Free Republic

The FBI’s Washington Field Office is folding its federal public corruption squad, the same unit that aided Jack Smith’s special counsel investigation into President Donald Trump, three people familiar with the matter tell NBC News. The field office has three units that work on public corruption issues, but this one — known internally as “CR15” — was deeply involved in the bureau’s “Arctic Frost” investigation, which was the precursor to the Smith probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results by Trump and his allies. That investigation resulted in one of the two federal criminal cases against Trump, both...

A key prosecutor on the classified documents case against President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a congressional interview Wednesday, .... Jay Bratt had been subpoenaed to appear before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee for a closed-door interview but did not answer substantive questions because of his Fifth Amendment constitutional right to remain silent. Bratt spent more than three decades at the Justice Department before retiring in January, just weeks before President Donald Trump took office. He was a key national security prosecutor on special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which in 2023 charged Trump with illegally...

ESPN analyst and broadcaster Stephen A. Smith got honest about his feelings over the fact that Donald Trump won the last presidential election. According to Smith, this is proof that the Democratic Party‘s time guilt-tripping the Black community is over. Wolfe: Dolphins held stadium event with F1 drivers ahead of rookie minicamp this Friday 'The Insiders' In his latest appearance on News Nation, Stephen A. Smith gave his honest take on the significance of Donald Trump winning the last election, especially to the Democratic party and the Black community. “It didn’t work this time,” Smith said, talking about the guilt-tripping...

During Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union,” potential 2028 presidential candidate and ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith said the modern Democratic Party would need to be purged for him to seek that party’s nod. According to Smith, Democrats had taken their progressive politics too far. Partial transcript as follows: TAPPER: If you were to run for president, though, it would be as a Democrat, or no? SMITH: You know what? I’m an independent. I’m a registered independent. I would lean — who leans left. I’m fiscally conservative when it comes to my money. I’m socially liberal. I’m liberal...

Pete Buttigieg. Wes Moore. Gavin Newsom. Gretchen Whitmer. Stephen A. Smith!!!???!!??Since the November election, the ESPN commentator has been bashing Democratic leadership for losing to Donald Trump and floating himself as a potential 2028 candidate and savior for the party and the country. And Smith’s dalliance with politics isn’t one-sided. Pod Save America, Fox News, CNN, ABC News, the New Yorker and other major outlets have sought out Smith for his first takes on immigration, tariffs and other issues.President Stephen A. Smith? Has everyone gone crazy? Not completely. Many nonpartisan pundits and Democrats themselves think the party needs a leader...

At his request, I met with Prime Minister Mark Carney @MarkJCarney today. We had a very frank discussion in which I made it clear that Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we've been treated by the federal Liberals over the past 10 years. I provided a specific list of demands the next Prime Minister, regardless of who that is, must address within the first six months of their term to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis. This includes:....

Stephen A. Smith has challenged President Trump, Vice President Vance, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to a debate over DEI policies after an article about color-barrier-breaking MLB legend Jackie Robinson was removed from a Defense Department website. On Thursday’s edition of his ESPN show First Take, Smith took Hegseth to task after the Department of Defense (DOD) removed an article about Robinson’s military service from its website. The article on Robinson was not targeted by DOD; instead, it was one of several scrubbed as part of the effort to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content from government websites....

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith appeared on The View on Tuesday, but they may be more careful about which questions they ask him the next time they have him on. Joy Behar queried Smith about the 2024 election, asking a long, leading question in which she sought to downplay President Trump’s sweeping victory and destroy any notion that he had a mandate from the American people. However, Smith was having none of it. He took Behar on a point-by-point journey, refuting her assertion, adding some of his own, and proving that the American people indeed handed Trump a mandate. “He won...

Actress KJ Smith bizarrely suggested that the black community “start looking into” moving to Africa due to the political climate in the United States during a red carpet event at the Oscars on Sunday evening. After being asked if there is something she wishes “is there something that you wish was talked about more within our community,” Smith replied, “Understanding our roots,” adding, “I think it’s really important.”

President Trump on Friday celebrated the return of “boxes” taken from his Mar-a-Lago estate during the unprecedented August 2022 FBI search of the property. “The Department of Justice has just returned the boxes that Deranged Jack Smith made such a big deal about,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to the former special counsel that brought federal criminal charges against him for allegedly stashing classified documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., residence after his presidency. “They are being brought down to Florida and will someday be part of the Trump Presidential Library,” Trump added. “Justice finally won out.” Smith’s classified...

A Canadian mother has come forward to reveal that she was chastised by staff at her local recreation center after reporting that a balding man wearing “fetish gear” was in the women’s changing room. Despite feeling so frightened that she called the police, the mother was told that the man had a right to self-identify into whatever changing room he felt like. The incident occurred on February 18, when Keri* and her 14-year-old daughter visited the Bonnie Doon Leisure Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. Their plans to have a fun-filled afternoon at the local pool quickly took a turn for the...

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday revoked any security clearances held by Covington & Burling law firm employees who provided pro bono services to former special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump in a pair of since-ended criminal cases. “This is a good one. Is everybody listening? Deranged Jack Smith — we’re going to call it the deranged Jack Smith signing or bill,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “The weaponization of our system by law firms, even pro bono work they’re doing just in order to clog up government, stop government, and nobody knows about it more than me,...

Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports” that President Donald Trump is telling the American people an “absolute lie” that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is about making the federal government more efficient. Smith said, “If we identify what Trump and Musk are doing as what it is, which is basically trying to smash the federal government so that they can have greater power and control, this has nothing to do with efficiency and effectiveness. You line up 100 CEOs in the country and say, ‘Is this the way you run your business if you...

A Democratic senator went on a crude online tirade over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) demand for all federal workers to answer a simple question about their productivity. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) called the world’s richest man a “d–k boss” for orchestrating the email that went out to federal workers on Saturday with the subject line, “What did you do last week?” Smith’s tirade comes as several government departments — including Kash Patel’s FBI — are instructing their employees not to respond to the message. In a similar fashion to the types of sporadic requests Musk blasted out to...

ESPN host Stephen A. Smtih’s latest foray into politics has upset veteran politico James Carville. On his podcast, Politicon, Carville addressed Smith’s recent ruminations about a 2028 run for the Democrat nomination. “If you’re the Democrats, that’s why Stephen A. Smith is in the news,” Smith said recently on The Stephen A. Smith Show, “because y’all don’t have anybody. You don’t have anybody. Who you got? Who you got? Kamala Harris better not run. She better not run.” Carville noted Smith’s prowess when it came to sports. But, he took a decidedly different tone when it came to the ESPN...

The former special counsel who brought two criminal cases against President Donald Trump received $140,000 in free legal services from a prominent Washington law firm last month. Covington & Burling provided Jack Smith with the gift of pro-bono legal assistance, Politico first reported citing a disclosure he filed last month in connection with him leaving the Justice Department. It’s unclear why Smith sought outside lawyers, but Trump had repeatedly ripped Smith and his team, vowing to fire them and strongly suggesting they should be criminally prosecuted. “They ought to throw Deranged Jack Smith and his Thug Prosecutors in jail,” Trump...

The Fulton County Board of Commissioners opted against allocating a substantial monetary increase for the county district attorney’s office when finalizing its 2025 fiscal year budget on Wednesday, perhaps bringing a monthslong standoff with DA Fani Willis into its next phase. The board allocated $39.3 million of its nearly $1 billion budget to the DA’s office, a figure that Willis has insisted will not allow her staff to properly carry out its duties. The adopted budget also fails to provide additional funding requested by other justice and safety partners, like the magistrate courts and the solicitor general. Capital B Atlanta...

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith admitted that he and others who voted for Kamala Harris in November's election feel like "d--- fools," during an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday. Smith made this declaration when discussing comparisons between Harris' campaign and Barack Obama's campaign in 2008. The sports pundit argued that the fact that Harris was not nominated via a legitimate primary, and the fact that she performed so poorly during her short stint in the 2020 Democratic primary, made her undesirable to voters. Harris dropped out of the 2020 primary in 2019, before even reaching the...

Stephen A. Smith is dunking on his own party. The ESPN star shocked “Real Time” audiences Friday night by eviscerating Democrats and praising President Donald Trump during a discussion with Bill Maher. Smith, 57, who voted for Kamala Harris in the November election, conceded that Democrats appeared uninterested in the concerns of a majority of voters, saying they instead focused on “issues that pertain to less than 1% of the population.” “The man was impeached twice, he was convicted on 34 felony counts,” Smith began. “And the American people still said ‘He’s closer to normal than what we’re seeing on...

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith expressed concern over the pushback against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) during President Trump’s second term, believing that competent minorities will miss out on lucrative jobs. Since Trump’s inauguration this week, the new president’s administration has already instituted numerous measures to gut DEI in the government while encouraging businesses to do the same. In response, Stephen A. Smith told The Will Cain Show that the American right has mishandled the issue. “I’m concerned about it. I’m certainly not going to celebrate it because I don’t like the way I believe the right is handling this...