Free Republic

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...

Americans will hold accountable those responsible for the accelerating degradation of the U.S. justice system as the government's J6 narrative collapses and their wrongdoing becomes apparent. The FBI agent squirmed on the hot seat. Confronted with messages the Justice Department attempted to conceal, Nicole Miller, one of the lead FBI investigators assigned to the Proud Boys case, was on the verge of admitting that the FBI monitored privileged communications between one defendant and his attorney in 2021. “It appears so,” Miller responded when asked by defense attorney Nicholas Smith on March 8 to confirm she and another agent discussed the...

The D.C. District Court Judge is anything but impartial in the J6 cases coming before his court. Following an armed FBI raid with SWAT vehicles that terrorized his neighborhood and pregnant wife, Zachary Rehl was arrested in March 2021 for his involvement in the events of January 6. A Philadelphia judge ordered Rehl, a member of the Proud Boys, to be released from custody pending trial. But Joe Biden’s Justice Department immediately asked a D.C. federal judge to keep Rehl in jail indefinitely even though he was not accused of committing a violent crime. Claiming Rehl “abetted” the destruction of...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider an appeal by the city of Waco and McLennan County in lawsuits filed by bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout that left nine bikers dead and 20 injured. Attorneys for the defendants asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an April decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated the lawsuits of about 90 bikers whose civil rights cases were dismissed last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of Waco. The federal appeals court panel reversed an Albright ruling that held a...

A federal appeals court on Thursday halted Judge Aileen Cannon’s special master review in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case. In September, Judge Cannon appointed a special master to review the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. Biden’s corrupt Justice Department argued that a special master didn’t have a right to filter out the seized documents. The court blasted Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, and said she erred in appointing Raymond Dearie as a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. “The law is clear,” the judges wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to...

A federal judge in Minnesota has rejected Mike Lindell’s challenge to the FBI search and seizure of his phone in a 2020 election-related criminal probe.Judge Eric Tostrud said Lindell, CEO of My Pillow and a prominent backer of former President Donald Trump’s false voter fraud claims, had not shown that the search was unconstitutional, and said he could not have his phone returned or get more access to details from the search.“The Government has demonstrated a compelling interest in preventing the premature disclosure of search-warrant materials during its ongoing federal criminal investigation. Multiple factors here justify keeping the search warrant...

Stephen Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison Friday for his defiance of a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The onetime Trump White House strategist was subpoenaed by the panel in September of last year after he failed to provide either the required documents or testimony as he railed against the committee. Bannon claimed that he was unable to comply with the committee’s subpoena due to executive privilege. However, the panel sought to speak to Bannon about events that occurred well after his short stint in the White House....

Notable Trump-supporting attorney Sidney Powell lost a key court battle on Wednesday when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed her suit against Dominion Voting Systems. The ruling opens the door for Dominion to continue pursuing its $1.3 billion defamation suit against Powell. In his three-page ruling, Judge Carl Nichols granted Dominion’s request to dismiss the case, noting that Powell failed to show that Dominion’s actions “constituted an abuse of justice.” An excerpt from the ruling reads: “Powell’s complaint fails to link her abuse-of-process claim to any act that Dominion has taken other than filing and pursuing its lawsuit. She...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Maryland man affiliated with the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Monday to more than four years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where he encountered Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer as his armed security detail led the New York Democrat to safety. Joshua Pruitt, 40, was one of the few Capitol rioters to come face-to-face with a member of Congress during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Donald Trump supporters, according to federal prosecutors. “One look at Pruitt, and the leader of Senator Schumer’s security detail immediately saw the...

Trump White House aide’s bid to delay case due to Jan. 6 panel hearings is denied. A federal judge on Monday eviscerated nearly all of Steve Bannon’s defenses against a charge that he criminally defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee, leaving the longtime Donald Trump ally with few options to fight the contempt of Congress case against him. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols also denied Bannon’s bid to postpone for three months the jury trial set to open next Monday, rejecting defense arguments that such a delay was warranted due to intense media coverage around the ongoing...

In Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall, (MD AL, May 13, 2022), an Alabama federal district court issued an injunction pending trial of the portion of the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act that restricts transgender minors from being treated with puberty blockers and hormone therapies. The court said in part: Parent Plaintiffs have a fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children. This right includes the more specific right to treat their children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards. The Act infringes on that right and, as such, is subject to strict scrutiny. At this stage of...

Abortions have resumed in Kentucky after a federal judge temporarily blocked a multi-faceted abortion restrictions law and said the state needs to do more to ensure those affected by it can comply. The two abortion clinics in the state had challenged the law, saying they couldn’t meet the requirements immediately because the state had not established clear guidelines. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, a President Donald Trump appointee, blocked the law in its entirety in an April 21 restraining order, saying she was unable “to specifically determine which individual provisions and subsections are capable of compliance.” She said her...

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a Kentucky law that effectively eliminated abortions in the commonwealth, where the only two clinics said they couldn't meet its requirements. The decision by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings was a victory for abortion rights advocates and a setback for the Republican-led legislature, which passed the law in March. Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, had vetoed the measure, but the legislature overrode him last week to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and require women to be examined by a doctor before receiving abortion pills. Both of Kentucky's clinics said that...

The Supreme Court is giving the Navy a freer hand determining what job assignments it gives to 35 sailors who sued after refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The high court in a brief order Friday sided with the Biden administration and said that while the lawsuit plays out, the Navy may consider the sailors’ vaccination status in making deployment, assignment and other operational decisions. The group that sued includes mostly Navy SEALs. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there was a “simple overarching reason” that he agreed with the court’s decision. The...

A federal judge has encouraged all of his colleagues to "carefully consider" whether the Yale Law School students who attempted to shout down a bipartisan panel on free speech "should be disqualified from potential clerkships." D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman sent an email on Thursday to all federal judges in the United States, urging them to take the fracas at the nation's top law school seriously. "The latest events at Yale Law School," Silberman wrote, "prompt me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all...

After several days of bad news on the redistricting front, including a bad decision in North Carolina for the GOP-drawn map there, a big win has been delivered to Republicans. The US Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 to halt a lower court order in Alabama that it must redraw its previously passed Congressional map.That means a 6-1 Republican to Democrat map will now go into effect in 2022, and given the makeup of the Supreme Court, there’s no reason to believe it gets struck down at any point past that.BREAKING: By a 5–4 vote, with Roberts joining the liberals in...

@julie_kelly2 Brandon Straka, who pleaded guilty to class B misdemeanor of disorderly conduct, berated by Trump judge and sentenced to 3 months home detention, 3 years probation and $5k fine.

The Biden administration has been granted the request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by more than 20 GOP attorneys general challenging the revocation of the Keystone XL Pipeline’s permit. In his ruling, Judge Jeffrey Brown of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that because TC Energy, the pipeline company, abandoned the project, he could not determine whether Biden’s action was constitutional. TC Energy announced on June 9 that it would permanently stop construction on the pipeline and focus on other projects. Upon taking office, Biden canceled the pipeline’s federal permit by executive order on...

A federal district court judge granted the Biden administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by more than 20 Republican attorneys general challenging the Keystone XL Pipeline’s permit revocation. Judge Jeffrey Brown, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled that he couldn’t determine the constitutionality of President Joe Biden’s action because TC Energy, the pipeline’s developer, had abandoned the project. On June 9, TC Energy announced its intention to permanently halt construction of the pipeline, saying it would focus on other projects. Biden canceled the pipeline’s federal permit immediately after taking office on Jan. 20...