Free Republic

Last month presiding FISA judge Rosemary Collyer announced she would be stepping down early due to ‘health issues.’ Chief Justice Roberts tapped Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee to replace Collyer. On Friday, Judge Boasberg announced in an order that he has appointed Obama-era national security leader at the DOJ David S. Kris as amicus counsel to review the reforms the FBI will be making to its FISA application process. This order was in response to the FBI abusing the FISA process after it obtained a total of four FISA warrants on Carter Page. The government had until Friday January...

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d — allegedly — joined with the conservatives in a case boiling with political repercussions only to think better of it and swing around to the liberal position. Everyone’s heard the stories by now about Roberts supposedly wimping out in the ObamaCare ruling seven years ago, initially agreeing with Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and then getting cold feet. Result: A tortured and dubious majority opinion upholding the constitutionality of the mandate as a tax. Rumors swirled within days of the decision that Roberts had switched his...

The ACLU asks SCOTUS to delay ruling in Department of Commerce v. New York. Sometime during the next two weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down its ruling on whether the Census Bureau may include a question in the 2020 census asking if the person filling out the form is a U.S. citizen. If you think that’s a sensible question to ask in a nation whose population swells every year with immigrants from all over the planet, that means you’re in step with 60 percent of registered voters. It does, however, put you at odds with the Democrats,...

A new book on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts offers new details of his negotiation with liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer to save ObamaCare ahead of the court's landmark ruling in 2012, according to excerpts released on CNN. In Joan Biskupic's "The Chief" which is scheduled to release next Thursday, she writes that Roberts originally opposed upholding the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that required people to buy insurance, and cast his initial vote to strike it down, but he did join the liberal justices in voting to uphold Medicaid expansion, according to the book. He later...

The Supreme Court sent a case concerning a death row inmate, who claims he can no longer remember his crimes because of several strokes he had while in prison, back down to the lower courts to take a second look. The court had already stayed the inmate Vernon Madison's execution last January. In a 5-3 vote, Chief Justice John Roberts sided Wednesday with the liberals on the court in favor of Madison. Only eight justices had heard the case because Justice Brett Kavanaugh had not been confirmed by the time the case was argued.

On Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices in a 5–4 decision to maintain the block on President Donald Trump’s new restrictions on asylum. Trump issued a proclamation in November prohibiting refugees from seeking asylum if they entered the United States without authorization. U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar swiftly halted the policy, prompting Trump to dismiss him as an “Obama judge.” Chief Justice John Roberts then issued a rare rejoinder, telling the AP: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges...

The chief justice is just about as believable insisting that politics doesn't affect the judiciary as Iran's President Ahmadinejad was when he told a Columbia University audience that there are no gays in Iran. Groucho Marx articulated the dilemma with the immortal line, "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?" Or, as Mark Levin posted on Facebook: "It appears John Roberts doesn't live in the real world. A few decades ago he understood that there are, in fact, too many progressive judges and justices who legislate from the bench. Indeed, when it came to Obamacare, Roberts...

Fox News host Mark Levin defended President Trump on Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked the president's criticism of a federal judge. The conservative host argued in a Facebook post defending Trump that "there are ... too many progressive judges and justices who legislate from the bench." "Indeed, when it came to Obamacare, Roberts himself led the court’s leftists in rewriting the Constitution and imposing that damnable law on all of us," he wrote. "It appears John Roberts doesn’t live in the real world." Levin weighed in after Roberts offered a rare statement rebuking Trump's criticism of a federal...

The Obamacare Supreme Court ruling seemed strange. Chief Justice John Roberts’ reasoning was incoherent. The conservative’s dissent read like it was originally meant to be a majority opinion. Now, we know why. According to Jan Crawford of CBS News, John Roberts switched sides in May, withstanding a “one-month campaign” from his conservative colleagues to change his mind.

Trump intensifies attacks on Chief Justice Roberts after his 'Obama judge' rebuke and slams the 'horrible' 9th Circuit that is making the nation 'unsafe' as he launches furious rant on Thanksgiving Trump doubled down on his criticism of the 9th Circuit and intensified his attacks on Chief Justice Roberts In Thanksgiving tweet on Thursday, he labeled the court a 'total disaster' The president said it was 'out of control' and has a 'horrible reputation' Their row began when Trump complained about judges being political He was angry at District Judge Jon Tigar, Obama appointee who has blocked his attempt to...

President Trump fired back at Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday after the leader of the Supreme Court rebuked the president over his criticism of "Obama judges." "Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have “Obama judges,” and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country," the president tweeted Wednesday afternoon. Trump's tweet came after Roberts released an unprecedented statement criticizing the president earlier Wednesday, saying the U.S. doesn't have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” “What we have is an extraordinary...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Wednesday referred more than a dozen judicial misconduct complaints filed recently against Brett M. Kavanaugh to a federal appeals court in Colorado. The 15 complaints, related to statements Kavanaugh made during his Senate confirmation hearings, were initially filed with the federal appeals court in Washington, where Kavanaugh served for the last 12 years before his confirmation Saturday to the Supreme Court. The allegations center on whether Kavanaugh was dishonest and lacked judicial temperament during his Senate testimony, according to people familiar with the matter. Last month, a judge on the U.S. Court of...

[snip] Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, currently Special Counsel in the Russia investigation, provided FBI computers to a secret CIA/NSA surveillance program that was launched in 2004. === Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, currently Special Counsel in the Russia investigation, provided FBI computers to a secret CIA/NSA surveillance program that was launched in 2004. =====[Whistleblower] Montgomery says that he worked on the domestic collection program not only under former FBI Director Mueller, but also under his successor FBI Director James Comey.

<p>ST. GEORGE, Maine (AP) -- U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts is upgrading his vacation home in Maine.</p> <p>Roberts and his wife, Jane Roberts, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, purchased a second Hupper Island home in the town of St. George this month. The 1,560-square-foot, waterfront home is larger than the original home on abutting property that they bought in 2006.</p>

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prodded the Obama administration Monday to explain President Obama’s immigration flip-flop, when Mr. Obama in 2014 reversed himself and decided he did, after all, have powers to grant a tentative amnesty to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. Mr. Obama had repeatedly denied he had that kind of power, then after the 2014 election, when Congress refused to act on his policies, the president claimed a do-over and said he did have the power. Chief Justice Roberts wondered what changed in Mr. Obama’s mind, and even read back one of Mr. Obama’s quotes...

If there is one thing that is bipartisan in Washington, it is brazen hypocrisy. Currently there is much indignation being expressed by Democrats because the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to hold confirmation hearings on President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The Democrats complain, and the media echo their complaint, that it is the Senate's duty to provide "advice and consent" on the President's appointment of various federal officials. Therefore, according to this claim, the Senate is neglecting its Constitutional duty by refusing even to hold hearings to determine...

By Timothy Cama - 03/03/16 10:35 AM EST Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea Thursday to block a contentious air pollution rule for power plants in a big victory for the Obama administration

It is July 22, 2016 and the Republican Convention held in Cleveland Ohio has just concluded. By various maneuvers and compromises with the RNC, Texas Senate Ted Cruz has narrowly won the Republican presidential nomination. The Democrat convention the next week in Philadelphia nominates Hillary Clinton. She lost most of the primaries but used Super delegates to steal the nomination. This causes a huge split in their party because angry Bernie Sanders supporters don’t like having the “evils” of socialism rubbed in their noses. Uneasiness in the Democrat Establishment follows. Yes of course the polls show Clinton beating Cruz but...

Liberals won't like it. If Ted Cruz is elected president, he has big plans for the Supreme Court -- namely, picking extremely conservative candidates to fill any vacancies among the nine justices. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Senator and former solicitor general from Texas said that Republicans are generally bad at picking nominees for the high court, and that he'd be different. "Unlike many of the other candidates, I will be willing to spend the capital to ensure that every Supreme Court nominee that I put on the court is a principled judicial conservative," Cruz said. As solicitor general,...

AIKEN, S.C. — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is "disgraceful" and a "disappointment" to conservatives, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Saturday, while praising Associate Justice Clarence Thomas as his favorite member of the high court. "Justice Roberts really let us down. What he did with Obamacare was disgraceful, and I think he did that because he wanted to be popular inside the Beltway," Trump told about 4,000 supporters.