Free Republic

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned Thursday night, blaming President Donald Trump for rhetoric that fueled the invasion of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump suppporters. DeVos is the second member of Trump’s cabinet to quit because of the riot Wednesday. Earlier Thursday, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said she would resign. Chao is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who refused to endorse Trump’s efforts to have Congress block the confirmation of Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential vote in the Electoral College. A number of other Trump administration officials have quit since Wednesday.

(Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge erred in dismissing all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007, an appeals court ruled on Friday. The unanimous three-judge panel reinstated the charges and sent the case back to the judge for more proceedings, handing a victory to the U.S. Justice Department in a high-profile prosecution dating to 2008. The five guards were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count over a Baghdad shooting that outraged Iraqis and strained ties between the two countries.

President Trump plans to assign a New York billionaire to lead a broad review of American intelligence agencies, according to administration officials, an effort that members of the intelligence community fear could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview. The possible role for Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has met fierce resistance among intelligence officials already on edge because of the criticism the intelligence community has received from Mr. Trump during the campaign and since he became president. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed leaks from the intelligence community for...

A $40 million yacht owned by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was reportedly untied from the dock at a northern Ohio marina and set adrift. The captain of the 163-foot yacht, named "Seaquest," called the Huron Police Department early Sunday morning when the crew realized the boat was floating in the Huron Boat Basin, The Toledo Blade reported. The yacht hit a dock, causing between $5,000 and $10,000 in damage, the newspaper added, citing a police report. Investigators are hoping surveillance footage will show who untied the yacht from the dock. It is one of 10 boats owned by DeVos and...

Unsealed search warrant reveals how panic-stricken Anthony Weiner gave all his electronic devices to private investigators TWO days after DailyMail.com exposed his sexting relationship with 15-year-old girl Weiner connected with the Manhattan-based Granite Intelligence just two days after his sexting relationship with a 15-year-old girl was revealed He turned over his cell phone, iPad and laptop to the private investigative firm - possibly in and attempt to keep them out of the hands of federal agents A federal warrant unsealed last week says that Weiner's devices were being held by the private firm when the FBI tried to obtain them...

WASHINGTON — Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor. The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months — past the election and well into President Trump’s...

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday the Trump administration is not preparing to set up a private global spy network to circumvent U.S. intelligence agencies. "I haven't asked [President Trump], but it's not something that's currently in the works," Sanders said at the daily White House press briefing. The denial followed a report in The Intercept that the administration was considering reliance on private spies to avoid "deep state" biases against Trump and to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo supplemental information. The idea reportedly is being considered at the urging of Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Oliver North,...

We've fought in Afghanistan for 16 years now. Are we making progress? After 9/11, we invaded, overthrew the Taliban, killed Osama Bin Laden and -- stayed. Afghanistan is now America's longest war, ever. President Trump's solution? He'll send several thousand more soldiers. Erik Prince says he has a better idea -- fight terrorists with only 2,000 American Special Operations personnel, plus "a contractor force" of 6,000. Prince is the founder of Blackwater, the private military contractor. The military uses contractors to provide security, deliver mail, rescue soldiers and more. Private contractors often do jobs well, for much less than the...

TrevorLoudon: National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster: A legend or a lie?(language warning)Fresh on the heels of a successful offensive in Mosul, Iraq, the Iraqi military is now poised to Operation Restoring Rights. His reputation as a brilliant military strategist rests largely on the results of that one battle. Given the widespread support for McMaster in the media and Washington establishment, it is ironic that current reporting largely fails to mention this battle or McMaster’s central role in it. McMaster’s widely-hyped strategic acumen has been called into question by high-level military sources with personal knowledge of his conduct in the...

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been...

The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American 'mercenaries' from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny. ... The latest news relesae from Greystone, as posted on a company blog, is from September 2012, titled "New business in Russia" and simply says the company "provided executive protection services in Russia." In April 2012, the company announced it had been awarded a similar contract in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. ...