Free Republic

There are many people who only became aware of Elon Musk after he dropped Ron DeSantis and took up a position in support of President Trump. Most of those people do not have a reference for Musk complying with the platform control demands of Brazil, France and Turkey [Durov (Telegram), and Pavlovski (Rumble) did not]. Most of those Pro-Elon people also do not have a reference for Musk claiming he and his legal team did not know former FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker was the legal counsel for Twitter at the time of the purchase, until after independent journalist...

The former FBI informant charged with lying about a $10 million-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden´s family is set to appear in a California federal court on Monday. A judge will determine whether Alexander Smirnov, 43, must remain behind bars while he awaits trial. Special counsel David Weiss' office is pressing U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in jail, arguing the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country. A different judge last week released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be...

One of the most disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment without trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov. The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who once told his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles prison for nine months on charges that he lied to the FBI. Last week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion charges on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their original indictment is too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial beginning Jan. 8. Smirnov was one of the...

There’s no way in hell they shouldn’t tell all’.. The FBI is closing the book on the agency’s “corrupt” handling of James “Whitey” Bulger — forever. The feds are refusing to make any further installments of Bulger’s case file public, saying the records are “investigative” and no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act. “The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. Therefore, your request is being administratively closed,”...

Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant indicted for lying about President Joe Biden’s family and their alleged dealings in Ukraine, has been re-arrested in Nevada. Though prosecutors fought to keep him behind bars, Smirnov was released by Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Nevada on Tuesday with several conditions, including GPS monitoring and the surrender of his two passports. Prosecutors asked the Nevada judge to delay his release, but the judge declined and Smirnov was allowed to walk out. Now, Smirnov’s defense lawyers say their client was re-arrested Thursday on a new warrant for the exact same charges – this time...

On Thursday, special counsel David Weiss charged a former FBI informant who claimed President Biden was bribed by Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma. The indictment claims the informant lied about Biden's alleged role in the business dealings. Alexander Smirnov, 43, was arrested on Thursday at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, per CNN. Smirnov has been accused in the indictment that his story to the FBI "was a fabrication, an amalgam of otherwise unremarkable business meetings and contacts that had actually occurred but at a later date than he claimed and for the purpose of pitching Burisma...

A former FBI informant stabbed Derek Chauvin, the ex-police officer who was convicted for murdering George Floyd, according to court documents filed on Dec. 1. John Turscak, 52, stabbed Mr. Chauvin 22 times with an "improvised knife" in federal prison in Arizona, according to the documents. Mr. Turscak was subdued by responding corrections officers. Mr. Turscak later told officers he would have killed Mr. Chauvin if the officers had not responded so quickly, federal prosecutors said in the documents. The stabbing took place on Nov. 24 at about 12:30 p.m. Mr. Turscak waived his Miranda rights and told FBI agents...

A US prison inmate has been charged with attempted murder after stabbing Derek Chauvin, the ex-police officer convicted in the death of George Floyd. Prosecutors said ex-gang member John Turscak used an improvised blade to knife Chauvin 22 times on 24 November at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. Chauvin survived the attack and was said to be in a stable condition. He is serving multiple sentences for Floyd's death, which triggered nationwide protests and rioting. Turscak, a former member of a Mexican Mafia gang, allegedly targeted Chauvin in the prison's law library at lunchtime. He later said that he...

Skip to main content Jussie Smollett headed back An incarcerated former gang member and FBI informant was charged Friday with attempted murder in the stabbing last week of ex-Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin at a federal prison in Arizona. John Turscak stabbed Chauvin 22 times at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson and said he would’ve killed Chauvin had correctional officers not responded so quickly, federal prosecutors said. Turscak, serving a 30-year sentence for crimes committed while a member of the Mexican Mafia gang, told investigators he thought about attacking Chauvin for about a month because the former officer, convicted...

JUST IN: The inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times in prison last week has been identified by The U.S. Attorney's Office 52-year-old John Turscak. Oddly enough, Turscak is a former FBI informant!! Coincidence? I don’t think so. Seems like a coordinated effort to kill Chauvin. “Turscak told investigators that he attacked Chauvin on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, as a symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement and the "Black Hand" symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia gang, prosecutors said.”

While prosecutors successfully concealed the identities of most FBI informants planted in the Proud Boys, newly obtained surveillance video shows the movement of one Proud Boy informant on January 6. Michael Alan Jones is a convicted felon with a history of firearms, drug and statutory rape charges. But rather than spend years in prison—more on that in a future piece—in 2019, Jones suddenly became interested in so-called “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi” groups including the Proud Boys and Patriot Front. And according to a recent article on Raw Story, an online publication that tracks the activity of those groups, Jones was...

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are having difficulty tracking down a key informant involved in the investigation into President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and other members of the Biden family, Rep. James Comer, who chairs the committee, said Sunday. "Unfortunately, we can't track down the informant," the Kentucky Republican told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo. "We're hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible."

WASHINGTON — The FBI has refused to give Congress an informant file alleging that President Biden took bribes while he was vice president, The Post has learned — setting up a possible showdown over access to the information. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a legally binding subpoena last week requiring the FBI to turn over the file by noon Wednesday, but the FBI responded instead with a six-page letter raising various objections. “Information from confidential human sources is unverified and, by definition, incomplete,” wrote FBI acting assistant director for congressional affairs Christopher Dunham, who also argued that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors disclosed Wednesday that a witness expected to testify for the defense at the seditious conspiracy trial of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four associates was secretly acting as a government informant for nearly two years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a defense lawyer said in a court filing. Carmen Hernandez, a lawyer for former Proud Boys chapter leader Zachary Rehl, asked a judge to schedule an immediate emergency hearing and suspend the trial “until these issues have been considered and resolved.” Lawyers for the other four defendants joined...

At least one Proud Boys member on trial for the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol had a previously-concealed FBI informant set to appear as a witness in their case, a defense attorney said Wednesday. Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola are all on federal trial after being accused in a June 2022 indictment of conspiring “to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force.” The government revealed Wednesday that a witness scheduled to appear in the defense case Thursday had been an FBI confidential human...

Stefanik said she will demand answers from the Feds about a limousine company — whose owner was an FBI informant — responsible for an upstate crash that killed 20. In the Oct. 6, 2018 disaster in Schoharie, N.Y., near Albany, a limo, packed with young partygoers en route to a brewery for a surprise birthday, careened into a parked car before barreling into a ravine. It was the deadliest US transportation accident in a decade... The doomed vehicle lacked both federal and state certifications. The car had been retrofitted with 12 feet of extra carriage added to the middle. It...

Aides to former President Donald Trump believe that a member of his family may have tipped off the FBI about the presence of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, The Guardian reported. Multiple sources close to Trump told the publication that after the August 8 search of Trump's resort in Palm Beach, Florida, aides began speculating about who could have been speaking to the agency. In the search, agents took more than a dozen boxes of items, as well as highly classified information. They appeared to have specific information about what to look for. Speculation initially focussed on Trump's political aides, and...

The Justice Department and FBI must provide details on the alleged national security basis for the raid at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and hand over information on possible informants, the leader of House Intelligence Committee Republicans charged Friday. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) has spent the week pushing FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland for answers on the unprecedented raid. Wray has declined to answer questions on the matter, while Garland said Thursday in a short public statement he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” “We are also very concerned about the...

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek. (snip) The senior Justice Department source says that Garland was regularly briefed on the Records Act investigation, and that he knew about the grand jury and what material federal prosecutors were seeking. He insists, though, that Garland had no prior knowledge of the date and time of the specific raid, nor was he asked to approve it....

<p>The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.</p>