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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley brushed aside demands to hold a hearing on the ouster of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the designation of Matthew Whitaker as his acting replacement, saying Thursday that the law appears to have been followed. Mr. Grassley also said it was “ironic” that Democrats are now intent on defending Mr. Sessions, who they excoriated for the nearly two years he was in office. The Iowa Republican said he’s confident President Trump followed the Vacancies Reform Act in naming Mr. Whitaker, who was not in a Senate-confirmed position but who, according to the...

Senators returned to Washington Tuesday and immediately picked up where they left off — processing President Trump’s judicial nominees, over the objections of Democrats. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing for Paul B. Matey, nominated to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and for four district court picks. Mr. Matey’s nomination is particularly controversial because it marks another round in the fight over Senate traditions and courtesies and their abuse in the era of Mr. Trump. Mr. Matey is slated to fill a seat on the appeals court that’s traditionally ascribed to New Jersey. But that state’s senators, both...

Full title: Kavanaugh report's biggest bombshells: Grassley probe reveals details behind mistaken identity claims, more Weeks after Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation -- and the sexual assault allegations against him -- captured the country's attention, the Senate Judiciary Committee has released a massive report on those accusations that's largely flown under the radar in the run-up to the midterms. But the 414-page document, authored by the Republican majority and released over the weekend, contains a number of key revelations. Among them: the report summarizes a statement from a man who believes he may have been involved in an encounter with Christine...

Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview Monday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions may step down after this week’s midterm elections. “Jeff will probably step down. We’ll have a new attorney general most likely early next year,” Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, said on conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt’s radio program.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have added enormously to the public's understanding of what happened in the Trump-Russia investigation. They're still doing it. But it will come to a screeching halt if the GOP loses control of the House in next month's midterm elections. The driving force behind the revelations is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes. But a number of other Republicans in the House, including Reps. Trey Gowdy, John Ratcliffe, Bob Goodlatte, Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and others have also played critical roles. (In the Senate, Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley has done key work, but the...

Democrats boycotted Wednesday’s hearing on another slate of President Trump’s judicial nominees, continuing their attempts to hinder Republicans’ plans to stock the courts with an army of conservative judges. The Judiciary Committee heard from four nominees, including two picks for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most liberal panels in the country and long a target for Republicans who complain of activist liberal judges. Wednesday’s boycott is the second in a row after Democrats refused to show for a hearing last week on other court picks. Democrats say it is unprecedented to hold hearings on judges...

Hillary Clinton has given up her security clearance in the wake of the scandal over her handling of secret information on her email server, the Senate Judiciary committee revealed Friday. Chairman Chuck Grassley also revealed top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills and four others no longer have clearance.

The Judiciary Committee cleared eight more judicial nominees Thursday, giving GOP leaders a total of 49 judges ready to be confirmed by the whole Senate. The votes — the first since the committee’s nasty fight over Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh — cleared seven district court nominees and one circuit court pick. That nominee, Jonathan A. Kobes for the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was approved on a party-line vote. Democrats said Mr. Kobes, who works as a lawyer for Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, wasn’t ready to be a judge, citing the American Bar Association’s rating...

Join Freepers throughout the world to pray for PRESIDENT TRUMP and VICE-PRESIDENT PENCE and for AMERICA: All Levels of Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, Health Care Systems and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer today for mercy and healing for our nation.

Discovery: In a late-breaking development Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans revealed they had talked to two men this week who said they had an encounter with Christine Blasey Ford decades ago, and that she is mistakingly blaming it on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. The revelation came amid a flurry of last-minute accusations from at least three other women against Kavanaugh, one who claimed he ‘raped’ her in the back seat of a car. Committee Republicans said in a statement that on Monday they conducted their “first interview with a man who believes he, not Judge Kavanaugh, had the encounter with Dr....

Fox News was told that the Republican senators want an answer “by the end of the day.” In a statement released Friday evening, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley extended the deadline for a response to 10 p.m. If there's no response, or a rejection of the offer, Grassley said in a statement, the committe may set a vote on Kavanaugh's nomination for Monday. “I’m extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 o’clock this evening," Grassley said. "I’m providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford’s attorneys don’t respond or Dr....

The Senate Judiciary Committee is postponing a high-stakes hearing set for early next week on the sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The committee announced on Friday that the Monday hearing — where both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, had been invited to speak — was being called off. Instead, Grassley said in a statement Friday that he is giving Ford’s lawyers until 10 p.m. on Friday to respond to the GOP request for her to testify on Wednesday. If they do not, or if Ford declines to testify, Grassley said the Judiciary Committee will...

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today made a formal request for a copy of the letter Ranking Member Feinstein received in July alleging misconduct by Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a teenager.  While Feinstein eventually referred the letter to the FBI last week, which was then redacted and added to Judge Kavanaugh’s background file, committee Republicans have not yet been able to access an unredacted version of the letter.  “My staff has made repeated requests for this document-which has become a significant piece of evidence in Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation process-but your staff has so far refused to...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday said that Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, “deserves to be heard” in an “appropriate” manner. “Anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard, so I will continue working on a way to hear her out in an appropriate, precedented and respectful manner,” Grassley said in a statement. He said his committee is “working diligently to get to the bottom of these claims,” an indication that another round of committee hearings is possible. The most prominent precedent is from...

At today’s third and final day of Judge Brett Kavanaugh‘s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, once again the argument over the quantity and origin of documents erupted, and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) faced off for a third day. As Booker delivered a lengthy set of remarks about his own actions, Grassley sharply smacked him as self-aggrandizing. Sen. Booker stated that he was going to release to the public one of the documents deemed confidential, despite the fact that this would violate rules. And then he said it again. And then some more. Sir, I...

(Senator Ben Sasse Schools the Senate Judiciary Committee on the role of the Judiciary in the American constitutional republic..) Sasse describes the “elegant and fair process” the Founders created, a system in which Congress makes law, the executive humbly enforces the law, and the judiciary applies “written laws to facts and cases that are actually before it.” And in this process the key question is “not what did Brett Kavanaugh think eleven years ago on some policy matter. The question before us is whether or not he has the temperament and the character to take his policy views and political...

Senate Republicans laid out a fast schedule Tuesday for action on Judge Brett Kavanaugh, setting up a Sept. 20 vote in committee which would be followed by action on the full Senate floor the final week of the month. Barring hiccups, that schedule would put Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court before its Oct. 1 start of the new session.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced late Thursday his office will release the highly anticipated report about how the FBI handled various aspects of the 2016 presidential election on Thursday, June 14. The announcement comes after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley again rescheduled a hearing, originally set for June 5, to go over the long awaited OIG investigation findings. "Thank you for inviting me to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 18, 2018, about the findings in the Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) forthcoming Review of Allegations Regarding Various Actions by the Federal...

The battle between Senate Democrats and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) over the “blue-slip rule” escalated this week, after another one of President Trump’s judicial nominees advanced without the approval of both of their home-state senators The blue-slip rule — which Democrats describe as a long-running Senate tradition Grassley has taken to ignore — has become a flashpoint for members on the Judiciary Committee. The committee has been tasked with considering the slew of nominees from the Trump administration, many of which have been controversial. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, said that Grassley’s decision to...

Rep Gohmert appeared on Fox News Sunday to talk about the FISA abuse memo which was released Friday. Gohmert also revealed he is requesting the House Judiciary Committee subpoena the FISA court hearing transcripts. “I have prepared a letter that I plan to submit to and hopefully have other people sign on with me tomorrow on our Judiciary Committee we have a great Chairman [Bob Goodlatte] on our Judiciary Committee. He wants to get to the facts and what I’m asking him for is that we as the Judiciary Committee subpoena the transcripts from the FISA court hearings, the four...