Free Republic

EL PASO, Texas - The union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents has set up a legal defense fund for two agents convicted earlier this year of wounding a suspected drug smuggler and then trying to cover up the shooting. The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents nearly all Border Patrol agents, launched the fund this week to help former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean pay for an appeal and provide some money for their families. The men were suspended without pay after their 2005 arrests and fired after a federal jury convicted them in March. Union...

Washington, D.C. - A top adviser to President Bush said Wednesday that poor judgment, not liberal bias, caused the New York Times to reveal anti-terrorism programs, for which the paper should be ashamed.President Bush walks from the Oval Office in this June 8, 2006 file photo. A top Bush advisor said poor judgment, not liberal bias, caused the New York Times to reveal anti-terrorism programs. "It's not a matter of liberal bias - it's a matter of judgment," Michael Gerson told The Examiner in his West Wing office. "Everyone in our society, including the press, has a responsibility to the...

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Justice Department Thursday of trying to intimidate him in retaliation for criticizing the FBI's weekend raid on a congressman's office, escalating a searing battle between the executive and legislative branches of government. "This is one of the leaks that come out to try to, you know, intimidate people," Hastert said on WGN radio Thursday morning. "We're just not going to be intimidated on it." Asked later Thursday whether he thought he Justice Department retaliated against him with the leak, Hastert replied: "All I'm saying is, here are the dots. People can connect...

On Wednesday, I reported on the outrageous indictment of American Patriot Richard Convertino. I also linked to a longer version of my previous New York Post column about what's really going on here (Justice Dept. and U.S. Attorney's Office pandering to Muslim Extremists). Now, Rick Convertino's wife, the lovely Valerie Convertino, has an excellent op-ed piece in today's Detroit Free Press. (I disagree with her about Joe Wilson and his wife, but the rest I know to be true.) This is Val's second, well-said Free Press column on the topic. (Her first Free Press Op-Ed, regarding the events behind this...

Concerns by Google Inc. that the Bush administration's demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests would violate privacy rights are unwarranted because the information provided would not identify or be traceable to specific users, according to a declaration filed by the government late Friday. The 18-page brief provided the Justice Department's reply to the strident arguments that the online search leader filed last week as a rebuff the government's demand to review its search requests during a random week. The department believes the information will help revive an online child protection law that has been blocked by...

State, Justice Will Appear at MPAC, Causing Concern BY MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun December 16, 2005 WASHINGTON - Outrage and puzzlement are mounting over the Bush administration's participation this weekend in the fifth annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, to be headlined by a vociferous administration critic and a former ambassador to Iraq, Joseph Wilson. The convention also will include leaders of MPAC who have made statements considered by many to be anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and to be supportive of the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. "It's really regrettable, because it sends the wrong...

Democrats have their own scandal brewing at the moment, but they are doing much better in covering it up than their Republican counterparts. At issue is the report by David Barrett, the last remaining U.S. independent counsel. Over ten years, Barrett has spent $21 million on the investigation of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, who lied to FBI investigators about hush money paid to an ex-mistress. The reason the report and the investigation have taken so long is that allies to Cisneros and the legal team of former President Bill Clinton at the powerhouse Washington law firm of Williams and...

The Justice Department has barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics, congressional aides and current and former employees familiar with the issue said. Disclosure of the change comes amid growing public criticism of Justice Department decisions to approve Republican-engineered plans in Texas and Georgia that were found to hurt minority voters by career staff attorneys who analyzed the plans. Political appointees overruled staff findings in both cases. The policy was implemented in the Georgia case, said a Justice employee who, like...

WASHINGTON Aug 26, 2005 — The Justice Department on Friday approved a controversial Georgia law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, and opponents immediately vowed to challenge the measure in federal court.The decision, written by John Tanner, chief of the department's voting section, says that while Attorney General Alberto Gonzales doesn't object to the law, approval doesn't preclude lawsuits against it."It's not over yet. We will pursue litigation in federal court," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, chairman of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which earlier had filed an objection to the law with the JusticeThe Republican-backed measure...

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program last December in a move that may have seriously compromised national security, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday. "The CIA made a request to the Justice Department to investigate and possibly bring criminal charges against these three [senators]," Babbin told WABC Radio host Monica Crowley. "My information is that investigation is ongoing." Mr. Rockefeller is the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Mr. Durbin is...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., revealed Friday that two years ago he discussed the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame with then CIA director George Tenet and that Tenet "was furious." Tenet promptly called the Justice Department to demand an investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak, Schumer said at a hearing held by House and Senate Democrats. Novak revealed Plame's identity in July 2003 in a column in which he said she played a key role in having her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to investigate...

I am thinking about writing a letter to my local fish wrap because editor was crying about the Rove nonsense and the fact that Judith Miller was a hero to all for standing up for the press and their "First Amendment Rights" and protection of confidential sources. The jest of my letter is going to focus on why we shouldn't feel sorry for Ms. Miller and the rest of the press because they (the liberal press) are the first ones to applaud when the First Amendment protections to free speech during federal elections was attacked (McCain/Feingold) and when a court...

In journalism, the definition of “leak” suggests that it is applied to government officials who purposely give reporters secret or confidential information in order to publicize something they do not like so that it can be defeated before being voted upon. “Outing” a CIA agent is only a crime if the agent is under cover overseas or has been during the past five years. This law was created to prevent the assassinations of CIA agents on foreign shores as had been caused by Philip Agee in 1978 who listed CIA agents undercover in foreign cities, causing the murder of some....

The buzz is that all of the fun-loving Dims are having "Rovegate" parties to trash Karl Rove and GWB over the CIA outing controversy. We need to show we can have fun too......by having a Wilson-Plame Look-Alike Contest. Post here your choices for the look-alikes.

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an...

Now I read that Matt Cooper’s (the journalist who received Rove’s so-called ‘leak’) wife is Mandy Grunwald; media consultant and campaign advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton......

David Corn responding to Clifford May's column in National Review. Blah, blah, blah. Unconvincing. Those of you following this closely will want to read it for clues, but I'm only going to post what (to me) was the big news: Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0. What the h*ll is this? David Corn published an article only two days after Novak's column that exposed Plame in far greater detail than Novak...

An interesting post by Cliff May: "This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV. While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David: I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:...