Free Republic

There is no evidence in the emails that Mr. Sater delivered on his promises, and one email suggests that Mr. Sater overstated his Russian ties. In January 2016, Mr. Cohen wrote to Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, asking for help restarting the Trump Tower project, which had stalled. But Mr. Sater did not appear to have Mr. Peskov’s direct email, and instead wrote to a general inbox for press inquiries. The project never got government permits or financing, and died weeks later. “To be clear, the Trump Organization has never had any real estate holdings or interests in Russia,”...

Incoming California Senator Rep. Adam Schiff (D) demanded Sunday that the Senate reject the nomination of Kash Patel to be director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), continuing a long personal vendetta against Patel. Schiff has been trying to destroy Patel ever since 2017, when Patel helped expose the fact that members of the outgoing Obama administration abused their power to “unmask” the names of Americans caught on foreign wiretaps, a practice that was thought to have led to the unjust firing and prosecution of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn over false allegations of collusion with Russia.

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump has picked Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, turning to a fierce loyalist to upend America's premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of perceived "conspirators." It's the latest bombshell Trump has thrown at the Washington establishment and a test for how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees. "I am proud to announce that Kashyap "Kash" Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Trump posted Saturday night on Truth Social. "Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)'s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released its annual report identifying the top management and performance challenges currently facing the federal agency. Among the OIG's findings, a lack of public trust in the DOJ remains a "longstanding" problem, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced Monday, and strengthening such trust poses "a significant challenge." However, in its 59-page report highlighting incidents that have contributed to the department's confidence crisis, the DOJ watchdog largely overlooked transgressions under the Biden-Harris administration, which still reigns. Instead, the OIG looked farther back to Trump's time in office, his...

TYRANT Vladimir Putin has mysteriously disappeared for 13 days as rumours about his apparent ill-health swirl. Suspicions have risen after the Kremlin was accused of pumping out several pre-recorded meetings with Putin and various Russian leaders since his last public appearance. The tyrant’s last definitive appearance was at the Valdai Forum in Sochi on 7 November. Putin has reportedly disappeared since then for medical reasons, according to the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which has security service links. The channel said: “Indeed, Putin has been absent from work recently and receives all reports exclusively via special communications.” “Those close to him are...

President-elect Trump on Wednesday tapped former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to become U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in his new administration. Trump described Whitaker, who is from Iowa, as "a strong warrior and loyal Patriot, who will ensure the United States' interests are advanced and defended." "Matt will strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability - He will put AMERICA FIRST," Trump said in a statement. "I have full confidence in Matt’s ability to represent the United States with Strength, Integrity, and unwavering Dedication....

If they did nothing wrong, what are they afraid of? After all, that's what they said about Donald Trump for years. Now that the script flipped, their tune has changed--dramatically. As I reported last week, former and current apparatchiks for the Department of Justice are making plans to resign in advance of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January. Those headed for exits include Special Counsel Jack Smith and his top team of prosecutors, who just withdrew their appeal of Judge Aileen Cannon’s order dismissing the classified documents indictment in Florida and asked for a halt to the...

In 2017, when she was still a Democratic member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard traveled to Syria and met the country’s authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. She also accused the United States of supporting terrorists there.The day after Vladimir V. Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gabbard blamed the United States and NATO for provoking the war by ignoring Russia’s security concerns.She has since suggested that the United States covertly worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was culpable for the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in September 2022. European prosecutors...

Tapper served up an opportunity for Johnson to characterize Trump as a Russian stooge. He did the exact opposite. CNN talking head Jake Tapper gave former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson an opportunity this week to help the American media establishment advance its latest Trump-Russia smear. Johnson, whose time as prime minister and foreign secretary overlapped Trump's first four years in the White House, not only proved unwilling to cosign the narrative but highlighted President Donald Trump's historic efforts to keep Russia in check — something the Biden-Harris administration has alternatively had difficulty with. Johnson went on CNN to promote...

Meanwhile, the House Ethics Committee’s years-long investigation into Matt Gaetz over allegations of sexual misconduct ended after the lawmaker resigned from Congress. The Gateway Pundit reported on the Ethics Committee’s revival of the junk allegations against Gaetz, even after the Biden DOJ exonerated Gaetz of criminal wrongdoing and dropped the charges in February 2023. The investigation was reopened in 2023 as Gaetz ramped up challenges to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was later ousted by Gaetz’s Motion to Vacate the chair. Later, when Gaetz threatened to bring a Motion to Vacate against McCarthy in October 2023, McCarthy’s RINO allies...

A shady Democratic attorney who once loudly attacked President-elect Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 presidential results is now at the heart of a desperate legal effort to snatch Pennsylvania’s Senate race away from its rightful winner — Republican Dave McCormick, campaign insiders say. Marc Elias, a longtime Democratic election attorney and dirty trickster, is attempting to force the Pennsylvania Senate race into a recount, even though it was called for McCormick by the Associated Press on Thursday, with even the state’s most liberal news outlets echoing the call since. Despite the race being called, incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey...

Once you start digging into the Deep State, what you discover is remarkable continuity when it comes to attacking Republican presidents over the last many decades. One of the happy unintended consequences of the Russia Hoax of 2016 was that it exposed Americans to the mendacity, amorality, and chicanery of our Deep State and Intel Community (“IC”). Another was learning about the Falstaffian character Stefan Halper. Halper’s role in the hoax—the FBI used him to surreptitiously question Page, Papadopoulos, other others—sent me down a rabbit hole leading to Carter, Nixon, and JFK. Stefan Halper was a legacy hire: the nephew...

Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson has named his seventh communications director in less than five years after firing Deeda Seed, a longtime friend and his former chief of staff. Deeda Seed Clifford Lyon, a former executive with a gift wholesale company and a member of the Human Rights Center of Utah governing board, replaces Seed, who Anderson fired Friday apparently for complaining about his management style and in part over how the controversy surrounding his involvement in last week's anti-war protest during President Bush's visit was being handled. Like some of her predecessors, Seed complained that Anderson doesn't abide dissent...

Two men made trouble—and stirred up a social-media frenzy—on the third day of the Conservative Political Action Conference by conducting a literal false-flag operation. The flags were subsequently confiscated by CPAC staff, but not before pictures of audience members waving Russian flags went prank went viral on social media. ason Charter, 22, and Ryan Clayton, 36, passed out roughly 1,000 red, white, and blue flags, each bearing a gold-emblazoned “TRUMP” in the center, to an auditorium full of attendees waiting for President Trump to address the conference. Audience members waved the pennants—and took pictures with them—until CPAC staffers realized the...

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday said it disrupted Russian-directed foreign malign influence campaigns it referred to as “Doppelganger,” that sought to spread Russian government propaganda. The effort was meant to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies, and influence voters in the U.S. and elsewhere, the Justice Department said. Separately, the DOJ accused two Russian employees of RT, the Russian state-owned media outlet, of a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences while keeping the connection to Russia hidden. RT worked with an online content creation company in Tennessee, which was directed to...

The Biden-Harris administration is planning to accuse Russia of a “covert” and “sustained effort to influence the 2024 presidential election” and take a “series of moves” to address it, “six sources familiar with the matter” told CNN. CNN reported that the administration will accuse Russia of doing so by claiming it uses Kremlin-run media and other online platforms to target U.S. voters with disinformation. The report did not provide evidence or examples of the disinformation, but it said RT — Russia’s state media network — is a major focus of the announcement. RT is widely known to be government-directed and...

blah, blah, blah ... "The executive at Vkontakte, or VK, Russia’s equivalent to Facebook, emailed Donald Trump Jr. and social media director Dan Scavino in January and again in November of last year, offering to help promote Trump’s campaign to its nearly 100 million users, according to people familiar with the messages...." Looks like Nellie Ohr was looking for Russian Social Media Users in 2014:

A former advisor to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump claims his Virginia home was raided by FBI agents this week. Dimitri Simes, whose name came up over 130 times in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report into Russian interference in the presidential election, told the Rappahannock News he was out of the U.S. and wasn’t notified ahead of Tuesday’s search. He also insisted he’s not aware of being the focus of any law-enforcement investigation. ... The raid “clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against...

San Francisco, CA – When the Center for Medical Progress released its shocking series of videos in the summer of 2015, showing undercover footage of Planned Parenthood abortionists and executives discussing their lucrative trade in body parts harvested from aborted babies, it caused a tsunami of bad publicity for the nation’s largest supplier of abortions. The sale of tissues and organs of aborted babies for profit is illegal under 42 U.S. Codes 274e and 289g-2. It was not long before a San Francisco, California, Federal Court Judge placed a gag order sealed up much of the evidence gathered during the...

The Justice Department has agreed to pay a total of $2 million to settle legal claims brought by former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page over the DOJ’s release of text messages the pair exchanged. The agreement ends a lawsuit Page brought, but does not fully resolve Strzok’s separate suit, allowing him to continue to press his claims that he was fired in order to please then-President Donald Trump. On Friday, Strzok’s lawyers announced his $1.2 million agreement as attorneys for both sides notified a federal judge in Washington that the privacy-focused portion of that...