Free Republic

Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh had been both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the NSA, a role he'd held since February 2024. The director and the No. 2 official at the National Security Agency were ousted from their positions Thursday, according to a defense official and three sources with knowledge of the matter. It was not immediately clear why Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh and his deputy were dismissed, the sources said. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. Haugh was both the head of...

Iran “never” plotted to assassinate Donald Trump during last year’s U.S. election campaign and never will in the future, President Masoud Pezeshkian told NBC News’ Lester Holt in an exclusive interview in Tehran. Asked about the reported plot against Trump outlined by U.S. authorities, Pezeshkian said: “This is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia. ... Iran has never attempted to nor does it plan to assassinate anyone. At least as far as I know.”

The ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans underscores how extremism online and political divisions at home have created “a perfect storm” for radicalization in America, experts say, with law enforcement struggling to track an increasingly fractured threat.....Ideology and terror Right-wing ideologies have fueled more than 70% of all extremist attacks and domestic terror plots since 2002 in the U.S., according to the Anti-Defamation League.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard, has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda and would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee. ... In her public statements, Gabbard has often been at odds with the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments. If she is confirmed, her tenure would most likely be marked by clashes with government analysts who see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government as the primary purveyor of disinformation designed to sow divisions in the U.S. Outraged lawmakers accused Gabbard two years...

At the end of his first term in office, then-President Donald Trump sought to install Kash Patel, a hard-line MAGA loyalist, as deputy CIA director. But the head of the agency at the time, Gina Haspel, a career intelligence officer, threatened to resign in protest, and the appointment was scuttled. Now, four years later, Patel is considered a possible pick for CIA director or another high-level national security post in a second Trump administration. And there likely will be no one to stand in his way this time. Patel is one of several fiercely loyal political allies who President-elect Trump...

Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine. Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own. McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately,...

U.S. intelligence officials are watching for any influence campaigns from Russia or China that are aimed at amplifying existing political divisions or stoking unrest among Americans over the indictment of former President Donald Trump, according to two U.S. officials.Officials have been on alert since the indictment was confirmed last week and so far have not seen significant signs of Russian or Chinese interference in the country’s political discourse beyond the efforts that have become standard, the U.S. officials said.But after Trump’s arraignment Tuesday, one of the officials said the intelligence community is watching “very closely” for any signs of such...

A Biden administration official recently told members of Congress that Ukraine has the military capability to retake Crimea, but some officials are concerned any large-scale offensive that threatens Russia’s hold on the peninsula could push Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons, say two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The late November Ukraine briefing to some members of Congress included discussion of the reasons Ukraine will continue to need U.S. weapons and equipment for the foreseeable future. The two officials said a Biden official, when asked during the briefing about continued support for the Ukrainian military and whether it would...

As Russia launched its invasion, the U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News. That near real-time intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, the officials say, helping repel a Russian assault on a key airport near Kyiv. It was part of what American officials call a massive and unprecedented intelligence-sharing...

NBC reporter Ken Dilanian faced a wave of backlash Thursday after penning an article in which he suggested that China's coronavirus response was helping it overtake the United States as a global superpower. The article -- titled "As U.S. struggles to stem coronavirus, China asserts itself as global leader" -- starts by highlighting Chinese aid to Italy. "With Italy in dire need of medical equipment, an economic superpower stepped in to help. No, not the United States," Dilanian wrote. "It was China."