Free Republic

OVER 190 flags have been taken down from a historic building as government officials warn employees to remember who they work for. The move sparked backlash in the diplomatic community. A long row of American flags hangs vertically along a large glass wall inside a modern building with a high, geometric ceiling. 4 The State Department swapped out all the flags, representing other countries, in their atrium for rows of American flags Credit: Instagram/statedept. State Department employees applaud as colleagues walk through the lobby of the State Department headquarters in Washington, with numerous international flags hanging from the ceiling in...

A top Republican senator whose phone toll records were secretly subpoenaed during Jack Smith's investigation of President Donald Trump sued the former special counsel in his personal capacity Wednesday, arguing he was never lawfully empowered to wield the authority behind the Arctic Frost investigation. The lawsuit, Senator Marsha Blackburn v. John L. Smith, argues the prosecutor lacked lawful authority to serve as special counsel and violated the lawmaker's rights by obtaining the records. Blackburn is asking a federal court to declare Smith's appointment unconstitutional, order the records destroyed and award $1 in nominal damages. The case therefore seeks to test...

The non-profit company that publishes The European Conservative, which I founded in 2021, is now in the hands of the Hungarian state. Established in 2008 as an unfunded four-page newsletter, The European Conservative was started by members of the Center for European Renewal (CER), which organizes the annual Vanenburg meeting. Five editions were published over approximately two years and then it ceased for two years. So, in 2012, I volunteered to serve as editor-in-chief. I redesigned the publication, gave it a proper cover, added images, expanded its features and contributors (all of whom wrote for free), and established a social...

For years, privacy advice has been relatively straightforward: turn off location services, strip location metadata from photographs, keep your face out of pictures, and be careful about what personal information you post online. Artificial intelligence is beginning to complicate that advice. A new generation of AI systems doesn't necessarily need you to explicitly reveal where you are or even who you are. Instead, machines are becoming increasingly capable of extracting clues buried inside photographs, videos, voices and surveillance footage -- clues most people would never notice. Some of these technologies have obvious benefits. They could help locate hostages, identify criminals,...

I ignored the written description of filtering the other night,” Molly Gaston messaged her fellow federal prosecutor, J.P. Cooney, in the early days of the post-2020 election targeting of President Donald Trump, documents obtained exclusively by The Federalist reveal. “Me too,” Cooney replied, showing that two of the attorneys whom Jack Smith would later choose to lead the special counsel team disregarded rules when judged “not tenable.” And additional documents whistleblowers provided Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirm the special counsel office ignored the protocol established to protect privileged documents. Monday afternoon, in advance of Jack Smith’s Tuesday testimony before the...

Democratic lawmaker incorrectly reported assets of between $6 million and $30 million A nonpartisan entity charged with reviewing misconduct allegations has cleared Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) of wrongdoing in connection with documents she submitted to Congress that dramatically overstated her wealth.The Office of Congressional Conduct, which reviews allegations concerning House members and staff, made the determination after opening an investigation into Omar earlier this year. The findings, marked confidential, were viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The OCC’s board, in a 5-1 vote, recommended the House Ethics Committee dismiss allegations against Omar that she reported false or incomplete information...

Eight years before COVID emerged, a journalist issued a prophetic warning that risky viral research could usher in “doomsday” and damage the reputation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Anthony Fauci groused in an email to an aide about that warning, then instructed the aide to permanently delete the exchange, documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show. The documents add to growing evidence that Fauci destroyed public records despite his sworn testimony that he never did. Deleting government records violates federal law. Fauci did not respond to a request for comment. In 2011, the advent of gain-of-function...

It didn’t happen all at once, but the timelines and the new document dumps paint a disturbing picture of what we knew would appear on the canvas long before Trump’s second presidency and the disclosures that exposed the whole deep state circus. We have former presidents, including Obama, ordering intelligence assessments to thread in Russian collusion nonsense; a former CIA director who lied about how the Steele Dossier, the document responsible for this hoax, was used in analyzing the intelligence; and the media’s incessant and destructive crusade to make this ruse legitimate. They failed because there was no evidence, and...

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....