Free Republic

On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion relating to a defense firm’s potential conflict of interest in the Michael Sussmann case. The conflict itself is certainly intriguing, with Sussmann’s lawyers at Latham & Watkins LLP (Latham) having represented potential witnesses in the case, including Perkins Coie, former Perkins Coie (and Clinton Campaign general counsel) Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and Hillary for America. The issue that made more noise, however, was Durham’s disclosure that Rodney Joffe – a contractor with deep ties to the Clintons, and what appears to be a deep hatred for Trump – had...

The UK Ministry of Defence has unveiled their intentions to spy on social media platforms in order to uncover ‘thought crimes’ perpetrated by British people. The military will begin “automated scanning of social media platforms” to detect “changes in population sentiment,” according to a MoD Data Strategy for Defence paper. There’s nothing frightening about that… nothing at all. “Nowhere does the document explain why a strategy paper has gone so far off the beaten track that it promotes collecting data the MoD doesn’t have and using it for decidedly non-military purposes,” notes the Register. Since the beginning of the COVID...

GCHQ spooks are monitoring the movement of British people minute by minute to check if they are complying with government restrictions, according to reports. The London Telegraph reports that spies from Britain’s most secretive intelligence and security organisation, Government Communications Headquarters, have embedded a ‘cell’ within Number 10 Downing Street in order to provide Prime Minister Boris Johnson with real time information pertaining to the public’s movements. Speaking anonymously to the London Times earlier this month, a source noted that “GCHQ has been told to take out antivaxers online and on social media. There are ways they have used to...

For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret. The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. SNIP The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly...

Hillary Clinton is back, and so is Chris Steele, this time in the United Kingdom. They are no less than implying that current Conservative (Tory) Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a Russian plant. And it’s no mistake that these allegations are being made just before a U.K. general election on December 12 that will decide the fate of Brexit. It started last month, when the U.K.’s leftwing Guardian newspaper reported the existence of a secret report that said the Russians spent five years “cultivating leading Tories including Johnson…” The 50-page “dossier” from the U.K.’s intelligence and security committee is “based...

One of the animating chapters in the Trump-Russian collusion saga was the claim that Russia infiltrated the Democratic National Committee’s email server in the spring of 2016. That hack, according to collusion truthers, and the subsequent release of damaging emails exchanged between top Democratic Party officials was central to Vladimir Putin’s scheme to sway the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. But the evidence to support this widely accepted claim is sketchy at best and appears to be under appropriate scrutiny by prosecutors now examining the origins of the FBI’s pre-election investigation into the Trump campaign for “colluding” with...

Two of the most senior intelligence officials in the US and UK privately shared concerns about “our strange situation” as the FBI launched its 2016 investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, the Guardian has learned. Text messages between Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI at the time, and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, now the head of GCHQ, also reveal their mutual surprise at the result of the EU referendum, which some US officials regarded as a “wake-up call”, according to a person familiar with the matter. While Russia had previously been...

Lawyers are trained never to ask a question of a witness if they don’t already know the answer. But it is quite different in journalism – at least in principle, if the principle is getting at the truth. But alas, in these days of fake news and fanatical dead-ender opposition to President Trump, those MSM TV networks committed to driving Trump from office might want to consider retraining for their talking heads. Make them more like lawyers and avoid embarrassnents like that suffered by CNN’s Brian Stelter. Courtesy of Grabien, here is a disastrous interview in which the guest, Larry...

Sources have told this newspaper that Britain's intelligence services – MI6, MI5 and GCHQ – are liaising closely to establish whether Gareth Williams was targeted by a foreign power. The 31-year-old was seconded from GCHQ to work on top-secret systems to defend British banks and transport infrastructure from cyber attack and to eavesdrop on terrorist communications.

Independent journalist Matt Kennard has published a number of documents starkly revealing the degree to which The Guardian has been compromised by British security services, and the impact this relationship has on its reporting of key issues. The newspaper has long sought to present itself - to readers and advertisers alike - as Britain’s foremost ‘anti-establishment’ outlet, and took a leading role in reporting on the mass WikiLeaks cable dump in 2010, and the Edward Snowden leaks in 2013, garnering widespread praise and several prestigious journalism awards in the process. In the latter case, the The Guardian’s dissident credentials were...

Theresa May is heading for a crushing defeat on Brexit vote D-day in the Commons, despite a series of last-minute appeals to rebel Tory MPs to back her EU withdrawal agreement. Senior MPs are predicting a defeat for the prime minister of between 100 and 200 votes, which is likely to be followed by Jeremy Corbyn calling a vote of no confidence in the government. Mrs May's allies insist that whatever the scale of the defeat she has no intention of quitting or calling a general election, but she will come under enormous pressure to unveil a Brexit Plan B....

Perhaps the only thing that outrages Russian defenders of Stalin more than the obvious parallels between his regime and Hitler’s is any reference to the alliance the two dictators formed in 1939 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, one that opened the way to war in Europe and lasted until Hitler turned on his former ally in June 1941. But now there may be something even more offensive to such defenders of Stalin and his system: the discovery of documents which confirm that the NKVD cooperated closely with the Gestapo well before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed and that may have paved...

Dr Busby says a few words about the Russian Nerve Agent issue. He speaks as an expert in this area. Chris worked for several years at the famous Wellcome Research laboratories in Beckenham, London as a Senior Scientist in the Department of Physical Chemistry. His job, at the basic level, was to help determine the structure and origin of pharmaceutical compounds. So, he is an expert in this area. He also carried out similar work at Queen Mary College London for his first PhD and synthesised complex organic chemicals. From that, he relates that the synthesis of a specific small...

Russia “indisputably” poses a far greater threat to national security than Islamic terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Isis, the new head of the British army has warned. General Mark Carleton-Smith said the UK cannot be complacent about the threat Russia poses “or leave it uncontested”. The former SAS commander said Russia had made plain its preparedness to use force to expand its interests, while it had also been “systematic” in its efforts to exploit cyber space and undersea military arenas. “The Russians seek to exploit vulnerability and weakness wherever they detect it,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “Russia today...

Oksana Ostapenko was 12 years old and facing death from hunger when a stranger saved her life by taking the girl into his family and sharing the last of their food. Today, aged 97, the Ukrainian's voice trembles when she recalls the terrible famine that hit her country in the 1930s due to policies enforced by Joseph Stalin's police. "They came and took away all our grain..." The death toll of the famine - known as the "Holodomor" in Ukrainian - remains debated among historians. But Kiev authorities estimate the number of those who died at around four million, or...

A London court on Wednesday ordered Christopher Steele, author of the anti-Trump dossier, to submit to questions from American attorneys suing him for libel on behalf of a Russian entrepreneur. A senior master in the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench, rejected Mr. Steele’s argument that British law prohibited an ex-spy such as himself from testifying. “On Mr. Steele’s behalf it was said that the examination would be prohibited by English law which is untrue,” said the 39-page order obtained by the Washington Times. SEE ALSO: Read the ruling requiring anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele to be deposed in libel...

As controversial as the Steele dossier has become, it may well prove key to a political corruption scandal far more insidious than anyone has presently suggested. To be sure, critics have blasted its seeming partisan falsity, and many also have declaimed that it enabled the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. And there is evidence that the opening of the “Russiagate” investigation was itself premised strongly on this “salacious and unverified” report. But little attention has been paid to the role of American intelligence agencies in its creation, which now is appearing substantial, and which would implicate a...

Another Internet sleuth (REX) put together some more pieces to Spygate over the weekend.  The sleuth’s analysis shows that Obama’s Spygate scandal started much earlier than expected and Deep State leaks support this claim. On April 13, 2017, the far left Guardian posted an article about Trump and Russia collusion that began by making a couple now key assertions,1)  British spies played a crucial role in the Trump – Russia conspiracy 2) Trump – Russia scandal began in at least 2015 3) The UK was involved 4) The UK and US worked together for the next six months Via The Guardian:...

While Brennan’s recklessness is obviously of no interest to the media, it is provoking increasing concern among government investigators, who are looking at a range of his abuses — from leaks to perjury to the outsourcing of spying on Trump to foreigners under the guise of “intelligence-sharing.” A member of the intelligence community tells TAS that he was approached by FBI investigators inquiring about Brennan’s improprieties at the CIA. He was startled to hear them venting aloud about Brennan’s practice of using British intelligence officials to spy on the Trump campaign, including American contractors hired by the British who were...

Synopsis: This is certainly one of THE most important stories I've ever done. Within the last hour we received what appears to be an official British TOP SECRET signals intelligence document dated Nov. 17, 2016, showing that President Obama and his National Security Advisor, Susan Rice were the ones who first requested electronic spying on the candidate Donald Trump, just 7 days after Trump won the Republican nomination in late August, 2016. The secret document, which has no redactions, was sent by Robert Hannigan, the Director of GCHQ, to Boris Johnson, the British Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth...