Free Republic

In August federal prosecutors accused Stephen Alford of trying to defraud US Rep. Matt Gaetz’s father Don Gaetz out of $25 million. And last week Stephen Alford, 62, pleaded guilty in an attempt to extort $25 million from Matt Gaetz’s father. According to The Washington Examiner, the announcement by the Justice Department marks a turnaround as Alford initially entered a not guilty plea. A charge of tampering with evidence was tossed, according to Northwest Florida Daily News .

Key to the ambush interview of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn that set him up for prosecution and persecution on made-up charges by James Comey’s FBI was the advice given to Flynn by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- relax, you won’t need a lawyer. Flynn had to be caught off guard and without legal counsel for the entrapment plan to work: Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who arranged the bureau's interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 -- the interview that ultimately led to Flynn's guilty plea on one count of...

FBI agents are at the home of Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, the agency confirmed Tuesday. The agents are conducting “court-authorized law enforcement activity” at Deripaska’s home in Washington, D.C., an FBI spokeswoman told CNBC. The spokeswoman did not provide additional details about the FBI presence. Multiple agents were seen restricting access to the property, NBC News reported.

An alleged orgy with prostitutes. Accusations of sex with an underage girl. A trophy photo of a woman wearing only a hula hoop. And a convoluted extortion plot involving a likely dead American hostage in Iran. Even by Florida standards, the Matt Gaetz saga is downright bizarre — and getting weirder by the day. Before this week, the young Sunshine State congressman and ally of former President Donald Trump was best known, like his mentor, for his ambitious conservatism and promontory coiffure. But this week, the Republican has faced a daily flurry of scandalous ­headlines. Most seriously, he is being...

The man accused of trying to extort $25 million from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s family admitted Monday that he asked the congressman’s dad for cash — but denied that it was a shakedown. Bob Kent, an ex-Air Force intelligence officer, confirmed to Sirius Radio host Michael Smerconish that he approached the Florida Republican’s dad, Don Gaetz, for money last month. The funds, Kent said, were to pay for an effort to free Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, and is believed to be dead. Kent claimed he has video evidence that Levinson is still alive...

Rep. Matt Gaetz possesses text message screenshots, an email, and a typed document that purportedly support his claims that a federal investigation into his relationship with a 17-year-old is related to an extortion scheme against him. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department is investing whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid her to travel with him. Gaetz has called the report "totally false." Gaetz told Axios that his lawyers told him that he "was not a target but a subject of an investigation regarding sexual conduct with women." The Florida Republican...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Rep. Matt Gaetz’s father, Don, a former Florida Senate president, said he is working with the FBI, including wearing a wire on more than one occasion as part of an investigation into an alleged extortion plot that the pair said was organized by former federal prosecutor David McGee. “The FBI asked me to try and get that information for Matt and an indication we would transfer money to Mr. David McGee,” Don Gaetz said in an interview late Tuesday, without specifying what information he was referring to. McGee, who is now in private practice with a Pensacola,...

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) reportedly bragged to people involved in Florida politics that he had met women through a county tax collector who has since been hit with federal sex trafficking charges. Two people who heard his comments directly told The Washington Post that Gaetz had also showed them videos of nude women on his phone. Some of the videos were from parties with former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg. The sources said the women in the videos appeared to be adults. “Matt was never shy about talking about his relationship to Joel and the access to women that...

A defiant Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) says he has no plans to resign from Congress amid a federal investigation into whether he paid women — and a 17-year-old girl — for sexual favors. Yet behind the scenes, a growing number of Gaetz’s Republican colleagues are predicting his days on Capitol Hill are growing short. “In reality, yes, he won’t last long,” one member told The Hill on Friday. The forecasts seem to be based on some combination of political pragmatism and wishful thinking. Gaetz, who stands among the fiercest defenders of former President Trump, is no stranger to controversy, but...

The Times has reviewed receipts from Cash App, a mobile payments app, and Apple Pay that show payments from Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Greenberg to one of the women, and a payment from Mr. Greenberg to a second woman. The women told their friends that the payments were for sex with the two men, according to two people familiar with the conversations. In encounters during 2019 and 2020, Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Greenberg instructed the women to meet at certain times and places, often at hotels around Florida, and would tell them the amount of money they were willing to...

SNIP The lawmaker told The Times he suspects somebody is trying to extort him and his family for $25 million. “I have a suspicion that someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward,” he told the newspaper. He added in a series of tweets Tuesday night that he and his family have been working with the feds in an investigation that involves a former DOJ official seeking to extort him. “My father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals. The planted leak to the FBI tonight was intended...

A record-breaking ruling for the family of Bob Levinson, a former FBI Agent who vanished while in Iran 13-years ago. Thursday, a U.S. judge ruled Iran must pay Levinson's family $1.46 billion, the largest judgement for a case of this kind... Levinson disappeared in 2007 while working as a CIA contractor in Iran. His family immediately called on (Atty. David) McGee, who was Levinson's friend, to help bring him home... Earlier this year, Levinson's family announced they were convinced the husband and father of seven was dead. In a statement, they said the judgement was the "the first step in...

Robert Levinson, a former FBI special agent who disappeared while traveling on Iran’s Kush Island in 2007, has “died while in Iranian custody,” his family announced Wednesday. ---SNIP--- “Those who are responsible for what happened to Bob Levinson, including those in the U.S. government who for many years repeatedly left him behind, will ultimately receive justice for what they have done,” the announcement said. That’s a reference to President Barack Obama’s administration, which did not secure Levinson’s release despite years of negotiating with Tehran in the lead-up to the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley says that former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson actively worked to undermine President Trump and tried to enlist her...... Its Monday in Hong Kong with a general strike called by protester for democracy and police officers using live ammunition..... Bolivia's President Evo Morales resigned Sunday afternoon along with his Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera...... Spain's second election this year with the Socialists winners but a few seats under their performance earlier this year. The result is again a deadlock... Israeli politics and the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu...

Dear Judge Sullivan: I am submitting my letter directly since Mike Flynn’s attorney has refused to submit it as well as letters submitted by other individuals.

The Associated Press was "highly irresponsible" in publishing a story detailing American Robert Levinson's ties to the CIA, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday. The AP's story, held for years at the request of government officials, traces Levinson's work with the CIA before he went missing in Iran more than six years ago and "very likely puts that person in greater danger," Carney said,

WASHINGTON - Jewish-American Robert Levinson was not included in a prisoner exchange with Iran that came as the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal and the West rolled back sanctions. Iran on Saturday released five Americans it was holding in its prisons or in detention, four of them as part of a prison swap which included the release of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist detained on espionage charges since 2014. The exchange comes on "implementation day" of the sanctions relief for nuclear restrictions deal Iran concluded last year with the United States and five other...

Three of the top cybersecurity officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are retiring from government service, according to people familiar with the matter—departures that come as cyberattacks are a major concern for the country’s security agencies. Senior U.S. intelligence officials warn that the country is at a “critical point” facing unprecedented cyberthreats, including Russia’s ongoing attacks on the American political system. The retirements also come as the FBI is facing regular criticism from President Donald Trump and his supporters, and is working to attract and retain top cyber talent. Scott Smith, the assistant FBI director who runs the Bureau’s...

...In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.