Free Republic

A former analyst for the FBI admitted Tuesday to copying the private emails of a conservative conspiracy theorist and sharing them with his superiors while his wife offered them to the press. Mark Tolson, 60, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to one misdemeanor count of accessing without authorization the email account of lobbyist Jack Burkman. Burkman is identified in the court documents by the initials “J.B.” Tolson’s wife, Sarah Gilbert Fox, worked for Burkman from October 2017 to early summer 2018 and had access to his email, according to a statement of facts. Tolson learned in October...

When she was raped at gunpoint at the Alexandria, Va., pool where she worked in 2016, the 24-year-old lifeguard could describe her attacker only as a thin man she believed was 35 to 40 years old and a little over 6 feet tall. Three years later, police arrested Jesse Bjerke, after having DNA from the attack analyzed by genealogy researchers who used public databases to link the sample to people in Bjerke’s family — an increasingly common tool for cracking unsolved crimes. Bjerke is also under investigation for a similar rape at a pool in Fairfax County in 2015, according...

Harry Reid doubles down on Romney taxes [More sourceless crap]

A man who worked as an investigator for conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman will serve nine years in prison for shooting and wounding his ex-boss in a complicated plot involving a fake FBI exposé. Kevin Doherty, 46, said little as Judge William T. Newman Jr. sentenced him Monday for malicious wounding and use of a firearm in commission of a felony, but he acknowledged the veracity of a set of facts read by Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Evie Eastman detailing his “serious falling out” with Burkman and the “grand ruse” he concocted in revenge. Eastman said Doherty lured Burkman to a hotel...

Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) will decide whether or not to run for Senate by next January. “I always knew I was going to be on the ballot. We run every two years in the House. “I just don’t know where I’m going to be on the ballot at this point,” he told Bloomberg TV in an interview airing Friday evening. “I think certainly by January, I’ll be able to know whether I’m going to do one or the other.” He said he was being encouraged to look at the race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Carl Levin (D)....

Wisconsin Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) has made it official — she’s running for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Herb Kohl (D) next year. If she wins, Baldwin will make history as the the first openly gay member of the Senate. But how much will her sexuality factor into the race (if at all)? Baldwin was first elected to represent Wisconsin’s 2nd district in 1998, becoming the first female House member from the Badger State. She was also the first openly gay person to be elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was the first...