Free Republic

WASHINGTON — FBI Director-designate Kash Patel advanced Tuesday in a first procedural vote on the Senate floor Tuesday, with Republicans cheering that President Trump’s pick “has the votes” and will be confirmed later this week. The Senate voted 48-45 along party lines to open debate on the nominee, starting the countdown for 30 hours of discussion before Patel is expected to receive final approval Thursday, sources close to the confirmation process tell The Post.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected one of the Secret Service agents who protected him after a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania to lead the agency. Sean Curran, the special agent in charge of Trump's personal security detail, will take the helm as director at a time when the agency faces mounting scrutiny after two failed attempts on the president-elect's life. The announcement was made by Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., who praised Curran's dedication and character in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday Why It Matters The decision comes after a turbulent period for...

Former Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as an establishment mouthpiece to attack President-elect Donald J. Trump and his agenda, is urging the U.S. Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Pence’s political organization, Advancing American Freedom, is whipping Republican senators against Kennedy’s nomination over his past support for abortion access.In a letter to Republican members of the Senate, Advancing American Freedom encourages lawmakers to press Kennedy with five questions addressing his abortion stance. The Pence group letter assets the HHS nominee has previously supported late-term abortions, claiming Kennedy has...

Trump has chosen people who understand the threat of government coercion—because they have experienced it firsthand.Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently expressed what many felt at the reelection of Donald Trump: not triumph so much as relief. “I hope this last ten years increasingly is just going to feel like a bad dream,” he told podcast host Joe Rogan. “I can’t believe we tolerated the level of repression . . . and anger and . . . emotional incontinence and . . . cancellation campaigns.” Much of it was orchestrated or encouraged by our government.One could say many things about Trump’s...

House Oversight and Government Reform Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) plans to meet next week with Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed pick to run the FBI, to discuss how he can be an ally in the new administration’s efforts to root out the so-called Deep State. “I want [Patel] to know that our committee will assist in any way possible to help him disrupt the ‘Deep State,’” Comer said in an interview on Thursday, referring to the conspiracy of illicit power-players running the government. Patel, who if confirmed would replace Christopher Wray as head of the FBI, has come under...

New Mexico’s senior senator objects to holding a nomination hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s Energy secretary pick without a completed FBI background check and financial report. On Thursday, Energy and Natural Resources Chair, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, scheduled a nomination hearing for Chris Wright for Jan. 15. The committee’s ranking member Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said in a statement that he is disappointed the hearing will come before a financial report or background check, which are required by committee rules. “As I have made clear to Chairman Lee, the American people deserve transparency on the individuals nominated to...

The new year began on a violent note, as a terror attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans left at least 14 dead and dozens injured. The suspect, reportedly inspired by ISIS, used firearms and an improvised explosive device. The FBI bizarrely hesitated to immediately label it as terrorism. Meanwhile, a potential terror attack also unfolded in Las Vegas, where a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump Hotel. These incidents highlight America’s vulnerabilities and the need for strong leadership in federal law enforcement. As such, many were calling on the swift confirmation of Trump’s nominees to lead the Justice Department...

President-elect Donald Trump has assembled the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history, with at least 13 billionaires set to take on government posts. They include a wrestling magnate, a private space pioneer, a New York real estate developer, the heir to a small appliance empire, and the wealthiest man on the planet -- with several being donors and close personal friends of the incoming president. In total, the combined net worth of the wealthiest members of his administration could surpass $460 billion, including Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk -- whose net worth of more than $400 billion exceeds...

DONALD J. TRUMP President, Commander-in-Chief J.D. VANCE Vice-President, President of the Senate SUZIE WILES Chief of Staff WILLIAM McGINLEY Counsel, Dept. of Govt. Efficiency STEPHEN MILLER Deputy Chief of Staff MICHAEL WALTZ National Security Advisor PETE HEGSETH Sec. of Defense MARCO RUBIO Sec. of State ELISE STEFANIK Amb. to United Nations MIKE HUCKABEE Amb. to Israel STEVE WITKOFF Middle East Envoy KRISTI NOEM Sec. of Homeland Security TOM HOMAN Border Czar JOHN RATCLIFFE CIA Director ELON MUSK Co-Sec. of Govt. Efficiency VIVEK RAMASWAMY Co-Sec. of Govt. Efficiency PAM BONDI Attorney General LEE ZELDIN EPA Administrator TULSI GABBARD Dir. of...

Like so many here I'd love to see Dan Bongino get that spot.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday night nominated former Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker for U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas. Trump has spent the past six weeks since he was elected back to the White House by filling out his Cabinet and other key roles in his administration. Other recent ambassador picks include Kimberly Guilfoyle for ambassador to Greece, and former ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson for ambassador to Mexico. The former president praised Walker as a man who has spent decades as an ambassador to children, military servicemembers, and athletes around the world. Walker played as a running...

President Trump has a tool to push for the passage of legislation, such as the Hearing Protection Act. The executive branch, specifically the Secretary of the Treasury, can unilaterally declare an amnesty for people registering NFA items with the ATF. Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968 under enormous pressure from President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. At the same time, Congress passed a statute authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to declare amnesties to allow people to register items covered by the act.There are limitations. A single amnesty cannot last for longer than 90 days. The Secretary of...

“‘You must be wary of those seeking to use their influence and their expertise to wrongful ends.” Those words were spoken at the George Washington Law School commencement ceremony two years ago by the recently defeated Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.). This week, the words took on a new meaning after Wild was accused of leaking information from the House Ethics Committee. Wild embodies a party that is in an ethical and political free fall. Wild was fighting to release the report of the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). When Gaetz decided to withdraw from Congress, the report was...

🚨Watch @WillCain go off in defense of @PeteHegseth against the military industrial complex and corporate media smear campaign that Republican Senators are buying into: “Any Republican Senator who wakes up this morning and is looking at Fox and Friends or a President who has a made a nomination probably needs to consider three options when it comes to why they wouldn’t support Pete Hegseth as their nominee. Number one, they choose to accept and align themselves on the side of anonymous reporters at NBC News, or the New Yorker, or the New York Times, and in my estimation put that...

The Senate on Monday convened for the first time since March 25 as Democrats and Republicans clashed over the health of senators, as well as GOP efforts to confirm federal judges amid the coronavirus pandemic. Calling his fellow lawmakers “essential workers” as he defended the decision to return to the Senate amid the outbreak, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., roundly criticized Democrats for obstructing the confirmation of judges and key government posts for months and forcing the Senate to hold roll calls and floor votes during the public health crisis. “The deadly coronavirus does not take time off...

Senate Republicans lined up votes on 19 of President Trump’s judicial nominees for next week, moving to arrange one final burst of activity before leaving town for summer vacation. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the move Thursday, arranging votes to head off filibusters and then to confirm each of the picks. The number is possible because he led Republicans in triggering the nuclear option and changing chamber rules earlier this year, cutting the maximum debate time allowed on each district judge from 30 hours to just two hours.

These days, obstruction by the Democrats grabs the biggest headlines when they prevent solutions to the biggest issues – immigration, Supreme Court appointments, infrastructure, and so on – but their obstruction is actually the most egregious when it’s at its most petty. Confirming U.S. ambassadors should be one of the least political things the U.S. Senate does. For most of the country’s history, the process was a mere formality – a president would pick people to serve as America’s chief representatives to countries around the world, and those nominees would almost always be confirmed by voice votes, with little if...

The senators who are most likely to reject President Trump's nominees are the very ones who want to challenge him in 2020. The Hill's review of two-and-a-half years of vote totals shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against more Trump nominees than any other senator. At the same time, Republicans voted virtually in lock step for Trump's nominees; the average GOP senator backed 99 percent of his picks, and the one who went rogue most often -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- still voted to confirm 93 percent of his nominees. Trump's picks...

<p>WASHINGTON — Mitch McConnell says the Senate will be in the “personnel business” this year. But the majority leader’s focus on confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees is coming at the expense of any big legislative priorities.</p> <p>Nearly 100 days into the new Congress, the drive to confirm is adding more conservatives to the courts and putting more Trump appointees in government offices. But Trump’s promises to replace the Affordable Care Act, invest in infrastructure or cut middle class taxes have been essentially shelved.</p>

The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared two nominees Thursday for seats on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ignoring objections from California’s two Democratic senators who complained they didn’t get a say in who President Trump picked. Daniel P. Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee were both approved on party-line 12-10 votes. Democrats said the two men were too conservative to earn seats on the West Coast’s most important court, but their complaints were even broader, accusing Republicans of further upending the “blue slip” tradition that, at some points in the past, has allowed home-state senators to veto judicial nominees. “We...