Free Republic

The ruling is a blow to Trump’s deportation efforts and permanently bars removals under the Alien Enemies Act in South Texas.A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled Thursday that the president exceeded his authority by invoking the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants, dealing a blow to the administration’s deportation efforts and permanently barring such removals in South Texas. In a 36-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Brownsville, Texas, rejected Trump’s declarations that the United States was being invaded by a Venezuelan gang to justify using the act to deport migrants without a hearing. He said the...

In a follow-up opinion, Rodriguez Jr. declared: "For these reasons, the Court concludes that the President's invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful. Respondents [the Administration] do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the Proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country." Rodriguez Jr. issued two opinions and orders on Thursday in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Texas, responding to a petition by individuals to allow them to certify as a class...

A federal judge said Friday he intends to temporarily block the Trump administration’s plan to place thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on leave at midnight. Unions representing government employees sued to stop the shutdown of agency operations and restart the flow of foreign aid frozen by President Trump, who has accused the agency of fraud and corruption to justify its imminent shuttering. Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by Trump during his first term, said he would issue a formal order later Friday but that a “limited, very limited” order temporarily pausing the plan would be handed down....

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from placing thousands of employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave Friday, halting plans to cut its workforce down to just a few hundred. Washington, DC, US District Judge Carl Nichols imposed a “very limited” restraining order on the administration, Politico reported, sparing at least 2,200 USAID employees from being put on paid leave at midnight. Administration officials had reportedly moved to gut the agency’s more than 10,000-person workforce by the end of the week down to just 290 or so staff members. Just 500 employees at USAID...

On Oct. 5th, 2021, the day before my plea hearing, a reporter from @CNN named @MarshallCohen (seen below) Image contacted the prosecutor in my case stating that he had evidence that I was planning to plead guilty the next day in court, but that I didn't really believe I was guilty. Cohen then asked the DOJ if they might like to rethink offering me a plea deal. I was arrested and jailed on January 25th, 2021, after an FBI raid on my apartment over 8 minutes that I stood outside of the Capitol building shooting video. It's astounding that I...

A federal appeals court has upheld an Indiana law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children under the age of 18, one of numerous such laws passed by Republican-controlled states. The 2-1 decision from the seventh US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday comes as the US supreme court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee, which may ultimately determine whether all such state laws around the country can be enforced. The seventh circuit had already allowed the law to take effect in February while it considered the challenge by families of...

A federal judge in New York on Saturday authorized two Georgia poll workers defamed by Rudy Giuliani to pursue information about four Yankees World Series rings owned by the former New York City mayor. Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss laid claim to the rings as part of their $148 million defamation judgment but when it came time to collect Giuliani asserted that he had given the rings to his son, Andrew, as a gift. The judge's Saturday morning order allows Freeman and Miss to serve a subpoena on Giuliani's accounting firm for his tax returns. An attorney for Freeman and...

...Judge Trevor McFadden sided with two ranchers from Arizona—a border state that's a battleground in the presidential race—who claimed that the Biden administration's halt on the border wall, which violated laws requiring an environmental review, caused concrete damage to the environment. The case centers around whether the Biden administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not reviewing the potential environmental impact of halting construction.. The ruling came from the case Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security... "In sum, the Court finds that Smith suffered tangible harms that were caused by an influx...

A federal appeals court Monday rejected restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers placed on addressing race-related issues in workplace training — part of a controversial 2022 law that DeSantis dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act. The workplace-training part of the law listed eight race-related concepts and said that a required training program or other activity that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual (an employee) to believe any of the following concepts As an example of the concepts, the law targeted compelling employees to believe that an “individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or...

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. Has been ordered to give federal prosecutors more than 1,600 text messages, emails, and other communications related to the investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged alleged attempt to alter the results of the 2020 election. On Tuesday, Politico reported that Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled most of Perry’s messages could not be withheld from prosecutors due to protections afforded to members of Congress. Boasberg concluded that the 1,659 communications were not subject to the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. The clause prohibits prosecutors and courts from looking into official congressional business. The court documents allege...

Lawsuits against Donald Trump brought by Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the U.S. Capitol riot, can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to dismiss the civil lawsuits that accuse him of inciting the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021. But the court said it’s ruling was not the final word on whether presidential immunity shields the Republican from liability in the case and said the judges express “no view on the ultimate merits of the claims” against the former president. Trump had...

On Friday night, a judge dismissed former President Donald Trump's lawsuit against CNN in which the current 2024 front-runner for the Republican nomination claimed CNN’s coverage of his election lies equated him to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Judge Raag Singhal, a Trump-appointed judge, ruled that CNN referring to Trump’s claims about the election being stolen as “The Big Lie” did not meet the criteria for defamation despite Trump’s belief to the contrary. "There is no question that the statements made by CNN meet the publication requirement for defamation under Florida law," Singhal wrote. "The next question is whether the...

Back in March, The Heritage Foundation requested documents from the DOJ using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding the government’s investigation of Hunter Biden. Unsurprisingly, the DOJ refused. Then, on June 20th, after several years of government investigations, Hunter Biden was charged with multiple, watered-down offenses. The charges were so weak they created a presumption of corruption at the DOJ. *** Six days later, the Heritage Foundation filed a FOIA lawsuit in Washington, D.C. (good luck getting a fair shake there) and requested the court force the DOJ to disclose critical records about the Hunter Biden investigation which would...

Oregon voters in November narrowly passed Measure 114, which requires residents to undergo safety training and a background check to obtain a permit to buy a gun...The legislation also bans the sale, transfer or import of gun magazines with more than 10 rounds...

Newly released whistleblower documents reveal that federal prosecutors repeatedly interfered on Hunter Biden’s behalf during the probe into the younger Biden’s business dealings. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith on Thursday released five documents that include the testimonies of two IRS whistleblowers, as well as supplemental affidavits and memos detailing alleged efforts to politically interfere with the probe. The whistleblowers testified that from 2014-2019, Hunter Biden personally received 8.3 Million Dollars from Ukraine, China, and Romania and didn’t pay taxes on the income, but the Biden Department of Justice attempted to block the IRS agents investigating the tax...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tennessee's version of not allowing drag queens and kings in public settings has been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in Memphis, according to a ruling filed late Friday night. The ruling was determined based on the First Amendment and freedom of speech.

WASHINGTON — At least four members of the far-right Proud Boys organization were found guilty Thursday of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl each faced nine counts, and were found guilty on the rare charge of seditious conspiracy under a Civil War-era statute. They were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The jury has only reached a partial verdict, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly said Thursday, and the verdicts on other charges are still being read.

A federal judge says the Saucon Valley School District must allow the After School Satan Club to meet in one of its schools. The club will be allowed to meet at the middle school on the dates previously approved by the school district. Those dates were the second Wednesday of March, April and May. U.S. District Judge John Gallagher on Monday granted the After School Satan Club’s preliminary injunction request to meet in the schools as its full lawsuit plays out in court. The judge will make a final ruling later. The school district revoked permission for the club to...

The suit stemmed from a political reporter's investigation into claims the former congressman's family used undocumented workers on their Iowa dairy farm.

In Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company, (6th Cir., March 14, 2023), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals held that employees of a company that sells food products to the federal government may not assert a 1st Amendment free-exercise claim against the company for denying them a religious exemption from a COVID vaccine mandate imposed by the company after the federal government required government contractors to do so. The court said in part: Constitutional guarantees conventionally apply only to entities that exercise sovereign power, such as federal, state, or local governments.... Smucker’s may be a big company. But it is...