Free Republic

A federal judge on Monday sentenced the undocumented man acquitted of murder in the 2015 shooting death of a woman on a San Francisco pier to the seven years he's already spent in jail -- bringing to a legal close the case that ignited a national firestorm over immigration, crime and sanctuary cities.

The We Build the Wall campaign to crowdfund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border was spearheaded by Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage and Steve Bannon, the erstwhile chief White House strategist to former President Donald Trump. Along with two associates, Kolfage and Bannon were indicted in August 2020 on charges that they siphoned donors’ money from the organization for their personal use. Steve Bannon was pardoned by President Trump. Brian Kolfage pleaded guilty after months of threats and abuse by his government. It should be noted that the We Build the Wall organization accomplished more than the US government and...

A federal judge on Friday tossed Trump’s lawsuit seeking to block New York Attorney General Letitia James’ witch hunt investigation into the former president’s business practices. U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes for upstate New York, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling just one day after a state appeals court ruled Trump must testify under oath. “While the New York proceeding has been ongoing since August 2020, Plaintiffs have submitted no evidence that the subpoena enforcement proceeding has been conducted in such a way as to constitute harassment,” Sannes wrote in a 43-page decision. Trump’s lawyers said they will immediately appeal...

WASHINGTON—Testimony that suggested the Donald Trump-Russia claims given to the FBI by a Hillary Clinton lawyer may have been fabricated will be struck from the record, along with mention of the email that triggered the testimony, a judge has ruled. On Tuesday, FBI agent Curtis Heide was presented with an email sent by Rodney Joffe to researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology dated Sept. 14, 2016. Joffe discussed one of the white papers Michael Sussmann, a lawyer representing both Joffe and the Clinton campaign, later handed over to the FBI alleging a secret link between Trump and a Russian...

Amos Miller, an Amish farmer who runs a holistically managed small farm in Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania, grows and prepares food in tune with nature, the way he believes God intended. This seems like a sound idea to the approximately 4,000 customers who purchase Miller’s meat, eggs and dairy products from his private, members-only food club. The federal government, however, appears to disagree. A federal judge recently ordered Miller to cease and desist all meat sales, Our Organic Wellness reported. U.S. marshals were deployed to search Miller’s property. They inventoried his stock to assure he doesn’t sell or slaughter more animals. In...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in California has dismissed a securities fraud and defamation lawsuit filed by a Tesla investor against CEO Elon Musk, one of Musk's supporters and Tesla. In an order filed Thursday, Judge James Donato threw out the lawsuit by the investor, Aaron Greenspan, who runs a legal document website. Donato wrote that the lawsuit had failed to make plausible legal claims. Donato had previously dismissed the case in June, but he offered Greenspan the opportunity to file another complaint on federal legal issues. The judge wrote that claims such as defamation that were made...

A federal judge is standing by a previous ruling that an Indiana transgender student must be allowed to use the boys restroom. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, an Obama appointee, has denied a motion from the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville to put on hold a previous injunction forcing John R. Wooden Middle School to allow the transgender student to use the boys bathroom, WTHR-TV reported. Pratt ruled the district failed to show evidence that proved it would suffer "irreparable harm" if the student was allowed to use the boys restroom. "In addition, the School District has not presented any new...

As the trial against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann begins, questions have emerged over the judge’s apparent conflicts of interest.,/A>Judge Christopher “Casey” CooperIn additional to having been “professional acquaintances” with the defendant, US District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper, an Obama appointee (who was on Obama’s transition team), is married to lawyer Amy Jeffress who’s representing key ‘Russiagate’ figure Lisa Page in her lawsuit against the FBI. Jeffress also served as a top aide to former Attorney General Eric Holder, while current Attorney General Merrick Garland presided over the 1999 wedding of Cooper and Jeffress. Amy JeffressIn a Wednesday Zoom call,...

A federal judge in San Francisco tossed a lawsuit from former President Trump against Twitter because of its decision to ban him from the platform after the January 6 riots in Washington D.C. In his suit, Trump alleged that Twitter and other social media companies which moved to curb his speech were acting as de facto government agents and were therefore infringing on his first amendment rights.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday ordering a central Indiana middle school to allow a transgender student to have access to the boys restroom. The order issued by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt requires John R. Wooden Middle School to allow the seventh-grader identified only as A.C. to have access to the restroom while litigation continues. Pratt cited Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. “The overwhelming majority of federal courts — including the...

A federal judge ruled on Monday that a federal prisoner is entitled to surgical procedures that will alter his body in order to accommodate his “transgender” identity. As reported by USA Today, Judge Nancy Rosenstengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois ordered the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to provide a surgeon who will perform the operation for a prisoner going by the name of Christina Iglesias, a man who believes that he is a woman. The decision ended a case that has lasted for three years. Under the conditions of Rosenstengel’s ruling, BOP...

A federal judge on Monday ruled that a group of Georgia voters can proceed with legal efforts seeking to disqualify U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection to Congress, citing her role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The challenge filed with the Georgia secretary of state’s office alleges Greene, a Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. That violates a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection, according to the challenge. The amendment says no one...

WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge imposed a prison sentence plus house arrest and probation on a Tennessee man who stormed the Capitol, saying the government wants to keep an eye on people like him as the 2024 presidential election approaches. U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell spoke at the Thursday hearing about the “conundrum” many sentencing judges are facing as they decide how to sentence a nonviolent Capitol riot defendant like Blake Reed, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building. There’s a trade-off in punishment, she said, with jail time on...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in a hearing in federal court on Friday, sought to quash a legal challenge that would bar her from running for another term in Congress. Federal Judge Amy Totenberg heard arguments from lawyers for Greene, a first-term member of Congress from northwest Georgia, and from voters in her district who want to block her from running for reelection. The lawsuit against Greene seeks to prevent her from appearing on future ballots because it alleges she violated the Constitution by encouraging and “facilitating” the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by supporters of former President...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials improperly downplayed the climate change effects from burning coal when they approved a large expansion of an underground Montana coal mine that would release an estimated 190 million tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, a court ruled. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling that Interior Department officials “hid the ball” during the Trump administration, by failing to fully account for emissions from burning the fuel in a 2018 environmental analysis. A judge previously ruled against the disputed expansion of Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountain mine in 2017,...

A federal judge this week denied a temporary restraining order sought by environmental groups that would block grazing in six eastern Oregon pastures. The Capital Press reports U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said the plaintiffs haven’t shown that turning cattle out on the pastures will cause irreparable harm to sage grouse or to rangeland research. He said continued grazing isn’t likely to irreparably harm the ability of environmental plaintiffs to enjoy undisturbed sagebrush grassland, since the pastures have long been grazed and are rested on a rotating basis. The case was filed against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management by...

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled that portions of the law restricting the use of ballot drop-boxes, assistance for voters, and third-party voter registration drives violated the Voting Rights Act and constitutional protections because they were passed "with the intent to discriminate against Black voters."

Quite a blockbuster ruling from the federal district court. The court found that in enacting certain election laws limiting registration outreach and the use of drop boxes, Florida violated the Voting Rights Act. The court also found that Florida acted intentionally discriminating against the state’s black voters. And although the parties hardly briefed it, the Court imposed a very strong remedy of requiring that certain changes in voting rules in Florida be precleared before the court for a period of 10 years under section 3c of the Voting Rights Act.

A lawsuit that aimed to stop the Obama Presidential Center from being built in Chicago’s historic Jackson Park has been dismissed by a federal judge. The crux of Protect Our Parks’ complaint is that under regulatory statutes, federal agencies should have considered relocating the proposed Obama center site entirely to avoid damage to the environment, according to the lawsuit. The city and Obama Foundation officials have said federal agencies closed the final review into the project because they determined the Obama center’s construction and nearby roadway fixes would not pose a “significant impact” on the environment - a finding the...

Some on the right were concerned when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated a potential willingness to support the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Republicans indeed have shown more openness to support the nominees of Democrat presidents compared to vice versa, and given that Jackson’s confirmation wouldn’t change the balance of the court, it seemed possible that McConnell might ultimately join with Democrats and support her confirmation.But, Jackson has squandered that goodwill with her evasive answers during her confirmation hearings, and McConnell has since expressed concern that Jackson has been “evasive and unclear.”“She’s declined to...