Free Republic

Kellyanne Conway’s husband, veteran lawyer George Conway, is expected to be nominated to lead the civil division of the Justice Department, according to Reuters. Conway, a graduate of Yale Law School, has spent more than two decades at the corporate firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. While there, he’s represented a slew of high-profile clients, from the National Football League to Philip Morris, according to his biography on the firm’s website.

Social Democrat (SPD) leader Martin Schulz could be facing a possible scandal as details have emerged regarding unusual contracts he made for friends when European Union President. The allegations of potential misconduct by the former European Union president revolve mostly around a man named Markus Engels, a long-time confidant of Schulz and his current campaign manager for the German federal elections later this year. According to reports, Schulz gave Engels a lavish contract in 2012 to represent Schulz interests in Berlin, though he was registered in Brussels — allowing him to avoid large amounts of tax, Der Spiegel reports.

President-elect Donald Trump intends to name his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser to his White House - a move that would put to the test a 1967 anti-nepotism law and provide a Trump White House already rife with ethical questions a bona fide legal showdown. In fact, this amounts to Trump's "first attempt to ignore the law," according to Washington University government ethics expert Kathleen Clark. And she says it has huge implications not just for Kushner, but for the rest of his presidency.

Michelle Obama listed daughters Malia and Sasha as “senior staffers” to justify her $432,142 getaway to Africa...

In the first of what Mike Pence called "several very important announcements," Politico reports that former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is set to be announced later Tuesday as President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Transportation.The other contender for the position was former Democratic U.S. Representative from Tennessee Harold Ford.As Politico adds: Chao, who ran the Labor Department under President George W. Bush, met with the incoming president at Trump Tower last week and discussed labor and transportation policy, Trump’s transition team said then. The formal announcement is expected at 1 p.m., one source said. The wife of Senate...

While President-elect Donald Trump met with outgoing President Barack Obama, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was getting his introduction to White House life from chief of staff Denis McDonough. This could be a sign that Trump is eyeing Kushner to be his chief of staff. Kushner is marred to Trump's oldest daughter Ivanka, who also played a pivotal role in the billionaire's campaign. Kushner and Ivanka Trump also are preparing for their first TV interview since Donald Trump's stunning election victory put them even more into the spotlight.

The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. They are last week’s scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts of...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, addressing a scandal that has rocked his administration and its economic development initiatives, said Friday that while he finds the corruption allegations “reprehensible” and disappointing, they won’t derail efforts to revitalize the upstate economy. The Democrat addressed the corruption allegations against former aide and friend Joe Percoco and seven others head on during a speech in Buffalo. He said afterward he knew nothing about the allegations in advance. […] Court papers allege Percoco took more than $315,000 in bribes from 2012 through 2016 from Syracuse-based COR Development, a construction and development firm, and from Braintree-Massachusetts-based Competitive Power...

KOLKATA, India — When Sonali Mehrotra realized that a hulking overpass would come within arm’s length of her third-floor balcony, she took refuge in black humor, telling relatives to look at the bright side: Instead of lugging suitcases up the stairs when they came to visit, they could toss them into a bedroom as they drove in from the airport. Anyway, work on the overpass occurred so sporadically — generally, when elections were coming — that a project originally promised in 18 months was unfinished after seven years. At this rate, she joked, the project might not be completed in...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump's presidential candidacy on Friday in Texas, a stunning development sure to add to the growing sense of inevitability around Trump's bid for the Republican nomination. The only question anyone was asking in the wake of the endorsement was "why"? Or, more accurately, "WHY??!?" After all, Christie had savaged Trump as unelectable just a few weeks ago. So, why the abrupt about-face?

A senior Education Department official is apologizing for what he acknowledged was poor judgment and "unacceptable" behavior related to working on his side businesses with subordinates, failing to pay taxes on his profits and awarding a government contract to a friend's company. The department's chief information officer, Danny Harris, who's set to testify before a congressional hearing scheduled Tuesday, received counseling but was not expected to receive any further punishment. Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges related to his acknowledged failure to report income from his side business to the Internal Revenue Service. ...

candal: Hillary's emails may be only the tip of an iceberg that could include Clinton Foundation donations to shield Boko Haram from being designated a terrorist group and her brother's involvement in a Haitian gold mine. We doubt Team Hillary was thrilled or her critics surprised Tuesday when the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security named Mrs. Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, in a report about a firm that allegedly received preferential treatment from the Obama administration. The firm, Gulf Coast Funds Management, with Tony Rodham listed as its chief executive, allegedly benefited from what the report says was...

Another e-mail from the Hillary Clinton secret server may have the Democratic front-runner in hot water -- and this one's not even classified. The Associated Press reported last night that then-Secretary of State Clinton intervened to benefit her son-in-law’s business prospects. Marc Mezvinsky was asked by an investor to get help setting up contacts at the State Department, and Hillary ordered her deputy to work on it: As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened in a request forwarded by her son-in-law on behalf of a deep-sea mining firm to meet with Another e-mail from the Hillary Clinton secret server may...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid helped steer billions of federal tax dollars to companies supporting a green energy group run by two of his former staff members and a current campaign operative.The Nevada Democrat pushed for millions of dollars in grants and billions more in federal loan guarantees for corporations that donated to the Clean Energy Project, a nonprofit founded by a pair of former staffers with close ties to both Reid and to a major Democratic PAC associated with the senator, Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon reported.One such company, California-based Fulcrum Bioenergy, received a hefty federal grant...

The stream of requests to the White House from Jeb Bush, a young but well-connected Republican leader in South Florida, ranged from the weighty and urgent to the parochial and mundane. In 1985, he sent an emotional letter pressing his father, Vice President George Bush, to investigate the detention of Cuban children in Texas, asking, “Shouldn’t there be some compassion?” (The vice president’s reply: “Heartbreaking.”) In 1989, after his father became president, Mr. Bush offered his recommendation for the next Supreme Court opening. (“Your suggestion will be given thoughtful consideration,” a senior aide responded.) In 1990, Mr. Bush lobbied the...

Oregon’s governor is struggling to deal with allegations that his fiancée used his position to land clients for her environmental consulting business, claims that have drawn an ethics investigation and the scrutiny of the state’s attorney general. Although his role in arranging the deals isn’t clear, the scandal has posed a threat to the decades-long political career of four-term Democrat John Kitzhaber, Oregon’s longest-serving governor. […] A series of newspaper reports since October have chronicled Cylvia Hayes’ work for organizations with an interest in Oregon public policy. During the same period, she worked as an unpaid adviser in the governor’s...

Everything you need to know about Beltway nepotism, corporate cronyism and corruption can be found in the biography of Robert Hunter Biden. Where are the Occupy Wall Street rabble-rousers and enemies of elitist privilege when you need them? Straining their neck muscles to look the other way. The youngest son of Vice President Joe Biden made news last week after The Wall Street Journal revealed he had been booted from the Navy Reserve for cocaine use. His drug abuse was certainly no surprise to the Navy, which issued him a waiver for a previous drug offense before commissioning him as...

Everything you need to know about Beltway nepotism, corporate cronyism and corruption can be found in the biography of Robert Hunter Biden. Where are the Occupy Wall Street rabble-rousers and enemies of elitist privilege when you need them? Straining their neck muscles to look the other way. The youngest son of Vice President Joe Biden made news last week after The Wall Street Journal revealed he had been booted from the Navy Reserve for cocaine use. His drug abuse was certainly no surprise to the Navy, which issued him a waiver for a previous drug offense before commissioning him as...

California’s health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency's executive director. Covered California’s no-bid contracts were for a variety of services, ranging from public relations to paying for ergonomic adjustments to work stations, according to an Associated Press review of contracting records obtained through the state Public Records Act. Several of those contracts worth a total of $4.2 million went to a consulting firm, The Tori Group, whose...

The son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory Reid, is the primary representative for ENN Energy Group, a Chinese energy company seeking to build a $5 billion solar panel plant on a 9,000-acre Clark County desert plot in Laughlin, Nevada. ENN scored big when Clark County commissioners unanimously voted to sell the Chinese company the public land for just $4.5 million, despite the fact that it was appraised at $38.6 million. Sen. Reid has been one of ENN’s biggest supporters, having recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China. According to Reuters, last month Sen. Reid tried...