Free Republic

Judge Juan Merchan fined former President Donald Trump $9,000 Tuesday and held him in contempt for violating his gag order, warning he may impose jail time for future violations. Merchan ordered Trump to remove the offending posts by 2:15 pm Tuesday and to pay the fine by May 3. He rejected Trump’s defense that he was simply engaging in political speech by responding to attacks by witnesses like Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, writing that the Court is “keenly aware of, and protective of, Defendant’s First Amendment rights, particularly given his candidacy for the office of President of the United...

New York County Judge Juan Merchan has ruled that former President Donald Trump violated a gag order during his trial, holding him in criminal contempt and threatening him with jail time for any further infractions.

A self-proclaimed “Christmas Lawyer” faces losing his legal license after he criticized a judge who banned his festive home display, which featured a live camel and 700,000 bulbs, allegedly calling the justice “corrupt” and a “hateful anti-Christian bigot.” Jeremy Morris was informed the Idaho State Bar has “probable cause to proceed with formal charges” against him for accusing federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill of corruption following an ongoing legal battle with the West Hayden Estates Homeowners Association. “The Idaho State Bar has made it clear they’re going to protect their friends, in this case, a federal judge,” Morris told Fox...

Every day millions of patients receiving legitimate medical care get informed consent. They’re told about the risks and alternatives of a procedure or they hear advertisements that spell out potential side effects associated with medication. But a judge in Kansas just ruled that Planned Parenthood and other abortion companies don’t have to tell women the risks of abortion or the alternatives. Never mind that abortions kill or injure women – like the one that killed a Nevada woman late last year. District Judge K. Christopher Jayaram issued an order blocking this law and another one today. “The Court has great...

U.S. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan says that former President Donald J. Trump may be said to have “raped” E. Jean Carroll, even though a jury specifically declined to find that he had done so in his recent civil trial in New York. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported the judge’s finding — approvingly, calling it a “clarification”: [Kaplan] says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood. The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against...

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said this summer she will announce whether or not Donald Trump and his allies will be indicted for crimes related to alleged interference in Georgia’s 2020 election. She sent a letter to local (Atlanta) law enforcement. She asked them to be ready for “heightened security and preparedness” because she predicted her announcement “may provoke a significant public reaction.” Hmm. I wonder what she means by that. Oh, wait, no I don’t wonder. I predict that Willis will indict the former president who is now running for a second term and she may do the...

Days before the Wisconsin Supreme Court election a major union representing transit workers wrote an $18,000 check to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign. For the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents bus drivers and mechanics, it was a huge donation compared with their previous donation to a Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate in 2018 for just $250. “There's a lot on the line with the Supreme Court race here,” said Donnell Shorter, head of the ATU Local 998 in Milwaukee. But that $18,000 is a drop in the bucket compared with the contributions of a few dozen ultra-wealthy donors. Recent...

A Missouri judge ruled on Wednesday that Mark McCloskey — the St. Louis lawyer who pointed a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters marching near his front lawn in 2020 — will not get his guns or his money back despite receiving a pardon last year. McCloskey and his wife, Patricia McCloskey, pleaded guilty in July 2021 to misdemeanor charges for assault and harassment over the incident. The couple surrendered a Colt AR-15 rifle and a Bryco .380-caliber pistol as part of the plea agreement, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, after Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) pardoned the...

The Second Amendment protects the right to people to "keep and bear arms," and at its core the right to self-defense, [judge] McConnell observed. [Reporter]The ban was a reasonable and measured approach to restricting large-capacity magazines, which in practice easily convert handguns into semi-automatic weapons capable of rapid fire, he said.

With Election Day less than three weeks away, a Lehigh County judge has rejected a lawsuit by four residents who demanded tighter restrictions on ballot drop boxes. The plaintiffs, all Republicans, demanded the boxes at the government center in Allentown and other parts of the county be open only during “normal” business hours and be monitored in person to make sure voters drop only their own ballots, or ballots they have been authorized to drop. In a ruling issued late Tuesday, Judge Thomas Capehart said evidence presented at hearings on the case showed in-person monitoring had not conclusively reduced third-party...

With Election Day less than three weeks away, a Lehigh County judge has rejected a lawsuit by four residents who demanded tighter restrictions on ballot drop boxes. The plaintiffs, all Republicans, demanded the boxes at the government center in Allentown and other parts of the county be open only during “normal” business hours and be monitored in person to make sure voters drop only their own ballots, or ballots they have been authorized to drop. In a ruling issued late Tuesday, Judge Thomas Capehart said evidence presented at hearings on the case showed in-person monitoring had not conclusively reduced third-party...

A federal judge in Idaho has barred the state from enforcing a strict abortion ban in medical emergencies over concerns that it violates a federal law on emergency care. The ruling Wednesday evening came after a federal judge this week in Texas made the opposite call, barring the federal government from enforcing a legal interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act that would require Texas hospitals to provide abortion services if the health or life of the mother is at risk. In Idaho, the ban makes performing an abortion in any “clinically diagnosable pregnancy” a felony punishable by...

Earlier this month we found out that voting machines can do tricky things. The results of a Democratic primary in a Georgia county were challenged after a hand count found the machines to be off by thousands. Marshall Orson, a Democratic candidate for DeKalb County Commission, requested that the local elections board not certify the results as scheduled because there were “numerous issues” in the race (Kind of sounds like what Trump asked for after the 2020 election). The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Orson asked for a formal recount of the election and an “independent review.”. “There is no rational...

Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein looked into an election report that was prepared for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ legal team, which claimed it found evidence of “potentially unauthorized and illegal manipulation of tabulated vote data” for elections in 2020 and 2021. The report, named Report #3, claims Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold was involved in deleting tens of thousands of voting records.

A congressional map approved by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and drawn by his staff is unconstitutional because it breaks up a district where Black voters can choose their representatives, a state judge said Wednesday. Leon County Circuit Judge Layne Smith said he would issue a formal order Thursday or Friday to keep the maps from taking effect in November’s election.

Earlier this week New York Judge Arthur Engoron held Donald Trump in contempt and ordered a fine of $10,000 per day that he refuses to turn over documents to New York Attorney General Letitia James. During a hearing on Monday, the judge considered James’ contempt request. “Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously, I hereby hold you in civil contempt and fine you $10,000 a day,” Engoron ruled. The documents that James is requesting relate to the Trump Organization’s business dealings. She claims that the organization manipulated property values for tax purposes. Trump...

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices, a judge ruled Thursday. Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., to comply with subpoenas issued in December by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump and his two children must sit for a deposition within 21 days, Engoron said. Engoron issued the ruling after a two-hour hearing with lawyers for the Trumps and James’ office. “In the final analysis, a State Attorney General commences investigating a business entity,...

Lumping Donald Trump with Osama Bin Laden? That's going too easy on the former president! At least, if you ask CNN's "national security analyst" Juliette Kayyem, a former Obama DHS assistant secretary. Appearing on Thursday morning's New Day, Kayyem said that when a year ago in an Atlantic article she depicted Trump as "the leader of a terror movement," she was, as she recently tweeted, actually being "too kind" to him!Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

On November 9, an Arizona Appeals Court declined to grant the request of private corporation Cyber Ninjas Inc. to prevent the Arizona Republic, a Gannett owned publication, from forcing them to turn over their private communications 100 Percent Fed Up reports – Cyber Ninjas Inc., a private corporation retained to serve as the primary vendor to audit voting equipment and ballots cast in the Maricopa County election in November 2020, sought relief from Superior Court Judge John Hannah’s order that it turn over copies of public records that it possessed. Jack Wilenchik of Wilenchik & Bartness appealed the decision.

Cyber Ninjas, a company hired by Arizona Republicans to audit the 2020 election ballots in Maricopa County, announced it is shutting down Thursday following a court ruling involving hefty fines. The Maricopa Superior Court found the Florida company in contempt Thursday. It ordered it to comply with a prior ruling to release material related to a public record request or pay $50,000 a day in fines until it complies.