Free Republic has been involved in several organized conservative campaigns including against CBS anchor Dan Rather after Rather reported on documents about President George W. Bush's service record which turned out to be forgeries, and against the Dixie Chicks for their antiwar statements.

Some cover presidential events (daily picture, prayer, and speech threads), some focus on contemporary conservative issues such as the Second Amendment, the anti-abortion movement, or opposing gay marriage.

Founded in September 1996 as a sole proprietorship by Founder, Chairman and President James C. "Jim" Robinson[8] of Fresno, California, Free Republic opened to the general public in February 1997.

[10] Free Republic gained popularity during the Clinton impeachment from 1997 till 1999, a time when it was linked on the Drudge Report as "Whitewater Archives," when protests and write-in campaigns were organized through the website.

Many were also introduced to the site through an impeachment rally in Washington, attended by over 3000 participants, called the "March for Justice," broadcast live on Halloween 1998 by C-SPAN.

The newspapers obtained a permanent injunction, although stipulated damages of $1 million were reduced to $10,000 during settlement negotiations which allowed the defendants to drop their appeal.

[17] This supposed light moderating hand did not prevent the permanent banishment from the site of such "controversial" contributors as crime author Dan E. Moldea, novelist Todd Brendan Fahey, "What Really Happened" website host Mike Rivero, and Internet poet David Martin.

[18] Salon.com's Jeff Stein observed in 1999 that: "[A] swelling number of haters have turned up the volume of death threats, gay-bashing, name-calling and conspiracy theories tying the father of Republican front-runner George W. Bush to drug-dealing by the CIA.

"[2] Robinson "famously blasted George W. Bush's presidential candidacy back in 2000, before a dramatic late-campaign about-face that saw him emerge as one of the GOP ticket's biggest supporters.

In 1999, FReepers ran a campaign to make fake donations to the legal defense fund of Julie Hiatt Steele, who had been charged with obstruction of justice during then-President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.

"[23] When the bar manager of an Austin, Texas restaurant called 9-1-1 to notify authorities that an underage Jenna Bush had attempted to purchase liquor in June 2001, the bar manager's personal information including her home address, date of birth, driver's license number and physical description was posted on FreeRepublic, along with calls for punitive action.

[24] The Clinton threat and some of the bar manager's personal information were removed by Robinson when brought to his attention, and the authors' posting privileges were revoked.

[28] During the 2004 election, Jerome Corsi, a Swift Boat Vet and co-author of the book Unfit for Command that attacked the Vietnam War record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, apologized in the national media for comments that he made on Free Republic under the user name "jrlc.

"[29] One of the first responses to "Memogate", the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of documents of questionable origin during the 2004 presidential campaign, came on Free Republic the night of the broadcast.

[34] Canadian journalist Ivor Tossell later opined that Free Republic was "central to the network of websites that uncovered the forged memos about Bush's Vietnam service that appeared on CBS News and ultimately cost Dan Rather his job.

"[35] In October 2004, the "MD4Bush" account was created to investigate the source of false rumors that Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Martin O'Malley had committed adultery.

In their 2006 documentary Shut Up and Sing as well as in interviews, the Dixie Chicks have often mentioned Free Republic in reference to the boycott, which sharply reduced sales of their CDs and concert tickets.

Kristinn Taylor of Free Republic's dominant Washington, D.C., chapter attended the screening of the documentary, hosted by the liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress.

Among those claiming to have been permanently banned are several participants in the debate over the violent death of Bill Clinton's Deputy White House Counsel, Vince Foster.

[47] During and after the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, according to political commentator Sean Hannity, "[E]veryone I knew basically left because of so much childish, immature personal attacks.

The poster may have been inspired by a legal hypothetical expressing a similar fact pattern posted at the law blog The Volokh Conspiracy the previous day.

Robinson posted to the site, "I'd rather shut the place down than be involved in any effort to install abortionist/gay rights pushing RINOS like Romney or Giuliani into the White House!!

"[55] As evidenced by past threads with over 10,000 posts each, Free Republic posters have had a particular interest in "prepping," from growing gardens to surviving varying periods of lack of access to supplies to living "off the grid.