Free Republic

Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture. The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with President Donald Trump. But they say their decision to take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as...

WASHINGTON (AP) — After the arrest of a man charged with placing two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties on Jan. 5, 2021, the warning from the Trump administration was clear: If you come to the nation’s capital to attack citizens and institutions of democracy, you will be held accountable. Yet Justice Department leaders who announced the arrest were silent about the violence that had taken place when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol and clashed with police one day after those bombs were discovered. It was the latest example of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a federal judge ruled Monday in directing prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers all grand jury materials from the case. Those problems, wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to the grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications during the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings. “The Court recognizes that the relief sought...

WASHINGTON — A watchdog investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith over his prosecutions of President Trump is based on an “imaginary and unfounded” premise, Smith’s lawyers wrote in a letter obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday. The letter marks the first response by Smith and his legal team to news that the Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog office, had launched an investigation into whether Smith engaged in improper political activity through his criminal inquiries into Trump. The attorneys told Jamieson Greer, the acting head of the office, that his investigation into Smith was “wholly without merit.”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s announcement this week that it would rescind the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials was hardly an isolated act.In ordering the revocation of the clearances, President Donald Trump was turning to a favored retributive tactic that he’s wielded — or at least tried to — against high-profile political figures, lawyers and intelligence officials.The latest targets include officials who have served in the government across a range of agencies and positions, including on former President Joe Biden’s national security team and at the CIA and National Security Agency. It’s not entirely...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of an investigation into whether she violated President Donald Trump’s civil rights, according to people familiar with the matter.The subpoenas sought records related to a lawsuit James filed against Trump over alleged fraud in his personal business dealings and a lawsuit involving the National Rifle Association, according to one of the people. Another person confirmed that the subpoenas are related to a civil rights investigation. The people could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on Friday on...

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior FBI official who served as acting director in the first weeks of the Trump administration and resisted demands to turn over the names of agents who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, investigations is being forced out of the bureau, two people familiar with the matter said Thursday. The circumstances of Brian Driscoll’s ouster were not immediately clear, but his final day is Friday, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss the personnel move by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Additional ousters were possible. Spokespeople for the FBI...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has decided that the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is not immune from being sued, reversing the U.S. government’s position that the organization was protected from civil liability.The Justice Department revealed its new stance in a letter it filed in federal court in New York on Thursday as part of a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency, known as UNRWA, accountable for the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on Israel by Hamas. The change in position underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration following allegations by Israel that some...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The executive order directed at one of the country’s most prestigious law firms followed a well-worn playbook as President Donald Trump roared down the road to retribution. Reaching beyond government, Trump has set out to impose his will across a broad swath of American life, from individuals who have drawn his ire to institutions known for their own flexes of power and intimidation. Which is how the Paul Weiss, a storied New York law firm that since its 1875 birth has advanced the cause of civil rights, shepherded the legal affairs of corporate power brokers and grown...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.” Yet in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing exactly that. Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump before the 2024 election, and ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams by saying the...

The Office of Special Counsel is responsible for protecting the federal workforce from illegal personnel actions, such as retaliation for whistleblowing. It investigates whistleblower claims of reprisal, can pursue disciplinary action against employees who punish whistleblowers and provides a channel for employees to disclose government wrongdoing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge overseeing the election interference case against Donald Trump directed prosecutors Wednesday to search for and provide to the former president’s lawyers any Justice Department information related to a separate investigation into Mike Pence’s handling of classified documents. Trump’s lawyers had argued that that information could be relevant to their defense o the extent it shows that Pence, Trump’s vice president, had “an incentive to curry favor with authorities” and implicate Trump while facing his own investigation into the retention of classified documents in his Indiana home.... U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Smith’s team...

ASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has arrested an Afghan man who officials say was inspired by the Islamic State militant organization and was plotting an Election Day attack targeting large crowds in the U.S., the Justice Department said Tuesday. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City told investigators after his arrest Monday that he had planned his attack to coincide with Election Day next month and that he and a co-conspirator expected to die as martyrs, according to charging documents.

Russian Spy Hunter, Max Boot, was married to a real life foreign spy while he pushed the debunked Russian collusion hoax in the page of the Washington Post. Evidently he never noticed all of the expensive luxury goods his wife, Sue Mi Terry, was bringing home.

Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is accused by federal prosecutors of acting as a secret agent for South Korea. Terry, whose husband Max Boot regularly falsely accused former President Trump of being a Russian asset, reportedly used her position and access to U.S. officials to provide sensitive information to South Korea in exchange for luxury items and other lavish benefits, according to the indictment, New York Post reported. The allegations state that from Oct. 2013, Terry engaged in activities that compromised her role as an independent foreign policy...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former CIA employee and senior official at the National Security Council has been charged with serving as a secret agent for South Korea's intelligence service, the Justice Department said. Sue Mi Terry accepted luxury goods, including fancy handbags, and expensive dinners at sushi restaurants in exchange for advocating South Korean government positions during media appearances, sharing nonpublic information with intelligence officers and facilitating meetings between U.S. and South Korean government officials, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan. She also admitted to the FBI that she served as a source of information for...

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — The man who was killed at a rally for former President Donald Trump was Corey Comperatore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Sunday. Comperatore was a former fire chief from the area who loved his family, Shapiro said. “Corey died a hero. Corey dove on his family to protect them last night,” the governor said.

A bill that would reauthorize a crucial national security surveillance program was blocked Wednesday by a conservative revolt, pushing the prospects of final passage into uncertainty amid a looming deadline. The legislative impasse follows an edict earlier in the day from former President Donald Trump to “kill” the measure. The bill in question would renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the U.S. government to collect without a warrant the communications of non-Americans located outside the country to gather foreign intelligence. The reauthorization is currently tied to a series of reforms aimed at satisfying critics who...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith asked a judge on Wednesday to bar Donald Trump's lawyers from injecting politics into the former president's trial on charges that he schemed to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Smith's office told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in a 20-page filing that Trump's lawyers should be prevented from “raising irrelevant political issues or arguments in front of the jury,” including that the prosecution against him is vindictive and selective or was coordinated by President Joe Biden. “In addition to being wrong, these allegations are irrelevant to the jury’s determination of the...

Former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform what he claimed was the home address of former President Barack Obama on the same day that a man with guns in his van was arrested near the property, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in revealing new details about the case. Taylor Taranto, 37, who prosecutors say participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, kept two firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside a van he had driven cross-country and had been living in, according to a Justice Department motion that seeks to keep him behind...