Free Republic

A federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment Friday against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, accusing the mayor of pursuing an illicit affair with her police bodyguard on taxpayers’ dime, then lying to federal officials and deleting evidence to hide the relationship. The indictment returned at New Orleans’ federal courthouse accuses Cantrell of 11 counts including wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to a federal grand jury — all part of the alleged yearslong scheme to hide her relationship with Jeffrey Vappie, the former New Orleans Police officer assigned to protect her. The two face 18 counts...

Democrat New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was indicted on federal charges on Friday. A federal grand jury indicted Cantrell and former New Orleans Police officer Jeffrey Vappie after an investigation by the FBI. Details of the indictment are forthcoming. WVUE reported: New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday, August 15, marking the first time in the city’s history that a sitting mayor is facing criminal prosecution. The mayor’s legal troubles come after more than two years of mounting criticism including; an alleged romantic relationship involving her former executive security officer, a legal battle...

Louisiana officials have agreed to pay $9 million to a man who was partially paralyzed after a state trooper shot him in the back during a 2018 traffic stop in Baton RougeLouisiana authorities have agreed to pay $9 million to a man who was partially paralyzed from the waist down after a trooper shot him in the back during a 2018 traffic stop in Baton Rouge and then falsely reported it as a Taser discharge. The settlement reached last month is among the largest of its kind in state history and resolves a federal lawsuit by Clifton “Scotty” Dilley, whose...

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) formally launched his Senate reelection bid Friday as he braces for a potentially volatile primary next year. “Louisiana and our country face serious challenges,” Cassidy is expected to say in his announcement, according to shared prepared remarks. ”I’m running for reelection to work with the people of Louisiana and my fellow Americans to not just face these challenges, but to make our state and our country even greater,” he will add. Cassidy has looked to make amends with President Trump after he became one of seven GOP senators to vote to convict the president in his...

A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown. Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy’s office said Friday that it put in a request for the Department of Homeland Security to release her...

House Speaker Mike Johnson criticized a discharge petition that would force a vote in the U.S. House on releasing the federal files pertaining to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., are behind the effort to force the release of files relating to Epstein.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in an interview that aired Thursday that files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are “not a hoax.” “It’s not a hoax, of course not,” Johnson said in an interview with CBS News’s Major Garrett on “The Takeout,” which Mediaite highlighted. “I mean, they are real victims here, but that’s part of a delicate — the balance that’s being done here is, I tried to explain in my press conference this week, man, we want full disclosure. If I had — if I had these things in my possession, I would have put...

Louisiana Senator John Kennedy appeared to have a mental episode live on Larry Kudlow’s Fox Business show Tuesday, adding yet another entry to the long, bipartisan list of alarming age-related lowlights from our country’s leaders. “I’m sure Jesus loves him, but everybody else thinks—everybody else …” said Kennedy, 73, before trailing off. You can see it in his face—his eyes and mouth particularly—as he struggles to remember what he meant to say or where he is before ultimately giving up

A group of current or former Louisiana police chiefs and the operator of a Subway sandwich shop are accused of colluding in a decade-long scheme to falsify police reports to help foreign nationals get visas meant for crime victims or witnesses. A federal grand jury returned a 62-count indictment charging two police chiefs, a former police chief, a marshal and the restaurant operator on charges including bribery, mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and immigration fraud, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday. The scheme focused on getting U visas, which allow foreign nationals without any official status in the US to stay...

LAFAYETTE — Five people, including several current and former head law enforcement officers, were taken into custody earlier in the week and indicted on an alleged scheme involving falsifying crimes to facilitate immigration visa fraud for profit, national and state officials announced Wednesday. Officials said four current and former law enforcement agents were taken into custody Monday as well as a Oakdale business owner. The following people are being indicted after the U.S. Attorney's Office in Shreveport returned a 62-count indictment for the alleged immigration conspiracy: - Oakdale Police Chief Chad Doyle - Oakdale Ward 5 Marshal Mike "Freck" Slaney...

Nothing will ever be easy with congressional Republicans. The reconciliation package aged all of us 35 years, as Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had to whip votes, hold the line, and make some phone calls. President Trump was also working the phones heavily when final passage was at stake in the House. Republican leadership held the line, but with Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) retiring after the reconciliation vote, delivering what’s left of the Trump agenda before the 2026 midterms is about to get even tougher. The House did its job and passed the rescission package, but...

Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise helped to gain an Iranian woman’s release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he advocated for her.Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian, 64, has been living in the U.S. for 47 years. Her husband, Russell Milne, and daughter, Kaitlynn Milne, are both U.S. citizens.

A Lakeview family says they are in disbelief after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained 64-year-old Mandonna Kashanian, an Iranian-born woman who has lived in the United States for nearly five decades. Kashanian was taken into custody Sunday morning in front of her home on Woodlawn Place. According to her family, she was picking figs with neighborhood children when three unmarked vehicles pulled up around 10 a.m. and officers handcuffed her without saying a word. Her daughter, Kaitlynn Milne, said the arrest happened within 60 seconds while she and her father, Kashanian’s husband of 35 years, were inside the...

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., argued that the War Powers Act, a Nixon-era law limiting the president’s power to unilaterally wage war, is unconstitutional. President Donald Trump’s decision to order strikes on Iranian nuclear targets over the weekend was “clearly” within his powers under Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, Johnson said. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., alongside Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, has introduced a War Powers resolution that would bar the U.S. military from “unauthorized hostilities” in Iran. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., argued Tuesday that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, and vowed that a pending resolution...

Louisiana's law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court Friday, according to the ACLU, a plaintiff in the case. Why it matters: The decision brings clarity to state schools after a confusing year in which state leaders and the courts have issued conflicting guidance on whether educators must abide by the law while the lawsuit was being resolved. The latest: A panel of three judges in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, widely considered one of the nation's most conservative, called the law "plainly unconstitutional."...

Two police officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack filed a federal civil lawsuit, asking a judge to order the hanging of a plaque to honor police heroes who protected the Capitol, lawmakers and staff from rioters. The lawsuit cites a 2022 law signed by President Biden that required the honorary plaque be hung by March 2023. The plaque has been completed and in storage since at least last year, but GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson has not committed to installing it at the Capitol. The dispute over the plaque has angered victims and inflamed a...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has been making the rounds amid the rioting that has taken place in Los Angeles County - including in parts of her Congressional district, over the last several days. As per the norm, there has been the predictable gaslighting, histrionics, theatrics, and Republican Derangement Syndrome that we've come to expect over the years from the entrenched Congresswoman. As RedState reported, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) put on his best Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) persona in a press conference Tuesday when he was asked about Waters' denial of the violence happening during the LA riots. "I'm just...

House Speaker Mike Johnson called Tuesday for California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to be “tarred and feathered” over his response to the riots raging in downtown Los Angeles. Declining to weigh in on whether Newsom should be arrested — as President Trump and White House border czar Tom Homan have floated — Johnson (R-La.) ripped into the Golden State governor’s light-touch approach to the chaos in Los Angeles. “I’m not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested, but he ought to be tarred and feathered,” Johnson told reporters during a Capitol Hill news conference....

Since the 2016 elections, politicians, journalists, and many others have raised the alarm about “foreign election influence” and “disinformation,” demanding greater “content moderation” by social media platforms. It is too easy, they argued, for foreign and malign actors to quickly “go viral” at low cost, leaving the good guys unable to correct bad information. We must become more “resilient” to disinformation. It’s now clear that all of that rhetoric was cover for a sweeping censorship effort by the federal government and government contractors. Since December, a small but growing group of journalists, analysts, and researchers have documented the rise of...

Two escaped inmates still on the run Eight of the ten inmates who escaped from Orleans Justice Center on May 16 are still on the run. Antoine Massey, 32, and Derrick Groves, 27, are armed and dangerous, New Orleans police said. Family, friends accused of helping inmates The Associated Press obtained court documents showing that some inmates' family and friends have been charged with aiding the escaped inmates. Hundreds trying to find escaped inmates Local media reported that around 200 authorities are looking for the remaining two escapees, and a top official says they could spend almost half a million...