Free Republic

On March 11, about 50 judges gathered in Washington for the biannual meeting of the Judicial Conference, which oversees the administration of the federal courts. It was the first time the conference met since President Trump retook the White House.In the midst of discussions of staffing levels and long-range planning, the judges’ conversations were focused, to an unusual degree, on rising threats against judges and their security, said several people who attended the gathering.Behind closed doors at one session, Judge Richard J. Sullivan, the chairman of the conference’s Committee on Judicial Security, raised a scenario that weeks before would have...

Attorneys general from 18 states sued President Trump on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.D.C.The complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Massachusetts was joined by the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C.The states view Mr. Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship as “extraordinary and extreme,” said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, who led the legal effort along with the attorneys general from California and Massachusetts. “Presidents...

As a candidate for president once again, Donald Trump could not be clearer about his plans to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his enemies. During his 2016 campaign, his rallies exploded with the chant “Lock Her Up.” Now Trump talks about ordering prosecutions against so many people that his threats have become commonplace. “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences,” Trump posted online in September about election administrators, among others. It’s just one example in a long list that extends...

The question of who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines is likely to remain an unsolved mystery for some time.Even as new details surface from European investigators, one of the most intriguing clues to recently emerge comes not from official probes but via a 29-year-old open-source analyst based in Denmark. Oliver Alexander spent months analyzing data from the maritime Automatic Identification System, or AIS, from vessels that passed near the site of three out of the four pipeline ruptures shortly before the damage. He noticed that the Minerva Julie, a 600-foot Greek-flagged tanker, was headed east from Rotterdam when, on...