Free Republic

Byron York warned Monday of the rising "toxicity" of the anti-Trump resistance movement, highlighting three troubling developments in recent days. In a Washington Examiner column, titled "Anti-Trump fever takes threatening turn," York points to two op-eds specifically in the New York Times and Washington Post that he characterized as "rationalizations for denying Trump supporters public accommodation and for doxxing career federal employees." Appearing on "America's Newsroom," York noted that the co-owner of a Virginia restaurant who refused to serve then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said she believes the "rules are changing" when it comes to businesses or their staffers...

RUSH: We have audio sound bites coming up — an amazing press conference, impromptu. The president on the White House lawn with more media people than I’ve ever seen at one of these things, and it just went on and on and on. And Trump was even more outrageous and on point than he usually is in this press conference. Acosta was standing right next to him for the entire thing. And the point here was to make it plane that Acosta had made the decision to resign, that Acosta was a great labor secretary, Trump really hates to see...

Documents released by the FBI pertaining to Clinton-connected pedophile Jeffrey Epstein show that the known child predator had a professional relationship with then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. “Epstein has also provided information to the FBI as agreed upon,” says one of the court documents. “Case agent advised that no federal prosecution will occur in this matter as long as Epstein continues to uphold his agreement with the state of Florida.

A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday struck down prosecutors’ efforts to characterize Michael Flynn as a co-conspirator with his former lobbying partner, who faces trial on charges that he secretly lobbied for the Turkish government. Judge Anthony Trenga said in a court filing that federal prosecutors failed to provide enough evidence to show that Flynn acted as a co-conspirator with Bijan Rafiekian, a former executive at Flynn’s consulting company, Flynn Intel Group. “The United States at this point has not presented or proffered evidence sufficient to establish by a preponderance of the evidence a conspiracy for the purposes of...

At the Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra postulates a breakthrough in DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into alleged FISA abuse against the Trump campaign. Saavedra reports that “at least one witness has started to cooperate in the investigation.” Fox News also reports that an Obama administration official has flipped. Saavedra suggests that the official most likely to be cooperating with Horowitz’s investigation (which in turn, as I understand it, is collaborating with the Durham probe that was ordered by Attorney General William Barr) is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. If Kavalec has indeed flipped, how significant is it?...

Investigative journalist Carl Bernstein is calling on the media to do a better job covering special counsel Robert Mueller's report. Speaking on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Brian Stelter on Sunday, Bernstein said the media is focused on the fighting over the report instead of its actual contents. “I think we’ve made a big mistake in the press about how we’ve covered the Mueller report,” Bernstein said. “We’ve gotten totally wrapped up in the warfare in the Congress between Republicans and Democrats and is there obstruction of justice or is there not obstruction of justice.” Bernstein, best known for his reporting...

As the battle over President Trump’s federal taxes intensifies in Washington, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed a bill on Monday to allow congressional committees to access the president’s state tax returns. The bill requires state tax officials to release the president’s state returns for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose” on the request of the chair of one of three congressional committees: the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

A key component of the Russia hoax was trying to convince the American public that Russian espionage had been conducted on behalf of Donald Trump. Moreover with Trump’sknowledge and encouragement. Lost in the analysis is the clear and obvious Russian fingerprints all over the Steele dossier. The factual basis of the Wikileaks revelations. The opaque nature of the evidence regarding the DNC server. The lack of any collusion with the Trump campaign. The existence of a coordinated effort to entrap the Trump campaign by the Obama White House. The effort to frame Trump as a Russian agent. Both as a...

Prosecutor in 2019 Epstein Case Is Maurene Comey, Daughter of Fired FBI Director James Comey -- Who Participated in 2017 Pussy Hat March. ( Full title). ... A team of federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, along with some in the public corruption unit, have been assigned to the case. Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, is one of the prosecutors, ... Maurene Comey is a Assistant US Attorney in New York state. Maurene Comey has been an assistant US attorney in the SDNY office since 2015. ... Maurene Comey with her mother...

I recently watched a German-made political movie, The Lives of Others, which was released back in 2006. Every American should take the opportunity to watch this movie, for it portrayed the destructive consequences for the people and a society living under what was formally an all-powerful East German police state. The East German state police agency, the Stasi, was granted virtually unlimited power to monitor and spy on the lives of their citizens with the objective of maintaining absolute control over all aspects of the personal and professional lives of its people. The Stasi was renowned for being highly proficient...

---SNIP--- What becomes clear is that the special counsel used a number of rhetorical devices to couch evidence and craft a narrative so that a document that ultimately clears the president can also be read as an indictment. The first thing to note about the Mueller report is just how contentious it is. It isn’t a set of findings so much as an assertion of what the findings might have been if only there had been more evidence. It is like a closing argument in a criminal case already dismissed for lack of evidence but in which the prosecutor is...

Rep. Devin Nunes said there is something "weird" going on with the media's coverage of the Russia investigation, even after special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation came to a close. In an interview with Fox News, the California congressman was asked to react to a Washington Post report this week focusing on Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud, the man who told former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos the Russians had damaging information about Hillary Clinton and effectively set in motion what would become the Russia investigation. The report critically assesses what Trump allies such as Nunes have claimed about Mifsud, including that...

Trump associates who believe they were unfairly maligned in Robert Mueller’s Russia report want lawmakers to ask one question - why? - when the former special counsel testifies July 17. They also allege that Mr. Mueller knew there was no Trump-Russia conspiracy months before the March 22 completion date of his investigation but stayed quiet. Why? They say the report contains pejorative narratives of innocent conduct for which no one was criminally charged. Michael Caputo, media adviser for the Trump campaign, asked on his “Still Standing” podcast, “When did Bob Mueller actually know there was no Russian collusion? “That matters...

Text messages between former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page debating how much information to share with the Justice Department about a London meeting -- days after the bureau opened its initial Russia investigation -- are drawing fresh scrutiny as alleged surveillance abuse and the probe’s origins are investigated by three separate probes, Fox News has learned. On Aug. 3, 2016, Strzok wrote, "I think we need to consider the lines of what we disclose to DOJ. For example, the last stipulation notes we will not disclose [the] identifies outside the FBI. I think you might argue the unauthorized...

Sometimes it is the quiet, elusive ones who come back to haunt you. And for ex-special prosecutor Robert Mueller, one of those might be a Russian billionaire named Oleg Deripaska. The oligarch who once controlled Russia’s largest aluminum empire has been an international man of intrigue in the now-completed and disproven Trump collusion investigation. Deripaska was a disaffected former business client of Donald Trump’s fallen campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He also was a legal research client of Trump-hating, Clinton-aiding British spy Christopher Steele. In his spare time, he was an occasional friendly cooperator with the FBI and its fired deputy...

July 2, 2019: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton appeared on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network to discuss the latest on the Clinton email scandal. Read more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUUHGuNdwwA&feature=youtu.be

Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe said Monday that the Justice Department inspector general has finished his investigation into whether the FBI abused the surveillance court system during its investigation of the Trump campaign. In an interview on Fox News, Ratcliffe said that he met in June with the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, to discuss the timing, but not the content, of the release of the report. “He related that his team’s investigative work is complete,” said Ratcliffe, a Republican member of the House Intelligence and House Judiciary Committees. “They are now in the process of drafting the report. I would...

When Democrats heard last week that Robert Mueller would testify before the House judiciary and oversight committees on July 17, they were as giddy as a 72-year-old Jerry Nadler waiting to question Hope Hicks. But unless committee Republicans botch the hearing—something entirely possible—the left’s strategy of placing Mueller center stage in their continued attempts to underdo the results of the 2016 presidential election will backfire bigly. Why? For the simple reason that Mueller’s 400-plus page report presented the worst the special counsel could muster against Trump, so any new revelations will play to the president’s advantage. So, what should Republicans...

Texas Republican congressman and House Freedom Caucus stalwart Louie Gohmert called former special counsel Robert Mueller an “anal opening” Monday as Mueller prepares to testify before Congress after finding no Russian collusion on the part of President Trump. “He’s done some irreparable damage to some things and he’s got to answer for them. It reinforced the anal opening that I believe Mueller to be,” Gohmert stated to Politico.