Free Republic

A top member of President Trump’s outside legal team called Tuesday for the appointment of a separate special prosecutor to look into potential conflicts of interest involving Justice Department and FBI officials. Jay Sekulow made the call following a Fox News report revealing that the wife of a DOJ official demoted for concealing his meetings with the firm behind the anti-Trump “dossier” herself worked for the same firm, Fusion GPS, during the 2016 election. Sekulow told Fox News that a special prosecutor should be appointed to look into these issues. A group of House Republicans for months has called for...

The FBI has "reopened" its consideration of a request for records on the infamous 2016 tarmac meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton, the group behind that request told Fox News. American Center for Law and Justice President Jay Sekulow called the development a “positive sign,” in an interview Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.” Sekulow said the FBI sent him a letter saying it had reopened his Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the June 2016 meeting. At first, the FBI and DOJ said they did not have documents detailing the tarmac meet-up,...

One of President Donald Trump’s attorneys on Sunday wouldn't rule out the possibility the president would fire the special counsel appointed to look into his campaign’s potential ties to Russia. “Look, the president of the United States, as we all know, is a unitary executive,” Sekulow said on ABC’s “This Week.” “But the president is going to seek the advice of his counsel and inside the government as well as outside. And I'm not going to speculate on what he will, or will not, do.”

American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel Jay Sekulow said there is no reason not to support President Trump's immigration executive order after the Manchester attack. At least 19 people were killed an 50 wounded after an explosion attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, U.K. Sekulow asked rhetorically if "anyone wants to argue we shouldn't have an executive order restricting who's coming into the country so we know who these people are?" "[If] anyone want[s] to argue that case tonight, I'd like to take on that argument," he said.

Tennessee parents are voicing their concerns about a middle school history assignment in which students were asked to write "Allah is the only god." (Washington, DC)—What if your child or grandchild's public school forced them to write out the Shahada—the Islamic conversion creed—while [skipping] Christianity? (Photo via ACLJ.org) What if your child's study guide had a section called "Origins of Islam" that included statements such as, "Around the age of 40, the angel Gabriel told Muhammad that he was to be a prophet of Allah."? Stated as fact, not belief. Yet, according to reports and numerous contacts to the American...

Last week, France faced the threat that is arguably the toughest to defeat—a threat from within, from its own terrorists. By now, the stories are familiar. France has a problem with homegrown radicals. At least 900 French citizens are among the 2,000 to 3,000 westerners who’ve left home for jihadist training or to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In many ways, the western jihadist represents the worst threat. Able to speak the language fluently, completely familiar with their home countries, and possessing a key weapon -- an American, British, French, or German passport -- they can easily cross...

In Greenville, North Carolina, a jury in federal court found that the University of North Carolina-Wilmington violated criminology professor Mike Adams’ free speech rights when it denied his application for promotion to full professor. The ACLJ represents Dr. Adams, along with Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Travis Barham. Dr. Adams is a conservative Christian who also regularly contributes to Townhall.com, where he often critiques the widespread leftist abuses within colleges and universities. His speech caused a furious response within his university, with the Chancellor even attempting to alter the standards for promotion to allow the faculty to consider professors’ protected speech...

Several Republican lawmakers are urging a federal district court in California to block the removal of a war memorial cross in a San Diego public park that was declared unconstitutional in 2011. "We're urging the court to permit a private organization to obtain and operate the war memorial – a remedy that would remove any constitutional questions and protect this longstanding tribute to our men and women in uniform," Sekulow said in a statement. The legal fight over the Mount Soledad cross began in 1989 when atheist Philip Paulson sued the city of San Diego.

Though the White House has insisted the IRS stopped formally targeting Tea Party and conservative organizations in May of 2012, two attorneys representing conservative organizations have claimed the IRS's targeting may still be ongoing. Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and Cleta Mitchell, the attorney representing True the Vote, have evidence their clients are still being targeted. According to National Review, Sekulow "plans to file suit in federal court in the coming weeks on behalf of more than two dozen conservative groups that claim their harassment at the hands of the nation’s tax authority continued...

‘The misconduct had stopped in May of 2012,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday about the IRS’s improper targeting of conservative groups. Not so, say two D.C. attorneys, each representing a number of conservative groups that — after years of waiting and countless rounds of invasive questions — have yet to receive recognition from the IRS. The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by chief counsel Jay Sekulow, plans to file suit in federal court in the coming weeks on behalf of more than two dozen conservative groups that claim their harassment at the hands...

Internal Revenue Service managers and workers involved in the Obama administration’s targeting of conservative groups were engaged in criminal activity, and should face those charges in court, according to one of the organizations in the program’s bull’s-eye. “We believe the IRS has been involved in criminal activity,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. “When a government office abuses its power to access personal financial records, then uses that information as a tool for revenge, we have reached a new low in American politics.” The AFA Tuesday called for charges to be filed against all of those involved...

Governor Romney’s Remarks to CPAC 2010Feb 18, 2010 Thank you to Jay and to Scott for those generous introductions. Both these men have made real contributions to our nation. It’s good to be back at CPAC. I can’t think of an audience I’d rather be addressing today. I spent the weekend in Vancouver. As always, the Olympic Games were inspiring. But in case you didn’t hear the late-breaking news, the gold medal in the downhill was taken away from American Lindsey Vonn. It was determined that President Obama is going downhill faster than she is. I’m not telling you something...

Rest of title: at Capitol Visitors Center A conservative civil liberties group is urging the dismissal of a lawsuit by an atheist group that wants to remove engravings of "In God We Trust" (the national motto) and "under God" (from the Pledge of Allegiance) from a display in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center. The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed an amicus brief in federal court on behalf of itself and 44 Republicans in the Senate and House seeking dismissal of the lawsuit. The brief argues that neither reference to God violates the Establishment Clause of the...

TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2009 Dear America, The White House has entered dangerous territory - blatantly targeting the free speech rights of those who oppose President Obama's policy choices. In a nutshell, write a ''fishy'' email ... one like this ... and you'll be ''flagged.'' Worse still, the White House takes it one outrageous step further - actually urging Americans to report on their neighbors, family, and friends who disagree with the President on health care. With your immediate support, doubled in impact through our STAND FOR LIFE Matching Challenge, we will continue calling on President Obama to protect free...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ON CAPITOL HILL Stimulus to ban religious worship 'This isn't like a convenient oversight, this is intentional' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 06, 2009 11:50 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily President Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan makes a deliberate - and unconstitutional - attempt to censor religious speech and worship on school campuses across the nation, according to a lawyer who argued related cases before the U.S. Supreme Court 20 years ago and won them all. "This isn't like a convenient oversight. This is intentional. This legislation pokes its finger in the eyes of people who hold religious...

We made an emergency trip to the Middle East the day after Christmas. I am leading a team of ACLJ and ECLJ lawyers and Government Affairs staff on a critical matter involving Christian persecution in the Gaza Strip. We had no idea when we left that we would be literally flying into a war zone. For the past several months, we’ve been working on a very sensitive case involving Christian persecution by Hamas. Christian persecution is nothing new in this area, but under Hamas, the regime has been particularly brutal towards Christians. A year ago, the owner of the Christian...

Legal Group Pushes to Defund Planned Parenthood By Penny Starr CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer March 07, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative organization in Washington, D.C., has launched an aggressive petition drive to end all federal funding of Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion provider in America, which receives nearly $300 million each year in taxpayer dollars. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ, said part of the inspiration for the petition drive came from recent articles by Cybercast News Service on Planned Parenthood. "In part, the story about Teenwire.com created a whole new level...

Nancy Pelosi hasn’t been Speaker of the House for two weeks yet and there is already proposed legislation which would be the most significant encroachment ever into the affairs and ability of churches and other organizations to communicate. Under the guise of lobbying reform, Speaker Pelosi and others have proposed legislation greatly expanding the scope of lobbying regulation which would impact churches, pastors, religious denominations, public interest organizations, civic organizations and other nonprofit groups. Even private individuals who voluntarily pay for media to distribute important messages to the general public on political matters would be impacted. So draconian is the...

But there is another side to Jay Sekulow, one that, until now, has been obscured from the public. It is the Jay Sekulow who, through the ACLJ and a string of interconnected nonprofit and for-profit entities, has built a financial empire that generates millions of dollars a year and supports a lavish lifestyle -- complete with multiple homes, chauffeur-driven cars, and a private jet [...][snip] That less-known side of Sekulow was revealed in several interviews with former associates of his and in hundreds of pages of court and tax documents reviewed by Legal Times. Critics say Sekulow's lifestyle is at...

The Supreme Court buzz earlier today was all about Alberto Gonzales (a trial balloon that I think failed badly once again), then Miguel Estrada, then Karen Williams. Now there's an AP story out that adds pretty much every attorney in the United States. Estrada was burned during the hearings and has little stomach for the process -- he was twice nominated and twice filibustered. He's a stealth candidate who is rumored to be pro-life. Estrada allegedly told associates of the National Organization of Women (NOW) at a luncheon in 1994 that he believes abortion to be murder -- but are we really...