Free Republic

The Biden administration has made a deal with Iran to release $6 billion in frozen funds in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. The agreement issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer sanctioned Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of U.S. sanctions includes the release of five Iranian citizens held in the U.S. The Iranian-Americans include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58, along with environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on the deal late last week, but Congress was not notified of the decision until Monday,...

A special lecture will be held at the Babylon Jewish Heritage Center this week that will reveal an archive of Iraqi Jews that was found by US Army soldiers in the basements of Saddam Hussein's intelligence building. The one who will tell about the findings is the one who was among the archivists, Dr. Harold Rudd, a consultant to the US Department of Defense who was sent together with the US task force to the basements that were hit by an American bomb. In an interview with Israel National News, Dr. Rudd talks about the rescue operation and the findings...

The US Secret Service is seeking a driver who killed one pedestrian and injured at least two others while fleeing a police traffic stop near the National Mall in Washington DC. The shocking incident occurred shortly before 1.30pm on Wednesday, when uniformed Secret Service agents attempted to pull over a vehicle near 17th Street NW and Constitution Avenue NW, an agency spokesman told DailyMail.com. Lt. Paul Mayhair of the Secret Service Uniformed Division said federal agents with the division tried to pull over the vehicle after spotting its expired registration. 'The suspect indicated that they would stop the vehicle, but...

Former President Donald Trump was recorded in 2021 acknowledging that he had kept “secret” military documents from his time in office without first declassifying them. The recording of the 76-year-old’s admission has been obtained by federal prosecutors, who secured an indictment of Trump on charges including willful retention of national defense information after retrieving thousands of documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort. “As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump, 76, said about a classified Pentagon paper outlining a potential military strike on Iran, according to a transcript of the meeting reported by CNN. “Secret. This is secret...

Two Colorado families are suing their school district, alleging that staff encouraged their daughters to join a “secret” LGBT club and concealed the club’s activities.America First Policy Institute (AFPI) and Illumine Legal filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Poudre School District (PSD) on behalf of Johnathan and Erin Lee and Nick and Linnaea Jurich, who allege that their sixth grade daughters were recruited by a teacher to join Wellington Middle-High School’s “Genders and Sexualities Alliance” (GSA) Art club in May 2021. PSD employees allegedly told the girls to keep the meetings a “secret” from their parents, including that the club has...

Today we're joined by our friend James Lindsay to discuss a few hot-button topics in the news. First we talk about Dylan Mulvaney's Budweiser sponsorship and its fallout. James explains why corporations are so obsessed with "inclusion" and what's on the line for them if they don't comply with ESG overlords. Then, we look at the United Nations' new report that calls for the decriminalization of all sexual activity (including pedophilia). Of course, this makes complete sense when you look at the consistent and ever-growing grooming culture among the Left. We talk about why the Left always seems to default...

INTRO: this document quotes a former DNI (someone who would know) pointing out how extraordinarily unlikely it is an Airman 1st in IT could obtain this leaked information on his own. Author makes a good case he was fed the docs. Presuming these docs were only available in a SCIF and required access to the SIPRNET, I find the author's closing sentence(s) to be spot on -- "It will be interesting to see what is found on print logs, and security video, and file transfer logs. " SCIF/SIPRNET logs don't lie. but people do. Excerpt follows. "Despite working in information...

Aurora Regino is speaking out against the Chico Unified School District’s “parental secrecy policy,” which allows school officials to provide gender counseling to students without informing parents. Regino’s 11-year-old daughter’s elementary school reportedly assisted her in transitioning from female to male during the last school year, but a guidance counselor kept Regino in the dark throughout the entire process. Regino was diagnosed with breast cancer while this was all going on behind her back. After being kept in the dark about her daughter’s identity and transition, Regino is now suing the district. Regino expressed her frustration with the district’s policy...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Secret Service agents escorted a U.S. leader to face criminal charges, they kept their mission a secret — even from their own bosses. It was Oct. 10, 1973, and just a few agents knew the history they would make in ensuring that Vice President Spiro Agnew appeared in a federal courtroom to enter a plea and resign from office. “It was a big day for the country, and a sad day,” said Jerry Parr, one of those agents, in a 2010 interview. “And we didn’t tell anyone it was happening. For better and worse.”...

A Texas politician has claimed that he worked with a senior member of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign to convince Iran to delay releasing its hostages during the crisis of 1979 in a bid to derail Jimmy Carter's re-election bid. Ben Barnes, Texas's former lieutenant governor, has claimed in an interview with The New York Times that John Connally Jr – once a governor of the same state and a high-ranking member of Reagan's election team – took him on a secret diplomatic tour of the Middle East as part of a scheme to damage Carter by convincing Iran to...

Birthdays are important to celebrate – yes, as milestones, but also as markers of significance. And consequence. One hundred and twelve years ago Monday, on February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. He is remembered and celebrated all these years later – not because he is gone – but because of how he lived. The legacy he left behind both inspires and, in part, mystifies us still. He has been analyzed and scrutinized from every angle, yet the magical formula or "secret recipe" of Ronald Reagan all these years later seems as elusive as ever. What...

Ukraine is braced for a major new offensive that could begin within weeks. One of President Zelensky’s key insiders told The Daily Beast that they expect a looming Russian move to encircle the country with a simultaneous attack on three fronts.Rustem Umerov, a member of the team negotiating with Russia, said the Kremlin was preparing for a fresh advance which could begin as soon as February. The assault would come from the north, over the Belarusian border, from the Russian strongholds in the east of Ukraine, and from the south, where the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea was seized by...

President Joe Biden’s stash of classified documents at the Biden Penn Center included materials reportedly marked top secret. About ten documents were unearthed at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, on Tuesday by Biden’s personal attorneys. Among those, some were marked top secret, according to CBS News. Between the classified documents retrieved from the Biden Penn Center and the documents retrieved from Biden’s residence in Delaware on Thursday, the total number of classified Biden stashed is about 20. No top secret documents were reported to be at Biden’s residence.

House Democrats vetoed a resolution demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland turn over records related to the FBI's usage of previously secret forms that waived away the gun rights of Americans. In October, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and over a dozen GOP members of Congress urged Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide evidence that the FBI has stopped stripping people's gun rights with the forms. However, a further attempt to obtain evidence by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) was quashed on Wednesday afternoon by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. The resolution states that Garland would be asked to...

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to interview former Secret Service agent Tony Ornato on Tuesday. Lawmakers on the panel sought Ornato’s testimony to corroborate information about former President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6. When he meets with the committee Tuesday, Ornato, who was Trump’s deputy chief of staff on Jan. 6, will be speaking with the House panel for the third time. Ornato was at the center of explosive testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified during the House committee’s series of public hearings on Jan....

California researchers with a non-profit organization sued President Joe Biden and the National Archives Wednesday, claiming that the federal government has illegally withheld the disclosure of documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF), a Massachusetts-based corporation whose researchers live in California, aims “to bring accessible and interactive history to a new generation of critical thinkers.” As part of the foundation’s work, it maintains large digital archives of the Watergate scandal, and Kennedy’s assassination. The foundation’s namesake, Mary Ferrell, was a renowned historical researcher who specialized in the Kennedy assassination. In the...

A former member of the far-right Oath Keepers organization testified on Thursday that the founder of the group was in contact with the Trump administration’s Secret Service in the months leading up to the November 2020 presidential election. John Zimmerman, who appeared before a jury at the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers, including the organization’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, said he witnessed a phone call between the group’s leader and someone he thought belonged to the Secret Service in September 2020. Zimmerman also said that Rhodes told him he had been in contact with the agency.

Senior leaders at the Secret Service reportedly confiscated the cellphones of 24 agents who were involved with the Jan. 6, 2021, response and delivered the phones to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general. A source familiar confirmed to The Hill that the phones were handed to Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office after a July 19 letter was sent to the agency from DHS investigators indicating he had begun a criminal probe. NBC News first reported the development.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The prosecution rested Thursday, Aug. 18 in the trial of two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The prosecution rested after testimony from an undercover FBI agent with supposed access to explosives. Barry Croft Jr., 46, of Bear, Delaware, and Adam Fox, 38 of Wyoming, Michigan, are on trial in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. Special agent Tim Bates, known as “Red,” said he joined alleged conspirators – in three vehicles - in a night-time reconnaissance mission in September 2020 to the governor’s place in Elk Rapids. He said Fox took photos...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top congressional Democrats are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general hand over information on deleted Secret Service text messages related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, accusing him of using delay tactics to stonewall their investigation. In a letter released Tuesday, the leaders of the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees signaled they are willing to subpoena Inspector General Joseph Cuffari if he does not comply with their requests. The lawmakers are pressing for Cuffari to provide records and testimony about alleged efforts to cover up the erasure of Secret Service...