats, harassment and ongoing trauma over the last decade caused by Jones using his media platforms to push claims that it was all a hoax. The parents led a day of charged testimony that included the judge scolding the bombastic Jones for not being truthful with some of what he said under oath. Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose...

A federal judge handling the re-trial of two men charged in connection to an alleged kidnapping plot of Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer decided Tuesday that information about the first trial, the acquittals of two other men and text messages with an FBI informant cannot be included as part of the evidence presented before the jury during the second trial slated to begin next month.

The suspect in the Highland Park, Illinois, Fourth of July mass shooting was flagged by police as a "clear and present danger" in 2019, authorities said Tuesday. Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo III, 21, the suspect in the mass shooting that killed seven people and wounded dozens of others at a Fourth of July parade, was still able to clear state-required background checks to purchase firearms on at least four separate occasions between 2020 and 2021, the Illinois State Police said. "In September 2019, ISP received a Clear and Present Danger report on the subject from the Highland Park Police Department....

Authorities revealed Tuesday afternoon that the suspect who allegedly shot dozens of people at a parade on Monday had a history of run-ins with law enforcement officials. “I’m going to relay some information from two prior instances that occurred here in Highland Park,” Christopher Covelli, Lake County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer, said at a press conference. “The first was in April of 2019. An individual contacted Highland Park Police Department a week after learning of [the suspect] attempting suicide. This was a delayed report, so Highland Park still responded to the residence a week later, spoke with [the suspect],...

VIDEOCOINTELPRO, the FBI Counterintelligence Program from over 50 years ago, is back and bigger than ever. In addition, they have now fully embraced becoming a Political Police Agency to the extent of raiding the homes of journalists such as James O'Keefe as well as Republican officials in an effort to neutralize them ahead of the midterm elections. Here you can see FBI officials address the concerns about the COINTELPRO abuses with complete candor.Oh, and it should be noted that the new COINTELPRO operations were completely suspended for the day of January 6, 2021. Got that? No FBI counterintelligence operations on...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The social media posts are of a distinct type. They hint darkly that the CIA or the FBI are behind mass shootings. They traffic in racist, sexist and homophobic tropes. They revel in the prospect of a “white boy summer.” White nationalists and supremacists, on accounts often run by young men, are building thriving, macho communities across social media platforms like Instagram, Telegram and TikTok, evading detection with coded hashtags and innuendo. Their snarky memes and trendy videos are riling up thousands of followers on divisive issues including abortion, guns, immigration and LGBTQ rights. ... They signal...