Free Republic

Election denier and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell continues to refuse to pay more than $50,000 in sanctions he has been ordered to pay to voting software company Smartmatic over "frivolous" election claims. "I'm in ruins," a teary Lindell said through a Zoom screen in a motion hearing in the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday, pleading to Judge Carl Nichols to allow him to wait until after the final judgement comes out to make any payment in the case, which he has already lost. Last month, Smartmatic filed a motion to hold Lindell in contempt, alleging the MyPillow CEO...

Prince Harry’s visa files must be made public by Tuesday at the latest, a judge has ruled. Judge Carl Nichols set the deadline to release the files The judge, who sits in Washington, approved the redactions suggested by the Department of Homeland Security and said they were ‘appropriate’. While it is not clear what material will be released, it could include forms which indicate whether Harry said ‘no’ when asked if he was a drug user. The right-wing Heritage Foundation sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year after the agency, which oversees immigration in America, refused a...

A federal judge refused Friday to block the destruction of classified documents as part of the building cleanout at the U.S. Agency for International Development, finding that records slated for shredding or burning are old or no longer needed. The documents don’t appear to be related to the ongoing court battles over the near-dismantling of USAID by the Trump administration, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols found as he refused to grant a temporary restraining order. The cases come as the Trump administration dismantles USAID, cutting off most federal money and terminating 83% of the programs abroad. All but a few...

A federal judge on Thursday declined to immediately spare U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors from mass firings, letting move forward a core part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the agency. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said USAID’s personal services contractors failed to prove they face irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits, denying their motion for a temporary restraining order that would have returned fired contractors to employment and allowed them to resume work. The judge said any harm the contractors face is “directly traceable” to changes the government has made to their...

A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to pull thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development staffers off the job. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols removed his temporary block on the effort to remove all but a small fraction of USAID staffers from their posts and give those abroad a 30-day deadline to move back to the U.S. at government expense. His ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by unions on behalf of workers. They say the rush to dismantle the agency had cut off some staffers overseas from emergency communications systems, including some in...

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols has ruled that President Donald J. Trump can place almost all of the employees at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on leave, paving the way for the agency’s absorption into the Department of State. Already, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has assumed control over the agency following revelations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that USAID engaged in the widespread waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

A federal judge said Friday he intends to temporarily block the Trump administration’s plan to place thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on leave at midnight. Unions representing government employees sued to stop the shutdown of agency operations and restart the flow of foreign aid frozen by President Trump, who has accused the agency of fraud and corruption to justify its imminent shuttering. Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by Trump during his first term, said he would issue a formal order later Friday but that a “limited, very limited” order temporarily pausing the plan would be handed down....

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from placing thousands of employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave Friday, halting plans to cut its workforce down to just a few hundred. Washington, DC, US District Judge Carl Nichols imposed a “very limited” restraining order on the administration, Politico reported, sparing at least 2,200 USAID employees from being put on paid leave at midnight. Administration officials had reportedly moved to gut the agency’s more than 10,000-person workforce by the end of the week down to just 290 or so staff members. Just 500 employees at USAID...

Despite President Trumps Blanket pardon of nearly all patriots persecuted over January 6th by a weaponized Dept. of Justice, some of those prisoners still remain in the D.C. jail. It is believed Judge Carl Nichols is responsible for the hold up. It is an outrage that prisoners held across the country can be released, travel to D.C. in support of those being held in what’s been dubbed “The D.C. Gulag,” and arrive by for the hostages in D.C. have been released. We talk to the J6ers just released and explain what needs to happen to get the others out.

Prince Harry's visa documents will not be made public, a judge has ruled in a major victory for the Duke of Sussex. In a court decision handed down on Monday, US District Judge Carl Nichols said the British royal had a 'reasonable privacy interest' in relation to his US immigration paperwork and therefore such files should remain private.... The decision comes after Judge Nichols spent five months reviewing Harry's immigration file as part of a case brought by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C... The judge said that some documents submitted to him by DHS...

Months after the federal district court expressed concern about the government conduct during its investigation in Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress case, the court has yet to hold a hearing on the claims that the prosecuting attorneys invaded the privacy of Bannon’s lawyer by subpoenaing his phone records and emails and potentially damaging the attorney-client relationship. The accusations against the prosecutors were detailed in several court filings over a year ago and Bannon had previously invoked them in a failed attempt to have the charges against him dismissed.

Judge orders Trump ally Steve Bannon to report to prison by July 1 to serve 4-month sentence

Even U.S. district court judge Carl Nichols recognizes that Bannon’s contempt conviction is likely to get tossed out, which is why he took the extraordinary step of issuing a stay of sentence pending appeal. When Bannon was subpoenaed by the J-6 Committee, Trump’s lawyer sent him a letter stating that the president invoked executive privilege and therefore directed him not to testify. Trump holds the privilege, not Bannon. Under law, Bannon cannot waive it or violate it. So, on advice of his own counsel, Bannon declined to testify. It was the correct advice. But at trial, Judge Nichols applied the...

Stephen Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison Friday for his defiance of a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The onetime Trump White House strategist was subpoenaed by the panel in September of last year after he failed to provide either the required documents or testimony as he railed against the committee. Bannon claimed that he was unable to comply with the committee’s subpoena due to executive privilege. However, the panel sought to speak to Bannon about events that occurred well after his short stint in the White House....

Notable Trump-supporting attorney Sidney Powell lost a key court battle on Wednesday when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed her suit against Dominion Voting Systems. The ruling opens the door for Dominion to continue pursuing its $1.3 billion defamation suit against Powell. In his three-page ruling, Judge Carl Nichols granted Dominion’s request to dismiss the case, noting that Powell failed to show that Dominion’s actions “constituted an abuse of justice.” An excerpt from the ruling reads: “Powell’s complaint fails to link her abuse-of-process claim to any act that Dominion has taken other than filing and pursuing its lawsuit. She...

A federal judge on Friday denied Steve Bannon’s request for a new trial and dismissal in the contempt of Congress case. “In the end, defendant offers little to demonstrate that the actual testimony be would elicit would have been material to the issues at trial. That falls short of his burden,” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee wrote. "Defendant also argues that his rights “to confrontation, to effective counsel, and to a fair trial” were also denied. But these arguments are underdeveloped. Defendant never explains the governing legal test for these theories, nor explains how the facts of...

Trump White House aide’s bid to delay case due to Jan. 6 panel hearings is denied. A federal judge on Monday eviscerated nearly all of Steve Bannon’s defenses against a charge that he criminally defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee, leaving the longtime Donald Trump ally with few options to fight the contempt of Congress case against him. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols also denied Bannon’s bid to postpone for three months the jury trial set to open next Monday, rejecting defense arguments that such a delay was warranted due to intense media coverage around the ongoing...

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...