Free Republic

Gov. Tim Walz on Friday announced he is appealing the federal government's decision to deny a major disaster declaration to help Minnesota rebuild from the rioting that broke out after George Floyd's death in police custody. The Governor requested funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on July 2. That request was denied on July 10. Walz requested funding specifically to help rebuild public infrastructure that had been damaged in the civil unrest starting on May 27. In a news release, Walz cited the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, which states that fires to public infrastructures regardless of...

Over the three hours she testified, Sally Yates proved herself ignorant of basic facts and ready to dissemble rather than admit that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. On Wednesday, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified via a live video link before the Senate Judiciary Committee. With a sure demeanor, the long-time federal prosecutor presented herself as an apolitical creature concerned only with Russian interference in the 2016 electionYet, over the three hours she testified, Yates proved herself ignorant of basic facts and ready to dissemble rather than admit that the Obama administration spied on the Trump...

Usher and Ng, journalism professors at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, identified nine clusters of journalists or "communities of practice" in their study, published online by the journal Social Media + Society. Their "elite/legacy" cluster was the largest, including about 30% of the journalists covered in the study, with The Washington Post, NBC News, NPR and The New York Times among the major newsrooms represented. A congressional journalism cluster included another 20%. The other clusters centered around CNN, television producers, local political news, regulatory journalists, foreign affairs, long-form/enterprise reporting and social issues. In leading the study, Usher said she wanted...

Assertions that the focus was ‘the Trump campaign’ are now known to be ludicrous Long-sought documents finally pried from U.S. intelligence agencies prove that the Obama administration used the occasion of providing a standard intelligence briefing for major-party candidates as an opportunity to investigate Donald Trump on suspicion of being a Russian asset. I say investigate Donald Trump advisedly. As I contended in Ball of Collusion, my book on the Trump-Russia investigation, the target of the probe spearheaded by the FBI — but greenlighted by the Obama White House, and abetted by the Justice Department and U.S. intelligence agencies —...

The Senate Judiciary Committee released a declassified document Friday that shows former FBI agent Peter Strzok knew that a February 2017 article in the New York Times suggesting Russia “collusion” was false in almost every respect. The document includes Strzok’s digital annotations on a Times article, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence,” which claimed that former and current U.S. “officials” had alleged that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials.” Strzok added a note in the margins: “This statement is misleading and inaccurate as...

Donald Trump has called for the extradition of a former MI6 agent who was behind a controversial dossier about his alleged links to Russia. Christopher Steele, now a director of Orbis Business Intelligence, was responsible for the 'dirty dossier' published in 2016 that alleged Russian influence over President Trump. The Steele Dossier contained allegations of collusion between Mr Trump's US presidential campaign and the Kremlin, which have been denied by both parties. On Wednesday, Orbis was ordered to pay compensation to two Russian businessmen that had complained about data protection breaches including inaccuracies in the dossier relating to them. Taking...

The sordid details of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s unwholesome dealings with communist China continue to emerge, including the shocking revelation that Newsom is quietly funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to the communist Chinese regime in exchange for political favors. Because California is certifiably bankrupt and on the verge of total economic collapse, Newsom appears to have forged a backroom deal with the Chicoms that involves him handing over taxpayer dollars in exchange for political bailouts. These include keeping California artificially afloat, as well as Newsom in office, at least until China can get troops on the ground as...

A British court decision unmasks new evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion probe. It was in London that the whole Russia collusion caper began four years ago, so it seems only fitting that as the discredited probe enters its final phase that damning new evidence of the FBI’s failures would emerge back in England. This week when a British judge ruled against the former FBI human source Christopher Steele, the decision delivered more than an order for the former spy’s company to pay damages to two Russian businessmen maligned by his dossier. It also introduced new incontrovertible evidence...

Now can demand 'records and testimony' of many Obama administration officials Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Thursday was given the authority to subpoena dozens of former members of the Obama administration who were involved in the Russia collusion investigation. The Obama Justice Department's probe of the now-debunked collusion claim, which included illegitimate spying on the Trump campaign, led to the special counsel probe of Robert Mueller, which couldn't find sufficient evidence of collusion. Johnson has explained that dozens of leaks of national security information fueled the "Russia narrative, first of Russia helping Trump and then, all of a sudden, the...

Antonio Socci: The Mystery of the Sunday Angelus What are the true contents of the still secret agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist regime? And why, after two years, is it still hidden? What is there to hide? The question is ever more pressing, because last Sunday a true detective story unfolded. Immediately following the Sunday Angelus, Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, on his widely followed blog Stilum Curiae, revealed that in the bulletin distributed to journalists before the Pope’s prayer, there were some important remarks prepared on the crisis of Hong Kong, where the Beijing regime is definitively...

The Conway dinner table just got even more heated. Kellyanne Conway’s daughter is now sharing her liberal political opinions on TikTok. Claudia, the daughter of the counselor to President Trump and anti-Trump Republican George Conway III, is making her progressive beliefs known on the video-sharing app.

This past Saturday, after President Trump’s Tulsa rally did not draw the expected capacity crowd, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID.” “Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ??”Ocasio-Cortez was responding to claims that TikTok, with apparent help from within China, flooded the Trump campaign with fake reservation requests, discouraging others from attending.But what was most telling in her tweet was...

According to documents submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice, Chinese state-run media, China Daily, paid American newspapers and media nearly 19 million USD for advertising and printing expenses over the past four years. Daily Caller, an American news and commentary website, reported the findings on June 8, posting “China Daily, an English-language newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, has paid more than $4.6 million to The Washington Post and nearly $6 million to The Wall Street Journal since November 2016.” Both newspapers published paid supplements that China Daily produces called “China Watch.” The inserts are designed to look...

An advisory board overseeing the T has agreed on an order not to allow buses to transport police to protests or protesters to police, officials said Thursday. “Our concern is that there is a political fight going on in our country to eliminate racist practices, and we are not going to have the T used in any way, shape or form to inhibit people from expressing themselves,” board member Brian Lang told 7NEWS.

Seven top Senators said Sullivan's actions violate the Constitution's clear separation of powers on which branch of government may prosecute American citizens. The actions of the rogue federal judge in the Michael Flynn criminal case are an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power that represent a “recipe for tyranny,” seven top senators, including the Senate Majority leader, told a federal court on Monday. In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blasted the refusal of Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to grant the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss...

BEIJING - Chinese state media is giving extensive coverage to violent protests roiling cities across the United States, while the unrest has also featured widely in Chinese social media. China’s state-run CCTV aired parts of an interview that his brother, Philonise Floyd, gave to U.S. news channel MSNBC in its noon broadcast on Monday, where he said U.S. President Donald Trump did not give him the opportunity to speak during a phone call and where he cried at the mention of his brother. While the unrest in U.S. cities has been widely reported by international media, China’s interest comes at...

Twenty legal luminaries led by Harvard professor Laurence Tribe have written a brief urging Judge Emmet Sullivan to reject the government’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn case. Twenty legal luminaries calling themselves “Separation of Powers Scholars” and led by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe have written a brief urging Judge Emmet Sullivan to reject the government’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn case and to proceed to sentencing.The brief is a shoddy piece of work. It tells little about the Flynn case, even misleading on that score, but it triggers disturbing ruminations about the sad state of current legal academia.How...

Emmet SullivanÂ’s order welcoming amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case would cause a reasonable person to question Judge SullivanÂ’s impartiality. Judge Emmet Sullivan must recuse from the Michael Flynn criminal case because he no longer maintains any semblance of impartiality.On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared before federal Judge Randolph Contreras and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to FBI agents. Less than a week later, and without explanation, the case was reassigned to Sullivan, who has served as the presiding judge in the Flynn case since then.Circumstances have long suggested that Judge Sullivan holds an...

Those condemning the DOJ’s decision to drop the charges against Michael Flynn ignore the growing evidence of misconduct by both the FBI and the federal prosecutors. Not quite two weeks ago, Judge Emmet Sullivan threw open the doors of his federal courtroom to the swamp when he invited third parties to pontificate on the propriety of the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Michael Flynn. The next day Sullivan went further: He appointed a former federal judge, John Gleeson, as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, to argue that the government’s motion to dismiss...