Free Republic

Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.... Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social...

John Dowd, a personal attorney to President Trump, resigned his post Thursday amid a shake-up in the president’s legal team as Trump has sought more firepower to deal with the special counsel’s Russia investigation. The resignation came Thursday, according to three people familiar with the decision. Dowd declined to comment. Dowd’s departure was a largely mutual decision made after the president lost confidence in his ability to handle special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and Dowd became frustrated with Trump’s recent efforts to bring on new attorneys, they said. In recent weeks, Dowd clashed with the president, including an...

President Donald Trump's legal team has approached high-profile attorney Theodore Olson about joining forces. The newspaper described Olson as a seasoned litigator, who served as solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration. The Post said Olson, 77, has long been considered a legal superstar.

It has been impossible these past few weeks to pick up a newspaper or turn on the news without being drawn into controversies arising out of confidential press sources. First, there was the Newsweek story, apparently based on a misinformed source, about mistreatment of the Quran at Guantanamo, that plunged that magazine into a violent international controversy. Then, "Deep Throat," the most famous confidential source of all, who guided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein through the mysteries of Watergate, revealed himself to be Mark Felt, a former deputy director of the FBI. These events have played out against the backdrop...

President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate two individuals and appoint three individuals to serve in his Administration: The President intends to nominate Carol E. Dinkins, of Texas, to be Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Ms. Dinkins is currently a Partner with Vinson and Elkins, LLP in Houston, Texas. From 1984 to 1985, she served as Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, where she previously served as Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division. The President intends to nominate Alan Charles Raul, of the District of Columbia, to...

Others with close White House connections say a short list is well into development. "There's a normal process that the White House has definitely been pursuing for at least six months where they are soliciting views and recommendations," said Samuel B. Casey, executive director of the Christian Legal Society (CLS). "We have submitted our views." Said one top Republican official with close ties to the White House: "The same four or five or six names keep coming up. I'm sure they have a short list already." Top administration and White House officials -- including Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Solicitor...

A prominent member of the Senate leadership recently described a Supreme Court justice as "a disgrace." An equally prominent member of the leadership of the House of Representatives on the other side of the political aisle has characterized another justice's approach to adjudication as "incredibly outrageous." These excoriations follow other examples of personalized attacks on members of the judiciary by senior political figures. So it is time to take a deep breath, step back, and inject a little perspective into the recent heated rhetoric about judges and the courts. We might start by getting a firm grip on the reality...

<p>Nobles: Solicitor General Theodore Olson, for honorable service and patriotic sacrifice.</p> <p>This week, Mr. Olson announced that he will soon be departing a post he has served with dignity and distinction since 2001.</p> <p>Mr. Olson will leave behind a remarkable record. Of the 26 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, Mr. Olson won 20 of the 23 decided to date. He also leaves a determined defense of democracy through his staunch support of the administration's legal action in the war on terrorism.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Solicitor General Ted Olson, who represented the Bush administration before the Supreme Court and became a voice for strong anti-terrorism policies after his wife died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Thursday he is resigning to return to private law practice. "I love this job, I love the people, I love everything about it," Olson, 63, told The New York Times. "But I'm at an age where it wouldn't be bad to get back to earning a little more money in the private sector." Olson, a conservative legal icon, said he would probably return to practice in...

Our sources are telling us that Theodore Olson resigned today as Solicitor General of the United States. Olson's wife Barabara was a passenger on American Airlines flight 77 when Muslin extremists crashed the plane into the Pentagon during the September 11 terrorist attacks. Olson has been an able and effective advocate before the Supreme Court since President Bush appointed him as Solicitor General in 2001. We thank him for his service to the country and the rule of law, and wish him well in his future endeavors.

Just announced on Fox News. Ted Olson, solicitor General is going into private practice in July.

WASHINGTON - Kids, don't try this at home. The Bush administration's top Supreme Court lawyer says he typed the words "free porn" into an Internet search engine on his home computer and got a list of more than 6 million Web sites. That's proof, Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the Supreme Court on Tuesday, of the need for a law protecting children from a tide of online smut. Internet porn is "persistent and unavoidable," Olson told the court, and government has a strong interest in shielding teenagers and younger children from it. The problem, as the Supreme Court has observed...

Filed at 1:18 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether authorities can imprison indefinitely hundreds of Cuban immigrant criminals and other illegal foreigners with no country to accept them. About 2,220 people are in jail now, in limbo because the U.S. government says they're too dangerous to be freed but they have no homeland. The Bush administration wants the court to say that longtime detentions are OK, especially in light of post-Sept. 11 concerns about protecting America's borders. But the government narrowly lost the last time the issue came before the high court....

<p>IT might be best for President Bush's opponents to drop the subject of his Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad. The more they talk about it, the longer it will remain in the public eye - which will only benefit Bush. But some on the increasingly loony Left just can't help themselves, because their compulsion to rant and rave and spew conspiracy theories overwhelms any practical political common sense they may once have possessed. On the Web site Counterpunch, edited by the veteran leftist journalist Alexander Cockburn, a man named Wayne Madsen announced on Saturday in a piece called "Wag the Turkey" that the whole trip was a fraud because he had figured out the president actually landed in Baghdad at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday. "Our military men and women," Madsen complained, "were downing turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and non-alcoholic beer at a time when most people would be eating eggs, bacon, grits, home fries and toast."</p>

<p>The Supreme Court said yesterday it would decide whether federal agents may sneak into foreign countries to arrest criminal suspects and bring them to the United States for trial, a case that tests the reach of the government's terrorism-fighting powers.</p>

U.S. argues it could impact capture of someone like bin Laden ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — The Supreme Court said Monday it would decide if federal agents can sneak into foreign countries to arrest suspected criminals and bring them to America for trial, a case that tests the reach of the government’s terrorism-fighting powers. The Bush administration said covert kidnappings of suspects overseas are rare, but that the government needs such authority. A LOWER court ruling would block federal agents from bringing Osama bin Laden to America to face charges in the Sept. 11 attacks, Solicitor General Theodore Olson...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it would decide if federal agents can sneak into foreign countries to arrest suspected criminals and bring them to America for trial, a case that tests the reach of the government's terrorism-fighting powers. The Bush administration said covert kidnappings of suspects overseas are rare, but the government needs that authority. A lower court ruling would block federal agents from bringing Osama bin Laden to America to face charges in the Sept. 11 attacks, Solicitor General Theodore Olson said, and jeopardizes U.S. efforts "to apprehend individuals who may be abroad, plotting other illegal attacks"...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) --The Bush administration has been asked by the nation's highest court to justify the secrecy concerning an Algerian man detained as part of a roundup of Muslim men after the September 11 terrorist attacks.</p> <p>In a brief note, the Supreme Court requested that the solicitor general file a response in the case, in which the federal government has refused to release the man's identity or even confirm the existence of the case and its circumstances. The immigrant has filed a habaes corpus appeal -- a document ordering person in custody to be brought before a court -- protesting his detention.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --  The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider overturning former President Clinton's orders protecting more than 2 million acres of federal land in five Western states.</p> <p>Clinton used a century-old law to create national monuments in places like California's Sequoia National Forest. Timber interests, recreation groups and Tulare County, Calif. argued at the Supreme Court that the restrictions on timbering there have been harmful.</p>

WASHINGTON — Land rights advocates (search) are scratching their heads as to why the White House has asked the Supreme Court not to hear two cases challenging seven controversial national monuments named by President Clinton in the waning days of his administration. During his race for president in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush campaigned against the monuments, giving hope to many western landowners who found their private property subject to strict federal protections. Three years later, the monuments remain, encompassing millions of acres of land in places like Montana, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho, where the government already owns huge chunks...