Free Republic

Tony Blinken could be the first-ever secretary of state to face criminal charges from Congress, after House Republicans said they plan to hold him in contempt for failing to produce documents about the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) said Sunday that he will "move forward to contempt proceedings" against Blinken. "This would be the first time a secretary of state has ever been held in contempt by Congress and it's criminal contempt, so I don't take it lightly," McCaul said on ABC’s This Week. McCaul’s comments come after Blinken missed a deadline last...

Nine U.S. House Democrats have asked the Justice Department to release American environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who spent decades battling Chevron Corp over pollution in the Ecuadorian rainforest. The disbarred lawyer was handed a six-month imprisonment sentence in October for criminal contempt arising from a lawsuit brought by the oil company. The Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib on Monday said in a letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland that the lawyer was jailed for "petty contempt of court". "As the United States is a party to the District Court case against Mr. Donziger, we request that you...

A federal judge in South Dakota is on the warpath against the US Marshals service that provides courtroom security, accusing them of ‘kidnapping’ and criminal contempt after they refused to disclose Covid-19 vaccination status. On Monday, US District Judge Charles Kornmann fulminated for nearly an hour at the courthouse in Aberdeen, as Justice Department lawyers and two of the Marshals he wants criminally prosecuted took notes. “This was such an outrageous thing to do,” the judge reportedly said, according to the Washington Post, referring to the incident last month when a female deputy refused to tell him if she was...

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan will consider whether to find former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in criminal contempt of court after the Department of Justice (DOJ) moved last week to drop its prosecution of Flynn for lying to the FBI. Sullivan issued an order Wednesday appointing retired judge John Gleeson as amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) to argue against the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case, as well as to advise the court on whether it should begin contempt proceedings. New Flynn Filing – Judge Sullivan appoints retired Judge John Gleeson as amicus "to present arguments in opposition to...

Today in Texas, former prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty to intentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man, Michael Morton, to prison for the murder of his wife. When trying the case as a prosecutor, Anderson possessed evidence that may have cleared Morton, including statements from the crime's only eyewitness that Morton wasn't the culprit. Anderson sat on this evidence, and then watched Morton get convicted. While Morton remained in prison for the next 25 years, Anderson's career flourished, and he eventually became a judge. In today's deal, Anderson pled to criminal contempt,...

A Texas Republican plans to introduce a resolution of Articles of Impeachment for Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday. Rep. Pete Olson’s (R-Texas) office said this morning that “this was not a decision made lightly,” but comes with Holder’s “pattern of disregard for the rule of law and refusal to be forthright with Congress and the American people” since being held in contempt in June 2012. That 255-67 vote on criminal contempt, which included 17 Democrats, was tied to the Fast and Furious scandal and marked the first time Congress has found an attorney general in contempt. A measure of...

WASHINGTON – A judge has dismissed charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct and has ordered a criminal contempt investigation of the prosecutors. "In nearly 25 years on the bench, I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case," U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said in the opening moments of a hearing.

<p>Maryland Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele has asked the state Court of Appeals to begin criminal contempt proceedings against four Democratic state senators who contacted judges about redistricting while the court was hearing lawsuits over the new legislative map.</p>