Free Republic

As President Donald Trump threatens legal action against his adversaries, particularly after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, he’s repeatedly talked about using one federal law: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Trump wants to bring racketeering charges against left-wing groups he’s accused of promoting violence. Some influential Republicans agree with him and have been pushing to include rioting as one of the crimes that falls under the racketeering statute, a decades-old law once aimed at cracking down on organized crime. Kirk’s death and the resulting calls by influential conservatives to crack down on the left using the federal government’s...

President Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government to intimidate or neuter potential sources of opposition to him: The legal establishment, academia and prominent cultural institutions, the media, the judiciary, the Democratic Party, Congress and independent government oversight. The unprecedented breadth of the actions Trump and his allies inside the government have taken against his perceived political and ideological opponents in his first two months back in office is stunning – both in the president’s willingness to test the limits of his powers and the extent to which his foes have struggled to respond or even bent...

The influential network associated with billionaire Charles Koch will throw its money and influence behind former South Caroline Gov. Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary, the group announced Tuesday. The decision could dramatically reshape the Republican field – roughly seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses – as Americans for Prosperity Action deploys its vast resources and standing army of conservative activists on behalf of the former South Carolina governor. The endorsement marks the latest sign that powerful Republican donors are coalescing behind the candidacy of the former US ambassador to the United Nations. She has seen prominent figures join...

State and local election officials in Michigan and other political battlegrounds are gearing up to deal with a new element in this year's elections: a large influx of Republicans seeking to become poll workers, recruited by the Republican National Committee and other conservative organizations to play an active role in administering the midterm elections. The development -- and a recent story in Politico detailing GOP recruitment sessions and how some of these would-be poll workers cling to debunked claims about fraud in the 2020 election -- have raised alarms that Republican election deniers could infiltrate official election operations and undermine...

Four Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach or convict former President Donald Trump over his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol outraised the candidates he has endorsed to oust them, new campaign filings show. Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington and Fred Upton of Michigan drew Trump's condemnation for their impeachment votes in his January trial in the House. All three collected more money in the third fundraising quarter than their Trump-endorsed rivals, according to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission. And Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of seven...

USA Today is touting a report out this morning that “ID’ed 4500 Trump golf-club members through” their social media accounts as well as an online service that lets golfers track their handicaps: Do they not see how awful this looks?