Free Republic

Afederal judge on Friday agreed to recuse himself from overseeing the exonerated Central Park Five’s defamation lawsuit against President-elect Trump. Shanin Specter, the Central Park Five’s lead attorney, disclosed earlier this week he has been friends with the judge since childhood and represented him and his wife in legal matters. “Defendant respectfully submits that a reasonable person would question the Court’s impartiality in this matter, and therefore seeks recusal,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a motion requesting that U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson remove himself from the trial. Baylson, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, quickly agreed to the...

Sen. Arlen Specter was involved in a personal financial transaction with a federal judicial nominee, his Philadelphia neighbor whom he recommended, while the nomination was pending before his Senate committee and the full Senate. In 1981, Specter and his wife received three mortgages on a Georgetown condominium from a pension plan set up by Specter's then-law firm, Specter and Katz. Kate Kelly, a Specter spokeswoman, said Specter and his former partner were the only contributors to and beneficiaries of the plan. In late 2001, Michael M. Baylson, now a federal district judge in Philadelphia, was trustee of the pension plan...