Free Republic

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...

Former Attorney General Bill Barr did not improperly pressure prosecutors to reduce sentencing recommendations for political activist Roger Stone, according to a new government watchdog report. The exoneration of Barr came more than four years after a deluge of media reports alleging wrongdoing. However, J.P. Cooney, a Justice Department official now serving as Special Counsel Jack Smith’s top deputy, cultivated a politically toxic environment, disseminated baseless conspiracy theories about Trump and his political appointees, and engaged in unprofessional conduct as he oversaw the team making sentencing recommendations, according to the same report. Cooney is mentioned (as the “Fraud and Public...

July 19 (Reuters) - A global tech outage was disrupting operations across multiple industries on Friday, with airlines halting flights, some broadcasters off air and services from banking to healthcare hit by system problems. While major U.S. airlines - American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab, Delta Airlines (DAL.N), opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab - grounded flights, other carriers and airports around the world reported delays and disruptions early on Friday. Banks and financial services firms from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of disruptions. In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, multiple...

WASHINGTON-Russia is turning to a familiar playbook in its attempt to sway the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, looking for ways to boost the candidacy of former President Donald Trump by disparaging the campaign of incumbent President Joe Biden, according to American intelligence officials. A new assessment of threats to the November election, shared Tuesday, does not mention either candidate by name. But an intelligence official told reporters that the Kremlin view of the U.S. political landscape has not changed from previous election cycles...

WASHINGTON — Some of the 51 “Spies Who Lie” were active CIA contractors when they claimed files from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop had “the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election — a fact that was uneasily noted inside the agency at the time, new records acquired by The Post show. Former CIA acting director Michael Morell, who previously told Congress he organized the Oct. 19, 2020, letter to give Joe Biden a “talking point” against then-President Donald Trump ahead of a debate, was a contractor at the time, the agency informed Congress. Ex-agency inspector general...

A White House official who stoked controversy with social media posts attacking police, supporting the anti-Israel movement, and promoting "Russiagate," is now downplaying these posts, saying that they were written when he was younger and do not reflect his current views. Tyler Cherry was promoted last week as an associate communications director at the White House, after more than three years at the Department of Interior working for Secretary Deb Haaland. The promotion brought renewed attention to some of Cherry’s past incendiary posts.

Eugene Vindman won the Democratic Party's nomination for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District on Tuesday. The race among Democrats comes after the incumbent Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger announced she would not seek re-election in favor of running for governor of the Old Dominion next year. Seven Democrats vied for the nomination in the crowded primary election, including: Prince County Supervisor Andrea Bailey; Prince County Supervisor Margaret Franklin; former state House Delegate Elizabeth Guzman; Virginia House Delegate Briana Sewell; Carl Bedell; Clifford Heinzer; and retired Army Col. Eugene Vindman. Vindman and his twin brother, retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, gained national...

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe claimed many members of the intelligence community are fearful of a potential second Donald Trump term, saying Wednesday that some are even considering fleeing the country. McCabe, a CNN analyst, told "The Source" anchor Kaitlan Collins that there was an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty within the intelligence community over the prospect of Trump returning to the White House. According to the former FBI leader, officials believe Trump will seek retribution against his political enemies during his second term. "It’s terrifying. It’s frightening," McCabe declared of how some officials view Trump’s possible return to...

WASHINGTON—Eleven pages of State Department documents released on Jan. 7 in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch show that Jonathan Winer, an assistant to then-Secretary of State John Kerry, used his private email address to convey information he received from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to top U.S. diplomatic officials. “I will send them to her [his assistant, Nina Miller] from my non-State email account, not copying myself,” Winer said in response to a December 2014 email from Paul Jones, principal deputy assistant secretary for European Affairs. Jones wanted Winer to use the State...

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., hinted Monday the coming release of documents that will "show" U.S. ambassadors conspired with the FBI and the Justice Department to harm President Trump. “It's additional information that is coming out that will show not only was there no collusion, but there was a coordinated effort to take this president down,” Meadows told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “We talk about the 'Deep State.' There are players now, even ambassadors, that are sitting ambassadors that were involved in part of this with the FBI-DOJ.” Meadows did not name any ambassadors. “As we look at this, it's time...

America First Legal (AFL) is celebrating a victory in its lawsuit on behalf of former Ambassador Ric Grenell against the Biden Administration's “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.” The Biden Administration has agreed to dissolve this unlawful group and hand over its records to AFL.

The Gateway Pundit’s Christina Laila was first to report on the most recent James O’Keefe bombshell video that exposed a CIA contractor admitting that the intelligence agencies were working together to keep top-secret information hidden from President Trump while he was the sitting President! snip.. O’Keefe Media Group’s bombshell undercover footage supports earlier reports by investigative journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag that revealed how the American intelligence community illegally ran a spy operation against then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and illegally acquired intelligence that was later used to justify the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official...

You might remember FISA warrants from the infamous and disgraceful Russia hoax saga. Well, they’re making headlines again as lawmakers debate bringing back the use of the 702 FISA warrantless searches that came about after 9/11 and during the Patriot Act frenzy and were used and abused against innocent Americans. ... Everyone’s favorite warrantless surveillance tool, FISA Section 702, returns to the US House of Representatives this week and is expected to go to a full House vote on Thursday. Or, it may all fall apart (again) in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday. This week’s congressional action follows an...