Free Republic

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been largely quiet since his maximalist negotiating approach with Team Trump failed. Moscow, presumably largely guided by Lavrov, after winning a concession on Tomahawk missiles, opted to continue Putin’s hardline demands for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. NATO would have to admit that it was the root cause of the war. Kyiv would have to cede all of the Donbas, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna demands the appointment of a Special Counsel to expose the DOJ’s role in hiding Epstein files: “A Special Counsel is what the people are calling for. Give all the information.. The only way. I’ve seen the way the DOJ operates...” Jul 10, 2025

A former congressional candidate was charged over allegations that he threatened to dispatch a hit squad to murder his political opponent while he was running against Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) William Braddock, 41, of St. Petersburg, Fla. is accused of making the alleged threats on June 8, 2021 — including one where he threatened to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” to take out his rival. Prosecutors did not outright name the victim, but at the time, he was vying against fellow Republican Luna and he was allegedly caught on audio calling the lawmaker a “dead squirrel” and “a...