Free Republic

Sen. Hagerty: 'We have someone not even qualified for a security clearance at the center of Biden's incompetently planned withdrawal'' Pentagon strategy chief Colin Kahl is in the hot seat over his role in the Biden administration's bungled Afghanistan withdrawal, four months after Senate Republicans unanimously opposed his nomination and warned that his appointment would be disastrous for national defense policy. Kahl, the civilian head of policy planning at the Department of Defense and third highest ranking department official, has been a key player in planning for the Afghanistan withdrawal and the day-to-day policy decisions on the ground. While several...

A group of 18 Republican senators on Tuesday wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking an investigation into President Biden's nominee for a top role in the Pentagon over whether he disclosed or solicited classified information after leaving his government job in the Obama administration. The senators requested Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) not advance the nomination of Colin Kahl for under secretary of Defense policy for a full vote until the FBI has completed an investigation, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by The Hill..... ..."By apparently soliciting or otherwise receiving classified information and controlled...

Martin Indyk and allies accuse pro-Israel group of ‘smear campaign’ A group of Obama-era foreign policy elites and Washington lobbyists are organizing a letter to shore up Biden Pentagon nominee Colin Kahl, accusing pro-Israel activists in West Virginia of engaging in a "disgusting smear campaign," according to email correspondence obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The diplomat Martin Indyk—best known for working for a Qatari-funded think tank after stepping down as President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy—is organizing the letter, which has not yet been released. In an email to former foreign policy officials on Wednesday, Indyk solicited signatures in...

Colin Kahl opposed sanctions on IRGC, condemned killing of Iranian terror chief Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee are meeting privately on Tuesday morning to discuss their growing policy concerns about Colin Kahl, President Joe Biden's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, according to sources close to the committee. Kahl, a former Obama State Department official, was a key architect of the Iran deal and has been at the forefront of a number of controversial moves, including, reportedly, the decision to remove a statement affirming Jerusalem as Israel's capital from the 2012 Democratic National Convention...

In the early days of the Trump administration, a memo of uncertain origin circulated at the highest levels of the White House laying out a conspiracy theory about "coordinated attacks" on President Trump's foreign policy agenda from a group of former Obama administration officials, according to a memo obtained by The New Yorker's Adam Entous and Ronan Farrow. The memo, which "reads like a U.S. military-intelligence officer's analysis of a foreign-insurgent network," they wrote, posited that "the communications infrastructure ... used to sell ObamaCare and the Iran Deal to the public ('Echo Chamber') has been shifted from the White House...

Aides to US President Donald Trump hired a private Israeli intelligence firm to create a “dirty ops” campaign against key Obama-era officials, the Observer reported. The firm was asked to find “dirt” on security adviser Ben Rhodes and former US President Barack Obama’s deputy assistant, Colin Kahl. Both individuals played key roles in the 2015 “Iran deal,” and sources claimed that Trump’s team contacted the Israeli firm just after Trump’s 2017 visit to Israel. […] The Observer claimed to have seen documents proving that the intelligence firm was ordered to investigate the personal lives of both Rhodes and Kahl, including...