Free Republic

John Huber will continue to serve as the U.S. attorney for Utah, at least for the time being. Huber was given a reprieve by the U.S. Justice Department and will stay on as an interim U.S. attorney for the state for the next four months. Huber was one of 46 U.S. attorneys who were asked by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions last Friday to resign. ... Huber joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office since 2002 and was appointed to become Utah’s U.S. Attorney in February 2015 with the support of Sen. Orrin Hatch. Huber was confirmed by the Senate in June...

SALT LAKE CITY — Former presidential hopeful Evan McMullin stated Friday he may run for public office again and is considering the possibility of challenging either Rep. Jason Chaffetz or Senator Orrin Hatch. McMullin made the comments Friday during an AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread on Reddit in the “EnoughTrumpSpam subreddit. One user asked McMullin if he is considering running against Jason Chaffetz in 2018, and McMullin responded from a verified Reddit account to say he is considering such a move but must consider the desires of Utah constituents.

"It is possible that I will challenge Chaffetz or Senator Hatch, but there are a lot of factors that go into that decision," McMullin said. "One of the primary factors is what the people of Utah want. Plenty of people outside of Utah or who do not vote in the Republican primary are eager to see Chaffetz replaced

On March 9, the Utah legislature passed HB 204. It says in future presidential years, Utah will hold presidential primaries. The bill does not include details such as how candidates get on the ballot, or when the primary will be, or whether all qualified parties are included. Those will be fleshed out in next year’s legislature session.

Utah could soon have the strictest DUI threshold in the nation after state lawmakers on Wednesday night voted to lower the limit for a driver's blood-alcohol content to 0.05 percent, down from 0.08 percent. The measure heads to Utah's governor, who has said he supports the legislation.

Republican leaders in Maine and Utah are asking President Donald Trump to step into uncharted territory and rescind national monument designations made by his predecessor. The Antiquities Act of 1906 doesn't give the president power to undo a designation, and no president has ever taken such a step. But Trump isn't like other presidents. Former President Barack Obama used his power under the act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development. Obama created the Katahdin Woods and...

Dan Love, a controversial law-enforcement agent for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is the subject of several investigations into his actions as special-agent-in-charge of BLM activities in Utah and Nevada. Most recently, Congressman Jason Chaffetz alleges that Love may have destroyed files, withheld documents, and coached witnesses in order to avoid a Congressional investigation. Chaffetz asked the Department of Interior (DOI) Inspector General to investigate the allegations. Love is also the focus of a DOI Inspector General report that states he used his position to gain perks at the annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada. The report states that...

The truth is being revealed, as we all prayed that it would. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Agent Daniel P. Love has been breaking the law for years. Using and abusing his authority to run his own personal fiefdom. Bullying citizens until they commit suicide. All while believing he was above the law. Or so a report released last month seems to indicate. ... On February 14th, a letter from U.S. Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, named Daniel P. Love and questions an investigation that points to the deletion of hundreds of documents the day before a...

The storm producing torrential rain in coastal Southern California into Friday night will also threaten lives and property in the deserts of Arizona, California and Nevada this weekend. In a sense, the rainfall will be like a fast-moving tropical system. A general 1 to 3 inches of rain will fall with locally higher amounts over the south-facing slopes of the mountains into Saturday night. "Much of this rain may fall in a few hours' time, which is more than enough to cause significant runoff, flash and urban flooding due to the landscape in the region," according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Evan...

The Forgotten Man is back with a vengeance. Since Amity Shlaes revived the phrase in the title of her best-selling history of the Great Depression, “the Forgotten Man” has come to stand in for the losers in the left’s identity politics. Thus, the 21st-century Forgotten Man has a conventional-sounding name, is heterosexual, never went to graduate school, and does not know where the 202 area code is. (It’s Washington, D.C.) The Forgotten Man has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. President Donald Trump name-checked this retro superhero in his Nov. 9 victory speech and his...

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is asking the White House to provide his panel with details about how sensitive information was handled during a weekend meeting at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. In a letter to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Chaffetz requested detailed explanations of the Trump administration's security protocols at the Florida estate, including what documents were present at Saturday's powwow and how the administration vetted club guests. The request came after it was revealed that Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting in plain sight on Saturday to discuss North Korea's...

FBI agents admit in court papers that they had no arrest warrant when they took Duane Ehmer into custody at a checkpoint outside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 27, 2016, contrary to an agent's testimony earlier this week. It wasn't until the day after Ehmer's arrest that a federal magistrate judge signed a criminal complaint against Ehmer based on an FBI agent's probable cause affidavit. Ehmer's lawyer Michele Kohler has urged the judge to suppress evidence found in what she contends was an unlawful search of Ehmer's car and horse trailer after his arrest without a warrant. ......

Washington Republicans this weekend faced more protests at public events -- backlash that appears to be growing against President Trump and the GOP-led Congress for trying to dismantle ObamaCare ... Florida GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis faced about a hundred people at a town hall, ... Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (school entrance blocked, BLM screaming "shame") ... Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz met by frequent, deafening boos at a town hall event in which constituents .... California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted by police from a town hall event as protesters...

Hundreds of jeering, shouting, angry voters, jam-packed in a high school auditorium, lashed GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz at his town hall meeting in the heart of red-state Utah. Chaffetz was frequently drowned out by boos at Brighton High School, in a Salt Lake City suburb, over the course of Thursday night’s meeting, which he cut short. He was booed when he walked on stage, and he was often booed when he mentioned the name “Trump.” The House Oversight Committee chairman was challenged on Donald Trump’s threat to eliminate Obamacare, his vow to slash support for women’s health by cutting Planned...

Any news story involving Romney running for any office is postworthy by definition for a veteran Romney trollblogger like me. But let’s be real: A freshman senator at age … 71, which is what he’d be on election day 2018? As good as he looks and as healthy as he seems, it’s rare — maybe even unprecedented — for a senator to be popularly elected to a first full term in his 70s. This list notes 12 who were 75 or older when they were first seated, but nine were appointed to fill vacancies and two more were chosen...

Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney could run for the United States Senate in 2018, according to a Friday interview with Deseret news. The former presidential candidate will not commit to a Senate run, but refuses to rule out the possibility. “I don’t have any predictions on what I might do. I’m not going to open a door and I’m not going to close a door. All doors are open,” Romney said after mentioning the 2018 Senate race.

The Utah House called Friday for a convention of the states to consider new amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which supporters said is the only way to rein in an out-of-control federal government. It passed HJR3 on a 45-29 vote, and sent it to the Senate for consideration. The resolution calls for a convention that would consider amendments to "impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress." "We are in jeopardy of losing our republic," said HJR3's sponsor,...

As trials of political prisoners on trumped up charges by the central government loom, charges that have either been dismissed or they have been acquitted of in Oregon, the Bureau of Land Management agent in charge has now allegedly been found guilty of misconduct by the Inspector General; and a Bundy case attorney is going after him. ... Attorney Chris Rasmussen filed a Motion For Review of BLM Personnel Records after a scathing report released by the Office Of The Inspector General, said a Special Agent In Charge of the BLM was found to have committed Ethical Violations and Misconduct...

SALT LAKE CITY — The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General investigated an unnamed Bureau of Land Management supervisory agent in Salt Lake City for more than a year on ethics complaints, with the independent panel concluding that breaches had occurred. The agent, which the Deseret News has confirmed is Dan Love through a source familiar with the investigation, is accused of using his position to secure preferential treatment for his family during the 2015 Burning Man event in Nevada, including using federal law enforcement officers as personal escorts for their safety, using his BLM vehicle to transport his girlfriend...

A disgraced former English teacher confessed that she had lost sight of her “values” when she had sex with three of her students, but it wasn’t enough to get her out of jail on good behavior. According to the New York Post, Brianne Land Altice was ordered to serve at least two more years in prison after the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole made their ruling on Tuesday. The 37-year-old, who used to teach at David High School in Kaysville, Utah, was slapped with three felony counts of forcible sex abuse in 2015, and was sentenced to 2-30 years...