Free Republic

Here we go again—another judge sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, derailing President Donald Trump’s efforts to make our elections secure. A federal judge in Washington, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly — a Bill Clinton appointee — just slammed the brakes on Trump’s executive order that would’ve required proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. Trump signed the order in March, pointing out that the U.S. “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections” compared to countries like India or Brazil, which tie voter ID to biometric databases. He’s not wrong. There's no denying that our elections are a mess, with...

On Wednesday, Judge Beryl Howell excoriated DOJ lawyers and signaled that she may permanently block President Trump from taking action against Perkins Coie. Last month, President Trump stripped security clearances of the employees at DNC law firm Perkins Coie. Recall that Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid law firm Perkins Coie more than $1 million to hire oppo research firm Fusion GPS to peddle the bogus ‘Trump-Russia’ dossier during the 2016 election. Former British spy Christopher Steele compiled over a dozen memos alleging the Russians had blackmail on Trump and that his associates were conspiring with the Kremlin to win...

Two Democrat-appointed federal judges have extended temporary blocks on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport criminal illegal aliens. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has extended an April 9 order for another two weeks that bars the Trump administration from deporting illegal aliens being held in Southern District of New York without first providing them with an opportunity for a hearing. During a hearing Tuesday, Hellerstein, a President Bill Clinton appointee, criticized the Trump administration for its approach to deportations. “This is not the Inquisition, it’s not medieval times,” Hellerstein said. Until the New York court...

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump Administration to rehire Voice of America (VOA) and other affiliate news services staff. President Trump placed employees and contractors for government-funded Voice of America on leave last month. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, said Voice of America is funded by Congress and Trump’s cuts to the agency are “a direct affront to the power of the legislative branch.”

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction to block the Department of Government Efficiency from further access to sensitive personal information at the Social Security Administration. The order blocks the agency from granting DOGE access to systems containing personally identifiable information including Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, tax information and family court records. A federal judge has once again blocked Department of Government Efficiency staffers, operating inside the Social Security Administration, from accessing sensitive personal data of millions of Americans. U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction to block the so-called...

(Reuters) -A U.S. judge barred the Trump administration from rapidly deporting hundreds if not thousands of migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a chance to show they fear being persecuted, tortured or killed there. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's preliminary injunction on Friday was the latest setback to an immigration crackdown launched by President Donald Trump when he took office on January 20.

In an overnight ruling blocking the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelans, the justices ignored some of their protocols.There are sculptures of tortoises scattered around the Supreme Court grounds. They symbolize, the court’s website says, “the slow and steady pace of justice.” But the court can move fast when it wants to, busting through protocols and conventions. It did so around 1 a.m. on Saturday, blocking the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law. The court’s unsigned, one-paragraph order was extraordinary in many ways....

The judge who has emerged as a top foe of Trump's deportation efforts previously let a well-known Trump-Russia collusion hoax proponent off the hook. But newly-declassified Crossfire Hurricane records show the FBI's Kevin Clinesmith was deeply involved in in the bogus Russiagate saga.. Convicted FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith — whom Judge James Boasberg gave a slap on the wrist for his crimes years before becoming a public foe of President Donald Trump’s deportation policies — was more deeply involved in the deeply flawed Crossfire Hurricane investigation than previously known. Clinesmith, who worked on both the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation...

A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s request that it halt the next steps Judge Paula Xinis is seeking to take in the case concerning a migrant who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, with a strident warning about the rule of law and the possibility the dispute presented an “incipient crisis.” The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in its seven-page ruling Thursday that the Trump administration’s assertions in the case “should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.” The unanimous ruling...

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump DOJ’s effort to block Judge Xinis’ order requiring the US government to “facilitate” the return of alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A three-judge panel: Harvie Wilkinson (Reagan), Robert King (Clinton), and Stephanie Thacker (Obama) issued the order. Judge Wilkinson, the Reagan appointee, repeatedly referred to Abrego Garcia as a “resident” even though he’s an illegal alien. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadorian national who was illegally residing in Maryland. In 2019, an immigration judge ordered Abrego Garcia, an alleged member of the dangerous MS-13 gang, removed from the...

The ACLU, despite SCOTUS determining DC was the improper jurisdiction, just filed ANOTHER motion seeking a new temp restraining order on behalf of the illegals. The ACLU argued Boasberg still has jurisdiction in the matter. Here is what the ACLU is seeking--and Boasberg just set a briefing schedule on the latest proposed TRO with a hearing set for Monday. "To provide notice to each class member that they have been designated as an 'alien enemy' under the Alien Enemies Act at least 30 days prior to any attempt to remove that class member from the United States under the AEA....

A federal judge Wednesday found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for willfully disobeying his order to immediately halt deportations under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act and turn around any airborne planes. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order gives the administration a final opportunity to come into compliance but says he otherwise will take steps to identify the specific people who flouted his March 15 ruling, which was later lifted by the Supreme Court, and refer them for prosecution.

A federal judge ruled against the Trump administration in the case that alleged fraud in a Biden-era clean energy program, unfreezing roughly $20 billion in funding meant to support projects like new solar energy arrays and efficiency upgrades for small businesses. Judge Tanya Chutkan on Tuesday ruled in favor of the eight nonprofits that sued Citibank and the Trump administration, finding that the Environmental Protection Agency unlawfully terminated the program. Chutkan ordered the congressionally appropriated funds to be unfrozen at 2 p.m. Thursday and distributed to the nonprofits they were originally intended for. The Trump administration said it will appeal....

(Reuters) -A U.S. judge blocked President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday from freezing billions of dollars in grants Congress authorized under climate investment and infrastructure laws of his Democratic predecessor, former President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Providence, Rhode Island, issued an injunction at the behest of environmental groups who argued the Trump administration was unlawfully freezing already-awarded funding for projects to combat climate change, reduce pollution and modernize U.S. infrastructure. The group that led the lawsuit, Democracy Forward, said in a statement that Trump's action was an abuse of executive power. The funding had been authorized...

A federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to return an alleged MS-13 gang member wrongly deported to El Salvador last month ruled that she would not hold any government officials in contempt for violating her order — for now — but warned against further “gamesmanship.” US District Judge Paula Xinis said that the federal government failed to provide evidence detailing their efforts to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States by April 7 after he was shipped off to El Salvador’s hellhole lockup CECOT. “There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” she said at a...

GREENBELT, Maryland — A federal judge ordered an “intense” two-week inquiry into the Trump administration’s refusal to seek the return of a man who was wrongly deported from Maryland to a notorious prison in El Salvador. “To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said at a court hearing Tuesday. Xinis’ order sets up a high-stakes sprint that may force senior Trump administration officials to testify under oath about their response to court orders requiring them to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. Each day...

It’s the latest setback to the president’s efforts to wield government power to punish the legal industry. A federal judge called it “a shocking abuse of power.”A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Trump from punishing the law firm Susman Godfrey, calling the retribution campaign he has waged from the White House against the nation’s top firms “a shocking abuse of power.”Ruling from the bench, Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia said that the executive order Mr. Trump signed last week targeting the firm stemmed from a “personal vendetta.” Susman Godfrey represented...

US District Judge Indira Talwani said the DHS did not interpret the law properly and asserted the migrants have a right to be in the US. The DOJ argued that the parole programs were discretionary and it is up to the government to decide when it can cut the program. Last month is was reported that President Trump was set to strip the status of 532,000 migrants living in the United States who were flown in on Joe Biden’s parole program.

A federal judge on Monday blocked President Trump’s mass cancelation of the Biden-era parole program that ushered in hundreds of thousands of migrants. US District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee in Boston, said Trump’s decision to cancel the parole program was premised on legal error. Last week Judge Talwani blocked the Trump Administration from revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants flown in on Joe Biden’s parole program. Judge Talwani said the DHS did not interpret the law properly and asserted the migrants have a right to be in the US.

GREENBELT, Maryland — An exasperated federal judge commanded the Trump administration Friday to begin providing “daily updates” on whether it is doing anything to comply with her order to return a Maryland man — illegally deported to El Salvador last month — back to the United States. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis scolded the administration for refusing to provide even “basic” details about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s location, despite her demand for an update by Friday morning.