Free Republic

The shocking indictments against the former head of counterintelligence for the FBI in New York raise many dark questions.In the course of writing two books on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, the same question occurred to me again and again: How is it possible that I knew all sorts of stuff about Donald Trump, and the FBI didn’t seem to have a clue? Or if they did, why weren’t they doing anything with it? Specifically, I knew that: -Starting in 1980, an alleged “spotter agent” for the KGB began cultivating Trump as a new asset for Soviet intelligence. -The Russian...

TIA now verifies flight of Saudis The government has long denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to fly. By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer Published June 9, 2004 The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, better known as the 9/11 Commission, sent a list of questions to Tampa International Airport. It appears concerned with the handling of the Tampa flight. TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left. The...

Craig Unger, author of the just published House of Bush, House of Saud, believes that "the secret relationship between these two families helped to trigger the Age of Terrorism and give rise to the tragedy of 9/11." The book contains some very nice details about the natural sympathy between Saudis and Texans, especially their shared affinity for guns and horses and oil, but the fact that the Bushes were close to the Saudis is hardly news. Indeed, the United States' special relationship with Saudi Arabia has been the only consistent aspect of American foreign policy in the Middle East since...

'House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties' Craig Unger; Scribner The year 1979 was a climactic one in the Islamic world. On Jan. 16 of that year, the shah of Iran fled the country he had ruled in the face of a revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That event marked the birth of an entirely new kind of Islamist sensibility bent on active confrontation with everything Western. On Dec. 24, the armies of what was then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, signaling a decisive chapter in Communism's death agony. A...

Editor's File | Decision to 'fire' Coulter gets worldwide attention rungerI stumbled into a skirmish line of our national culture war on a lazy Labor Day morning. It happened during my first cup of coffee about 9 a.m. That's when I signed onto my e-mail account and opened the first of the 364 e-mails that awaited me. The subject line read: "A letter to Ann Coulter." The message, written by a Judith Brewer, said only, "Mr. Unger, I think I love you." The second came from Joe Filko, one of this newspaper's community columnists and a staunch, thoughtful conservative. "You...