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Steve Bannon suffered a setback ahead of his criminal trial when a judge on Wednesday ordered that he could not tell jurors he relied on advice from lawyers when he defied a subpoena to answer questions about the January 6 violence before Congress. He was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents and testimony to lawmakers investigating the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Bannon's lawyers argued in a February filing that he had acted in good faith, based on the advice of veteran defense attorney Robert Costello, that he could not give...

The Justice Department has been ordered to provide internal documents associated with its decision to prosecute former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. This is a victory for Bannon, who maintains that he had a valid legal basis for refusing to obey a subpoena from the House’s Jan. 6 special panel. U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols ordered the Justice Department to provide Bannon’s team with “statements or writings” that demonstrate how the decision to charge Bannon with contempt of Congress square with longstanding legal opinions of the Justice Department that hold that former presidential advisers are generally exempt from congressional subpoenas....

A federal judge has dismissed a felony obstruction charge alleging a participant in Jan. 6 Capitol riot attempted to prevent the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results. The ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge for the D.C. Circuit Carl J. Nichols, a Trump administration appointee, marks the second time in eight days the judge has issued such a dismissal. Nichols ruled in the case against Joseph Fischer, who works for the North Cornwall Township Police Department in Pennsylvania, that the obstruction charge does not stand. "Nothing in Count Three (or the superseding indictment generally) alleges, let alone implies, that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday ordered the Justice Department to provide former President Donald Trump's adviser Steve Bannon access to certain sensitive internal legal opinions or other related records that could potentially help bolster his defense against criminal contempt of Congress charges. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols told prosecutors they must produce "statements or writings reflecting official DOJ policy," including nonpublic opinions, that relate to "the department's policy on prosecuting or not prosecuting government or former government officials raising executive privilege claims or defenses of immunity."..... As part of his reasoning, Costello cited a number of prior...

A federal judge has thrown out an obstruction charge against a defendant charged with breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a ruling that could reverberate across hundreds of cases stemming from the attack on Congress. In a 29-page opinion issued Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols ruled that ambiguities in the federal obstruction law required him to narrow the case against defendant Garret Miller, who is facing multiple felony charges connected to the attack. Under that narrow interpretation, Nichols ruled, defendants can be charged with obstruction only if they directly attempt to affect “a document, record, or other...

(CNN)With only a few days left in February, court watchers are trying to read tea leaves as to the identity of President Joe Biden's pick for the Supreme Court before his end-of-the-month deadline -- and a federal court on Thursday increased the buzz around DC Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit deviated from its typical procedure by issuing an opinion on a Thursday -- breaking with its usual schedule of Tuesday and Friday release days. Notably, Jackson -- who has interviewed with Biden for the Supreme Court nomination -- was...

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols has issued a protective order in Steve Bannon's criminal contempt of Congress case, effectively barring him or his lawyers from releasing to the public case material given to them by prosecutors. However, any evidence related to the case that is already in the public sphere or obtained by Bannon outside of the evidentiary discovery process is not subject the judge's ruling. ... ...Bannon and his team had asked the judge not to issue the order, citing what they argue is the public's need to understand the case. But prosecutors told the judge they feared...

Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected former President Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege, holding that the archivist of the United States could provide a tranche of Trump’s presidential records to the House’s “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”In a unanimous ruling, the federal appellate court concluded that President Biden’s conclusion that “an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States” controlled and that the archivist, therefore, must hand over the first of three sets of documents requested. The court added, however, that it would...

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday against an effort by former President Donald Trump to shield documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. In a 68-page ruling, the three-judge panel tossed aside Trump's various arguments for blocking through executive privilege records that the committee regards as vital to its investigation into the run-up to the deadly riot aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election. Judge Patricia Millett, writing for the court, said Congress had “uniquely vital interests” in studying the events of Jan. 6 and said President Joe Biden had made...

Blowing Up The System SOURCE — DAILY BEAST Steve Bannon, who became the first person in nearly 40 years to be indicted on a charge of criminal contempt of Congress, now appears to be using his criminal case to go after the committee that went after him. Bannon is attempting to force investigators to expose who they’ve talked to and what they’ve said, peek into secret communications on the committee, and create a playbook for other resistant witnesses, according to several legal experts. “There’s no cost to opposing Congress if you can give Congress a black eye for even daring...

A federal judge just sided with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in his defamation suit against The Washington Post. . According to the federal judge, the Washington Post published an article with “at least reckless disregard of the truth that it had previously reported.” . From The Epoch Times: The paper said in its motion to dismiss that its correction erased any claims to malice, but U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected that argument. “A newspaper’s own prior (and correct) reporting that is inconsistent with its later (and incorrect) reporting could certainly give the paper reason to seriously doubt the truth...

Newsweek reported: A federal judge Wednesday ordered that three defamation lawsuits of $1.3 billion each filed by Dominion Voting Systems be allowed to continue after allies of former President Donald Trump filed requests that they be dismissed. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell are all named as defendants in lawsuits that will proceed, alleging that each of these parties made claims without evidence that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged the results of the 2020 presidential election by manipulating voting numbers. United States District Court Judge Carl Nichols, who is a Trump...