Free Republic

You may have seen that the Federalist Society has been holding its annual convention in Washington. I was there on Thursday and Friday. They have recorded all the presentations. If you want to watch some, go to this link and see what interests you. There was not a lot of moaning about the election results. Rather, the focus was on high-minded issues, mostly of constitutional and administrative law. I have selected a highlight that you may find interesting. One of the lunchtime panels on Thursday was titled “Render Law Unto Congress and Execution Unto the Executive: The Supreme Court Rebalances...

A group of prominent conservatives released a new report Thursday outlining their investigation into the 2020 election and have concluded former President Trump's claims of a stolen election are unfounded. The report, "LOST NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election," was put together by three former federal judges and eight conservative leaders who investigated Trump's claims. Over the course of a year, the group looked at all 64 cases of the Trump campaign's fraudulent claims in six key states and concluded that there were no substantial instances of fraud that would have...

The Dakota Access Pipeline is the major means used to transport oil produced in the Bakken region of North Dakota to an existing pipeline in Illinois which can take the oil to Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier this month a judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to cease operating so that a new environmental review, which could take a year or more, could be conducted. Fortunately, the U.S. Court of Appears for the District of Columbia has issued a stay of that ruling, at least while the appeals court reviews it.

Amid the chaos and anarchy across blue-city America that exclusively possessed public attention for the last couple of weeks, it was not hard to miss any other bit of news — especially if that news has not appeared or been even briefly mentioned by any major mainstream media outlet. Take for example the news of Hillary Clinton, who lost her appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 2, where she tried to avoid testifying under oath about her emails and the Benghazi case. The hearing in the D.C. Circuit came in the case...

The Department of Justice will appeal to the Supreme Court after it was ordered to hand over sealed documents from former special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation to Congress. The department on Friday asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay its ruling while it petitions the high court. "Whether and under what circumstances Congress may resort to the courts to seek grand jury materials generated in a criminal investigation in aid of an impeachment inquiry is plainly a question of great significance to all three branches of government, as well as to the functioning of the grand jury...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a ruling that allows House Democrats to view secret grand jury information from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe that had been redacted from his report. The court’s 2-1 decision agreed with a lower court that the House Judiciary Committee can obtain the information for impeachment investigations of President Trump under an exception for “judicial proceedings,” per the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. ~snip~ The DOJ, opposing the House Democrats, argued that because Trump had already been impeached and acquitted by the time the court was to rule, there was no longer a...

Judge Thomas Griffith on Thursday announced plans to retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, handing President Trump his third vacancy on the influential bench. Griffith is set to retire in September, just two months ahead of the 2020 election, as politics intensify the focus on Trump's conservative makeover of the federal courts. The judge, a George W. Bush appointee and 15-year veteran of the D.C. Circuit, made headlines last week when he ruled against House Democratic lawmakers who sought to enforce a subpoena against a former Trump aide. In a 2-1 opinion, Griffith ruled that...

WASHINGTON—A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Congress can have access to grand-jury materials from Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, sided with the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee, which sought access to material that was redacted from the 448-page special counsel report. as well as some of the exhibits and transcripts referenced in the report. ... TO READ THE FULL STORY

A federal appeals court in Washington threw out a lawsuit accusing President Trump of illegally profiting off his private businesses while in office, ruling that the Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit lack standing to bring the case. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said in a 12-page decision that the dispute centering around the Constitution's emoluments clauses has no place in the court system. "The Members can, and likely will, continue to use their weighty voices to make their case to the American people, their colleagues in the Congress and the President himself,...

A federal appeals court in Washington threw out a lawsuit accusing President Trump of illegally profiting off his private businesses while in office, ruling that the Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit lack standing to bring the case.

President Bush traveled to Pennsylvania State University to give a speech about Social Security reform in University Park, PA, and to speechify the Pennsylvania Future Farmers of America Convention, also at PSU. Making a day of it, in Bryn Mawr he stumped for Senator Rick Santorum, whose term expires next year. The Grove Family Dairy Farm in Shippensburg, PA, Chosen To Host Bush Visit. The president will attend the National Republican Senatorial Committee dinner in DC tonight. The Senate voted 73-24 to approve Thomas Griffith to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Secretary of State...

I don't trust this "goodwill gesture" from Dingy Harry As a "goodwill gesture,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has agreed to a floor vote on the nomination of Thomas Griffith. Of the gesture, Reid said, “Let's take a step away from the precipice. Let's try cooperation, rather than confrontation, which seems to be the hallmark of what we've been doing here lately.”

WASHINGTON — Eight Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans attended Thursday's session to vote on the appeals court nomination of Thomas Griffith to the D.C. Circuit. No committee Democrats showed up. Without a quorum, committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., canceled the proceedings. The committee needed 10 senators to vote on Griffith, who faced the panel in March for his nomination hearing. "Out of deference to our colleagues who are absent here today, we will not take the time of so many other senators here who have so many other pressing items and we will terminate our session here today," Specter said...

Hatch fires back at his conservative critics By Alexander Bolton Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is firing back at conservative critics on and off the Hill who have lambasted him for not moving more judicial nominees out of his committee. The rift stems from Hatch’s handling of a Senate sergeant at arms investigation into the unauthorized access of close to 5,000 internal Democratic Judiciary Committee documents from committee computers. Hatch approved the investigation, which resulted in the resignation of Manuel Miranda, who organized the GOP strategy on judges when he served as an aide...