Free Republic

The same State Department watchdog fired Friday by President Trump was the target of an earlier accusation that he engaged in partisan politics — from Hillary Clinton when she was running for president in 2016. The former secretary of state’s campaign in 2016 attacked ex-inspector general Steve Linick for criticizing her use of a private email server and allegedly leaking negative stories about her to the press.

Rep. Adam Schiff on Thursday delivered a last-minute pitch to have witnesses in President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. Schiff said that he wants one week devoted to closed-door depositions from witnesses in the trial as senators prepare to vote on the matter Friday. “I will make an offer to opposing counsel, who says this will stretch on indefinitely if you decide to have a single witness,” Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, told senators. “Let’s cabin the depositions to one week. I think we can. I think we should. I think we must,” the California Democrat added. Trump’s legal team...

Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden freaked out at a reporter Wednesday after a campaign event in Mason City, Iowa, after he was grilled about his ongoing feud with Bernie Sanders.

The New York Times published a mysteriously prescient op-ed Thursday that cited an attack on Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani as a possible scenario hours before the US took him out in a similar way. The op-ed, “Hypersonic Missiles Are a Game Changer,” by Quincy Institute analyst and former National Security Council big Steve Simon, speculated about the use of the powerful weapons. “Is there an individual in an unfriendly country who cannot be apprehended? What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use hypersonic...

The Senate on Thursday passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide in Turkey more than a century ago — a slap at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has denounced the effort. ... The bipartisan effort could be the first step in a response to Erdogan for buying Russian weapons systems. Erdogan visited the White House this fall and held a meeting alongside Trump with Republican senators, temporarily delaying the Senate’s actions against Turkey. ... The House of Representatives last month voted 405-11 in favor of a resolution asserting that it would be US policy to commemorate the killing of...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday admitted he was joking about President Trump with other world leaders — but minimized the incident, saying he had a “positive” relation with Trump and agreed that NATO countries should spend more on defense. “I have a very productive and positive relationship with Mr. Trump … we will continue to have an excellent relationship,” Trudeau told reporters during a briefing in London at the NATO meeting. “He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top — ‘Oh, ya, ya ya,’” Trudeau said. “You just watched his team’s jaws drop...

The House on Tuesday released a landmark impeachment report outlining evidence of what it called President Trump’s wrongdoing toward Ukraine — findings that will push Congress toward a debate over whether the 45th president should be removed from office. Democrats on the Intelligence Committee are making the case that Trump engaged in behavior violating his oath of office and, in the course of their investigation, obstructed Congress by stonewalling the proceedings.

Sen. Mitt Romney on Thursday criticized President Trump’s deal with Turkey for a five-day cease-fire in its conflict with the Kurds in Syria. “The announcement today is being portrayed as a victory. It is far from a victory. Serious questions remain about how the decision was reached precipitously to withdraw from Syria and why that decision was reached,” the Utah Republican said on the floor of the Senate. “Given the initial details of the cease-fire agreement, the administration must also explain what America’s future role will be in the region. What happens now to the Kurds and why Turkey will...

Lightning-rod Rep. Ilhan Omar — who previously sparked outrage with a comment minimizing the 9/11 terror attacks — posted a somber video on Twitter on Wednesday commemorating the anniversary and recounting the “complete horror” she and her family felt following the terror attacks. “On September 11th we experienced one of the most horrific terrorist attacks that we have ever lived through as a nation. Today, we remember the victims, the first responders and their loved ones. #Neverforget,” the Minnesota Democrat wrote on the post, which included the nearly minute-long video.

The Democratic-controlled House on Thursday approved a bipartisan $4.6 billion Senate-drafted measure to care for migrant refugees detained at the southern border — after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed off a competing proposal opposed by the President Trump. The 305-102 vote capped a Washington skirmish in which staunch House liberals came out on the losing end in a battle with Trump, the GOP-controlled Senate and Democratic moderates. The legislation would ease a cash crunch at federal agencies that care for migrants who have flocked over the border in huge numbers seeking asylum since Trump took office. Final action came after...

President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business, a top House Democrat charged Thursday. The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which released the information in a letter Thursday. Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner “continues to use” WhatsApp to conduct White House business.

**SNIP** Vargo wrote that in November 2000, Mitchell told her that Bill Clinton had phoned him to say he was “very unhappy” that Chelsea’s boyfriend had not been shortlisted from roughly 200 candidates despite Bubba’s recommendation, according to the report. “It would be hard to believe that the timing of the president’s call wasn’t aimed at influencing us to make him a finalist,” Vargo wrote. The boyfriend never made the shortlist, which Vargo said made her a target of the powerful couple. Later, in 2012, Hillary Clinton’s State Department cut its annual $500,000 contribution to the Mitchell scholarship, citing budgetary...

**SNIP** CBS reporter Scott Pelley, who interviewed McCabe for Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” said Thursday that McCabe told him using the 25th Amendment was discussed and that officials were “counting noses” — or speculating on who might support such an endeavor. “There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Pelley said. “And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president.” In...

Just-defeated GOP Rep. Mia Love — who was mocked by President Trump after Election Day for supposedly not showing him sufficient loyalty — fired back at the commander-in-chief Monday. “The president’s behavior towards me made me wonder: What did he have to gain by saying such a thing about a fellow Republican,” the Utah lawmaker said in Salt Lake City. “It was not really about asking him to do more, was it? Or was it something else? Well Mr. President, we’ll have to chat about that,” she continued during her concession speech after a tight race with Democratic Rep.-elect Ben...

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that the US will never build a wall along the entire southern border and that Mexico won’t pay for what we do erect — refuting one of President Trump’s top campaign promises.

The White House on Tuesday continued to push back against accusations that President Trump was a racist — with his spokeswoman citing his decade-long stint on reality TV as evidence. “I think that is an outrageous claim, and frankly I think if the critics of the president were who he said he was [sic], why did NBC give him a show for a decade on TV?” Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked reporters, referring to “The Apprentice” and apparently meaning that the president was not the person his critics had described. “Why did they want to be with him for years and...

Former president George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush condemned hatred and bigotry on Wednesday — a day after President Trump incendiary comments further inflamed racial tensions in the US. “America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms,” the ex-presidents said in a statement issued from their vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine. “America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms,” the ex-presidents said in a statement issued from their vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine. “As we pray for Charlottesville, we are reminded of the fundamental truths recorded by that city’s...

Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued a report on Monday in which they said that Hillary Clinton was cleared of any responsibility for the deadly terrorist attack. The report was quickly condemned by Republicans as a “partisan” whitewash. “We have been hampered in our work by the ongoing Republican obsession with conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality,” says the 344-page report on the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in the Libyan city, during which Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.