Free Republic

The Dow is down 573 points perhaps on the news that Representative Seth Moulton, whoever that may be, has dropped out of the 2020 Presidential Race!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” President Donald Trump said given another chance he would not appoint former Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as attorney general. Host Chuck Todd asked, “If you could have one do-over as president, what would it be?” Trump replied, “It would be personnel.” He continued, “I would say if I had one do-over, it would be, I would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. That would be my one.” Sessions’ recusal in the 2016 Russian interference probe led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

The United States is again ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking. According to a recently released report by the State Department, the top three nations of origin for victims of human trafficking in 2018 were the United States, Mexico and the Philippines. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the Trafficking in Persons report, which is created annually by the State Department to document human trafficking in the year prior, and highlighted the growing focus that government agencies and nonprofit organizations have dedicated to stopping human trafficking. The Department of Justice provided more than...

John Bolton: 'Substantial' belief five countries spreading lies on Trump team dysfunction by Daniel Chaitin | June 11, 2019 12:41 PM National security adviser John Bolton named five countries he believes are spreading lies about dysfunction in the Trump administration. “We have substantial reason to believe that North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and China have made a decision to — and you can see it publicly — to try to sow disinformation about the administration, and to say that the president and his advisers are divided, and things like that,” Bolton said Tuesday during a Wall Street Journal event in...

Embattled Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has hired well known defense attorney Sidney Powell to represent him before his sentencing hearing in Washington D.C.’s federal court. Flynn, who fired his attorneys last week, will still fully cooperate with the government in all cases pending, Powell told SaraACarter.com. Flynn’s former legal counsel Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony offered no explanation for their abrupt dismissal telling SaraACarter.com they “decline to comment.” Powell is the author of the New York Times best seller and tell-all book Licensed To Lie, which exposed the corruption within the justice system. The book is based on the case...

This is a very interesting development and may well indicate a change in strategy; or, even more interesting, the execution of a pre-planned strategy, for General Michael Flynn. There is a possibility, with legal distance happening as a result of Weissmann and Mueller’s investigation concluding, that Michael Flynn may be shifting to offense. Two separate court filings today show: (1) Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has fired his legal team and retained new counsel; and, (2) the DOJ is filing the evidentiary documents (possibly Joe Pientka 302 and Kislyak transcript?) under seal.

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn has fired his legal team as he awaits sentencing for lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian official, according to a new filing Thursday from his long-time attorneys. The lawyers, Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony, offered no explanation for their abrupt dismissal in a two-page motion delivered to the federal judge who will mete out Flynn’s punishment stemming from his 2017 guilty plea to Robert Mueller’s prosecutors. In their filing, the attorneys said Flynn had notified them that “he is terminating Covington & Burling LLP as his counsel and...

Over a year ago, I asked in this space whether U.S. attorney John Huber could impartially and fully investigate FISA court abuses and other matters in which his boss, Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein, was up to his eyeballs.  In "Can Huber Investigate His Boss Rosenstein?," I asked: While it is reassuring to note that A.G. Jeff Sessions has climbed down from the back side of the milk carton, where his missing visage had been hiding, long enough to appoint Utah U.S. attorney John Huber to independently investigate claims of FBI abuses in surveilling the Trump campaign and other matters, one question...

Today on CBS Attorney General William Barr disclosed that the Huber investigation is over. Huber did not even start his investigation. He didn’t do a damn thing! AG Barr said this morning on CBS News that Huber did nothing and his work was taken over by the team he set up under US Attorney John Durham. WILLIAM BARR: Right, so Huber had originally been asked to take a look at the FISA applications and the electronic surveillance but then he stood back and put that on hold while the Office of Inspector General was conducting its review, which would’ve been...

“If we had confidence the president DID NOT commit a crime we would have said so. We did not however make a determination if the president did commit a crime.”

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, on Wednesday declined to clear President Trump of obstruction of justice in his first public characterization of his two-year-long investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mr. Mueller said, reading from prepared notes behind a lectern at the Justice Department. “We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.” He also said that while Justice Department policy prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime,...

Former US Attorney Joe diGenova says that the Huber investigation into the Clinton Foundation is a farce. Huber hasn’t even interviewed the top witness in the case whom diGenova represents! John Huber is the special prosecutor tapped by former AG Jeff Sessions to investigate FISA abuses by Obama’s DOJ/FBI. Sessions nominated Huber to perform this investigation after numerous calls for a special investigation into the Clinton Foundation and the Deep State. But months ago we reported that nothing was getting done. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee say John Huber still has not interviewed key witnesses and they want answers....

Sorry no link. Local Miami Florida Fox station says Mueller will make a statement at 11:00 a.m. I see it nowhere else.

Just seen this on Fox. Mueller to give statement about his investigation.

WASHINGTON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, has been indicted on 17 new counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in publishing classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday — a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues. The new charges were part of a superseding indictment obtained by the Trump administration that significantly expanded the legal case against Mr. Assange, who is already fighting extradition proceedings in London based on an earlier hacking-related count brought by federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia. The secret documents that Mr. Assange published were provided...

Fact or Opinion: Can anyone confirm or dispute this claim: "Pompeo has filled his The State Dept. with ppl who campaigned against Trump throughout all of 2016. Some of them even campaigned for Hillary. He also gave that terrible speech in Cairo that was totally counter to everything Trump has said on foreign policy. He’s one of the worst."

Basically leading with short dispatches saying the North Koreans did this at around 0906 am local Saturday (8:06 pm eastern USA) in Korea/Japan, about 90 minutes ago, into the Sea of Japan, traveling 70 to 200 kilometers from a launch site near Wonsan on DPRK east coast. (Report in Japanese—because fast breaking) Conservative Sankei Shimbun news, Tokyo

President says Moore has withdrawn from consideration https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1123987855053873154

Democratic congressional leaders said they held a constructive meeting with President Trump on Monday at which they agreed to seek a deal on a $2 trillion infrastructure bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) left the meeting at noon sounding a decidedly positive note, calling the meeting with Trump at the White House constructive and good. They said they had not agreed on how to pay for a $2 trillion bill to improve the nation's roads, bridges, waterways and broadband, but that they had agreed to meet in another three weeks. And they said the...

Somebody is having trouble with the deep state, and this time it’s not President Trump. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy (R) is asking the president for help tackling what he views as entrenched workers in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (yes… I’m serious) who have been working to thwart oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Bet you didn’t see that one coming. (Government Executive) A governor is asking the president to intervene with career federal employees, accusing them of “undermining” the sale of lands that would benefit his state.In a letter to President Trump dated...