Free Republic

A day earlier, U.S. African Development Foundation workers had refused entry to Department of Government Efficiency workers and the State Department official in charge of foreign aid. Federal marshals on Thursday escorted officials from the Department of Government Efficiency into the U.S. African Development Foundation, a day after its employees refused entry to the Trump administration’s budget-slashing unit and Pete Marocco, the State Department official in charge of foreign aid. Once inside, security officials were directed to change the federal agency’s locks, according to a security official at the scene. Mr. Marocco was seen entering the building separately from DOGE...

A band of moderate Republicans in Congress sharply criticized the Trump administration this week for siding with Russia at the United Nations on resolutions regarding the war in Ukraine, even as the majority of the G.O.P. turned a blind eye to the United States’ sudden embrace of a longtime adversary.“The Trump Administration royally screwed up today on Ukraine,” Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, wrote on social media on Monday night. “The vast majority of Americans stand up for independence, freedom and free markets, and against the bully and invader.”The reproach from Mr. Bacon and others came after the United...

A quiet but bitter partisan clash is underway on Capitol Hill over President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choices for key cabinet posts, as Republicans face immense pressure to fast-track confirmations and Democrats charge that they are cutting corners on vetting for critical administration jobs.The feud is coming to a head as senators are planning a crowded schedule of confirmation hearings next week, with at least nine planned and more possible ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.Republican senators who attended a private planning session with Mr. Trump on Wednesday evening said that he urged them to stay united behind his...

Senate Republicans reacted with alarm and dismay to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s decision to nominate Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, for attorney general, and several said they were skeptical...

WASHINGTON — The House floor has been no stranger to rowdy spectacle in 2023, but the eruptions of Republican vitriol against President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address Tuesday night underscored a new and notably coarse normal in Congress, where members of the GOP majority tossed aside rules of decorum and turned the annual speech into a showcase for partisan hostility. The raucous peals of “liar,” “that’s not true” and at least one expletive lobbed at Biden during his 73-minute address dwarfed outbursts during previous such speeches, most of which have been interrupted by a single disturbance,...

A new book reveals that House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was at odds with how House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi handled impeachment proceedings against former President Trump, insisting that the methods used by the prominent Democrats were “unconstitutional” and could be used to attack the party. The revelation comes in a book set to be released on Oct. 18 titled, “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” written by Politico Playbook co-author Rachael Bade and Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian. The book chronicles the...

In a late Wednesday night, post-impeachment tweet completely devoid of all self-awareness, Washington Post congressional reporter Rachael Bade flaunted how she and four other journalists from the paper were celebrating President Trump’s impeachment. “Merry Impeachmas from the WaPo team! [Paul Kane] is buying ... w/[Karoun Demirjian] [Seung Min Kim] [Mike DeBonis],” she gleefully shared in the now-deleted tweet, along with a picture of them around a restaurant table with food and at least two beers. Interestingly, three of the five newspaper writers involved with the apparent celebration (Bade, Demirjian, and Kim) are also CNN political analysts. Rightly, the supposedly objective...

Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the...

Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the...

President Trump’s attorneys and the White House are moving to resist a growing number of congressional requests for information, increasing the likelihood of a protracted legal fight that could test the power of congressional subpoenas. The building battle will shape how much material House Democrats will be able to obtain about Trump’s policies and personal finances through multiple investigations launched by various congressional committees.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has determined that the intelligence community was correct in assessing that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election with the aim of helping then-candidate Donald Trump, contradicting findings House Republicans reached last month. “Our staff concluded that the [intelligence community’s] conclusions were accurate and on point,” the panel’s vice chairman, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), said Wednesday in a joint statement with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman. “The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton,” Warner continued.

Juanita Broaddrick, hello? Or does the name Paula Jones perhaps ring a bell? CNN political analyst Karoun Demirjian tried this morning to downplay the seriousness of Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct compared to that alleged of Roy Moore. In Moore’s case, said Demirjian, “those were children.” [To her credit, host Alisyn Camerota jumped in and suggested “underage” instead of “children.”] As for Clinton, the only specific case Demirjian mentioned was that of Monica Lewinsky. Demirjian described it as an “affair” that “might have been consensual.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.