Free Republic

The federal judge who had ordered the government to restart the Obama-era DACA deportation amnesty in full backed off his decision Friday and said the government does not, after all, have to begin accepting brand new applications. Judge John D. Bates acknowledged the legal mess that’s arisen around DACA and said he didn’t want to make it worse, so he issued a partial stay of his own ruling. That means that while illegal immigrant “Dreamers” who already have had DACA protections can apply for renewals, no brand new applicants can apply to start the process. Judge Bates also delayed part...

April 03, 2009, 2:00 p.m. Imperial Judiciary Goes GlobalBy the Editors In 2004, the Supreme Court sowed the seeds for a national-security upheaval when it ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that war prisoners held outside the United States had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the justices continued the seismic shift, holding that the right they had invented in Rasul — a right extended to aliens whose only connection to the United States is in waging war against it — was somehow rooted in our Constitution. Thursday, the inevitable earthquake...

It is the first time a Jan. 6 rioter who was convicted and then pardoned will get a refund.A federal judge has authorized a $2,200 refund to a Jan. 6 rioter whose felony conviction was dropped after President Donald Trump issued a blanket pardon to those who breached the Capitol or attacked police.It is the first time a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant has received a refund of the fines and restitution that many were ordered to pay, even though the Justice Department endorsed the refunds in April.U.S. District Judge John Bates approved the return of the $2,000 restitution paid by...

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump Administration to restore the gender ideology webpages it deleted. US District Jud7ge John Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered Trump to restore the pages by midnight tonight. Last month, President Trump scrubbed public health websites of all things related to “gender ideology.” A group dubbed Doctors For America sued the Office of Personal Management and numerous government agencies, claiming the removal could prevent doctors from helping patients. Judge Bates agreed with Doctors for America and ordered the extremist ideology to...

(Reuters) -A federal judge on Tuesday ordered U.S. health agencies to restore websites that they abruptly took offline in response to an executive order by President Donald Trump telling them to scrub websites of "gender ideology extremism." The temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C. came in response to a lawsuit by the left-leaning medical advocacy group Doctors for America, which said the sudden removal of websites by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration hampered doctors' and researchers' ability to fight disease. Bates ordered all websites specifically identified...

A federal judge rejected an attempt by some of the United States’s most powerful unions to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Department of Labor’s data. On Friday, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge John Bates issued a ruling striking a blow to AFL-CIO and five other large labor unions’ efforts to stop DOGE from accessing data filed in the Labor Department’s system, as well as information from the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.The labor unions failed to show that “at least one...

Feb 7 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday declined to block Elon Musk's government cost-cutting department from accessing the U.S. Department of Labor's systems, an initial setback for the government employee unions resisting his efforts to shrink the federal bureaucracy. The temporary ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C., is the first step in a lawsuit against the Labor Department by one of the largest U.S. labor unions, which alleges billionaire Musk could obtain sensitive information about investigations into his own companies and competitors by accessing government computer systems. Bates ruled that "although the Court harbors...

Biden-appointed DC US Attorney Matthew Graves told a federal judge on Monday that Leo Brent Bozell, son of Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell, deserves 12 years prison time for charges related to January 6. Brent Bozell, a prominent conservative, openly criticizes Joe Biden and George Soros. Now the Biden Regime is gunning for his son with terror enhancement charges. Busted: George Soros is the man behind a "journalism institute" that is blacklisting conservative media organizations. Typical radical left dishonesty. Fake media rides again! https://t.co/InlIgvwEpS — Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) May 2, 2019 Last year Leo Bozell, 44, was convicted of all...

Prosecutors told a federal judge that the son of a prominent conservative activist convicted of bashing open a Senate window, joining rioters who chased a police officer before making his way to Speaker of the House’s office and finally perching himself in a gallery where he turned the view of CSPAN camera away from fellow rioters on Jan. 6 deserves 12 years in prison. Leo Brent Bozell IV of Pennsylvania is the son of Brent Bozell, the conservative founder of the Media Research Center, CNSNews, and the Parents Television Counsel, as Law&Crime previously reported, Bozell IV, 44, was convicted at...

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that an enhancement charge used against Jan. 6 defendants to lengthen their sentences couldn’t apply to the Capitol protest. In a unanimous opinion from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, said prosecutors’ use of a “substantial interference with the administration of justice” charge to enhance the prison sentence of Larry Brock was too broad. “We hold that the ‘administration of justice’ enhancement does not apply to interference with the legislative process of certifying electoral votes,” wrote Judge Millett.... The ruling could affect other Jan. 6 defendants who...

Recently released bodycam video from DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers provides more angles to the Jan. 6 beating of protester Victoria White in the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.The newest bodycam footage, from Officer Jeffrey Leslie, was captured directly behind MPD Cmdr. Jason Bagshaw, who landed most of the baton strikes and punches to White’s head and face during a four-minute span on Jan. 6, 2021.

Washington – A South Carolina man who traveled to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021 and later assaulted officers outside the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 44 months in jail on Wednesday. Nicholas Languerand, an avowed follower of the QAnon conspiracy, pleaded guilty in November to assaulting officers and faced a maximum of 20-years prison sentence. However, prosecutors asked the court to sentence Languerand to 51 months. While Languerand admitted he had participated in the assault on the Capitol, investigators say he showed little remorse and even indicated that he wanted to see more violence, alleging he had sent a...

Deepest blow yet to Trump’s phaseout ....Judge John D. Bates’s ruling would require a full restart, meaning even illegal immigrant “Dreamers” who’d never been approved before would now be able to apply for DACA.... judge imposed a 90-day delay on his own ruling to give the government a chance to reargue its case, but for now the ruling stands as the most severe blow yet to Mr. Trump’s phaseout. Judge Bates said the government’s reasoning for revoking DACA wasn’t convincing enough, and so it amounted to an “arbitrary and capricious” decision, which makes it illegal under the Administrative Procedures Act....