Free Republic

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) threatened possible contempt proceedings against Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) over a subpoena requesting information about her use of federal funds. Willis’s office has already sent information in response to the February subpoena, but the GOP leader complains she failed to turn over documents related to allegations from a now-terminated employee who flagged another former employee’s desire to misuse federal grant money. “We appreciate that you have produced a narrow set of documents in response to the subpoena, but your compliance with the subpoena to date is deficient,” Jordan wrote...

The multiplying charges brought against allies of former President Trump and their mounting legal fees are creating consternation in Trump world — while presenting a real risk to the former president. Trump has burned through millions of dollars in donor money to pay for legal fees as he defends himself against charges in New York City, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. But the former president, who has built a reputation for stiffing workers, has shown no interest in providing financial aid to former aides charged over their efforts to keep him in power. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has listed...

Dual revelations about Jack Smith’s probe into the mishandling of records at Mar-a-Lago suggest the special counsel’s probe into former President Trump is advancing on several fronts, bolstering the case against him. Reporting from CNN this week indicates authorities have a recording of Trump discussing his inability to share the contents of a classified document he retained — undercutting his long-standing claim he declassified the records in his possession... The week was capped with a report from lawyers and former prosecutors who concluded, based on public reporting, that the DOJ has enough evidence in the case to merit charging Trump...

“District Attorney Bragg is a danger to our Country, and should be removed immediately, along with Radical Lunatic Bombthrower Jack Smith, who is harassing and intimidating innocent people at levels not seen before, ‘Get Trump’ Letitia James, the worst Attorney General in the United States, and Atlanta D.A. Fani Willis, who is trying to make PERFECT phone calls into a plot to destroy America, but reigns over the most violent Crime Scene in America, and does nothing about it!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) is set to meet Monday...

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) called demands from House GOP leaders to force his testimony an “unlawful incursion” on his ongoing probe into former President Trump’s role in a hush money scandal. The Thursday response from Bragg comes as lawmakers, led by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), demanded the DA turn over all documents and communications about the case. The move “is an unprecedent[ed] inquiry into a pending local prosecution. The letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene,” Bragg...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson promised never-before-seen footage of the Jan. 6 riot that would reveal new details and alter public perceptions of the Capitol breach. But in his first shows dedicated to the topic, he largely came up short in delivering smoking guns. Carlson gained access to some 44,000 hours of the attack by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a move that was opposed by former members of the Jan. 6 committee and alarmed Capitol Police who said it had remained unaired due to security concerns.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson released the first portion of never-before-seen angles of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Monday, describing the scene at one point as “mostly peaceful chaos.” “‘Deadly insurrection.’ Everything about that phrase is a lie,” Carlson said on his widely watched weeknight program. “Very little about Jan. 6 was organized or violent. Surveillance video from inside the Capitol shows mostly peaceful chaos.”There have been multiple deaths tied to the attack, and roughly 1,000 arrests have been made in connection with it, while some 500 have pleaded guilty over...

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed in connection with a probe into fundraising efforts following the 2020 election, according to multiple reports. The subpoena, which was sent in November and first reported by CNN, seeks documents from Giuliani about payments he received during the period when he was filing post-election lawsuits on behalf of the Trump campaign. The subpoena was signed by an attorney in the D.C. U.S. attorney office and predated the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, though the special counsel’s office has likewise been investigating the inner workings of Save America...

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is increasingly turning to the Department of Justice as a potential partner for carrying out its mission once the panel sunsets. The two investigative teams have at times been at odds over the last year and a half, with the panel rebuffing a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to share transcripts of its interviews in May. But as it stares down an end-of-the-year deadline, the committee’s tune is changing toward something reminiscent of a high school yearbook: Let’s keep in touch. “If they would want to...

Plans from the House Jan. 6 committee to imminently release its list of criminal referrals is raising questions over how far the panel will go in implicating former President Trump and his allies in a plot that culminated in last year’s deadly attack on the Capitol. Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters Tuesday that the committee had come to a “general agreement” to send criminal referrals to the Justice Department. It’s a move that would allow the panel to put a finer point on its more than yearlong investigation, naming names and detailing specific statutes that were violated in an...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) policy of shipping migrants from the border to left-leaning jurisdictions has been a winner in the GOP — but it could cost him at home with key Latino constituencies. The push by GOP governors to transport migrants from border states comes amid a surge in migration from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, a trio of Latin American countries with left-leaning authoritarian leaders.

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, gave a voluntary interview with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The interview with Thomas caps a months-long effort by the committee to speak with the conservative activist, who reportedly exchanged emails with John Eastman, the lawyer who drafted memos for the Trump campaign outlining how then-Vice President Mike Pence could keep then-President Trump in power, as well as with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), two members of the Jan. 6 House panel, introduced a bill Monday to reform the Electoral College Act, offering a number of provisions to protect elections from interference by state and federal lawmakers. The Presidential Election Reform Act (PERA) would make clear that the role of the vice president in presiding over the counting of electoral votes is purely “ministerial.” It also takes aim at potential action from the lawmakers’ colleagues to object to states’ electoral slates, requiring that a third of the members from both chambers must object to the certification,...

(The Hill) – Former President Donald Trump is seeking to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing the classified materials seized from his home, asking the court to appoint a “special master” in the interim to help them review the evidence collected as they executed a search warrant. In a 21-page motion, seen below, that echoes much of the former president’s claims that the search was politically motivated, Trump’s attorneys ask for outside oversight to ensure the materials seized from his home do not include items they argue could be protected by executive privilege. The suit asks for the court to...

House Oversight Committee Democrats have launched an investigation into the gifts former President Trump received while he was in office, claiming he failed to account for thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts he received from foreign officials. According to the committee, the former president appears to have flouted laws that require turning over any gift deemed to be worth more than $415 — a longstanding practice based on the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which places limits on what the president can receive from foreign governments.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) aired frustration with members of his own party for making disparaging comments about GOP colleagues, saying lawmakers such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) were “putting people in jeopardy.” The comments, disclosed in newly released audio from The New York Times, show McCarthy frustrated by the tenor of some of those comments in the days after Jan. 6, 2021 — a feeling that appears to have faded as GOP lawmakers continue to disparage the two Republicans who sit on the committee investigating the riot.

The Justice Department’s (DOJ) leveling of seditious conspiracy charges against the founder of the Oath Keepers has renewed interest — and in some cases faith — in DOJ and whether its investigation could yield charges against other high-level figures involved in the attack on the Capitol, including those in former President Trump’s orbit. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group, was never in the Capitol on Jan. 6, but he’s been charged alongside other members who used a military “stack” formation to enter the building.

The seditious conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department on Thursday against the leader of the Oath Keepers and other members of the right-wing group signal the government is prepared to take on an ambitious fight to show that they joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as part of a coordinated effort to deny President Biden the White House. The indictment contains the first sedition charges that have been brought following the riot and mark a significant escalation in prosecutors’ efforts by drawing a connection between the physical acts of mayhem that day and the broader effort by former President...

Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany sat down Wednesday with investigators from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill. McEnany, who was subpoenaed in November, appeared before the committee virtually. CBS News was the first to report her meeting with the panel. McEnany was subpoenaed alongside former Trump aide Stephen Miller and other White House employees, with her summons largely focused on false statements she made promoting baseless claims of voter fraud.

One-time White House national security advisor Michael Flynn, former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and former President Trump’s personal assistant Nicholas Luna have been granted a delay in their depositions with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A committee aide confirmed to The Hill that all three have been granted short postponements as they continue to “engage” with the committee. McEnany was scheduled to appear before the committee last Friday. Her subpoenas focused on false statements she made promoting baseless claims of voter fraud.