Free Republic

Remember Eric Ciaramella? He’s the Ukraine whistleblower who lobbed a report sent to Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) office in 2019, which set off the first Trump impeachment effort. It’s where the whole drama started between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the perfect phone call where the crux of the charge against Trump is that there was an attempted quid pro quo arrangement: Zelensky would investigate Biden’s alleged felonious activities during the Burisma investigation, where a top Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired, in return for the United States not cutting off military aid. [snip] Ciaramella’s role – including high-level discussions...

Just weeks after learning Joe Biden had improperly retained government documents, his administration began working with federal bureaucrats in spring and fall 2021 to increase pressure on Donald Trump for similar issues and eventually prompt a criminal prosecution of the 45th president, according to government memos newly unsealed by a federal judge. The correspondence, released this week by U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida, provide the the most extensive accounting so far of how the Biden White House worked with federal bureaucrats to escalate pressure on Trump to return documents to the National Archives even as it slow-walked similar...

The recent wave of violent protests and arrests at elite universities like Yale and Columbia have only confirmed for Scott Katz that he made the right decision to attend Elon University. The North Carolina college, where he is currently wrapping up his sophomore year, is a long way from his hometown of Lafayette Hill, the predominantly liberal Philadelphia suburb where the average home costs $610,000. Katz, who is Jewish, says the antisemitism that’s increasingly visible at colleges nationwide—especially in the Ivy League, and other elite institutions like Stanford and Berkeley—hasn’t even touched his campus. “I haven’t been affected by it...

Federal regulators on Tuesday enacted a nationwide ban on new noncompete agreements, which keep millions of Americans — from minimum-wage earners to CEOs — from changing jobs within their industries. The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday afternoon voted 3-to-2 approve the new rule, which will ban noncompetes for all workers when the regulations take effect in 120 days. For senior executives, existing noncompetes can remain in force. For all other employees, existing noncompetes are not enforceable. The FTC heard from thousands of people who said they had been harmed by noncompetes, illustrating how the agreements are "robbing people of their...

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is concerned the US economy could be in for a repeat of the problems that hampered the country during the 1970s. "Yes, I think there’s a chance that can happen again," he said during an appearance Tuesday at the Economic Club of New York. The economy in that troubled decade was constrained by stagflation, a combination of low growth and high inflation, and Dimon said such a risk exists again. "I worry that it looks more like the seventies than we've seen before," he added during a question-and-answer session with Marie-Josee Kravis, chair of...

Though still far behind the number of cases granted for the next term this time last year, the court on Monday added two new cases to its docket for the 2024-2025 term. The justices agreed to weigh in on a challenge to a rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulating so-called “ghost guns” – firearms without serial numbers that virtually anyone can assemble from parts, often purchased in a kit. Garland v. VanDerStok was one of two cases granted on Monday on a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The dispute over...

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a legal challenge to a Texas law that requires voters under the age of 65 to provide justification to vote by mail, meaning that the Democrat-aligned attempt to sharply expand “no-excuse” mail-in ballots in the Lone Star state has failed, with implications for other states. According to an April 22 order list, the high court denied petition for a writ of cetriorari in a case that stems from a federal lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of the Texas Democratic Party and several voters who requested that Texas lift its age-based limitations...

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona judge declares a mistrial Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the U.S.-Mexico border. George Alan Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 30, 2023, shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico. Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward a group of men, including Cuen-Buitimea, about 100 yards (90 meters) away on his cattle ranch, prosecutors said. Kelly has said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t...

A Brooklyn man has been convicted of 13 weapons charges after having been arrested and charged in 2022 for building his own firearms. Dexter Taylor’s ordeal could become a landmark Second Amendment case in light of the Bruen ruling handed down in the same year. The jury found Taylor guilty of second-degree criminal possession of a loaded weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, five counts of criminal possession of a firearm, second-degree criminal possession of five or more firearms, unlawful possession of pistol ammunition, violation of certificate of registration, prohibition on unfinished frames or receivers. Two...

America First Legal (AFL) has sued the Biden administration's Health and Human Services (HHS) department as well as the National Archives (NARA) for allegedly deleting the emails of former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees. Last week AFL took legal action against HHS and NARA for allegedly deleting files against the law from CDC employees' emails. In a press release from AFL, the law firm stated that it was suing "Secretary Xavier Becerra, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for...

Jury selection has begun in the New York City “hush money” trial of Donald Trump, who is charged in a 34-count indictment with falsifying business records of the Trump Organization. This case is part of a Democrat-led effort to engage in lawfare on various Progressive battlefields. To date, Trump’s legal team has done a masterful job in fighting these politicized prosecutions with a variety of clever legal arguments and maneuvers. Yet even the best attorneys can overlook a compelling weakness in the prosecution’s case. Trump’s legal team has, without success, made dozens of strong arguments for dismissing his New York...

During oral arguments on Tuesday, Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito exposed the Biden administration’s inexcusable practice of selective prosecution of protesters and rioters. The case, Fischer v. United States, involved the contention by Pennsylvanian Joseph Fischer that the charges of “obstruct[ion of] … any official proceeding,” based on 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), should not apply to his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Fischer, who also was charged with assaulting police officers, is hardly a sympathetic figure. His claims that he wasn’t trying to obstruct or “impede” official (and important) congressional business, in the ordinary (nonlegal)...

A former senior policy adviser to the Obama administration has appeared in court in Britain charged with child sex offences. Rahamim 'Rami' Shy, 46, who co-ordinated the US government's strategy to combat terrorists from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, is accused of arranging the commission of a child sex offence, court documents reveal. He is also charged with possession of two category C indecent images of children and possessing a prohibited image of a child. Shy, a US citizen, who lives in New Jersey, worked for the White House under president Barack Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, was...

Here’s another “New Neighbors Update,” a chance to share some recent troubles Chicago’s newest residents have encountered with the legal system. Yuehigor Fajardo Gonzalez, a 30-year-old Venezuelan migrant living at the Standard Club shelter in the Loop, was arrested on April 9 after shelter staff members allegedly found him in possession of a single 9-millimeter bullet at the security checkpoint. Gonzalez told police that he got the bullet in Oklahoma and “he keeps the bullet in his pocket for good luck that he doesn’t get shot,” according to his arrest report. He’s charged with unlawful possession of ammunition without a...

A California bar court judge ruled in late March that John Eastman should be disbarred for helping President Donald Trump challenge the outcome of the 2020 election. Before the California Supreme Court reviews the case, Mr. Eastman asked a judge to pause the order prohibiting him from practicing law, so he could fund his defense in the criminal case brought against President Trump and his attorneys in Georgia. Jeffrey Clark, who also tried to help President Trump, is facing a similar disbarment hearing in Washington. The focal point is a “proof of concept” letter he drafted for President Trump in...

We have often discussed how cities and universities will use the threat of protests to block or shutdown free speech, particularly of conservative speakers or groups. We now have a major decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that could prove an important precedent in resisting the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. In Meinecke v. City of Seattle, the court ruled against Seattle in a case involving the arrest of a pro-life protester. Matthew Meinecke was harassed by Antifa and other counterprotesters, but police arrested Meineche when he refused to yield...

Once one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics, convicted attorney Michael Avenatti has been discussing possibly testifying on behalf of the former president in his hush money trial after he unleashed a tirade of criticism against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In X posts from his Los Angeles federal prison cell and in news media interviews, Avenatti has questioned the legitimacy of Bragg’s prosecution against Trump, even suggesting it was an interference in the 2024 election. “There’s no question it is politically motivated because they’re concerned that he (Trump) may be re-elected,” Avenatti told The New York Post in an interview...

Sidney Powell, a lawyer who filed lawsuits after the 2020 election, got a win in Texas after an appeals court ruled that the Texas bar did not prove that she engaged in misconduct or fraud. A panel of judges on the Fifth District of Texas Court of Appeals in Dallas ruled Wednesday that the state bar’s arguments lacked merit and evidence. They found that state bar prosecutors “employed a ’scattershot' approach to the case” that had alleged Ms. Powell did not have a reasonable basis to file lawsuits that challenged the 2020 election’s outcome in battleground states. “The Bar employed...

An alleged squatter accused of living in a $1 million home while earning money by renting out bedrooms to others has finally been charged. Brian Rodriguez was indicted on Thursday on charges of burglary, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, criminal trespass and criminal mischief. Homeowner Adele Andaloro had been checking on the home in Flushing, Queens, in February that she inherited when she realized the front door had been changed Prosecutors say that over several days Andaloro witnessed Rodriguez inside the property, and he claimed he was leasing the property. Andaloro is said to have saw several others...

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - Congressman Jake LaTurner, who represents Kansas’ second district in the U.S. House, said he will not run for re-election. The Republican lawmaker released the following statement on Thursday: “I will proudly serve the remainder of the 118th Congress, but after much prayer and consideration, I will not seek reelection this Fall. The people of Kansas who elected me to serve in the United States House of Representatives have given me the professional honor of my life, but it is time to pursue other opportunities and have the benefit of spending more time with my family. Suzanne...