Free Republic

Republicans are fuming over a planned move by Democrats to consider Iran legislation alongside a commemorative coin bill, saying the floor maneuver is designed to prevent changes to the Democratic-backed measures reining in President Trump’s ability to wage war. The legislative maneuver would prevent House Republicans from using a procedural tool to alter the two Iran bills at the eleventh hour since the measures would be tacked on as amendments to the coin bill. GOP lawmakers accused Democrats of attempting to silence them and said the move would set a bad precedent. “If that's the games they're going to play,...

Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s most powerful and richest men, is levelling severe allegations against the Saudis, and once again, he has nothing to show for them. The media has been set ablaze by an “exclusive” report in The Guardian, a United Nations report, and even a documentary film, all dropped at once, alleging that Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia is personally responsible for “hacking” into a personal phone belonging to Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men and the owner of Amazon and The Washington Post.The “bombshell” report in The Guardian, published Tuesday evening, was...

Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella – the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous “whistleblower" who touched off Trump's impeachment – was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues. Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump’s new...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rejecting a plank of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, the House on Thursday invoked never-before-used powers to demand that his administration withdraw support from the Saudi-led war in Yemen . The Senate passed the same resolution in March with bipartisan support. Trump is expected to issue a veto of the measure , his second as president, and Congress does not have the votes to override him.

Does the American public really understand what happened to Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn?  Highlights of the case have been thoroughly exploited by the shallow, left-leaning media as a convenient avenue to attack President Trump.  But important elements of the story remain largely buried from public view. The tragic political demise of this distinguished general who was President Trump's initial national security adviser, one of the key jobs in the White House, has been well documented.  Former FBI director James Comey and the now disgraced upper echelon of the FBI and, subsequently, Special Counsel Robert Mueller maliciously trapped him, resulting in his ultimate...

Defying President Trump, senators sent a strong signal Wednesday they want to punish Saudi Arabia for its role in the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Senate voted 63 to 37 to move forward with legislation calling for an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The vote was a rebuke not only to Saudi Arabia but to the Trump administration, which has been clear it does not want to torpedo the long-standing U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia over the killing.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - The Pentagon's policy office, where a lower-level analyst is under suspicion of passing secrets to Israel, was deeply involved in deliberations over how the United States should deal with Iran, its conservative Islamic government and its nuclear weapons ambitions - all issues of intense concern to Israel as well. The analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, a Farsi-speaking specialist on Iran in the office, participated in a secret outreach meeting with an Iranian opposition figure, had access to classified intelligence about Iran's nuclear program and was one of many officials involved in drafting a top-secret presidential order on...

Former CIA Director John Brennan suggested Wednesday night that President Trump is conspiring with Saudi leaders to make up a story about journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance. The Saudi journalist was last seen on October 2 walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkey says the Saudis killed him, but Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud deny the charge. Trump suggested that he has no reason not to believe him and cited our economic relationship. That left Brennan with this theory. “So they’ve been working to concoct a story that’s going to stand...

Was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and then his body cut up with a bone saw and flown to Riyadh in Gulfstream jets owned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? So contend the Turks, who have video from the consulate, photos of 15 Saudi agents who flew into Istanbul that day, Oct. 2, and the identity numbers of the planes. Supporting the thesis of either a murder in the consulate or a "rendition," a kidnaping gone horribly bad, is a Post story that U.S. intel intercepted Saudi planning, ordered by the prince, to...

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb. There was no surprise there. Markey had topped the list of candidates supported by the Iran Lobby. And the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) had maxed out its contributions to his campaign. After more fake suspense, Al Franken, another IAPAC backed politician who also benefited from Iran Lobby money, came out for the...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) told a protester at a town hall event in New York City on Wednesday that she would look into whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller was involved in covering up the role Saudi Arabia played in the 9/11 terrorist attacks while serving as FBI director. In a video posted from the town hall on YouTube, the protestor asked Gillibrand if she would support legislation proposed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) calling for the “federal government to declassify thousands of remaining documents related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.” The protestor accused Gillibrand of knowing that Mueller was involved...

A British journalist who interviewed a doctor in the Syrian town of Douma claims he told him there was no evidence of a chemical attack. Dr Assim Rahaibani, 58, said the video showing children gasping for breath - which triggered the weekend bombing campaign by the UK, US and France - is genuine. But he explained to Robert Fisk, writing for the Independent, that patients were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm. Donald Trump...

U.S. troops could continue fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda and would be given explicit new permission to battle the Islamic State — but would not be authorized to attack the capabilities of any nation state, such as Syria — under updated rules of war proposed by a bipartisan group of senators Monday. Led by Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the new Authorization for the Use of Military Force would replace 2001 and 2002 AUMFs that started the war on terror and paved the way for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The commander in chief —...

A top White House national security adviser and key proponent of the Obama administration's diplomacy with Iran is the focus of a congressional inquiry following disclosures the FBI may have denied him top-level security clearances, according to communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser who led the administration's efforts to mislead Congress about the terms of the Iran nuclear agreement, is under scrutiny in the wake of disclosures he was declined interim clearance status by the FBI in 2008, when the administration was moving into the White House. Since that...

When Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst, leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, it created one of the most significant newspaper stories -- and battles -- of the century. One thing it did not do was prevent the Vietnam War, although it may have shortened it. Now he is calling on officials within the government to leak "the Pentagon Paper of the Middle East" to modern reporters, to short-circuit another possible war. Ellsberg's challenge is found in the October issue of Harper's magazine, to appear next week. E&P has obtained an advance copy. The article is titled, "The...

A drawn-out fight between the families of Sept. 11 victims and the Saudi government has been shocked anew with claims from former top U.S. intelligence officials that Riyadh provided aid to some of the terrorists responsible for killing 2,996 and injuring more than 6,000 in 2001. Affidavits filed by three former FBI officials provided to Secrets charge that Saudi Arabia used intricate espionage “tradecraft” to help the attackers prepare and hide out in the U.S. And another from knowledgeable former Florida Sen. Bob Graham charges that the hijackers could not have succeeded without a financial and logistical support network. “Official...

Saboteurs in the U.S. intelligence community posing as patriots have been working hard to drive President Donald Trump from the White House. Former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and former War College professor John R. Schindler bragged on Twitter last week about the spy-led plot his friends are conducting against the president. “Now we go nuclear,” he tweeted. “IC [intelligence community] war [is] going to new levels. Just got an [email from] senior IC friend, it began: ‘He will die in jail.'” “US intelligence is not the problem here,” Schindler added. “The President’s collusion with Russian intelligence is. Many details,...

Two high-level Iranian government backers, including a former Islamic Republic official and another accused of lobbying on Tehran’s behalf, were hosted at the Obama White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates. Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of its national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to...

Donald Trump promised during the campaign to get tough on radical Islamic terror groups as well as force Iran to renegotiate terms on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. The next executive orders from the president may address both pledges — and create more controversy. According to Reuters, Trump will designate the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), expanding current sanctions applied at the moment to only its Quds Force: A designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would potentially have much broader implications, including for the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and...

I get the first part of this story, not so much the second. The bit about Obama alumni targeting Flynn? Highly plausible if not likely. Flynn was a harsh Obama critic ever since O fired him from his position as DIA, and Flynn more than anyone else in the administration seemed prepared to guide Trump towards detente with the same Putin regime that had tried to sink Democrats’ chances during the campaign with the DNC and Podesta hackings. Flynn is also famously an Iran hawk, something which the Obama administration was, er, not. Did Team O have the means...