Free Republic

Donald Trump promised members of the Libertarian Party that he would “put a libertarian in my cabinet” and commute the life sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, a top demand of a political movement that intends to run its own candidate against him. “On day one, we will commute the sentence,” Trump said, offering to free the creator of what was once the internet’s most infamous drug clearinghouse. “We will bring him home.” His speeches more typically include a pledge to execute drug dealers, citing China as a model. “It’s time to be winners,” said Trump, asking rhetorically if...

It was a triumphant day for Patti Peeples, but one thing didn’t sit right with her. For more than a year, the 61-year-old Florida landlord fought to tighten the state’s law against squatting, a crime she saw up close when two women faked a rental agreement and occupied one of her Jacksonville properties. She’d done interview after interview, worked closely with her local legislators, and testified in Tallahassee. The result, a tough new law that would let sheriffs evict squatters without entering a lengthy legal process, passed with unanimous bipartisan support. On Wednesday, invited by her Republican state representative, Peeples...

An Iranian-born Pentagon aide, who was revealed earlier this year to be part of a years-long, Tehran-backed influence operation, also sought to undermine the leading resistance group to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a new report delivered to President Biden. Ariane Tabatabai has retained her security clearance and position as chief of staff to the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict — despite a bombshell Semafor report in September detailing her ties to senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials. But Tabatabai and founding members of the influence operation, known as the Iran Experts Initiative, were...

Lawmakers want to know if suspended Iran envoy was compromised by the Iran Experts Initiative Republican leaders on the Senate and House foreign affairs committees have opened a joint investigation into Biden administration Iran envoy Robert Malley's links to a secret Iranian government influence network that reportedly includes several of his closest associates, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Sen. James Risch (R., Idaho) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas)—the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively—are asking the State Department for information on whether Malley was compromised by the...

‘This belongs in the Smithsonian’: Inside the meme video operation that swallowed Ron DeSantis’ campaign THE SCOOP Senior aides to Ron DeSantis oversaw the campaign’s high-risk strategy of laundering incendiary videos produced by their staff through allied anonymous Twitter accounts, a set of internal campaign communications obtained by Semafor reveals. The videos include two that have created recurring distractions for his campaign in recent weeks: an anti-Trump video that featured a fascist symbol, and another that attacked Donald Trump for past comments supportive of LGBT rights. The meme-filled videos emerged from a Signal channel called “War Room Creative Ideas,” screenshots...

BuzzFeed News is no more, but its former editor, Ben Smith, spearheading the new Semafor media venture, decided to reflect on the moment he gave the green light to post the infamous Steele Dossier. The document was unverifiable and has now been dismissed as anything but legitimate. This tranche of papers is what set off the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Donald Trump, the investigation that formed the core of the Russian collusion hoax that later evolved into the Mueller investigation. The media circus destroyed the last vestiges of credibility with many reporters in the legacy media. No bombshell development ever...