Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — As former President Donald Trump braces for a potential indictment related to hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 campaign, Republicans blasting the case as politically motivated are blaming a frequent target: George Soros. The 92-year-old billionaire investor and philanthropist — who has been falsely accused of everything from hiring violent rioters to committing election crimes — doesn’t know and didn’t donate directly to the New York prosecutor steering the probe. But that hasn’t stopped Trump and other high-profile Republicans from accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who convened the grand jury investigating...

WASHINGTON — As the Republican Party gears up for the 2024 presidential race, there’s a large image in the rearview mirror that refuses to go away: The 2020 presidential election. About a week ago, the Colorado GOP selected a 2020 election denier to lead the party for the next two years. That came weeks after the Michigan Republicans selected a 2020 denier to lead their party as well. When a party loses a presidential election, typically it sorts through the wreckage and figures out how to move forward. The GOP, however, has not done this following the aftermath of the...

In the hours after some of Silicon Valley Bank’s biggest customers started pulling out their money, a WhatsApp group of startup founders who are immigrants of color ballooned to more than 1,000 members. Questions flowed as the bank’s financial status worsened. Some desperately sought advice: Could they open an account at a larger bank without a Social Security Number? Others questioned whether they had to physically be at a bank to open an account, because they’re visiting parents overseas. One clear theme emerged: a deep concern about the broader impact on startups led by people of color. While Wall Street...

As former President Donald Trump faces likely criminal charges, his campaign is preparing to wage a political war. With an indictment looming from the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, Trump’s campaign is laying the groundwork for a broad attack on Bragg, a Democrat. According to two of Trump’s political allies, the campaign will aim to portray any charges as part of a coordinated offensive by the Democratic Party against Trump, who is trying to become only the second former president to win a new term after leaving office. It is unclear what data points, if any, the Trump team plans...

WASHINGTON — The White House is exploring additional ways to ensure accountability for those who were responsible for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, administration officials said Tuesday. Pointing to the bonuses some bank employees got last week and stock sales made by senior executives in recent years, a White House official said, “All of those are worthy of a deeper look.” Biden privately told his advisers in meetings over the weekend that he wants tougher regulations on banks to prevent future failures, the second official said. Biden wants Congress to reverse the deregulatory actions lawmakers took during the Trump...

The Treasury Department has agreed to let House Oversight Committee members review suspicious activity reports pertaining to President Biden’s family, the panel’s chairman James Comer announced Tuesday. The records submitted by wary banks to the US government may contain new bombshells on the first family’s murky foreign income and the millions reaped by first son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden in countries where their powerful relative held sway. “After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,”...

WASHINGTON — In a cheerfully decorated common room at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with floral paintings adorning violet walls, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania begins most days meeting with his chief of staff, who arrives around 10 a.m. carrying a briefcase full of newspaper clips, statements for him to approve, legislation to review and other business of the day. The contents of that briefcase encompass the majority of Fetterman’s connection to the outside world these days, as the first-term Democrat from Pennsylvania finishes his third week in the hospital being treated for severe clinical depression. Doctors caring...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell joined a chorus of widespread attacks on Fox News host Tucker Carlson for his portrayal of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol since he accessed more than 40,000 hours of security footage. Carlson and his team had exclusive access to the security tape surrounding the attack thanks to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, drawing concerns the host would use the tapes to spread a new wave of disinformation. McConnell said he aligned himself with remarks issued earlier Tuesday by U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger to his rank-and-file slamming Carlson's "offensive and misleading conclusions" about...

WASHINGTON — Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday released security video from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, using footage provided exclusively to him by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to portray the riot as a peaceful gathering. Carlson acquired the tapes as part of a push by McCarthy, R-Calif., to win the speaker’s gavel. When McCarthy was struggling to gather the votes to lead the House, Carlson used his program to list two “concessions” he could make to win over far-right Republicans. “First, release the January 6 files. Not some of the January 6 files and video —...

Washington — Senate Republicans on Tuesday refuted Fox News host Tucker Carlson's portrayal of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying his characterization of the events as "mostly peaceful" is at odds with the reality they experienced as a mob of former President Donald Trump's supporters breached the building. Carlson claimed surveillance video from the scene showed "mostly peaceful chaos" inside the Capitol. While a "small percentage" of the rioters were "hooligans" who committed vandalism, he said, most were "orderly and meek," and he equated them with "sightseers." But some Senate Republicans pushed back on Carlson's depiction....

Chief Thomas Manger sent an internal memo to U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday saying the commentary on Fox News host Tucker Carlson's program Monday night was "filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack." The memo, obtained by ABC News, said "the opinion program never reached out to the Department to provide accurate context." "The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video," Manger wrote. "The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during the less tense moments." Manger, who was sworn in in July...

WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday accused House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy of helping Fox News stoke conspiracy theories by providing videos that were used by the cable network to portray the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters as peaceful. On Monday, Fox's right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson used some of the security videos, showing protesters walking through the Capitol, to argue that they were merely "sightseers." He said only a small number of those who illegally entered the Capitol as Congress was attempting to formally certify President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral win were "hooligans,"...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Handed some 41,000 hours of Jan. 6 security footage, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has launched an impassioned new effort to explain away the deadly Capitol attack, linking the Republican Party ever more closely to pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the 2021 riot. The conservative commentator aired a first installment to millions of viewers on his prime-time show, working to bend perceptions of the violent, grueling siege that played out for the world to see into a narrative favorable to Donald Trump. He promised more Tuesday night. The undertaking by Fox News comes as Trump is again running for...

A video of U.S. President Joe Biden talking about surgery is circulating on social media, with some of his critics using it to question his aptitude and speculate about the state of his health. During the short clip, Biden says: "I had these terrible headaches. I was diagnosed with having a—well, anyway. They had to take the top of my head off a couple times, see if I had a brain." As the video went viral, some social media users accused Biden of hiding a medical condition from the public. Others used it to suggest Biden is not fit to...

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have spent months promising to use their majority to uncover an insidious bias against conservatives on the part of the federal government, vowing to produce a roster of brave whistleblowers who would come forward to provide damning evidence of abuses aimed at the right. But the first three witnesses to testify privately before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the panel who have listened to their accounts. Instead, the trio appears to be...

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak. The conclusion is reportedly based on a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. Many will be exploring why the scientific evidence of a lab leak was so slow to emerge from intelligence agencies. However, for my part, the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science. There will continue to be a debate over the origins of COVID-19, but now there will be a debate. For years, the media...

Gov. Ron DeSantis has targeted one political enemy after another, from removing a top state prosecutor in Tampa who disagreed with him on abortion rights to promoting an “anti-woke” agenda that limits teaching about racism in public schools and diversity hiring programs at universities. He even went after business behemoth Disney when its CEO opposed an educational bill, dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Now, Florida lawmakers — with the support of the governor — are taking aim at the media, pushing legislation that would dramatically weaken legal standards in place for more than a half century...

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced the resignations of two "valued members" of the communications office on Wednesday. After discussing the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and Biden's trip to Ukraine, the Press Secretary shifted gears to announce the "bittersweet" news that Jean-Pierre's Press Assistant Megha Bhattacharya and her Chief of Staff Robbie Dornbush were leaving the White House's press team. "We have another bittersweet day for us, for the White House press team, as this is the last press briefing for Megha and Robbie - to my right here - who are valued members of our team,"...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Patrick Kennedy was in Congress, he would sneak in his treatments for substance abuse over the holidays, in between congressional work periods. And he refused mental health treatment recommended by his doctors, worried he would be recognized in that wing of the hospital. On Thursday, the office of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate after a bruising campaign during which he suffered a stroke, announced he had checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression. The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, tweeted praise for Fetterman, saying he hopes his “courage...

Conventional wisdom has it that Karine Jean-Pierre owes her position as Biden’s press secretary to affirmative action. She is black, female and lesbian, all of which make her a “pioneer” and a shatterer of “glass ceilings.” But maybe, just maybe, she is put out in front of the public to normalize the sort of incoherence we get from her boss on a regular basis. The theory may be that people will get used to hearing words mangled and used to incoherence. Those qualities were on display yesterday when KJP went on MSNBC to be interviewed by Jonathan Capehart of the...