Free Republic

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gathered about 100 top supporters and donors over the weekend at South Florida’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino to say “thank you” — and to foreshadow what might be next. DeSantis supporters see those moves, along with the weekend event at the Hard Rock, as clear signs the Florida governor is once again eyeing a White House bid. The main event Saturday evening featured DeSantis speaking with Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., He needs to repair his image nationally,” said one of the attendees. “I don’t know anyone is going to be like...

Former President Donald Trump’s counsel, Christopher Kise, suggested in court Friday that the legal team may consider pursuing a mistrial in the civil suit brought by the state of New York in light of a report from Breitbart News.At the center of the argument is Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle’s report that New York County Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s top clerk, Allison Greenfield, “appears to have violated judicial rules preventing officers of the court from making excessive political donations.” (snip)As Boyle reported, it seems Engoron was advised of the violations laid out in a complaint filed to...

As Governor Andrew Cuomo faced a spirited challenge in his bid to win New York’s 2018 Democratic primary, his political apparatus got a last-minute boost: a powerful healthcare industry group suddenly poured more than $1m into a Democratic committee backing his campaign. Less than two years after that flood of cash from the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), Cuomo signed legislation last month quietly shielding hospital and nursing home executives from the threat of lawsuits stemming from the coronavirus outbreak.

SANTA FE – Lawsuit claims about young female sex slaves allegedly kept by billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein and offered to a worldwide list of the rich and famous have reached New Mexico. In a new court filing in Florida, plaintiffs’ lawyers maintain that a woman identified as Jane Doe No. 3, said to have been coerced into Epstein’s camp when she was 15 years old, was frequently sexually abused by Epstein “not only in West Palm Beach (Fla.), but also in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, in international airspace on … Epstein’s private planes, and elsewhere.” Epstein...

Attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein asked a Manhattan federal judge Thursday to allow the financier to await trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges from the comforts and confines of his own home, offering up his multi-million dollar Manhattan mansion and his private jet as collateral in a bail package worth up to $77 million. In their argument for bail, Epstein's defense team claimed that their client had long feared that federal prosecutors might pursue sexual abuse charges against him to due to "the toxic political climate ... yet [Epstein] continually returned home from travel abroad, fully prepared to vindicate his...

MIAMI — The donations kept pouring in: hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to President Obama and more than a dozen members of Congress, carefully routed through the families of two wealthy brothers in Florida. They had good reason to be generous. The two men, Roberto and William Isaias, are fugitives from Ecuador, which has angrily pressed Washington to turn them over, to no avail. A year after their relatives gave $90,000 to help re-elect Mr. Obama, the administration rejected Ecuador’s extradition request for the men, fueling accusations that such donations were helping to keep the brothers and...

Hustle, a text-messaging startup that worked closely with several Democratic candidates in the 2018 elections, fired a third of its staff this week. CEO Roddy Lindsay announced the move via a blog post on Thursday. "While we are incredibly proud of our impact in the 2018 midterms, delivering more than 200 million text messages to and from voters, it was an enormous operational challenge supporting such an effort; one that required a team size that is not yet sustainable for us on an ongoing basis," Lindsay wrote. "And while we have an exciting set of initial commercial customers using Hustle...

Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D-Mo.) campaign is asking her Senate race opponent, Attorney General Josh Hawley (R), to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether a right-wing group violated state laws in secretly recording and publishing a video from inside the senator's campaign headquarters. KMBC News in Missouri reported that McCaskill intends to pursue legal action after the conservative group Project Veritas secretly recorded staffers talking about how they handle Planned Parenthood donations. McCaskill's campaign did not comment Wednesday night on the possibility of legal action, but pointed to a statement criticizing Hawley for his inaction after the video was released....

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, ALLISON HOPE WEINER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM The New York Post is cooperating with a federal investigation into whether a longtime contributor for the Page Six gossip column — the avidly read daily log of wrongdoing, double-dealing and sexual indiscretions by celebrities both minor and major — tried to extort money from a California billionaire, according to a spokesman for the newspaper. Several people involved in the investigation said the reporter, Jared Paul Stern, had been captured on a video recording demanding a $100,000 payment and a monthly stipend of $10,000 from Ronald W. Burkle in return...

Thursday’s New York Times bombshell, which has effectively ended Oscar-winning producer and Democrat super-donor Harvey Weinstein’s career, contains two equally disturbing pieces of news, only one of which the national media will report and explore. The first, of course, involves three decades of sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, who has released a broad statement accepting “responsibility” for his behavior coupled with the claim that the Times got some things wrong. The second bombshell, the one our national media is already sweeping under the rug, is that for twenty-plus years, many in Hollywood believed Weinstein was abusing his power to procure,...

Full title: Campaign Watchdog Group Files FEC Complaint – Ted Cruz Failure To Disclose Goldman Sachs/Citibank Financials… By now most people are aware of the controversy surrounding Candidate Ted Cruz and his failure to reveal $1.3 million in campaign “loans” from Goldman Sachs and Citibank during his 2012 campaign for the senate. At the heart of the issue is a failure of Ted and Heidi Cruz to list Wall Street “loans” on the required Federal Election Commission financial reports. Together with the campaign officials the Cruz’s say the non-reporting was an accidental oversight.  However, a watch dog group has now filed...

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported President Obama spoke at a Nevada State Democratic Party fundraiser for Catherine Cortez Masto, who is running for Harry Reid’s Senate seat in 2016. “The event was held at the Henderson home of Las Vegas Sun editor and publisher Brian Greenspun. Contributions at the event hit a high of $33,400. The event, which drew more than 100 people, raised more than $300,000.” What kind of newspaper is the Las Vegas Sun that its editor and publisher hosts Democratic Party fundraisers with the president? A routinely partisan one. Jon Ralston, just hailed by Chuck Todd on...

In the announcement speech for his presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against Obamacare. “We have a disaster called the big lie: Obamacare,” Trump declared. “I would repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare.” Well, that sounds like something a Republican candidate would say. But there is one problem: Trump helped finance the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 — which put in place the liberal majority that passed Obamacare over the objections of congressional Republicans. And he continued to support a Democratic Senate majority after Obamacare. Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. In 2006 — the year Democrats took back...

My colleague Jay Cost flags this Newsweek article, which is ostensibly about the scandalous revelation that one of the largest Clinton Foundation donor has trade ties to Iran. But here's the first paragraph: >>>>Enemies of Hillary Clinton waiting to discredit her bid for the White House are likely to seize on news that one of the biggest benefactors to the Clinton Foundation has been trading with Iran and may be in breach of US sanctions imposed on the country.<<<< Why on earth would a story about Clinton cashing large checks from a shady Ukranian oligarch be framed not about the...

U.S. Ambassador To Belgium Howard Gutman, who was a top Obama campaign bundler, reportedly “solicited prostitutes, including minors.” Gutman was also a Palin-basher who challenged her parenting skills. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) The New York Post reported, via Weasel Zippers: A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes. A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff,...

The Office of the Inspector General of the State Department found in its latest investigation that Clinton aides had “created an appearance of undue influence and favoritism” in a number of cases including that of Ambassador Howard Gutman. The investigation is largely a whitewash. There is no mention of the fact that one whistleblower related to the case, Richard Higbie, had his emails deleted by a hacker. Or that the main whistleblower, Aurelia Fedenisn, was harassed at home and had her law firm burgled.It goes almost without saying that Richard Nixon went down for much less than that.There is also...

**SNIP** As early as November 2012, an FBI wiretap request noted that the investigation team’s leader had concerns about the agent. But according to the filing, an FBI “review has not resulted in any formal findings or determinations regarding the credibility of [the agent].” In early 2013, according to the filing, the agent was no longer involved in the case, but there is no clear explanation as to why. Still, the filing said there was a “series of outrageous behavior” on the part of the agent that might explain why he was removed. That behavior included arranging $20,000 or more...

An undercover FBI agent gave campaign donations to an unnamed Bay Area politician during a yearslong undercover investigation into a Chinatown gang and alleged political corruption that culminated in the arrests of state Sen. Leland Yee and Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow earlier this year. This is according to the latest filing by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the federal case against the two men and about 20 others. Besides indicating that a politician other than Yee allegedly took money from undercover FBI agents in exchange for favors, the filing further lays out the relationship between former school board member and...

Find and filter the latest electronic campaign finance filings made to the Federal Election Commission. Use the tabs below to filter and sort the type of filings showed. Only House candidates who have raised money are shown in the candidate dropdown menu. For more details, see the about page. Senate candidates do not file electronic reports.

Medea Benjamin, left sans vagina costume, leads group meeting Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson, photo by Code Pink.It’s an Obama world. As the United States faces a Cold War showdown over Russia annexing Crimea and an international passenger jet having seemingly disappeared, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson met with leaders of the terrorist support group Code Pink at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Medea Benjamin wipes her feet on ‘Homeland Security’, photo by Code Pink.It is another feather in the cap of a group that has a history of working with terrorists and state sponsors...