Free Republic

Here's what we know: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 for selling U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union after one of the most sensational Cold War-era espionage trials. They were convicted in 1951 owing, largely, to the testimony of David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother. Here's what we don't know: How credible Greenglass' testimony was in court. Greenglass himself spent nearly a decade in prison for his role in the conspiracy. The Army sergeant stole nuclear intelligence from Los Alamos, N.M., and said he passed it on to the Rosenbergs. At the trial, he said Ethel Rosenberg typed...

BREAKING: A federal judge has ordered Michael Cohen, former attorney to President Trump, released from prison, agreeing with Cohen's lawyers that he was wrongly taken back into custody for criticizing the president. Cohen, who was serving a federal fraud sentence, was released on home confinement as prisons were emptied to the COVID-19 pandemic. A week after tweeting that he was finishing a tell-all book about Trump, a probation officer told him he would have to agree to a complete ban on speaking in public, including by publishing a book, as a condition of continued home confinement, according to court documents....

US District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee in the Southern District of New York, passed away at 92. Hellerstein was appointed to the bench in 1998. ""U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a longtime federal judge in Manhattan who was overseeing the prosecution of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, died Wednesday morning, according to a court spokesperon," Politico reported. Earlier this year, Maduro was indicted on four counts by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York. Read the indictment here. The grand jury indicted Maduro, his wife, Cilia Flores, and four others on four counts:...

Clinton appointee Judge Alvin Hellerstein has Maduro’s case. Last spring, he barred the Trump admin from removing Venezuelans from the US under the Alien Enemies Act, which he said had been applied unlawfully “These people are being thrown out of the country because of tattoos”

In 2023, María Corina Machado won the nomination as the Unity Democratic Platform candidate for the presidency in Venezuela. The Maduro government invalidated this election. Edmundo González Urrutia took her place on the July 2024 ballot. According to non-government sources, he got 70% of the votes in the Venezuelan presidential election to 30% for incumbent Nicolás Maduro Moros. However, Maduro declared himself the winner. There were massive public protests against Maduro's usurpation. Thousands were arrested. Maria went into hiding. Edmundo sought and was granted asylum in Spain. Five top aides of the Unity Democratic Platform Party were granted asylum by...

federal judge ruled Tuesday that former President Trump may not request to move his hush money criminal case to federal court after failing to show “good cause,” meaning the case will remain in New York state court. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a four-page order that the two reasons Trump offered as to why his case should be removed — that New York courts were biased against him and that his trial judge did not adequately review the issue of presidential immunity — fall short. Hellerstein said that district courts do not have jurisdiction to consider alleged bias...

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...