Free Republic

The media have been quick to rubbish Attorney General Merrick Garland for his failure so far to indict former President Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. They have tarred him with epithets worthy of Trump himself, such as "Merrick the Mild" and "Merrick the Meek." And a host of former prosecutors and law professors have criticized his inaction, saying that Garland needs to indict Trump to vindicate the rule of law. We don't know for certain, but it appears that Garland's Justice Department has yet to convene a grand jury to investigate the affair. Were they...

The House select committee on Jan. 6 has subpoenaed and obtained the phone records associated with former President Trump's son Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Trump adviser and fiancée to Donald Trump Jr. Multiple sources told CNN that the phone records that were obtained are part of a new round of call records requested from communication companies. These records include incoming and outgoing calls, the dates they were made, the duration and the times of the calls.

ew York Attorney General Letitia James has issued subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump as part of a probe into the Trump Organization’s business practices, Fox News reported. The subpoenas requested testimony from Ivanka and Donald Jr. as well as documents "in connection with an investigation into the valuation of properties owned or controlled by Donald J. Trump or the Trump Organization, or any matter which the Attorney General deems pertinent thereto," according to a court brief released to the public on Monday. .....

"SDNY just sent a team into James O’Keefe’s home in New York" is all there is.

State prosecutors in Manhattan investigating former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization have subpoenaed the personal bank records of the company’s chief financial officer and are questioning gifts he and his family received from Mr. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter.In recent weeks, the prosecutors have trained their focus on the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, in what appears to be a determined effort to gain his cooperation. Mr. Weisselberg, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, has overseen the Trump Organization’s finances for decades and may hold the key to any possible criminal case in...

The district attorney leading a high-profile investigation into former President Donald Trump plans on leaving office later this year.Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, a Democrat, told the New Yorker that he will not seek reelection and plans on retiring on Dec. 31.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell struck back Tuesday at his Democratic counterpart's calls for an in-depth impeachment trial featuring multiple new witnesses, dismissing the push as a "fishing expedition" that would set a "nightmarish precedent." "The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury, to hear a trial, not to re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it,” he said on the Senate floor. In a Sunday letter, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had called for the chamber to subpoena new documents and call witnesses who had been blocked by the White House during the...

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents related to President Trump’s interactions with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to a report. The subpoena, according to Politico, demands that Pompeo provide those documents by October 4.The committee also plans to depose five State Department officials, including Kurt Volker, the administration’s special envoy to Ukraine, who reportedly arranged for Rudy Giuliani to meet with high-level Ukrainian officials. The committee also wants to meet with Marie Yovanovitch, whom Trump removed as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman...

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday blocked two more former aides to President Trump from testifying in House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, but cleared a third witness, Corey Lewandowski, to appear publicly on Tuesday and answer questions about potential obstruction of justice by the president. The White House decisions amounted to mixed news for the House Judiciary Committee as it tries to crank up the intensity of an investigation devised to determine whether to recommend Mr. Trump’s impeachment for obstruction of justice and abuse of power — and to convince the public that such action is warranted. In Mr. Lewandowski,...

One day after John T. Earnest allegedly stormed into a synagogue in Poway and opened fire in an attack that killed one person and left three injured, federal agents moved quickly to trace his online movements by getting two search warrants — one on an infamous website that is a haven for extremist and racist content, and another on the digital giant Facebook. The two warrants obtained by FBI agents sought information not only on the online history of the accused gunman, but also those who interacted with him on his postings on 8chan, an online forum that is home...

The House Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for former White House counsel Don McGahn was "silly" and the committee's chair knew he couldn't challenge in court McGahn's refusal to comply with a subpoena, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., said on Tuesday. "The whole thing is a political exercise, and Jerry Nadler is not going to take this to court because he knows if he did, he would be completely humiliated," McClintock said while appearing on Fox News' "Outnumbered." "He wants the grievance, not the substance," McClintock added. His comments came as Nadler vowed to "go to court" if needed in order to...

Government accountability is an idea that draws bipartisan support: calls for more transparency and oversight of politicians and bureaucracies go over well with voters. But what about oversight of the people who put them in office? Democracies give power to the people — does anyone hold the people responsible for this power? Not really, and that has long been a problem. Since its beginning in ancient Greece, democracy has faced a crisis of legitimacy when the people have not been held accountable for their exercise of sovereignty, allowing elites to dismiss democracy as mob rule. Today, defending our democracy begins...

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said it is time for impeachment inquiries to be opened if former White House Counsel Don McGahn is a no-show to Tuesday's scheduled congressional hearing. Cicilline, a member of the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee, appeared on MSNBC and offered his reaction that the White House is instructing McGahn to refuse to comply with a subpoena to appear on Capitol Hill and the assurance from the Department of Justice that McGahn has "immunity" which does not legally require him to testify before Congress, something Cicilline believed was "legally incorrect." "Let me be clear; if Don McGahn doesn't...

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday told House Democrats he would not furnish President Trump’s tax returns despite their legal request, the latest move by Trump administration officials to shield the president from congressional investigations. Mnuchin, in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), said he had consulted with the Justice Department and that they had concluded that it would not be lawful for the Trump administration to turn over the tax returns because of potential violations of privacy. Mnuchin added that requests from Congress “must reasonable serve a legitimate legislative purpose” and that the...

Rep. Jerrold Nadler on Sunday threatened to issue a subpoena to compel Attorney General William Barr to appear before his House panel after Barr reportedly balked over how he would be questioned. “Then we will have to subpoena him and we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena. We’ll use all legal mechanisms to get them to comply with the subpoenas and they will comply,” the New York Democrat told reporters during an appearance on Staten Island. “Ultimately, the law says they have to comply. What the administration is doing is seeking to draw it...

Attorney General Bill Barr will be a no-show at a long-awaited hearing on Thursday before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee based on current negotiations over his appearance, a source on the committee told Fox News on Sunday. The emerging spat comes after Barr has endured withering attacks from congressional Democrats, who have outright accused him of sacrificing his integrity to appease President Trump. Barr shepherded the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report in recent weeks, and he has largely become a punching bag for progressives frustrated that Mueller's probe failed to validate claims that the Trump team colluded with...

I often wonder who didn’t love Donald Trump. I often wonder who left an affection void that he has tried to fill by winning attention, which is not the same thing. He’s turned his life into a marketing strategy. As Michael Cohen said in his testimony on Wednesday, even the presidential campaign was a marketing campaign to build the Trump brand. In turning himself into a brand he’s turned himself into a human shell, so brittle and gilded that there is no place for people close to him to attach. His desperate attempts to be loved have made him unable...

Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller cannot subpoena President Trump. “We’re pretty comfortable, in the circumstances of this case, they wouldn’t be able to subpoena him personally,” Mr. Giuliani explained on Fox News.

According to the charging document, those false statements were that: "On or about Dec 29, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Government of Russia’s Ambassador to the United States ... to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day; and FLYNN did not recall the Russian Ambassador subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request." "On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a...

Yesterday's New York magazine had the best summary of the state of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller yet written. It was contained in a single paragraph buried deep in an article with no other surprises so you have to look for it. Yet despite having to wade through material which basically tells us what we already know about that investigation, that one paragraph is so stunning in its revelation amid an otherwise routine summary of what Mueller is possibly up to, that it hits the reader like a hard slap across the face. Before reaching that...