Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A bombshell FBI informant file containing a $10 million bribery allegation against President Biden and his son was released Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, showing that a Ukrainian oligarch claimed he was “coerced” into making the payoff. The owner of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky, told the FBI informant in 2016 during a meeting at a coffee shop in Vienna, Austria, that “it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden,” according to the redacted FD-1023 form. “Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden ‘was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog...

Washington reporters have been given the green light to go after Joe Biden. Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon walked by a group of reporters after delivering remarks at the Chiefs of Mission reception in the East Room. A reporter ambushed Joe Biden and asked him about the Ukraine bribery scheme alleging he received a $5 million bribe from Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch who runs Burisma Holdings. ..... Snip..... New York Post reporter Steven Nelson surprised Joe Biden when he asked about the Ukraine-bribery scheme and audio recordings of him and his son Hunter. “Are there tapes that you accepted...

An Israeli man was violently assaulted and lost an eye in a horrific attack overnight in Limassol, Cyprus. According to media reports, the victim was apparently overheard speaking Hebrew on his phone outside his hotel when a group of local youths allegedly recognized the language, hurled insults, before viciously attacking him. Cyprus police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. Photo of victim

An Israeli soldier killed himself in a military base in northern Israel, taking the suicide-related death toll to 61 since the beginning of the Gaza war in October 2023, local media said. According to the Haaretz newspaper, a soldier serving compulsory military service sustained critical injuries after shooting himself inside a base and was pronounced dead Tuesday evening in a hospital. A military statement earlier said that a soldier was seriously injured in a shooting at a military base in northern Israel and was taken to the hospital, where he later died, noting that the military police had opened an...

Guinean soldiers said they had overthrown president Alpha Condé in an apparent military coup, less than a year after he won a controversial third term in the mineral-rich west African country. A group of armed men appeared on state television on Sunday dressed in fatigues and draped in national flags, declaring that Guineans were being mistreated by the country’s elites. “We are capable of taking our destiny in our own hands,” one of the soldiers said in the state TV broadcast, adding that the constitution would be dissolved and the borders closed for one week. But Guinea’s defence ministry said...

As the nation of Israel eagerly awaits the return of the remaining hostages, some of them alive (perhaps barely so), the rest of them dead, there will be much celebration and joy. At last, after more than two hellish years, they will be home. But there is also much pain, and not just the pain of the moment. It is the cumulative pain of generations. Some will immediately say, “But what about the people of Gaza? What about their pain? What about their suffering and agony?” After all, we see the images of the bombed cities, of the terrified children,...

A woman has been accused of using dating apps to meet men and then burglarize their homes, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Adva Lavie is wanted for a string of burglaries in which she allegedly targeted older men, posing as a romantic companion on virtual dating platforms and social media, according to officials. She is also known to use the aliases Mia Ventura, Shoshana or Shana, according to officials.

"She sailed on a boat following Greta Thunberg in trying to stop the genocide in Gaza"Björk has called for her “childhood friend” and musician Magga Stína’s “safe return” after her family claimed she had been kidnapped by Israeli forces. Read More: Here’s what went down at ‘Together For Palestine’, with Damon Albarn, Brian Eno, Richard Gere, Florence Pugh and more The singer-songwriter, who recently joined the ‘No Music For Genocide’ campaign – a cultural boycott initiative encouraging artists and rights-holders to pull their music from streaming platforms in Israel in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza – took...

ISRAELI Navy forces have intercepted almost two dozen ships from a Gaza-bound international flotilla, and detained more than 200 people onboard, including famed Swedish climate and humanitarian activist Greta Thunberg. The forces ordered the flotilla to change course with the reasoning that they were heading into an active war zone and violating a lawful naval blockade. The activists were sailing toward Gaza with the aim of bringing humanitarian aid and attempting to break the Israeli blockade. On the evening of Wednesday, October 1, the Global Sumud Flotilla, or GSF, said through an Instagram post that Israeli forces had boarded three...

The Houthis will resume attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea if those ships have ties to companies that work with Israeli ports, the Yemen-based group announced this week.While the Houthis are calling it a “fourth phase of escalation,” the move from the group is the phase of the Houthis’ Red Sea attacks when they expanded their strikes to any ship that visited Israeli ports or was associated with a company that had ties to Israel.The last time the Houthis announced they would attack ships, the United States had multiple ships in the Red Sea. This time, it has...

Muslim leaders from across Europe met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem to promote a message of peace on Monday. In a statement, Herzog said: President Isaac Herzog met this morning, Monday, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, with a delegation of Imams and Muslim community leaders from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The delegation, led by ELNET, brought together leading Muslim figures who came to Israel to promote a message of peace, coexistence and partnership between Muslims and Jews, and between Israel and the Muslim world. The President stressed the importance of the delegation,...

The successful hit reportedly hobbled Iran’s ability to respond to the first wave of Israeli Air Force strikes across the country. Israel secret services used a fake phone call to trick the top commanders of Iran’s air force into gathering at a single location before taking them out in a targeted strike, an Israeli Channel 12 commentator has said. In a statement confirmed to the JC by Israeli sources, Amit Segal told the Call Me Back podcast on Monday: “What Israel did was create a fake phone call for 20 members of the air force senior staff an calling them...

Tim Walz, failed Democrat vice presidential candidate and leftist governor of Minnesota, recently speculated that communist China might hold “moral authority” when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Iran that erupted on Friday. Walz, who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’s (D) choice for running mate in 2024, was speaking during an event hosted by the Center for American Progress when he made the comments, Fox News reported on Friday. Asked about the strikes, he replied, “Iran has to retaliate, in their mind,” adding that the “Middle East is back on fire in a way that has now...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – A sharp rise in global oil prices following Israeli strikes on Iran will benefit Russia and bolster its military capabilities in the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in comments that were under embargo until Saturday afternoon. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said the surge in oil prices threatens Ukraine´s position on the battlefield, especially because Western allies have not enforced effective price caps on Russian oil exports. “The strikes led to a sharp increase in the price of oil, which is negative for us,” Zelenskyy said. “The Russians are getting stronger...

MADRID (AP) – Spain has cancelled a deal for anti-tank missile systems that were to be manufactured in Madrid by a subsidiary of an Israeli company, in a bid to move away from Israeli military technology, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The decision will affect the license for 168 SPIKE LR2 anti-tank missile systems with an estimated value of 285 million euros ($325 million). The systems would have been developed in Spain by Pap Tecnos, a Madrid-based subsidiary of Israel´s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, according to local press. “The goal is clear…a total disconnection from Israeli technology,” government spokesperson Pilar...

As RedState reported, two Israeli embassy workers were gunned down in cold blood by a man who chanted "free, free Palestine" in the aftermath. Sarah Milgram and Yaron Lischinsky, who were planning to get engaged soon, were attending an event on collaboration to deliver aid to Gaza when Elias Rodriguez, a member of the Chicago-based Party for Socialism and Liberation, allegedly shot them from behind. Now, more information is coming out about Rodriguez, who is a "pro-Palestinian" (see: pro-Hamas) activist. Before allegedly carrying out the murders, he released a manifesto online in which he wrote, "Those of us against the...

Three illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe have been arrested in connection with a violent home invasion, robbery, and murder that took place in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. The suspects were identified as Georgian nationals Paata Kochyashvili, 38, Zaza Otarashvili, 46, and Besiki Khutsishvili, 52. Each of the men has been charged with murder, and their bail has been set at $2 million. According to a report by Fox News, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued detainers for all three men who are in the country illegally. The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a residence in Woodland Hills shortly before...

Anti-Israel protesters Sunday clashed with cops outside a Brooklyn synagogue where Israel’s embattled security minister was set to speak — with the speech ending up canceled and at least one arrest. The protest outside Congregation Shaare ZIon on Ocean Parkway turned violent shortly after 9:30 a.m. as NYPD officers and some members of the crowd scuffled while the rowdy mob demonstrated against Sunday’s scheduled speech by Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The speech was nixed, and the under-fire minister is now set to return home a day early, the Israeli outlet Haaretz reported. The violent clash came two days after...

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants protesters to rise up across the U.S. and Europe and challenge the renewed Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The Times of Israel reports Khamenei made his call for action in a speech designed to rally anti-Israel activists everywhere, “to strongly oppose this treacherous, horrendous act.” “Once again children are being killed, homes are being destroyed, and civilians are being displaced. The people must stop this tragedy,” Khamenei says in a Nowruz address, according to an English transcript posted on his website.

A former FBI informant pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying about a $10 million bribe that a Ukrainian businessman paid to then-vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter to “protect” his firm from a looming corruption investigation. Alexander Smirnov, 43, entered into a plea agreement with special counsel David Weiss and confessed to having created “a false and fictitious record” as part of a multi-year federal probe into the Bidens. The falsehoods included the bribery allegation, which was memorialized in an FBI FD-1023 form in 2020 and released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last year, and other aspects of...