Free Republic

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding that FBI Director Kash Patel fill out a screening test used to assess “harmful patterns of alcohol consumption and routinely used by individuals to help identify hazardous drinking behaviors,” following allegations published in an Atlantic article. In a letter to Patel on Tuesday, ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and more than a dozen other Democrats suggested the alleged behavior could harm U.S. national security. Some of the screening questions, attached to the letter, ask “How many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you are drinking,” “How often...

The head of the Southern Poverty Law Center said Tuesday that the civil rights organization was being "targeted" by the Trump administration with a criminal investigation that appeared to focus on the group's use of confidential informants that gathered evidence on "extremely violent groups." Bryan Fair, the interim chief executive of the group, said in a video posted Tuesday that the 55-year-old organization was facing a "serious" threat: "a criminal investigation and possible charges against the SPLC or some of our employees." Fair said SPLC's confidential sources had “risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our...

Joe diGenova, a former Trump campaign lawyer who backed President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, will head up a Florida-based federal investigation into former federal officials who investigated Trump, a Justice Department official confirmed to NBC News on Saturday. DiGenova, 81, who was U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia during the Reagan era, will lead a sprawling investigation targeting Trump's enemies, reaching all the way back to a previous Justice Department inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Justice Department shelved an investigation into former President Joe Biden's use of an autopen, a person briefed on the matter told NBC News on Wednesday. Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin, the former “weaponization” czar, opened the probe while he was interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. It wound down recently under Jeanine Pirro, the current U.S. attorney, who is a longtime Trump ally and former Fox News host. The autopen case was never presented to a grand jury, unlike the case that Pirro's office tried to bring forward last month against six members of Congress who...

When asked whether Martin still served in the role, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News that he continued on in a separate role, as pardon attorney. Trump loyalist Ed Martin is out as leader of the Justice Department’s “weaponization” effort that is investigating prosecutors who launched past probes into President Donald Trump and his allies, two people familiar with the discussions tell NBC News. When asked whether Martin still served in the role, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News that Martin continued to serve in a separate role, as pardon attorney.“President Trump appointed Ed Martin as Pardon Attorney...

WASHINGTON — Federal officials are investigating the partner of Renee Nicole Good to determine whether she may have impeded a federal officer moments before he shot and killed Good in Minneapolis, according to two people familiar with the investigation who spoke to NBC News. The federal investigation into the shooting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross is focusing more on Becca Good, including what officials said were her possible ties to activist groups, and less on Ross’ actions when he fired into Renee Good’s vehicle during an immigration operation last week, the people said. The fatal encounter has...

WASHINGTON — Washington, D.C.'s police chief is the force's top official once again, ... / ...Chief Terry Cole will now be considered Bondi’s “designee"...

The dismissals were the first time that prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and were past their probationary period of federal employment had been fired by the Justice Department. ... At least three federal prosecutors who worked on cases against Jan. 6 rioters were fired Friday by the Justice Department, according to more than half a dozen current and former officials familiar with the dismissals. ... they were “removed from federal service effective immediately.” ... The Trump administration in late January fired probationary federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and prosecutors who worked on former special counsel...

ASHINGTON — When Matt Gaetz abruptly withdrew as President-elect Donald Trump’s candidate for attorney general on Thursday, many career attorneys in the Justice Department breathed a sigh of relief. Hours later, though, Trump nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a longtime loyalist who backed the former president’s lies about the 2020 election and said “horrible” people in the department were trying to make names for themselves by “going after Donald Trump and weaponizing our legal system.” Justice Department attorneys now hope that Trump’s pick for the critical No. 2 position at the department — Todd Blanche, the president-elect’s defense...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz — a Florida congressman who was recently the target of an FBI investigation — to be the next attorney general of the United States sent shockwaves through the Justice Department on Wednesday. "OMG," said one current senior DOJ official. A second department official called the selection “truly stunning” and a third labeled it “insane.” Gaetz, who was the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation that ended without charges, has been a fierce Trump supporter and has regularly attacked both the Justice Department and the FBI, including calling for the bureau...

PHILADELPHIA — As Donald Trump yet again tells his supporters he can lose Tuesday only if there's massive voter fraud and as he ramps up violent rhetoric about Democrats and other "enemies," members of the far-right group that put more "boots on the ground" than any other at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, say they're mobilizing. The last time Trump tried to overturn his election loss, the Proud Boys played a critical role, jumping into action on Jan. 6 just weeks after Trump gave the group a major recruitment boost by telling it to “stand back and stand...

For Justice Department employees who had spent weeks contemplating the possibility of two-time federal criminal defendant Donald Trump returning to the presidency, Joe Biden’s decision to drop out and endorse Kamala Harris offered a sense of relief. Former and current Justice Department employees believe that a future president Harris, a former prosecutor, unlike Trump, would respect the norms that have been in place to ensure DOJ independence in the half-century since Watergate. Those fears of another Trump term are central to a new letter endorsing Harris, signed by more than 40 former Justice Department officials who served under presidents of...

As part of its undeclared role as a mouthpiece for President Biden and his administration, NBC News is trying to whitewash the FBI’s arrest of a Blaze Media reporter for covering the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol. After the FBI informed him early last week of its warrant for his arrest, Blaze investigative reporter Steve Baker surrendered himself to federal authorities in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, and was charged on four counts related to his coverage of the Jan. 6 riot. As The Federalist previously reported, Baker has been at the forefront of counter-narrative reporting on the...

Epps entered Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 as a supporter of former President Donald Trump. He told the Jan. 6 committee that the conspiracy theories about him ruined his life. WASHINGTON — Ray Epps, a Jan. 6 participant whose removal from the FBI's Capitol Violence webpage sparked conspiracy theories that he was a federal informant, was charged in connection with the Capitol attack on Tuesday. Epps is charged with one misdemeanor count, disorderly or disruptive conduct on restricted grounds. He was charged by information, which suggests that he plans to enter a plea deal. The criminal information charges that...

Bill Still #2785 on Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. (Deep state, FISA abuse, illegal NSA access, allegedly whistle blower form changer after the fact).

Huff Post’s Ryan Reilly recently had problems telling the difference between earplugs and rubber bullets. He also has long struggled with telling the difference between fact and fiction. Reilly was recently arrested covering the mob violence in Ferguson, Missouri. He described the loss of his cell phone and communication devices incident to his arrest as “dehumanizing,” which gives you a sense of his priorities I suppose. But Reilly’s clownish debut on the national stage isn’t news to anyone who has followed his checkered history as a “reporter.” Reilly formerly worked for a privately owned website that served as a Department...

WASHINGTON — A Trump supporter who stormed the Capitol wearing a “Make Space Great Again” hat had two guns and 400 rounds of ammunition in his van when he was arrested Thursday near former President Barack Obama’s home, federal authorities said Friday. A federal prosecutor said in court Friday that Taylor Taranto, a 37-year-old man first identified by online sleuths in August 2021, also had a machete in the van he appeared to be living in. Taranto's van has been parked near the D.C. jail in recent weeks and he has appeared at protests in support of other Jan. 6...

WASHINGTON — The charges brought against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden are rarely prosecuted, legal experts say. Like the gun charge, the tax charges are rarely brought against first-time offenders and even more rarely result in jail time, Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel and NBC News contributor, tweeted Tuesday. "This is if anything harsh, not lenient," he wrote. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti agreed. "It insults the intelligence of the American people to compare misdemeanor tax charges to a scheme to steal Top Secret documents and obstruct justice when the government asked for them back," he tweeted,...

The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol following his conviction on seditious conspiracy.

WASHINGTON — An Arizona man who became the target of online conspiracy theories after he joined protesters outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, told a House committee that he wasn't secretly working for the government during the attack and that the campaign against him has torn his life apart. Ray Epps told the Jan. 6 committee that the theory that he was working for the FBI never made much sense, given that his ’ image landed on an FBI poster immediately after the attack. He wasn't working for the CIA or the National Security Agency or the Washington Metropolitan...