Free Republic

In a wide-ranging request for documents and analysis, President-elect Donald Trump's transition team asked the Department of Homeland Security last month to assess all assets available for border wall and barrier construction. The team also asked about the department's capacity for expanding immigrant detention and about an aerial surveillance program that was scaled back by the Obama administration but remains popular with immigration hardliners. And it asked whether federal workers have altered biographic information kept by the department about immigrants out of concern for their civil liberties. The requests were made in a Dec. 5 meeting between Trump's transition team...

Despite an overhaul of Pentagon purchasing practices under reform-minded Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an intelligent thief still can find a way to profit from day-to-day business transactions at the Defense Department, experts said Monday. The latest example of the system's vulnerability came from Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Sherry Pierre, who used a military credit card to pay for breast enhancement surgery. Pierre also made improper purchases of a car, a motorcycle and other items totaling almost $130,000 in unauthorized sprees during 2000 and 2001. Despite the abuses, the system is much improved since senior Pentagon officials announced a crackdown on...