Free Republic

Democratic congressman says new report shows ‘conspiracy theories’ are true. President Donald Trump was more intimately involved in the debate over relocating the FBI headquarters than Congress was told, a new inspector general report finds. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, a Democrat representing parts of Northern Virginia, said the report he requested from the General Services Administration IG confirmed his suspicions that the president was involved in the decision to scrap plans to vacate the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, and move the agency to a campus location in either the Maryland or Virginia suburbs. “When we began...

Sitting in an office in Coast Guard headquarters, where the mission is to ensure the safety of the nation, Lt. Christopher P. Hasson took illicit opiates and plotted terror attacks that he hoped would spark a race war, according to the authorities. To outward appearances, the 49-year-old lieutenant was a suburban father with a desk job supplying Coast Guard ships, who was glimpsed by neighbors coming and going in uniform or walking his dogs with his wife. But in court filings, prosecutors said he was also a “domestic terrorist” and self-described white nationalist who studied the methods of the Unabomber,...

The ‘Peace Cross,’ a 93-year-old World War I memorial, may be torn down unless Supreme Court Acts (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court asking the court to reverse a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which ruled that government recognition and upkeep of a World War I memorial cross is in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution. ( The American Legion, et al. v. American Humanist Association, et al.; Maryland National Capital Park and...

A Coast Guard lieutenant assigned to the service's headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been arrested on drug and gun possession charges, and is accused of plans to "murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," according to documents filed in Maryland District Court. Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, an acquisitions officer for the National Security Cutter Acquisition Program, was arrested Feb. 15 and charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition by an unlawful user or addict of controlled substances, and possession of Tramadol, a Schedule IV pain medication. A motion for detention pending trial, filed by U.S....

It’s a warm summer evening and Devan Clapp is standing outside his two-story brick row house in northeast Baltimore’s Ramblewood neighborhood. The streets are quiet, with postage-stamp lawns; a transition area between the city and the suburbs of Baltimore County just a couple miles north. This neighborhood, like every other Baltimore neighborhood Clapp’s family has lived in the last hundred years, was predominantly white, before it wasn’t. He talks of how, in the 1980s, the skin color of his mother and father, godmother and brother, drove their white neighbors up and over to the “more-welcoming” side of the county line....

A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant and self-identified white nationalist was arrested after federal investigators uncovered a cache of weapons and ammunition in his Maryland home that authorities say he stockpiled to launch a massive domestic terror attack targeting politicians and journalists. Christopher Paul Hasson called for “focused violence” to “establish a white homeland” and dreamed of ways to “kill almost every last person on earth,” according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland. Though court documents do not detail a specific planned date for an attack, the government said he had been amassing supplies and weapons since...

The woman who presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway says physically assaulted her in October is married to the CEO of a $43 million environmental charity and manages volunteers for a nonprofit that boasts 'empathy' as 'a priority skill' for 'living and working together in this radically different world.' DailyMail.com is picturing Beth Inabinett, 63, for the first time. She faces a March trial for second-degree assault in Montgomery County, Maryland. Inabinett could also be charged with a federal crime, according to a Justice Department official. The case stems from an incident during a birthday party at a restaurant near Washington, D.C....

(CNN)A judge has overturned a more than $37 million verdict awarded to the family of a woman killed in an armed standoff with Baltimore County police. Korryn Gaines, 23, was shot and killed in August 2016 after an hours-long standoff with police in Baltimore County. She was trying to livestream the encounter with police, authorities said at the time.

Internal Revenue Service employee Mary Maldonado, of Dracut, Mass., center, displays a placard during a rally by federal employees and supporters, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in front of the Statehouse, in Boston, held to call for an end of the partial shutdown of the federal government. WASHINGTON — Federal workers would receive a 1.9 percent pay increase under language included in legislation aimed at averting a government shutdown, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. The pay hike would be less than the 2.6 percent increase the military received in legislation that Congress passed last year. President Donald Trump...

A Salisbury University student has been charged with illegal wiretapping after prosecutors said he streamed a meeting with a congressional staffer for Maryland Rep. Andy Harris via Facebook Live without permission. Jake Burdett, 20, was charged last week with two felony counts of making an illegal recording and distributing the video filmed during a Maryland Marijuana Justice rally at Harris’s Salisbury office in October, the state prosecutor’s office announced Thursday. Marijuana legalization protesters have long tangled with Harris, who in 2014 worked to block full legalization of the drug in the District of Columbia. A protest outside the Republican’s Capitol...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Feb. 8, 2019) Mourners bow their heads during the invocation at a memorial service for Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Feb. 8, 2019. Kent was killed in a bombing in Syria, Jan, 16, 2019, while supporting Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Julia A. Williams/Released) ANNAPOLIS, Md. (NNS) -- Cryptologic Warfare Activity (CWA) 66 held a memorial service for Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland,...

Students at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Md., were caught by staff trading “N-word passes” during their lunch hour on Friday. The papers gave the pass holders “permission” to use the N-word, WJLA reports. Following the discovery of the passes, principal Brandice Heckert released an impassioned email, stating, “I am deeply disappointed and appalled that any student in our school would [choose] to engage in such a racist, hateful act. This behavior is disgraceful and does not reflect the values expected of Winston Churchill students. Not only is this behavior hurtful to our community, but it also undermines all...

House Democrats reportedly will not strip Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) of her committee assignments after she apologized for tweets suggesting that American lawmakers were motivated to defend Israel by money. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Roll Call that "of course" Democrats would not strip Omar of committee assignments like Republicans did to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa.) after he questioned how terms like "white supremacy" became offensive. “I don’t think she’s anti-Semitic,” Hoyer reportedly said. “She did apologize. The key will be that when we make a mistake like that, conscious or unconscious, that we don’t repeat it. That...

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in an interview released Friday described for the first time being grabbed and shaken by a woman at a Maryland restaurant last year while out with her teenage daughter. Conway told CNN that she was with her daughter and her daughter’s friends at Uncle Julio’s, a Mexican restaurant in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda, in October when someone grabbed her. "Somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbing my arms, and was shaking me to the point where I felt maybe somebody was hugging me," Conway said. Conway, one of Trump’s most visible surrogates, described the...

Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., represents arguably the most gerrymandered congressional district in the country, and he wants to keep it that way. His latest piece of legislation, H.R. 1 “For the People Act,” would force taxpayers to fund congressional campaigns. Congress has a knack for naming legislation after its opposite intended effect. If you’ve spent more than a weekend in Washington, you know that a bill named “For the People” is likely a far cry from actually benefiting the public. The “Incumbent Protection Act” would be a more fitting name for this piece of legislation. Forcing citizens to fund political...

BALTIMORE—Johns Hopkins University is seeking state approval to create an armed police force, something that many urban universities have but that has sparked a clash over relations between police and minority communities. The private university has proposed building a force of about 100 armed officers over three to five years to patrol on and around its three city campuses as violent crime has been on the rise. The new department’s off-campus jurisdiction would be set by an agreement with city police. ... The proposal has received pushback from some area residents, lawmakers and students, who are concerned about potential racial...

WASHINGTON - Two House Democrats are requesting that the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, revoke the security clearance for President Donald Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kusher. In a letter to Mulvaney on Thursday, Reps. Don Beyer of Virginia and Ted Lieu of California requested that Kushner's clearance be pulled, citing a recent NBC report that a supervisor overruled the recommendation he not be approved for clearance. "The White House's pattern of hiding the truth and devious behavior with regard to Mr. Kushner's security clearance suggests that the Administration does not take information security seriously," the...

Good thing Pennsylvania isn't a crucial state in national elections. A top Pennsylvania lawmaker called on the state Wednesday to immediately expunge the names of 11,198 noncitizens whom the state confirmed are registered to vote, despite not being eligible. State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican and former chairman of a House government oversight panel, said the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, belatedly acknowledged the large number of noncitizens in communications over the past two months. “I believe that we need to take action and have those people removed immediately from the rolls,” Mr. Metcalfe told The Washington Times....

On Monday evening in Houston, a dozen armed men broke into the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, a middle-aged couple who had lived in the house at 7815 Harding Street for at least two decades. The first man through the door, who was armed with a shotgun, used it to kill one of the couple's dogs. Tuttle responded to the home invasion by grabbing a revolver and shooting the man with the shotgun, who collapsed on a sofa in the living room. As Nicholas tried to disarm the intruder, his accomplices shot her. Tuttle returned fire, and by...

For the first time since 2010, Maryland does not rank as the top state for millionaires per capita. Maryland, which fell to No. 4, was replaced on this year’s list by New Jersey. When compared with states, the District now ranks No. 2 for millionaires. Phoenix Marketing International’s annual Phoenix Wealth and Affluent Monitor survey found that U.S. millionaire households have risen to 7.7 million. Over the past 12 months, the number of households in the U.S. with over $1 million in assets has increased by 534,000.