Free Republic

The misconduct hearings on efforts to oust Fulton County DA Fani Willis from the Trump RICO case have come to a close. Both sides delivered final arguments Friday, each arguing where the bar should be set for the judge's looming disqualification decision. ... Trump defense attorney Steve Sadow said an "appearance of impropriety" is "enough" to disqualify her under Georgia law. ... Sadow raised rhetorical questions about who has the strongest motive to lie: "Who has the best motive of anyone to lie? They do. Who has the most at stake to lie? They do. Who wants to stay on...

Atlanta attorney Harry MacDougald is our old Rathergate friend. He helped us get the ball rolling in “The 61st minute” on the morning of September 9, 2004. Writing under the screen name Buckhead, Harry observed in comment number 47 of Free Republic’s Rathergate thread: “I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.” Life has never been quite the same since we took his cue and followed up. Harry is the managing partner of Atlanta’s Caldwell, Carlson, Elliott & DeLoach law firm. He represents defendant...

An important anniversary [is today]. This anniversary carries implications for how we receive news, how political campaigns are conducted, and the credibility of almost everything we see or hear from the media.On September 8, 2004, CBS’s “60 Minutes” used forged government documents as the basis for a story that attacked the military record of then-President George W. Bush. It was bad enough that CBS used forged government documents, but what made it worse was that CBS aired this story during the presidential election and timed the airing to coincide with the rollout of Democrat John Kerry’s “favorite son” campaign theme....

CBS NEWS — Only 30 percent of U.S. weapons sent to Ukraine reach destination……

Maybe a new slogan for Fox News should be: “For those who can’t handle the truth.” -Dan Rather, today on Twitter

After initially putting the first chapter of fired CBS producer Mary Mapes's book, Truth and Duty, on its web site, Amazon.com has apparently pulled the plug on the enterprise. Visitors to the online book retailer can no longer read the excerpt as it no longer shows up in listings for the print or audio versions of the book.Was the excerpt yanked because of the several objectively incorrect assertions it contained, and the subsequent blog firestorm their exposition caused? Only Amazon or Mapes's publisher, St. Martin’s Press knows for sure.

Former CBS News anchorman Dan Rather was reminded of his past Wednesday night, receiving an onslaught of criticism after citing “truth” when mocking the popular phrase, “Let’s Go, Brandon.” Rather, who was fired from his post as the anchorman in the early 2000s after infamously running a hit piece on former President George W. Bush which was later revealed to contain forged documents — received backlash on social media when he tweeted, “#LetsGoBrandonReallyMeans ‘You can’t handle the truth.’”

On September 8, 2004, CBS’s “60 Minutes” used forged government documents as the basis for a story that attacked the military record of then-President George W. Bush. It was bad enough that CBS used forged government documents, but what made it worse was that CBS aired this story during the presidential election and timed the airing to coincide with the rollout of Democrat John Kerry’s “favorite son” campaign theme. CBS thus provided the “news” upon which the Democrat candidate based his attack ads. The CBS story was quickly disproven and eventually forced CBS into personnel changes and investigations. Dan Rather...

Do a good job and report the truth, and you're probably going to catch hell. The challenge is being willing to do it anyway. — Dan Rather The Dan Rather Medals for News and Guts honor the process of journalism as much as the end product. They will be awarded to professional and collegiate journalists who go the extra yard — overcoming obstacles like stonewalling and harassment — to get the story that tells truth to power. The Medals are named for Dan Rather, the legendary reporter and anchor who went far afield from his Texan roots but never forgot...

An important anniversary passed this month and predictably received no attention. *** On September 8, 2004, CBS’s “60 Minutes” used forged government documents as the basis for a story that attacked the military record of then-President George W. Bush. It was bad enough that CBS used forged government documents, but what made it worse was that CBS aired this story during the presidential election and timed the airing to coincide with the rollout of Democrat John Kerry’s “favorite son” campaign theme. CBS thus provided the “news” upon which the Democrat candidate based his attack ads. The CBS story was quickly...

In the interest of the historical importance of things that happened on this forum last week and, most importantly, to try to provide and document an accurate record of exactly what happened here on the evening of September 8, 2004, and the following morning, I have compiled a listing of ALL of the postings that occurred on Free Republic concerning CBS and Dan Rather 60 Minutes show from 8:00 PM EDT on Thurdsay, September 8, 2004, up until about 9:00 AM EDT on the morning of Friday, September 9, 2004, when the rest of the internet "caught up." I am...

Ex-'CBS Evening News' anchor Dan Rather blasted President Trump Thursday, calling him the "biggest purveyor of fake news" amid Trump's ongoing feud with the media. During his appearance on "The Dan Abrams Show" on Thursday, Rather admitted that journalists "make mistakes," but insisted that was different from "fake news." ....... Rather, 87, retired from CBS in 2005, months after airing unverified documents in a report about President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard prior to the 2004 election. He now makes frequent appearances on CNN and MSNBC.

one of the great things about the internet is that we can hear from an actual expert in destructive testing of gas cylinders in a controversy where condition of gas cylinder is of critical importance. Not just from NGOs and neocon think tanks. Dan Rather's downfall came because (as I recall) a typewriter specialist was able to recognize that fonts in forged document were not available in 1970s. An expert in relevant narrow topic observed detail that eluded the news reporters and think tanks. outing of Dan Rather was cool and one of first examples of outside eyes on establishment...

Appearing on MSNBC Thursday morning to defend Democrat Stacey Abrams’ refusal to concede the race for governor in Georgia and hurl accusations of voter suppression against Republican Brian Kemp, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo touted support from disgraced former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and MSNBC’s own Joe Scarborough. . . "GROH-WARGO: And that is a very clear effort really exposing these issues. Because here’s the deal, whatever happens with our campaign, we’ve got to fix the system here in Georgia."

I was asked by our local chapter of the Cardozo Society — an affinity group of Jewish lawyers of which I am a member — to speak over lunch as a counterpart to ABA Foundation Fellow and historian Victoria Saker Woeste on the subject of fake news at the society’s October 8 continuing legal education program. Ms. Woeste was the featured speaker. Her theme was that the term “fake news” is anti-Semitic in origin and that President Trump’s use of it, knowingly or not, is wrongful. Her talk expanded on her Washington Post column (accessible via Outline here) making this...

BREAKING: In the original unredacted letter Feinstein finally gave to Grassley, the size of the font of first line of the second paragraph ("Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during High School in the early 1980's") is strangely larger than the rest of the text

On Monday, January 25, 1988, 30 years ago tonight, Americans across the country saw with their own eyes an early example of the ugly liberal media attack machine. Dan Rather, the anchor of the CBS Evening News at the time, laid a trap and attempted to ambush then-Vice President George H.W. Bush on live TV. Of course, Rather’s goal was to embarrass the leading Republican contender for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination.  The segment was supposed to be a “candidate’s profile.” Instead, Rather screamed at the Vice President over the Iran-Contra scandal, making it the sole topic discussed. Visibly angry, he berated...

Liberal reporters are scandalized by what they say is President Trump’s effort to “discredit” and “undermine” special counsel Robert Mueller, worried that it could presage an attempt to “remove Mueller, or end his investigation.” But when President Bill Clinton was being investigated by Ken Starr, journalists applauded Democratic and White House attacks on the independent counsel, and frequently joined in themselves. Today’s journalists seem appalled by attempts by the President and his allies that question Mueller’s credibility. Washington Post reporters Devlin Barrett and Sean Sullivan sounded the alarm in a front-page story on December 7: “Several law enforcement officials said...

President Donald Trump’s behavior is out of the ordinary for a president, according to veteran news reporter Dan Rather Monday night on the TBS talk show "Conan." "A lot of young people, well, people of all ages don’t know, from one day to the next, what he’s going to do, what he’s going to say," host Conan O’Brien said. "It is important for us to remember this is not normal," Rather said. He noted that some presidents have not liked the press, but no president has behaved as Trump has toward the press. "We’ve never had one that steadily, out...

We’re not excusing what Roy Moore is accused of—it’s ghastly. The man is accused of being inappropriate with multiple women; with another, a Trump voter, claiming he sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old. The Republican Party had abandoned Moore; the optics of this is just too terrible to maintain support. It gets worse; Guy wrote today about how this man was banned from a Gadsden mall because he was trolling for high school dates and badgering teenage girls in the process. All of the accusers were teenagers at the time. Yet, one thing the Media Research Center...