Free Republic

Six years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, the Ukrainians bet that a Hillary Clinton presidency would offer better protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though he had invaded Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration, whose Russian policies Clinton vowed to continue. Ukraine worked with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats against Donald Trump as protection against President Vladimir Putin of Russia, but Ukraine's bet backfired both when Trump won in 2016 -- and when Russia invaded after the Democrats regained power under Joe Biden. Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), who has accused Republicans of enabling Russia, took maximum campaign donations from a top lobbyist for Nord Stream 2 AG, the company behind an oil transportation project dubbed "Putin’s pipeline." Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, received $2,900 last year from Vincent Roberti Sr., the chairman of lobbying powerhouse Roberti Global. Roberti gave $5,400 to Swalwell’s campaign in 2018. Roberti Global received $2.4 million in 2021 from Nord Stream 2 AG, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Russian oil giant Gazprom. Critics of the 761-mile pipeline have long said it would allow Vladimir Putin to...

As part of just-inaugurated President Obama’s new foreign policy to improve relations between the United States and Russia, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in March 2009. Meeting in her hotel’s Salon Panorama in Geneva, she presented him with a small gift box containing a bright red button symbolizing the Obama administration’s desire to “reset” the relationship between the two governments. Thus began an effort to transfer American technology to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own “Silicon Valley,” called Skolkovo. In a report released in late July by the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) entitled From...

The revelations of the so-called Panama Papers that are roiling the world’s political and financial elites this week include important facts about Team Clinton. This unprecedented trove of documents purloined from a shady Panama law firm that arranged tax havens, and perhaps money laundering, for the globe’s super-rich includes juicy insights into how Russia’s elite hides its ill-gotten wealth. Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Though hardly a household name, this firm is well known inside the Beltway, not least because its CEO...

The day after Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last October, John Podesta, the Democrat’s campaign chairman, met for dinner with a small group of well-connected friends, including Peter Kadzik, a top official at the Justice Department. The dinner arrangement, revealed in hacked Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks, is just the latest example of an apparent conflict of interest between the Clinton campaign and the federal agency charged with investigating the former secretary of state’s email practices. Podesta and Kadzik, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, were in frequent contact, other emails show....

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” this week to discuss the origins of the Steele dossier. He said it should really be called the “Simpson” dossier. Although Christopher Steele likely contributed “stories” to the dossier, and his years of experience in British intelligence lent credence to the document, Nunes believes that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson may actually have written the majority of it. In his book “Spygate,” journalist Dan Bongino makes the same case. He points out the striking similarities between articles Simpson and his wife, Mary Jacoby wrote for the Wall Street Journal in 2007...

The Hillary Clinton confidant who was caught running a clandestine intelligence service for her may have also illegally lobbied for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally in the nation of Georgia. According to a Gawker report, Sidney Blumenthal, the top Clinton confidant, and “another former official from Bill Clinton’s administration were secretly lobbying the secretary of state on behalf of a billionaire in the former Soviet state of Georgia who was seeking closer ties with Putin’s Russia—seemingly in violation of a federal law designed to prevent foreign powers from covertly wielding influence within the United States.” Blumenthal “passed along a note...