Free Republic

In a fiery exchange last month, CNN anchorwoman Abby Phillip told GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that there was “no evidence” to support his claim that federal agents abetted protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Ramaswamy shot back that the FBI conspicuously has never denied that law enforcement agents were on duty in the crowd. He argued that federal officials have repeatedly “lied” to the American people about not only that investigation but one that has gotten much less attention: the alleged failed plot to kidnap and kill Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan in 2020.“It was entrapment,” Ramaswamy...

The G.O.P. contender’s campaign tried to take on Donald Trump’s online army. Now it just wants to end the meme wars. ---------------------------------- In early May, as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prepared to run for president, about a dozen right-wing social media influencers gathered at his pollster’s home for cocktails and a poolside buffet. The guests all had large followings or successful podcasts and were already fans of the governor. But Mr. DeSantis’s team wanted to turn them into a battalion of on-message surrogates who could tangle with Donald J. Trump and his supporters online. For some, however, the gathering...

The New York Times ran a lengthy hit piece, titled, “Inside Ron DeSantis’s Politicized Removal of an Elected Prosecutor,” that demonstrates how fearful Democrats are of his appeal in an era when crime is on the mind of so many voters. So potent is the crime issue that President Biden and a significant number Congressional Democrats are overriding a soft-on-crime law passed the by the DC City Council over the veto of the District’s Mayor Muriel Bowser. Only a deep fear of voters’ wrath over spiraling crime would motivate these Democrats to anger their SJW pro-crime base. Thus, it fell...

When Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida convened a round-table discussion about the news media this week, he spared no effort to play the part, perching at a faux anchor’s desk in front of a wall of video screens while firing questions to his guests like a seasoned cable TV host. But the panel’s message was as notable as its slick presentation: Over the course of an hour, Mr. DeSantis and his guests laid out a detailed case for revisiting a landmark Supreme Court decision protecting the press from defamation lawsuits. Mr. DeSantis is the latest figure, and among the most...

Soon after the FBI searched Donald Trump’s home in Florida for classified documents, online researchers zeroed in on a worrying trend. Posts on Twitter that mentioned “civil war” had soared nearly 3,000% in just a few hours as Trump’s supporters blasted the action as a provocation. Similar spikes followed, including on Facebook, Reddit, Telegram, Parler, Gab and Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform. Mentions of the phrase more than doubled on radio programs and podcasts, as measured by Critical Mention, a media-tracking firm. Posts mentioning “civil war” jumped again a few weeks later, after President Joe Biden branded Trump and...

The New York Times announced Thursday that it has hired Buzzfeed News’s Ken Bensinger to “pioneer a new beat” covering right-wing media — the same Ken Bensinger, the Times omits in its announcement, who first reported the Steele Dossier. New York Times Politics Editor David Halbfinger declared in a splashy release that Bensinger would join the “democracy team” on the Politics Desk, covering right-wing media as his full-time beat. The statement provides an exhaustive list of topics and stories Bensinger has covered — from campaign finance, to “political disinformation,” to the Oath Keepers’ finances. Curiously absent, however, is any mention...

More than 15 journalists, several U.S. government officials and multiple lawmakers were shown or given the Steele dossier during the 2016 presidential campaign or shortly after. Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele disseminated the dossier far and wide in an apparent attempt to insert the document’s salacious allegations into the media. Newly unsealed court filings show how widespread this effort was. Court documents released last week in a lawsuit involving the Steele dossier revealed new details about the campaign to disseminate the infamous anti-Trump report to the press and within the U.S. government. Much was already known about Fusion GPS and...

David Kramer, the John McCain aide who leaked the discredited Christopher Steele dossier on President Trump, testified in a libel case that he spread the unsubstantiated anti-Trump material all over Washington during the presidential transition. Mr. Kramer, a former State Department official and a Trump detractor, leaked dossier material to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt, CNN’s Carl Bernstein, National Public Radio, McClatchy news service and others, he said. But his most momentous meeting was with Ken Bensinger of BuzzFeed. In Washington during the Christmas holidays, he let Mr. Bensinger read the dossier. He then stepped away....

[FULL TITLE] [ ‘Stand down!’ Obama’s orders to national security officials who wanted to hit back at election-meddling Putin revealed ] A new book, 'Russian Roulette,' details Donald Trump's business ties in Russia and Russia's efforts to meddle in the presidential election The interference was one of the greatest policy challenges for the outgoing Obama administration Advisors debated the pros and cons of hitting back at Russia, whether to go public with what they knew, and how to get it to stop One risk was fueling the chaos intelligence officials believe Russia was trying to sew Two security advisors prepared...

A longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain provided a copy of the infamous Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, according to an explosive court filing released Wednesday. David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, met on Dec. 29, 2016 with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger, according to a filing submitted Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro. BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, on Jan. 10, 2017. The disclosure was made as part of a final report ahead of Ungaro’s ruling in favor...