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President Trump must be deposed in a defamation lawsuit brought last year by a former contestant on "The Apprentice," a judge in Manhattan ruled Tuesday. In a court order, Judge Jennifer Schechter set a Jan. 31, 2019, deadline for both parties to be deposed in the lawsuit, the New York Post reported. The parties also now face a July 13 deadline to issue requests for documents in the case. The lawsuit brought by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on "The Apprentice," alleges that Trump defamed her by publicly claiming she had fabricated claims that Trump groped and kissed her without...

A judge ruled on September 29 that federal agents who raided 1,400 safe-deposit boxes in March 2021 at a private vault company did not violate search and seizure laws, court documents shared with Insider show. A lawsuit filed in August alleged the FBI and the US attorney's office in Los Angeles obtained warrants against US Private Vaults in Beverly Hills, California, by concealing critical details from the judge who approved them. In his ruling, District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner found no impropriety in the way the government got or executed the warrants for the raid. He dismissed the class-action...

Special counsel John Durham and his team cannot tell jurors about how the primary source for the anti-Donald Trump dossier has had links to Russian intelligence, a U.S. judge ruled on Oct. 4. The FBI opened an investigation into Igor Danchenko, the dossier source, after a colleague of Danchenko’s tipped off authorities, saying Danchenko had said he could get the person money in exchange for classified information. The FBI investigation advanced after agents learned that Danchenko had been in touch with the Russian embassy and known Russian intelligence officers and had in the past been interested in becoming a Russian...

SNIP: GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A jury on Tuesday convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, delivering swift verdicts in a plot that was broken up by the FBI and described as a rallying cry for a U.S. civil war by anti-government extremists. The result was a big victory for the U.S. Justice Department. A different jury just four months ago couldn’t reach unanimous decisions on Adam Fox or Barry Croft Jr. but acquitted two other men, a stunning conclusion that led to a second trial. Their arrests nearly two years ago came...

There’s an interesting angle given the revelation that Judge Bruce Reinhart signed-off on the sketchy FBI search warrant for the residence of President Trump in Florida. .... Snip..... Considering the FBI predicate for the raid on Trump’s home, as currently identified, is exceptionally weak; and considering the profile of the raid would have landed upon an ordinarily reluctant judicial desk; what if the FBI had leverage over Bruce Reinhart as an outcome of the case against Epstein’s enabler, Ghislane Maxwell. The prosecutor in the New York case against Maxwell was former FBI Director James Comey’s daughter. The client files of...

Today, loyalty to the nation is again being questioned. As the Pelosi-Thompson-Cheney circus rolls on in D.C., signals are given that the Democrats, have their sights set on more than just the former President. Obviously, the primary purpose of the pseudo-hearing is twofold: Destroy Trump and keep January Sixth alive, until November. Recently retired judge Michael Luttig, said the quiet part out loud: “Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are still a clear and present danger to American democracy,” The comment harkens back to the McCarthy era hearings and guilt by association. Once a communist always a communist has...

A retired federal judge appointed by former President George H.W. Bush warned in an opinion piece published by CNN on Wednesday that Republicans are “already a long way toward recapturing the White House in 2024, whether Trump or another Republican candidate wins the election or not.” In his essay, J. Michael Luttig broke down what he called the “Republican blueprint” to steal the 2024 election ― the cornerstone of which, he said, was the Supreme Court’s embrace of the “independent state legislature” doctrine. The 2020 election fraud lies peddled by former President Donald Trump and his allies are just “the...

An Obama judge will not allow Hillary Clinton’s tweet claiming Trump colluded with Russia to be admitted as evidence in Michael Sussmann’s trial. As previously reported, Special Prosecutor John Durham wanted to use Hillary Clinton’s tweet accusing Trump of having a secret line of communication with Russian Alfa Bank as evidence in Michael Sussmann’s trial next month. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s motion to dismiss Durham’s case was denied by a federal judge a couple weeks ago. Sussmann was indicted last September for lying to the FBI. According to the indictment, Sussmann falsely told James Baker he wasn’t...

US District Court Judge Reggie Walton said Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. Walton made the comments Thursday following the conviction of a January 6 defendant. Walton was appointed by former President George W. Bush. A federal judge on Thursday called Donald Trump a threat to democracy, accusing the former president of instigating a mob of "weak-minded" followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6, Politico reported. "I think our democracy is in trouble," US District Judge Reggie Walton said, "because, unfortunately, we have charlatans like our former president who doesn't, in my view, really care about democracy...

On Friday, Federal District Judge Amita Mehta ruled that a civil suit alleging a conspiracy to foment the Jan. 6 insurrection could proceed. In an extremely thorough and detailed 112-page ruling, Mehta concluded that the plaintiffs had made a “plausible” case that former President Trump himself was at the center of a conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power. While plausibility is not the same as proven, Mehta’s ruling is the first time such a finding has been made in an official proceeding.

Former President Donald Trump lost a bid Friday to toss lawsuits holding him responsible for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Federal Judge Amit Mehta rejected Trump’s attempt to dismiss the civil cases with a claim that he has absolute immunity because he was in office at the time. “To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step,” Mehta wrote in a 112-page ruling. “The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent, and the court believes that its decision is consistent with...

Judge Emmet Sullivan still refusing to dismiss Michael Flynn caseMore than a week after Flynn was pardoned by President Trump, Judge Sullivan still won't dismiss the casen a Freedom of Information case related to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, District Judge Reggie Walton said on Friday that Judge Emmet Sullivan doesn’t have a lot of options in dealing with the fact that President Trump granted Flynn a full pardon, “unless he takes the position that the wording of the pardon is too broad, in that it provides protections beyond the date of the pardon.” “I don’t know what impact...

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to fully restore an Obama-era initiative that protects undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, requiring officials to open the program to new applicants for the first time since 2017. Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn instructed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to post a public notice by Monday that states the department will accept and adjudicate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) petitions from immigrants who qualify for the program but are not currently enrolled in it. Garaufis also instructed officials to...

A District Court judge in Carson City on Friday ruled against an attempt by President Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn Nevada’s presidential election results, saying there was insufficient evidence to support fraud accusations. Judge James Russell issued his order after hearing several hours of argument from attorneys representing both Trump and President-elect Joe Biden’s campaigns on Thursday. “The contestants failed to meet their burden to provide credible and relevant evidence to substantiate any of the grounds set forth in (Nevada’s election contest statute) to contest the November 3, 2020 general election,” Russell wrote to close his 35-page order. Russell ruled...

D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an unusual order Wednesday appointing a law firm partner "to present arguments in opposition to the government's motion to dismiss" the matter -- and to consider whether the court should hold Flynn in contempt for perjury. The partner, retired federal judge John Gleeson, has openly criticized the Trump administration's handling of Michael Flynn's case, raising concerns that he was selected to improperly bolster Sullivan's efforts to keep the Flynn case alive even though both the government and defendant want it dismissed. Sullivan has previously suggested Flynn may have committed treason, in a bizarre...

BREATHITT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — The County Judge Executive for Breathitt County was arrested on Tuesday on 18 felony counts. These recent charges are separate from the charges that Jeff Noble was indicted for at the beginning of August. Noble was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly spending $986.08 on diesel for his personal vehicle. Noble had charged the County Road Department and Breathitt County General Fund for the diesel. According to the arrest citation, Noble filled his personal vehicle's tank with diesel on 16 separate occasions.

An Arkansas judge accused of swapping sex for reduced sentences resigned after a state commission said it discovered thousands of photographs from his computer depicting nude male defendants. In a letter to the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, Cross County District Judge Joseph Boeckmann said his resignation was effective immediately, and that he would never again seek a job as a local, county or state employee. The commission said it was in the process of recovering as many as 4,500 photos. "They all depict young men, many naked who are in various poses inside the judge's home and outside in...

...District Judge John Dietz, declaring the money used to collect signatures "an unauthorized, illegal contribution," granted the Democratic Party a temporary restraining order to block Green Party candidates from being certified for the November ballot. Democrats contended that a petition drive to put Green candidates on the ballot was actually an effort to help Perry, a Republican, by diverting votes from his Democratic challenger Bill White... It had struggled earlier to get the required 43,991 petition signatures for its candidates to make the ballot. At a hearing Thursday, Green Party member Garrett Mize testified that Perry's former chief of staff,...

People called, wrote notes and went in person to offer condolences and support after a southwest Oklahoma City pharmacist was charged Wednesday in connection with last week’s shooting death of a robbery suspect, the store owner said this morning. Douglas Sizemore, owner of Reliable Discount Pharmacy at 5900 S Pennsylvania Ave., said despite a first-degree murder charge against employee Jerome Ersland, 57, the store is open and Ersland’s status as pharmacist has not changed. Ersland’s actions during a robbery attempt left a 16-year-old dead. “We’ve had tons of calls and letters from people who want to help and we are...

U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent was sentenced today to 33 months in prison for obstruction of justice related to an investigation of a judicial misconduct complaint filed against him, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer and Andrew R. Bland III, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Houston office announced. Kent, 59, a district judge in the Southern District of Texas, pleaded guilty to obstructing a special investigative committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit during an investigation of a judicial misconduct complaint filed against him. Kent was sentenced in federal court in Houston by...