Free Republic

Cybersecurity experts who held lucrative Pentagon and homeland security contracts and high-level security clearances are under investigation for potentially abusing their government privileges to aid a 2016 Clinton campaign plot to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia and trigger an FBI investigation of him and his campaign, according to several sources familiar with the work of Special Counsel John Durham. Durham is investigating whether they were involved in a scheme to misuse sensitive, nonpublic Internet data, which they had access to through their government contracts, to dredge up derogatory information on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign in 2016...

Washington -- Conservatives and libertarians around the country are becoming increasingly uneasy about what Washington is doing to our economy. Before the coronavirus struck, many were anxious about the swamp packing another $1 trillion of debt into our deficit. Now Washington is talking about spending close to $2 trillion to treat the coronavirus, which would be $1-2 trillion that we do not have. At the president's daily briefing, one thing we never hear is concern about the staggering debt that we now have and the staggering debt our leaders are contemplating taking on. The Democrats showed restraint. They showed...

I have never believed in conspiracy theories. Though some critics have lumped me in with conspiracy theorists excogitating on Clinton aide Vince Foster’s death in Fort Marcy Park and other such phantasmagorias, I plead innocence. It is just too difficult to keep a conspiracy under wraps. Particularly in Washington and New York, where garrulity is the rule. A conspirator sitting on a big story is likely to tell someone for money or for prestige or for the sheer fun of it. If I recall correctly, even Woodward and Bernstein eventually told their secret about Deep Throat, and that was a...

While Brennan’s recklessness is obviously of no interest to the media, it is provoking increasing concern among government investigators, who are looking at a range of his abuses — from leaks to perjury to the outsourcing of spying on Trump to foreigners under the guise of “intelligence-sharing.” A member of the intelligence community tells TAS that he was approached by FBI investigators inquiring about Brennan’s improprieties at the CIA. He was startled to hear them venting aloud about Brennan’s practice of using British intelligence officials to spy on the Trump campaign, including American contractors hired by the British who were...

I plan to see it a third time. The other day I went to see DARKEST HOUR, the movie about Winston Churchill’s heroics in the spring of 1940 in steeling the British upper classes to resist Hitler and to relieve Dunkirk by sending off a civilian armada to rescue the British army from the Nazis. The hour was very dark indeed. Aware as you might be of my aversion to movies, allow me to astound you further. This was not the first time I went to see Darkest Hour. It was the second time! I might see it again. The...

WASHINGTON -- "It's the economy, stupid," as we used to say back in the good old days -- the good old days being the 1990s, when the president of the United States could have molested women in the White House during business hours with impunity. In fact, if memory serves, that president, William J. Clinton, saw his popularity soar after accusations of his molestations were made public, or at least after some of them were made public. If all of them were made public, according to wisdom of the time, he might have been elected President for Life. Those...

Seeing both sides of a problem could be seen as a no-no. WashingtonPresident Donald Trump is in trouble again with his Moral Superiors. His problem, of course, is that he cannot throttle his B.S. Detector. Trump it seems at some point in life acquired a B.S. Detector that has usually served him well. It certainly served him well during his long years in business and during his brief time in politics. Now, however, it is problematic. The Detector sounds an alarm when it perceives B.S., and during the Charlottesville disruptions it went wild. Every time the Mainstream Media or a...

This month's guest on C-Span2's In Depth, Sunday 6 February from noon to 3PM EST, is R. Emmett Tyrrell, founder and editor in chief of the American Spectator magazine. Tyrrell has written a number of books including the most recent "After the Hangover: the Conservatives' Road to Recovery", and will be taking calls and emails from viewers as well as discussing his philosophy and writing......

I shall not beat around the bush. As readers of this column perhaps suspect, I have admired former FBI Director James Comey for most of his public career, beginning in 2013. That he is a friend of former FBI Director Robert Mueller makes me admire him even more. Mueller is a man of integrity and discretion. He would not befriend a man of dubious character. Yet, since July 2016 I have begun to wonder about Comey. His public actions have become increasingly erratic, to the point that he is becoming unhinged. I do not believe he has become duplicitous, and...

History is not standing still. It did not stop with the Clinton era, which is now finally over. At least history did not stop for America. America is moving along and at a rapid pace. For the Clintonistas and their millennial acolytes, however, I guess America did stop. In fact, it froze, locked into an eternal 1968, forever reliving all the demonstrations, the sit-ins and the sobbing, heaving hubbub of yesteryear. Yet America goes on riding the currents of history, and those currents are moving rapidly. As for the Clintons themselves, they have been stopped dead in their tracks. There...

WASHINGTON -- On Friday, the BBC enlisted me to defend my support of Donald Trump for president. Though the ensuing television interview was conducted in English, I found it incomprehensible. I was speaking in my native tongue to two apparently intelligent English-speaking women, yet their responses to my clear, if amused, rejoinders amounted to gibberish. They sought to understand Trump's victory but did not have the most elementary understanding of the American democratic process or any grasp of rational thought. I detected no whiff of alcohol on their breath or any other sign of inebriation. They showed no sign of...

Losing it on a losing night. Ever since the early hours of Wednesday November 9, skeptical minds have been musing over what happened to Hillary and her concession speech. She was supposed to deliver it shortly after it was apparent she had lost on Tuesday evening. She was going to speak. No, she was not ready. Then it was coming Wednesday morning. No, it would be put off for a while. She supposedly was very gracious in talking to Donald Trump later that night, but was still not ready to concede publicly until late morning Wednesday. At 2 a.m., a...

Mr. Trump is going to arrive at the convention with his 1,237 votes for the nomination, or he will be very close. Then the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” is going to be ready to deal. He will deal with John Kasich, the popular governor of the very important state of Ohio. Mr. Trump, by the way, has already expressed his admiration for Mr. Kasich. Or there is Scott Walker, the very conservative governor of Wisconsin. Another popular governor is Rick Scott from the voter-rich state of Florida, who has already joined a growing number of politically...

WASHINGTON -- This week, three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton spent valuable time during an appearance on "Face the Nation" swatting down stories that surfaced Friday. Early on Friday morning when most Americans are asleep, save second-story men, the State Department released thousands of Clinton's emails. In one she seemed to be asking her aide, Jake Sullivan, to send her classified information across a "nonsecure" line. That is to say, across her personal server. She was impatient to read the email's contents and could not wait for it to be sent on a secure line. That strikes a...

deral Bureau of Investigation will recommend that the Justice Department bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton and various of her aides, and soon. The evidence consists of materials that the Bureau has gathered in the course of its months-long investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s personal server. The recommendations will come very soon. The charges will consist of some of the following:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will recommend that the Justice Department bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton and various of her aides, and soon. The evidence consists of materials that the Bureau has gathered in the course of its months-long investigation of Mrs. Clinton's personal server. The recommendations will come very soon. The charges will consist of some of the following: 1. Improper disclosure or retention of classified information. 2. Destruction of government records. 3. Lying to federal agents. 4. Lying under oath. 5. Obstruction of justice. All the counts are familiar to those of us who have followed the...

WASHINGTON -- They are at it again. They are again telling Republicans and conservatives how dreadful their political condition really is. I am speaking, of course, of the voices of the Kultursmog, and to hear them tell it we are in a hell of a heap. We lost the governorship of Virginia. Even worse, we won the governorship of New Jersey. What dreadful news. Of course, in Virginia the Republicans lost to a congenital liar, backed by the most famous congenital liars in American politics, the Clintons. It is only a matter of time before he is in deep do-do....

Twenty thirteen was a distressing year. The President handed the foreign policy of the United States over to the KGB. Who knows, perhaps next year he will hand over domestic policy to Monaco. Nevertheless, 2012 was no blowout. We have firm control of the House, and a good shot at the Senate next year. We have 54 percent of the state legislatures and 60 percent of the governors’ mansions. Finally we are poised to take the White House in 2016 with appealing candidates ranging from New Jersey to Wisconsin, from Florida to Texas, all of them smart, experienced, principled, articulate,...

WASHINGTON -- It has happened again! Our gaffe-prone president has filed another blunder on his presidential record. At the dedication of George W. Bush's presidential library he invoked history with his usual mastery of detail. He placed President John F. Kennedy in Air Force One, "On the flight back from Russia, after negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War." Actually the flight was returning from Vienna, not "Russia," and not much "negotiating" had been done. Truth be known, it was one of the lowest points in JFK's presidency. As Kennedy himself recalled, "He [Khrushchev] treated me...

WASHINGTON -- There is a grisly pallor that has beset former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Then, too, there is a lumpiness: to his face, to his features, to his – well -- to his lump. When he walks into a room I feel rather sorry for him, but then I feel rather sorry for Bill Clinton too and for Hillary. No longer do I call her "Bill's lovely wife, Bruno." She looks grandmotherly rather than tough. I guess maybe her coeval from the 1960s generation of student government goody-goodies, Newt, looks grandfatherly rather than brainy. What does Al...