Free Republic

A federal appeals court on Thursday halted Judge Aileen Cannon’s special master review in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case. In September, Judge Cannon appointed a special master to review the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. Biden’s corrupt Justice Department argued that a special master didn’t have a right to filter out the seized documents. The court blasted Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, and said she erred in appointing Raymond Dearie as a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. “The law is clear,” the judges wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to...

Afederal appeals court in Louisiana has ordered the release of two leaders the election watchdog group True the Vote after they were detained for contempt of court late last month. A panel of three GOP-appointed judges for the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals late Sunday ordered group President Catherine Engelbrecht and one-time board member Gregg Phillips to be released, show court documents obtained Monday by Just the News. A spokesperson for True the Vote told The Epoch Times Engelbrecht and Phillips are expected to be released Monday, "when the paperwork is complete." The two leaders were sent to jail...

The 8th Circuit US Appeals Court blocked Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program on Friday afternoon. The court granted an emergency stay barring the discharge of any student debt until the court decides on a request for a longer-term injunction. Reuters reported: A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in college student debt, one day after a judge dismissed a Republican-led lawsuit by six states challenging the loan-forgiveness program. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay barring the discharge of any student debt under the program...

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...

On Thursday U.S. District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby issued a temporary restraining order against portions of New York’s newest gun controls, including the requirement that concealed carry permit applicants have their social media scoured. The decision centered on the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), which New York Democrats passed and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed in response to the Supreme Court of the United States’ NYSRPA v. Bruen ruling (2022). ... Judge Suddaby issued a temporary restraining order against the character test, ruling against: . . . the provisions contained in Section 1 of the CCIA requiring “good moral character”...

A federal judge in Syracuse, New York has granted a temporary restraining order blocking the state and its political subdivisions from enforcing several provisions of the newly-enacted Concealed Carry Improvement Act, though he did stay his decision for three days to allow Attorney General Letitia James to file an emergency appeal with the Second Circuit.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy violates U.S. immigration law, dealing a blow to an Obama-era program that provides deportation protection and work permits to nearly 600,000 immigrant "Dreamers" who lack legal status. A three-judge panel for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the Obama administration did not have the legal authority to create DACA in 2012, affirming a July 2021 ruling from a federal judge in Texas who barred the Biden administration from enrolling new immigrants in the decade-old program. Despite its conclusion, the appeals court did not order...

The federal government has announced it will appeal the dismissal of its lawsuit against United States gun manufacturers. The government filed a US $10 billion lawsuit against gunmakers, including Smith & Wesson and Barrett Firearms in August 2021, accusing them of negligent business practices that have led to illegal arms trafficking and deaths in Mexico, where U.S.-sourced firearms are used in a majority of high-impact crimes. In a claim filed in Massachusetts, it alleged that the companies have undermined Mexican gun laws by designing, marketing and selling high-powered weapons that appeal to criminal organizations in Mexico. Chief Judge F. Dennis...

A federal judge in Texas ruled that a provision of the Affordable Care Act that mandates free coverage of certain drugs that prevent HIV infections violates the religious beliefs of a Christian-owned company, according to reports.The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell on behalf of Braidwood Management Inc. The lawsuit challenges a provision in the ACA that required free coverage of HIV drugs Truvada and Descovy, commonly known as PrEP.“Defendants do not show a compelling interest in forcing private, religious corporations to cover PrEP drugs with no cost-sharing and no religious...

A federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday that a mandate requiring most health insurance companies to cover medicine that prevents HIV infection violates the religious freedom of certain businesses. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor partially resolves a lawsuit brought by Braidwood Management Inc., a Christian for-profit corporation owned by Republican mega-donor Steven Hotze that employs about 70 people. Hotze claimed that forcing his company to cover pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs, more commonly known as PrEP, under the Affordable Care Act would make the company “facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and...

The military contractor known as “Fat Leonard,” the mastermind behind the worst public corruption scandal in U.S. Navy history who was three weeks away from being sentenced in the case, is on the run. Leonard Glenn Francis, who has been under house arrest, cut off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet and absconded from his San Diego home sometime Sunday morning, said Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Omar Castillo. Pretrial Services, the federal agency monitoring Francis, was alerted to an anomaly with Francis’ bracelet, and Francis’ defense team went to check on him, knowing he has a history of health issues. An...

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday dismissed the criminal indictment against a dive boat captain charged with manslaughter in the deaths of 34 people when the vessel caught fire and sank off the California coast three years ago. The 75-foot (23-meter) Conception caught fire while most of those onboard were sleeping, killing 33 passengers and a crew member. It is considered one of California’s worst maritime disasters. U.S. District Judge George Wu said in a ruling that the indictment, handed down on December 2020 against captain Jerry Nehl Boylan by a federal grand jury, must be thrown out...

A federal court on Tuesday canceled a hearing over Trump election lawyer John Eastman’s attempt to reclaim his seized phone. The court canceled the hearing after the corrupt Justice Department obtained a second search warrant which undermined Eastman’s case. The judge continued, “The undersigned will take the Government at its word that the warrant was issued, and the Court’s decision will be based in part on that representation.” “With this in mind, the Court will vacate the hearing currently set for September 6, 2022, and will decide Eastman’s motion on the written submissions of parties,” the judge wrote. The hearing...

<p>A federal judge says that a conservative-backed initiative to publish voter registration records online for the public to see can move forward over the objections of New Mexico election regulators.</p><p>SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A conservative-backed initiative to publish voter registration records from across the country online for public consumption can move forward over the objections of New Mexico election regulators, a federal judge has ordered in a preliminary opinion.</p>

The alleged masterminds of an extremist plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war ahead of the 2020 presidential election will be re-tried after a jury failed to reach a verdict in their cases earlier this year. A federal judge set a trial date in August for Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. Thursday after declining their lawyer’s request to clear them of conspiracy and weapons charges. “We don’t know what the jury was thinking. … There’s enough here to say that a rational jury could still go against Mr. Fox, go against Mr. Croft, even...

Feeling irrationally angry after an argument with his wife in 2015, the police were called on firearm owner Edward Caniglia to perform a welfare check. He agreed to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the hospital to determine suicidality on the condition that police not confiscate his guns. Upon returning to his home, however, Caniglia found that the police had unconstitutionally searched his house and seized his firearms. For the first time in 13 years, the Court upheld both privacy and gun rights, this time unanimously. Caniglia v. Strom’s 9-0 decision has the potential to create lasting effects and set precedent...

A federal judge in Missouri on Monday pushed a lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers against The Gateway Pundit back to a Missouri circuit court for additional proceedings. Plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss filed the case against James Hoft, Joseph Hoft, and TGP Communications LLC (the business which operates The Gateway Pundit) in December 2021. The suit alleges two counts of defamation (one involving Freeman, the other involving Moss) and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress. It seeks nominal damages, compensatory damages (including general, actual, consequential, and special damages), punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs, but...

Days after a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, the Biden Administration is fighting a court-ordered $230 million verdict for the victims of a different Texas mass shooting. The Justice Department filed an appeal in an attempt to not pay the multi-million dollar verdict to the families and victims of the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting by former Air Force airman Devin Kelley, said Texas attorney Thomas J. Henry. “That federal judge found that the United States government was at fault for allowing the gunman to acquire a gun because the...

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is denying defendants a constitutional right to a jury trial by putting them in front of its own internal judges. In a 2-1 ruling, the court ruled for George Jarkesy and Patriot28 LLC, who sued the SEC in 2011 after the agency imposed a $300,000 fine and other punishments in a securities fraud case. Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority opinion the SEC violated the Seventh Amendment constitutional right to a jury trial by bringing defendants before in-house judges and allowing the agency...

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...