Free Republic

A team member for President Donald Trump's FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, pushed back Wednesday on allegations that Patel played a role in the firings of bureau personnel just hours after swearing not to do so during his confirmation hearing late last month – dismissing accusations from the panel's top Democrat as a politically motivated effort to derail his confirmation. A senior transition team official for Patel refuted the allegations made by the ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin, that Patel had orchestrated the firings after his confirmation hearing. "I have received highly credible information from multiple sources that...

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is speaking out against President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans, warning that starting trade wars with U.S. economic partners could force higher costs on American families and businesses. Trump’s “aggressive proposals leave big, lingering concerns for American industry and workers,” the senator from Kentucky wrote in an op-ed Wednesday in Louisville’s Courier-Journal. The op-ed is a rare example of a senior Republican in Congress who is willing to publicly criticize the president’s economic strategy. Trump, who has called tariff his “favorite word,” recently slapped broad import duties on Canada, Mexico and China, plus additional tariffs on...

As more details emerge about the deep state’s coordinated efforts to undermine President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, it’s clear that not only is Trump right to overhaul our bloated bureaucracy, but that more federal employees need to be shown the door. Trump has offered a buyout to millions of federal employees, ended remote work, and has cut foreign aid to millions around the world in an effort to drain the swamp. By slashing unnecessary slush funds, he’s reducing the bloated federal workforce that’s been leeching off taxpayers.Like clockwork, the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party released a series...

The US government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been funnelling millions of dollars into student and professional media outlets across Europe mainly in Eastern and Central Europe, data from US government spending has shown. This long-term financial support has been framed as part of Washington’s “commitment to supporting democratic values and civil society in the [European] region” under the Assistance to Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia/Economic Support Fund (AEECA/ESF PD) programmes. The scale and scope of the funding have raised questions about the extent of US influence in shaping media narratives and civil society in...

Ready to connect some dots? Get comfy, because this one’s a doozy. What we’re about to lay out is a picture of Deep State corruption at its finest starring none other than Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the left’s most rabid anti-DOGE crusaders…and now, we may know why. Jamie is going all out to stop DOGE—but why? For the American people? Please. That’s a joke. So, what’s the real reason? Well, some newly unearthed info on Jamie Raskin’s wife is starting to bring the full picture into focus—and it just might explain why Congressman Raskin is so terrified of DOGE...

one of the biggest schemes we’ve tracked is the Deep State’s shadow operations, orchestrated by one of the most influential puppeteers in the Swamp: Norm Eisen. If there’s a major effort to take down President Trump, Eisen is almost always lurking in the background, pulling the strings. Time and time again, he’s played a central role in the left’s biggest hoaxes and political warfare, and yet, most people have no idea who he really is—or just how deep his influence runs. .. The good news is that President Trump just yanked ol’ Norm’s security clearance—a huge win for decency and...

Panic at the disco. Three weeks into Trump the Sequel’s executive order blitz, with technology industry legends standing at the president’s side, and figures throughout the government and media likening the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency’s staff and budget cuts to the rise of fascism, there are two things everyone finally seems to agree on: the Deep State really does exist, and it really does run our country. Now we’re mostly just divided over the question of whether that’s a good thing, and a little shocked by what these people actually look like (yes, I’m about to be petty). As...

On last week's Clubland Q&A, I remarked en passant that almost everything connected with the Government of the United States turns out to be a racket, and it might be quicker for Elon Musk just to listen the seven things that aren't a racket. And several commenters protested that seven was a gross-overestimate of the non-racket component. After the weekend's revelations, I am inclined to agree with them. Just as a f'rinstance, USAid funds nine out of ten media outlets in Ukraine, under the guise of supporting "independent journalism". Hang on. If words mean anything, wouldn't the "independent" media in...

One was fired by email at 12:47 a.m. Another wept with colleagues as security escorted her from the office. A third frantically tried to fill a prescription after she got a 24-hour notice that her health care was ending.Then there is Jacqueline Devine, a contractor in the office of H.I.V.-AIDS at the United States Agency for International Development. Ms. Devine, a behavioral scientist who worked largely in sub-Saharan Africa on H.I.V. treatment, was among those affected by an abrupt mass firing in her Washington office on Jan. 28. She received no severance pay.“I’ve been going through the stages of grief,...

SNIP“There is ongoing litigation, congressional legislation, and widespread protests relating to DOGE’s access to Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” reads the email reviewed by Wired. “If DOGE members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems.”Titled “Recommendations,” the email was sent to members of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s IT division and others. The message was viewed and reported on Friday by Wired, which said the email came from a threat intelligence team in the U.S. Department...

President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said during an interview that some of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts could hurt “long-term American interests,” particularly on the foreign policy front. “A well-run foreign aid program, and I’m not saying that’s what exists now, but a well-run foreign aid program is trying to help our friends, persuade others to become friends. How you spend it in the country is open to debate. But nobody talks about, are we spending enough in the right countries to advance American interests? That’s what you need,” Bolton said during a Friday...

Democrats are organized and ready to fight back. Let’s go.

The leftist freakout over government accountability has escalated to open calls for the doxxing and imprisonment of the “arrogant little pricks” working for Elon Musk’s DOGE, who over the past two weeks have descended upon the US Treasury, USAID, and most recently the US Department of Education in order to uncover waste, fraud and abuse. And boy have they found that in spades. In a Friday episode of NY Magazine Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher’s “Pivot” podcast with guest Scott Galloway, the two leftists outlined their ideal response to the Trump administration’s recent moves. Galloway called DOGE’s actions “illegal” and a “coup,”...

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives. The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow...

Just how bad were the workings of USAID, which is now in the process of being shut down by DOGE and President Trump?Tucker Carlson has a long interview with Mike Benz, a former State Department cyber affairs official, who seems to know the granular workings of USAID activity, which was essentially used as a slush fund for Democrat priorities -- open borders, Black Lives Matters riots, Soros district attorneys, color revolutions, the drug trade, COVID, the big corporations, transgender surgeries, censorship and media bankrollings, missing Ukraine cash, and the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.Video at link. It shouldn't surprise anyone that...

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, said there was a moral imperative for the U.S. government to deliver international food aid to starving people. He also said it was important to not undermine market opportunities for U.S. commodities in wake of Trump administration maneuvering to close the U.S. Agency for International Development. (Kansas Reflector screen capture of U.S. Senate video) TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas said a freeze on federal funding and change at the U.S. Agency for International Development left $340 million in lifesaving food grown in the United States sitting at domestic ports awaiting...

A federal judge said Friday he intends to temporarily block the Trump administration’s plan to place thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on leave at midnight. Unions representing government employees sued to stop the shutdown of agency operations and restart the flow of foreign aid frozen by President Trump, who has accused the agency of fraud and corruption to justify its imminent shuttering. Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by Trump during his first term, said he would issue a formal order later Friday but that a “limited, very limited” order temporarily pausing the plan would be handed down....

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from placing thousands of employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave Friday, halting plans to cut its workforce down to just a few hundred. Washington, DC, US District Judge Carl Nichols imposed a “very limited” restraining order on the administration, Politico reported, sparing at least 2,200 USAID employees from being put on paid leave at midnight. Administration officials had reportedly moved to gut the agency’s more than 10,000-person workforce by the end of the week down to just 290 or so staff members. Just 500 employees at USAID...

On Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said President Donald Trump is not sophisticated enough in terms of the intelligence community to understand what is happening when they comply with his executive orders. Pelosi said, “We are very proud of Hakeem Jeffries, our leader; he has given us guidance on our priorities of what we’re here to fight for, but also how we counter the Trump administration with litigation in the courts, legislation on the floor of the House, as well as communication and mobilization at the grassroots level. Our focus has largely been on domestic;...