Free Republic

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees and contractors. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said he was not buying arguments that it’s illegal for the president to impose such a mandate when he is not requiring the same of people entering the country illegally. Liburdi, a Trump appointee, suggested he was not convinced Biden’s mandate forces anyone to do anything or that anyone’s rights of “bodily integrity” were being violated — something Brnovich argued.

The FBI’s Public Corruption unit has begun investigating efforts by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s past and current staffers – including one who is now a federal judge – to push for a closed-door deal to issue tax refunds worth as much as $100 million to aid one of Ducey’s campaign supporters. Grant Nulle, former deputy director at the Department of Revenue, said an FBI agent contacted him in mid-July, shortly after an Arizona Republic investigation uncovered how the Ducey administration had pushed the department to agree to refund sales taxes on fuel for mining companies, even though that tax had...