Free Republic

Rosendo “Ross” Prieto, who previously served as a municipal official in Florida and once told Champlain Towers South board members that their building was in “very good shape,” has left his new job. A Doral spokesman confirmed Prieto is presently on a leave of absence from a contracting business position that offers services to the city. Prieto assured Champlain Towers South board members in 2018 that their property was solid, a claim which followed an engineering company’s warning that it possessed structural deficiencies. The firm said sizeable repairs were needed to fix the building’s various issues.

Former President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity czar confirmed Wednesday that former national security adviser Susan Rice told him to “stand down” in response to Russian cyber attacks during the 2016 presidential campaign. Michael Daniel, whose official title was “cybersecurity coordinator,” confirmed the stand-down order during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing held to review the Obama and President Donald Trump’s administrations’ policy response to Russian election interference. Rice’s order to Daniel was first reported in “Russian Roulette,” a book published in March that details Russia’s meddling in the election. In the book, authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn reported that...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A trucker has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to get back nearly $24,000 seized by DEA agents earlier this month at a weigh station on U.S. 54 in New Mexico north of El Paso, Texas. Anastasio Prieto of El Paso gave a state police officer at the weigh station permission to search the truck to see if it contained "needles or cash in excess of $10,000," according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the federal lawsuit Thursday. Prieto told the officer he didn't have any needles but did have $23,700. Officers took the money...