Free Republic

The GoFundMe campaign that generated $20 million in private donations is being shutdown and those who donated are being refunded their money unless they decide to donate it to a newly-established 501(c)4. Brian Kolfage, the veteran who started the campaign, on Friday posted the following message on the campaign's website: Eight days before Christmas I started this GoFundMe campaign because I was tired of watching the U.S. government’s inability to secure our southern border. Like most Americans, I see the porous southern border as a national security threat and I refuse to allow our broken political system to leave my family...

"""WOW! Reporter Suggests Robert Mueller Just Hired Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson To Investigate President Trump""" Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the discredited Steele dossier, is still investigating alleged ties between President Trump and Russia, reports Fox News contributor Sara A. Carter. Sara Carter reports: The controversial research firm Fusion GPS is still investigating alleged ties between President Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russia, according to several sources who spoke to this reporter. What’s not known is who is paying for the continuing research? Fusion GPS officials could not be reached immediately for comment. In October, the Washington Post...

A close friend, advisor and confidant of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was allegedly interviewed by the FBI in connection with the controversial dossier that was used ‘in part’ as evidence by the bureau to obtain a warrant to investigate members of President Trump’s campaign team, according to several sources who spoke to this reporter. Sidney Blumenthal, a former journalist and a close friend of Clinton, was interviewed by the FBI in 2016 regarding the dossier that alleged Trump colluded with Russia, the sources stated. Department of Justice officials, however, declined to comment on Blumenthal or the dossier. FBI officials declined...

Department of Homeland Security officials told four House members last month that two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler admitted to supervisors that they were "out to shoot Mexicans" the day of the shooting, but have yet to provide proof the agents made such statements. In an effort to convince four concerned congressman that the El Paso, Texas ,trial, conviction and sentencing of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were warranted, representatives of the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General met privately with the congressmen to assure them of Ramos' and Compean's guilt. The agents...

Top conservatives have joined ranking House leaders in their bid to pressure the president to pardon two Border Patrol agents ........... ......... 31 major conservative petitioners joined a campaign led by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential candidate, asking President Bush to pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean before Thanksgiving........ "History has proven that the mere words and deeds of a president can change the course of history and profoundly affect both the tone and direction of the nation's moral character for generations to come," said the letter signed by 31 petitioners, mostly from Christian conservative groups and...

A former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration warned federal officials shortly after the September 11 attacks that violent drug cartels from Mexico were teaming with Muslim gangs to fund terrorist organizations overseas. Asa Hutchinson, who also has been a Homeland Security undersecretary, said that in 2001, DEA agents uncovered the link between the drug cartels and terrorist groups but too few government officials listened. "I think it's important to recognize that the link between terrorism and drug trafficking exists," said Mr. Hutchinson in a phone interview from Arkansas. "While we are fighting terrorists, we should not neglect our fight...

The Mexican national shot by two Border Patrol agents in a drug-related incident in February 2005 brought a second van load of drugs into the U.S. while he waited to testify against the agents, according to Drug Enforcement Administration reports obtained by the Daily Bulletin. Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila - who was given immunity by U.S. prosecutors in exchange for testifying against former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean - is the focus of a November 2005 DEA report that identifies him as the person responsible for stashing more than 750 pounds of marijuana in a van parked at a house...

A new Department of Homeland Security report about two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler directly contradicts key conclusions reached by the department's own investigator on the case. The report also does not support assertions about the agents made by the department's Office of Inspector General to several members of Congress during a private meeting last fall. The Report of Investigation, written Nov. 20 - 21 months after the shooting - and released Wednesday, concludes that nine other agents at the scene of the shooting did not know it had taken place and thus were not responsible...

Two convicted former El Paso Border Patrol agents accused by the U.S. Attorney of not filing a report when they shot a Mexican drug smuggler were prohibited by their own agency's firearms policy from doing so, according to documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin. Meanwhile, the government made public Monday its response to Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos' October motion to reduce his sentence. The response contends that Ramos and fellow agent Jose Alonso Compean knowingly shot an unarmed suspect, filed a false report, and that supervisors were not notified. Attached to the motion were domestic violence arrest reports regarding...

COLUMBUS, N.M. - On Sept. 5, a man calling himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border. The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas' The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas' vehicle aroused the suspicion of Border Patrol agents patrolling a dark and desolate stretch of Highway 9, which runs parallel to the border and is the site of large numbers of illegal crossings. The agents discovered three Mexican migrants in the vehicle with Alfonso Salinas. But what they discovered several days later made a far greater impression. Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according...

President Bush is expected to reach out to the families of two Texas Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler. White House staff contacted former agent Ignacio Ramos' family early Friday, assuring them the president would call them soon, said Monica Ramos, the agent's wife.

Former Border Patrol Agent Jose Alonso Compean attends a press conference and rally on Thursday, December 21, 2006 in front of the Old Orange County Courthouse where supporters, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher requested the President pardon both Compean and fellow agent Ignacio Ramos' conviction for the non fatal shooting of a Mexican citizen smuggling drugs into the United States. Compean and Ramos are both facing more than 10 years in prison. In the first official response of any kind to several congressional letters sent on behalf of two former Border Patrol agents, the U.S. Department of Justice Thursday...

Fifteen congressional representatives this week urged the outgoing chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to immediately hold hearings in the case of two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler. The congressmen, led by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., made their plea in a letter to committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. The group included California Reps. Ken Calvert, R-Riverside, whose district includes Norco, and Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R- Orange, and Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, also signed the letter. Sensenbrenner could not be reached late Friday for comment. "The purpose...

EL PASO, Texas -- The two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks last year were denied a postponement of their sentencing during a heated court hearing Tuesday. Lawyers for the agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, hope that a congressional hearing to review the case, which has been promised for the week of Nov. 13, would reduce the sentencing guidelines that apply in the case. Mary Stillinger, Ramos' lawyer, said her idea was that the hearings, which have not been formally scheduled by the House Judiciary Committee, could lead to legislation to...

In an ongoing effort to fully examine the circumstances behind two Border Patrol agents' convictions for shooting a fleeing drug smuggler, congressional leaders called on the Department of Justice on Thursday to suspend sentencing the agents pending a full congressional investigation and hearing into their case. At a news conference in Washington, D.C., Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and five other congressional representatives asked U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to reopen the case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean and delay the agents' Oct. 18 sentencing hearing. Ramos and Compean are facing up to 20 years in prison for...

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is asking the Senate Judiciary Committee to fully review the case of two Border Patrol agents facing 20 years in prison for violating a drug smuggler's civil rights. Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., went even further, sending a letter to President Bush asking him to personally review the case. Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos broke his 18-month silence on his altercation with the drug smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Bulletin. His co-worker, Jose Alonso Compean, has been asked by his attorney to not speak to the media while his sentencing hearing...

Mexican Neighbor Shows Rope Tricks Buddy and Kingfish Roofer 1 and a roofer 2, Chicago, Chechstan, Howard and Max San Diego Union Tribune: Interviews Kingfish Showing the photographer over the fence figuring out the cell phone Max, JJ Kingfish, Chicago Felix Cartel Drug House

A conservative grass-roots organization has gathered nearly 40,000 signatures since Wednesday on a petition to be sent to President Bush on behalf of two Border Patrol agents convicted of violating a drug smuggler's civil rights. Two of the jurors who convicted the agents also are expressing misgivings about the verdict, saying they were pressured by other jury members and the prosecution to reach a quick decision in the case. Grassfire, a nonprofit organization that uses online petitions to affect legislation, has created a special Web link and letter to President Bush for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who were...

US Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos attorney is Mary Stillinger (article at the end of this email) http://www.marystillingerlaw.com/index.jsp (915) 544-0415 I just spoke with Attorney Mary Stillinger's legal assistant, Ruth. She said that the U.S. Border Patrol Agents are scheduled for their sentencing on August 22nd. Ruth said IF WE SEND LETTERS stating the border patrol agents have been wrongly accused THAT ATTORNEY MARY STILLINGER CAN USE OUR LETTERS WHEN SHE GOES BEFORE THE JUDGE on August 22nd. Letters could be helpful for both the sentencing and the appeal in this case, she said. I have been researching this issue...

EL PASO, Texas - Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos could hear his heart racing. He could feel the dry, hot dust burning against his skin as he chased a drug trafficker trying to flee back into Mexico. Ramos' fellow agent, Jose Alonso Compean, was lying on the ground behind him, banged up and bloody from a scuffle with the much-bigger smuggler moments earlier. Suddenly the smuggler turned toward the pursuing Ramos, gun in hand. Ramos, his own weapon already drawn, shot at him, though the man was able to flee into the brush and escape the agents. Now, nearly 18...