Free Republic

On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion relating to a defense firm’s potential conflict of interest in the Michael Sussmann case. The conflict itself is certainly intriguing, with Sussmann’s lawyers at Latham & Watkins LLP (Latham) having represented potential witnesses in the case, including Perkins Coie, former Perkins Coie (and Clinton Campaign general counsel) Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and Hillary for America. The issue that made more noise, however, was Durham’s disclosure that Rodney Joffe – a contractor with deep ties to the Clintons, and what appears to be a deep hatred for Trump – had...

Former impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman filed suit against key Donald Trump allies – including Donald Trump. Jr. and lawyer Rudy Giuliani – charging them with having falsely attacked his loyalty to the U.S. and punishing him for his testimony. Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, also lashed out at the defendants in an op-ed, where he cited his removal from the White House National Security Council and a delay in his Army promotion. 'I was attacked in a way calculated to inflict maximum personal and professional damage likely in order to prevent me from testifying or to punish...

As recriminations fly among Biden officials over who bungled the Afghanistan withdrawal, some are questioning the responsibility of Russell Travers, who was fired by the Trump administration as acting head of the National Counterterrorism and subsequently rehired by President Joe Biden to lead the interagency process on the evacuation operation. In March 2020, then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell fired Travers as acting head of the NCTC as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline a bloated agency and remove ineffective individuals. The move was decried by former officials as a “purge” of career professionals, the Washington Post...

Suffering a crisis of confidence over his leadership on Ebola a week before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama assembled a massive staff meeting on the issue at the White House Sunday.Including the president, there were 24 people in physical attendance at the meeting CBS News said was convened “to discuss a nationwide policy for health care workers returning from West Africa.” Vice President Joe Biden joined via telephone, and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power joining via video teleconference.Sunday, the New York Times reported President...

Washington (CNN)Federal agencies are investigating at least two possible incidents on US soil, including one near the White House in November of last year, that appear similar to mysterious, invisible attacks that have led to debilitating symptoms for dozens of US personnel abroad. Multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that while the Pentagon and other agencies probing the matter have reached no clear conclusions on what happened, the fact that such an attack might have taken place so close to the White House is particularly alarming. Defense officials briefed lawmakers on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees...

From calling for the destruction of Israel to the National Security Council. "Why Is Georgetown Providing a Platform for This Dangerous Group?" an op-ed in the Washington Post had asked. The group was the Palestine Solidarity Movement, a BDS anti-Israel hate group whose conferences had a history of antisemitism, supporting Hamas and the murder of Jews. Maher Bitar, one of the executive board members of Students for Justice in Palestine, was one of the principal organizers of the 2006 conference which was being hosted by Georgetown University's SJP hate group. A photo appears to show him dancing in a keffiyah...

Speaking during the White House press briefing Monday afternoon, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien called for President Trump to receive the Nobel Peace prize after brokering a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emerites.  "What I have said is the President is often known as the greatest deal maker. He wrote the book 'The Art of the Deal.' He's considered a great great deal maker, which he is, but I think history is going to remember the President for being a great peacemaker. He brought peace to Israel and the UAE. His diplomats signed a historic accord in...

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who was fired from his post at the White House after he testified in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, wrote in an OP-ED Saturday: "At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation's values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment." Vindman announced his retirement from the military last month, citing a "campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" led by the president. In an ESSAY (!) for The Washington Post, Vindman compared the current government to that of the Soviet Union. Vindman and his family emigrated from...

On a late January afternoon, as press secretary Sean Spicer walked into the White House media briefing room, a tall, thin, bespectacled man poked his head in the doorway for a moment before turning around and heading back into the West Wing. Later that week, at another briefing, the man stayed longer, standing in the corner behind the podium, out of view of the array of television cameras. The reporters peppering Spicer with questions were unlikely to know it, but the wallflower watching over the proceedings happened to be the leading conservative intellectual to argue for the election of Donald...

Ever since a “senior official in the Trump administration” penned an anonymous 2018 New York Times column attacking President Trump as unfit for office, Washington has been engrossed in a high-stakes whodunit. After an exhaustive investigation, the White House believes it’s cracked the case, identifying Trump's turncoat as his former deputy national security adviser, Victoria Coates, according to people familiar with the internal probe. Rather than fire Coates, the White House has quietly transferred her to the Department of Energy, where she awaits special assignment in Saudi Arabia -- far from the president. Trump effectively demoted Coates just four months...

In defending his strategy against the deadly coronavirus, President Donald Trump repeatedly has said he slowed its spread into the United States by acting decisively to bar travelers from China on Jan. 31. “I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives,” he tweeted, for instance, on March 2. But Reuters has found that the administration took a month from the time it learned of the outbreak in late December to impose the initial travel restrictions amid furious infighting. During that time, the National...

President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson: [image of letter] The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community. It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson’s office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large. Additionally, former congressman Mark Meadows is now President Trump’s Chief-of-Staff;...

It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious. Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide...

Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown. @CDCgov has and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19. #coronavirus

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald...

A former Department of Homeland Security agent says that an investigation he was conducting into a fundamentalist Islamic group operating in the U.S. may have helped stop San Bernardino jihadi Syed Farook had the government not shut down his probe. During an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly on Thursday, Philip Haney said that in 2012 as an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center, he opened an investigation into a Sunni Islamic group called, Tablighi Jamaat, a subset of the fundamentalist Deobandi movement. But Haney said that just a year into the investigation it was shut...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:  Section 1.  Membership of the Council.  Section 2(b) of Executive Order 13803 of June 30, 2017 (Reviving the National Space Council) is hereby amended to read as follows:“(b)  The Council shall be composed of the following members:(i)     The Vice President, who shall be Chair of the Council;(ii)    The Secretary of State;(iii)   The Secretary of Defense;(iv)    The Secretary of Commerce;(v)     The Secretary of Transportation;(vi)    The Secretary of Energy;(vii)   The Secretary of...

More cuts are coming soon at the White House National Security Council, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said, as part of an effort to make the council streamlined and efficient and to make sure the council staffers are dedicated to carrying out policies chosen by President Donald Trump. “It’s really a privilege to work in the White House. It’s not a right,” O’Brien added. “At the end of the day, the president is entitled to staffers that want to execute his policy, that he has confidence in, and I think every president’s entitled to that.” “When they come to the...

Tired of all this WINNING yet? – Both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 set new record highs on Monday, as the Trump economy just keeps WINNING for Americans and their 401(k)’s. The Dow was also up, but not quite at record levels reached a few weeks ago, before the Coronavirus scare. And it’s only going to get better, as early trading futures indicate all indexes will open at higher levels today. About those “70 Obama holdovers” cut from the NSC… – Twitter and other social media outlets went nuts on Monday over a slightly misleading report issued by the Washington...

President Trump is making good on his promises to “drain the swamp” and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council. Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200. Since entering the White House, Trump has relied on staffs smaller than previous administrations and has noted how prior president’s had a much smaller NSC team.