Free Republic

President Donald Trump has fired the intelligence community’s chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, who was the first to sound the alarm to Congress last September about an “urgent” complaint he’d received from an intelligence official involving Trump’s communications with Ukraine’s president. Trump formally notified the Senate and House intelligence committees of his intention to fire Atkinson and remove him from his duties, to take effect 30 days from Friday, according to two congressional officials and a copy of the letter obtained by POLITICO dated April 3. “This is to advise that I am exercising my power as President to remove from...

Just in time for Joe Biden's Super Tuesday II victory dance, a new Gallup poll shows that both President Trump and congressional Republicans have sharply risen in voter estimation the wake of the Democrats' failed impeachment stunt. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More Americans approve of the job congressional Republicans are doing than of congressional Democrats' performance -- 40% vs. 35%. The rating for Republicans in Congress has risen six percentage points since late October, before the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the same period, congressional Democrats' approval rating has edged down three points and...

In the February 6 celebration of his acquittal, President Trump explained that, “right at the beginning, they [his advisors] said, ‘don’t worry sir; all of the facts are on your side.’” But the president told them, “you don’t understand. That doesn’t matter.” He added, “they made up facts.” Rep. Adam Schiff who led the inquisition indeed made up the facts. He had honed his deceitful tactics as a Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor. Other political targets of DOJ corrupt prosecutions completely identify with Trump’s retort to his advisors. My husband, former Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) certainly does. He lost count...

A U.S. attorney has been designated to oversee all Ukraine-related investigations by federal prosecutors around the country. The Justice Department revealed on Tuesday that Richard Donoghue, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, was assigned to the task by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Donoghue will “assist in coordinating … several open matters being handled by different U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department components that in some way potentially relate to Ukraine," according to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee. Donoghue, a St. John’s University School of Law graduate and Army Judge Advocate General Corps veteran,...

A top official at the Pentagon has been asked for his resignation, according to reports. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, has lost the support of senior national security leadership and has been asked to step down, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Wednesday. Rood was involved in certifying to Congress that Ukraine was eligible to receive $250 million in security assistance. The certification undercut the argument the Trump administration made for withholding the aid. Shortly after President Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, Rood emailed Secretary of Defense Mark Esper...

If you were wondering how Nancy Pelosi has been handling the events of the past few months, it's safe to say she's not taking it well. She's been keeping a low profile after making a spectacle of herself at the 2020 State of the Union address, but over the weekend she gave an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that must be seen to be believed. If reality won't do what Nancy wants, she'll just deny it's happening to her. ~snip~ Amanpour: What about, though, the fact that the president seems liberated? And this is about Democratic politics, so I'm not...

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is currently withholding approval for at least six commercial orders for arms and ammunition from U.S. companies to Ukraine, BuzzFeed has reported. "The Trump administration is currently withholding approval for at least six commercial orders for arms and ammunition from US companies to Ukraine, together worth roughly $30 million, according to three current Ukrainian officials and a former senior U.S. official who have direct knowledge of the sales, straining an already fragile relationship between the two countries," says the article posted on the BuzzFeed's website on Thursday. All four officials said that five of the...

President Trump waited 55 days before releasing taxpayer-funded US aid to the Ukrainian government in 2019. Democrats want you to believe this was a “crime or misdemeanor”. BUT NOW THERE’S THIS… Those same Democrats on the House Impeachment Team VOTED AGAINST the aid package to the Ukraine last year!

President Trump denied early Monday that he told then-national security adviser John Bolton the holding of military aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats. Trump said he “NEVER” had that conversation with Bolton despite a New York Times report that claims Bolton was told Trump wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance until officials in Ukraine helped with the probes. “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very...

White House budget office documents show lawyers approved language delaying Ukraine aid the night before President Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. An email written by career budget official Mark Sandy, released with hundreds of other communications late Tuesday, says White House Office of Management and Budget lawyers approved language stalling the aid on the night of July 24. The email indicates the hold was planned before the call, providing a counterpoint to Democrats who note the Pentagon was notified after the conversation between the leaders.

A top Democratic senator discouraged the Justice Department and FBI from complying with a Republican demand for information about a former Democratic National Committee contractor. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden warned that complying with the records request related to Alexandra Chalupa, who is alleged to have sought dirt from Ukraine to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election, would have dangerous consequences. As Chalupa conducted research on Paul Manafort, who did lobbying work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs and later became Trump's campaign manager, the Ukrainian American activist began receiving notifications from Yahoo security that claimed she was the victim...

The Constitution allocates to the president sole authority over foreign policy (short of declaring war or signing a treaty). It does not permit Congress to substitute its foreign policy preferences for those of the president. To the extent that the statute at issue constrains the power of the president to conduct foreign policy, it is unconstitutional. Even if the GAO were correct in its legal conclusion — which it is not — the alleged violation would be neither a crime nor an impeachable offense. It would be a civil violation subject to a civil remedy, as were the numerous violations...

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a legal opinion on Thursday saying that President Trump's administration broke the law by withholding defense aid to Ukraine — the issue at the heart of the president's impeachment trial. That money, $214 million which had been allocated to the Department of Defense for security assistance, was appropriated by Congress and therefore the administration did not have the right to hold it back just because it disagreed with its allocation, the opinion from the nonpartisan government watchdog said. "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities...

The Trump administration violated the law by withholding appropriated security assistance to Ukraine, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday in a report. The independent watchdog said the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) withheld the appropriated funds last summer. The report said U.S. law “does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.” “Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the [Impound Control Act],” GAO said. The withholding of the aid is central to the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Trump. --This breaking news report will be updated.

The Trump administration’s decision to freeze the release of security assistance to Ukraine last year violated federal law, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Thursday. The independent watchdog said the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) withheld the appropriated funds last summer, not as a programmatic delay but in order to advance the president’s own agenda. Doing so, the watchdog concluded, violates the Impoundment Control Act, a law that governs Congress's role in the federal budget process. “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted...

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) seized on newly released emails surrounding President Trump's decision to delay aid to Ukraine, arguing they underscored the need for witnesses and documents as part of an impeachment trial. “The newly-revealed unredacted emails are a devastating blow to Senator McConnell’s push to have a trial without the documents and witnesses we’ve requested," Schumer said in a statement. "These emails further expose the serious concerns raised by Trump administration officials about the propriety and legality of the president’s decision to cut off aid to Ukraine to benefit himself," he added. Schumer's comments come after Just...

When the denizens of the left are upset about something, there are mass protests, often accompanied by rioting, vandalism, violence, and arrests...But the American right is not like the American left. So although Trump supporters were certainly not happy at having to watch this impeachment theater, their frustrations did not boil over. That’s because everyone knew, with the possible exception of the more rabid corners of the left’s base, that none of this was real. The Democrat strategy is to spend the next eleven months claiming to the American people that they should not even seriously consider reelecting an impeached...

There is this basic question: What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company? Biden had no particular expertise in energy or Ukraine. He did, however, join the board of Burisma when his father Vice President Joe Biden was publicly representing U.S. policy on the country, which had become the center of a tug-of-war between Russia and the West. Did the older Biden do anything wrong? Nothing has been proven. But what the adult son was up to remains mysterious, as are the details of what he was paid. Hunter Biden’s work attracted attention at the...

New internal polling by the Trump campaign suggests Democrats in pro-Trump districts should avoid supporting impeachment or risk losing re-election. The new poll, released Tuesday, surveyed 900 likely voters in the 30 congressional districts that President Donald Trump won in 2016 but are currently occupied by Democrats. According to the survey, voters in those districts oppose impeachment by 10 percentage points, 53-43, and would support a new candidate over the Democratic incumbent by 11 points, 47-36. A plurality of voters, 38%, said that if their congressperson supported impeachment, it would make them less likely to re-elect that individual. Just 29%...

Happening now: The House of Representatives convenes and debates the impeachment of President Trump. The House is set to vote later this evening.