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New York Attorney General Letitia James may reportedly wait for a New York court to rule on former President Donald Trump’s appeal to hold off posting a $454 million bond or have it reduced. Trump must post a liquid (cash, securities) bond by Monday’s deadline to block James from enforcing a civil fraud judgment. A New York Appeals Court could rule anytime this week on Trump’s appeal. The court generally issues rulings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Washington Post reported. “James might start slowly,” the New York Times reported Monday on her potential action against Trump. “She could even wait...

Former President Donald Trump has been unable to secure the $454 million bond, the full amount of the civil fraud judgment against him, which he must post in order to appeal, his attorneys said in a filing Monday. Trump offered last month to post a $100 million appeal bond rather than the full amount as the process plays out in court, but the judge denied the proposal. Trump's "ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is 'a practical impossibility,'" the former president's lawyers said, per NBC News. "These diligent efforts have included approaching about...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide whether former President Donald Trump can be tried on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In a one-page unsigned order, the justices ordered a federal appeals court to continue to keep on hold its ruling rejecting Trump’s claims of immunity from prosecution, and they fast-tracked the case for oral argument in late April. Trump was indicted in Aug. 2023 on four counts arising from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan originally...

Former President Donald Trump must pay nearly half a billion dollars as a bond to New York State before he can appeal the ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron last week that he must pay $354 million in fines — over $450 million, with interest — for fraud. Critics have noted that Trump is the only person ever to be sued under an obscure New York fraud statute that does not require any harm be done, and that effectively criminalizes the everyday practice of real estate valuations in negotiations with banks. Though Attorney General Letitia James — who ran for office...

A federal judge has rejected a request by former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro to be allowed to stay out of prison while he appeals a conviction for contempt of Congress.Mr. Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress after defying a pair of subpoenas from the now-disbanded House committee that investigated the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which was controlled at the time by Democrats. He was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced last month to serve concurrent four-month prison terms.The former adviser argued throughout the subpoena process, at trial,...

As we reported earlier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against former President Donald Trump in his appeal on presidential immunity from prosecution. The three-judge panel affirmed the ruling of the District Court in the matter. The appeal delayed the start of the election interference case that had been set for March 4. Now, it should be noted that even though the ruling went against Trump, just the filing of it bought him some time, as George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley explained.“The most practical impact of this appeal was indeed the delay that...

A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday backed off her suggestion that the judge who oversaw E. Jean Carroll's two successful civil defamation trials against the former U.S. president might have had a conflict of interest. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba said she was satisfied that the judge and Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related, did not have a "mentor-mentee relationship" when they worked at the same law firm three decades ago.... "The point of my January 29 letter was to verify whether the information contained in the...

Donald Trump's lawyers intend to appeal his staggering $83.3 million defamation lawsuit loss to E. Jean Carroll by arguing there was an 'insane' conflict of interest at the heart of the case. The former president's legal team are set to appeal on the grounds there was a conflict of interest between Carroll's lawyer and the judge presiding over her case. Trump's firebrand attorney Alina Habba claimed she was unaware that Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan - who are not related - worked together in the early 1990s, with the judge serving as her 'mentor', reports the New...

An angry Donald Trump responded on social media Friday to the stunning $83.3 Million verdict in a New York courtroom ordering him to pay advice columnist E. Jean Carrol – who accused the former president of sexual assault – for defaming her. "Absolutely ridiculous!" he raged on his social media platform Truth Social. "THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" He vowed to appeal the decision:Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being...

Maine’s Democrat secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, is so determined to promote “trust in our free, safe and secure elections” that she wants to make sure voters in the state aren’t allowed to vote for the leading GOP contender, former President Donald Trump. After Trump appealed Bellows' unilateral decision to keep his name off the Republican primary ballot, Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy called for a hold on her decision while the nation waits for the Supreme Court to weigh in on a similar situation in Colorado.Waiting for the nation’s top court to render judgment was just too inconvenient for...

On November 17, 2023, a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in the case of USA v Kersee, unanimously held the district court order revoking his supervised release was not Constitutional. The reason was the district court did not afford him his constitutionally guaranteed right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. The charges in the case came from alleged domestic violence.There are parallels with the Rahimi case. Both cases involve domestic violence charges. In both cases, the accused have not been convicted of domestic violence. In the Rahimi case, there are additional charges in...

I hope you are sitting down when you read this article. There is absolutely no way I can possibly sugar coat this, so I’ll just be frank… The NYS Supreme Court Appellate Division’s Fourth Judicial Department has issued their ruling in our quarantine lawsuit against Governor Hochul and her Department of Health, and they have ruled against the will of the people! If you feel like you just got sucker-punched in the gut, join the club, my friends. The court has dismissed our lawsuit, not because we are wrong in our arguments… no, no, indeed we are dead-right. In fact,...

A Texas judge ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying Sandy Hook massacre victims' families more than $1.1 billion for his conspiracy theories that the 2012 shooting was a hoax. U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez of Houston issued the ruling Thursday. "The families are pleased with the Court’s ruling that Jones’s malicious conduct will find no safe harbor in the bankruptcy court," said lawyer Christopher Mattei, who represents the families. "As a result, Jones will continue to be accountable for his actions into the future regardless of his claimed bankruptcy."

The evidence-tampering statute being used by the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants is unconstitutionally broad, interferes with First Amendment free speech, and has left prosecutors with “unbridled, standardless discretion to effectively make up their own law,” a new Supreme Court filing argues. The High Court is considering whether to take up a challenge to the use of the law (pdf) brought by Jan. 6 defendant Edward Jacob Lang, 28, of New York. Mr. Lang, at least 317 other defendants, and former President Donald Trump have been charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding: the...

Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2 This statement by Judge Chutkan in her landmark ruling denying Trump exec privilege protections from House Democrats J6 committee alone should be disqualifying. There is no way she can objectively oversee Jack Smith's J6 case against Trump. 12:18 PM · Aug 6, 2023

Under President Joe Biden, the government has faced intense scrutiny for its efforts to curb disinformation online, with critics contending that such undertakings were in truth an attempt to silence opposition to government narratives. The Biden administration will appeal a recent judicial order that a range of administration officials, including the entire FBI and DOJ, refrain from contacting social media companies to have First Amendment-protected content removed.Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty issued the order on July 4. The case is part of an effort by Republican-led states to challenge the administration's coordination with social media platforms, which they...

A pregnant Florida woman charged with fatally shooting a mother of three in an Uber last year is arguing to be let out of jail because her unborn child hasn’t committed a crime. In an unusual legal argument, attorneys for Natalia Harrell, 24, filed a motion on behalf of her fetus, asserting that it shouldn’t be behind bars without being charged with an offense. “The State has placed the unborn child in such inherently dangerous environment by placing the unborn child in close proximity to violent criminal offenders,” the filing asserts. Harrell’s child, it argues, is receiving inadequate pre-natal care...

The family of Tyre Nichols has filed an urgent appeal to the United Nations, requesting action “regarding the torture and extrajudicial killing” of Nichols. “Today, we filed an Urgent Appeal before the United Nations asking it to condemn the tragic killing of Tyre Nichols, to demand transparency from the police department, and to demand that Officer Preston Hemphill and all officers that participated in the incident are criminally charged,” attorneys for the family said in a statement. “The video evidence shows that all who were involved in Tyre’s death committed reprehensible acts that require international condemnation,” they continued. According to...

A Russian court on Tuesday rejected Brittney Griner’s appeal after the jailed WNBA star begged for forgiveness for her “mistake” — upholding her nine-year sentence on drug charges. Griner and her lawyers had asked for acquittal or at least a more lenient sentence, which they said was disproportionate to the offense and at odds with Russian judicial practice. The presiding judge said the verdict was upheld “without changes” except for the counting of time served in pre-trial detention as part of the sentence. Griner is now expected to be moved to a penal colony. The US chargee d’affaires in Moscow,...

Derek Chauvin could not afford an attorney to appeal his convictions in the case of George Floyd. Chauvin’s insurance did not extend to appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court denied him a public defender. Although I thought Chauvin could not have received a fair trial in Hennepin County, it looked like he wouldn’t be able to raise the issue on appeal either. I put out the call on Power Line for some member of the Minnesota bar to represent Chauvin on appeal. In the best tradition of the American legal profession, my friend Bill Mohrman answered the call. Chauvin’s legal...