Free Republic

Looking to undermine rival Joe Biden 20 days before the election, President Donald Trump’s campaign has seized on a tabloid story offering bizarre twists to a familiar line of attack: Biden’s relationship with Ukraine. But the story in the New York Post raises more questions than answers, including about the authenticity of an email at the center of the story. The origins of the story also trace back to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has repeatedly pushed unfounded claims about Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Even if the emails in the Post are legitimate, they don’t validate Trump and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department has failed to turn over government documents covering Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of state that The Associated Press and others requested under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act ahead of her presumptive presidential campaign. They include one request AP made four years ago and others pending for more than one year.

Full title: Judicial Watch: AP Reporters Gave DOJ/FBI Ukraine Info and Code to Private Locker of Paul Manafort in Apparent Effort to Push Criminal Prosecution Andrew Weissmann organized off-the-record DOJ/FBI meeting with AP to exchange ‘clarification’ and ‘assistance’ in their investigation for details on former Trump Campaign Director Paul Manafort (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released two productions of heavily redacted FBI documents – 28 pages and 38 pages – about an April 11, 2017, “off-the-record” meeting set up by then-Chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section Andrew Weissmann, between the DOJ, the FBI and the Associated Press...

California lawmakers seem intent on making Sacramento the place where reasonable reforms, much like runaway trains, jump the tracks. In that no-speed-limit spirit Tuesday, the California Assembly voted 41-37 to allow convicted felons to vote in jail. (Yes, you read that correctly.) If Assembly Bill 2466 becomes law, the American Civil Liberties Union estimates that 50,000 adults will be able to vote behind bars. The state doesn’t trust these people on the streets, but they are welcome in the voting booth. When individuals commit crimes that endanger public safety, they forfeit their civil rights upon conviction. The National Conference of...

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Russian dubbed the "Merchant of Death" for allegedly supplying weapons to Africa's bloody conflicts over power and diamonds was arrested Thursday in Thailand on suspicion of conspiring to smuggle guns to Colombia's leftist rebels. Viktor Bout, 41, whose dealings reportedly inspired a 2005 movie about the illicit arms trade, was arrested at U.S. request in his hotel room in Bangkok, said police Lt. Gen. Pongpat Chayapan. Bout had eluded arrest for years and was finally seized after a four-month sting organized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In New York, federal authorities unsealed a criminal complaint...

Stephen Braun at the L.A. Times writes: The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth raised more than $25 million for media buys. Some of the money was donated in multimillion-dollar installments from reliable Republican fundraisers, including Texas businessmen T. Boone Pickens Jr. and Bob J. Perry. But last December, the group was fined almost $300,000 by the Federal Election Commission for exceeding spending limits and acting in concert with GOP campaign efforts. Wrong.Here is the December 13, 2006 Conciliation Agreement that sets forth the FEC’s findings (.pdf). In it, the FEC explicitly found that the Swift Vets did not act in...