Free Republic

Michael Cohen was cut loose from federal prison Friday afternoon — a day after a judge ruled he was thrown in jail as “retaliation” for planning to write a tell-all book about President Trump. Cohen was walked out of Otisville prison in central New York at about 1 p.m., his lawyer, Danya Perry, said. He was picked up by his son and is headed to his apartment in Manhattan. “Mr. Cohen is extremely gratified that the court upheld his fundamental constitutional right to speak freely and publicly,” Perry added in a statement. His release comes a day after Judge Alvin...

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. must release photographs showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge has ruled in a long-running clash over letting the world see potentially disturbing images of how the military treated prisoners. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein's ruling Friday gives the government, which has fought the case for over a decade, two months to decide whether to appeal before the photos could be released. The American Civil Liberties Union has been seeking to make them public in the name of holding government accountable.

Senior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk, according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York. Gen. Richard B. Myers... said... he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released. The [ACLU wants] to obtain under the Freedom of Information Act the release of 87 photos and four videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib.... "I condemn...

A federal judge in New York told the Defense Department yesterday that it would have to release perhaps dozens of photographs taken by an American soldier of Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, said at a hearing that photographs would be the "best evidence" in the public debate about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The hearing... came in a [FOIA] suit filed by the [ACLU].... In response to the suit the government has already released more than 36,000 pages of documents that shed sometimes dramatic light...