Free Republic

Judge Pauline Newman, the oldest federal judge in America at age 97, is continuing to fight against a suspension from the bench by her colleagues who found her mentally not fit enough to serve. Newman is appealing her suspension and has also filed a motion to unseal documents related to an investigation which ultimately led to her being temporarily removed from the bench. Newman, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, was barred from serving in September 2023 for a year by the Federal Circuit's Judicial Council after...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vented his displeasure Monday after two Democratic-appointed federal judges reversed their decisions to retire in what appear to be efforts to stop President-elect Trump from nominating their successors. McConnell called the unusual decisions to forgo retirement following Trump’s sweeping victory last month a “partisan” gambit that would undermine the integrity of federal courts. “They rolled the dice that a Democrat could replace them and now that he won’t, they’re changing their plans to keep a Republican from doing it,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It’s a brazen admission. And the incoming administration would...

The estimated half a billion tax dollars spent by the DOJ over the past four years to pursue Donald Trump and his supporters demands accountability. And consequences. After enduring nearly a decade of torment at the hands of hyperpartisan, unaccountable prosecutors and judges, President-elect Donald Trump appears poised to make good on his promise to hold government officials responsible for destroying public trust in the country’s once-revered legal and judicial system. Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail that he would seek payback for the costly pursuits of his family, his businesses, his closest aides, and his supporters if elected...

The Bureau of Land Management has made it official Tuesday — coal leasing will end in the Powder River Basin by 2041. The move follows a court order in a federal lawsuit, Western Organization of Resource Councils et al. v. BLM. The judge on the case directed the BLM to redo its environmental analysis, and include both no-leasing and a limited coal leasing alternatives. As a result of that analysis, the BLM said it has determined that “additional leasing of BLM-administered coal is not necessary, based on the current analysis in the Final Supplemental EIS. The analysis indicates that operating...

Key Points A federal judge unsealed more than 1,800 pages of documents filed by special counsel Jack Smith in the criminal election interference case against former President Donald Trump. The records were made public after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request by Trump’s lawyers to keep them sealed until after the Nov. 5 presidential election. Trump is charged with illegally conspiring to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. ~~~~~~ A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of more than 1,800 pages of documents filed by special counsel Jack Smith in the criminal...

A notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been filed in the Gun-Free School Zone case in Billings, Montana.The notice was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Billings Division, on August 6, 2024. The case was settled with a plea agreement on August 2, 2024. Judge Susan P. Waters did not impose a fine or prison time, but Gabriel was sentenced to three years probation. The probation includes paying $75 per month for the costs of administering it.During the court hearings, Gabriel Metcalf preserved the right to appeal through his...

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that former President Donald Trump was in “cognitive decline.” Holder said, “He has never been a master of the English language, but if you look back four years ago and eight years back, his sentences are shorter, they make less sense, his paragraphs are more garbled. He seems to be more out of touch with the questions asked of him and the way in which he formulates his responses just don’t seem to be cogent. He doesn’t have many policy positions that he would ever talk about. He just seems...

Joe Oltmann and other conservatives were sued by former Dominion VP Eric Coomer in a defamation case. The corrupt judge in the case is allowing this bogus case to move forward. One unprecedented action taken by the corrupt judge in the case is to force Joe Oltmann to turn over $1,000 a day to Coomer until Oltmann unveils who his source was who told Oltmann about a conference call that Coomer was on. Oltmann reported that during the call Coomer assured those listening in to not worry about the 2020 election, he had it covered.BREAKING: A Colorado judge has ordered...

Two recent court decisions could have far-reaching impacts on oil and gas projects. The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other anti-fossil fuel groups recently sued the National Marine Fisheries Service, claiming the agency’s “biological opinion” failed to properly assess the risks that offshore oil and gas drilling poses to endangered species. Last month, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.

Democrat Party operative David Axelrod took Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump hard. The former campaign and White House adviser to Barack Obama took to social media to air his grievances over the scion of the premier Democrat political family endorsing the Republican standard bearer. “Robert F. Kennedy was my political hero,” Axelrod said. “He battled fiercely & eloquently against poverty, injustice and for economic fairness. Sadly RFK Jr, who made a rambling exit from the race today, proves that sometimes an apple DOES fall far from the tree…in this case, down a hill and over a cliff.”

After nearly eight months in limbo, former President Donald J. Trump’s federal election interference case sprang back to life on Saturday as the judge overseeing it scheduled a hearing in Washington for Aug. 16 to discuss next steps.At the hearing, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, will discuss with Mr. Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, how each side would like to proceed with a complicated fact-finding mission the Supreme Court ordered last month. The order was part of its landmark ruling granting Mr. Trump broad immunity against criminal prosecution for acts arising from...

A federal court is declaring that employers must cover gender-transition surgeries for their employees in their health insurance plans. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled last week that a refusal by an employer to cover gender-transition surgeries in an employee’s health insurance violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.” In the court’s majority opinion, Clinton-appointed Judge Charles R. Wilson wrote, “Generally, discrimination in the Title VII context occurs when an employer intentionally treats an employee worse than other similarly situated...

<p>The former top prosecutor in Baltimore, convicted of fraud for lying about financial hardship during the pandemic in order to buy a beach house with money from the federal government, will serve no prison time.</p><p>Marilyn Mosby, 44, was sentenced to 12 months of house arrest, 100 hours of community service and three years of supervised release Thursday, Erek Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland announced.</p>

Convicted fraudster and former Baltimore District Attorney Marilyn Mosby will avoid jail time for perjury and mortgage fraud after facing up to 40 years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby said the fact that Mosby is a mother of two daughters helped motivate her decision to sentence the former prosecutor to 12 months of home detention, three years of supervised release, and 100 hours of community service in lieu of prison, WBAL TV reported. Though Mosby has maintained her innocence, she was found guilty of taking advantage of the CARES Act — the first coronavirus relief bill...

On Thursday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that Steven Duarte, a felon, has a “right to possess a firearm for self-defense.” Courthouse News Service noted Duarte has five felony convictions and was a member of a street gang in Los Angeles. The decision upholding Duarte’s gun rights was split, with George W. Bush appointee Carlos Bea and Donald Trump appointee Lawrence VanDyke deciding in the majority. Bea wrote the majority opinion, noted the panel tested the prohibition against felons possessing guns in light of Bruen (2022) and found the government...

A DEA agent accused of killing a cyclist in Salem while on duty had his case presented before a federal appeals court today in Seattle. At the center of today’s hearing was whether the agent could claim immunity from state prosecution because he was an on-duty federal agent. On March 28, 2023, Marganne Allen was riding her bike home from work in southeast Salem. Video from that day shows a black pickup truck running a stop sign moments before striking and killing the cyclist.

A judge last week overturned a portion of a North Carolina law regulating abortion pill distribution in the state. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles gave a partial victory to Dr. Amy Brant, the abortionist who had sued the state, and who argued that its regulations go above and beyond the guidance of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In her ruling, Eagles overturned the portion of the law mandating that mifepristone be prescribed only by doctors and only in person, as well as a requirement that patients have an in-person follow-up appointment. Eagles allowed other portions of the law to...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s photo voter identification law is set to go to trial Monday, with arguments expected to focus on whether the requirement unlawfully discriminates against Black and Hispanic citizens or serves legitimate state interests to boost public confidence in elections. The non-jury trial in Winston-Salem begins more than five years after the state NAACP and several local chapters sued over the voter ID law enacted by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in late 2018. This litigation, along with similar lawsuits in state courts, delayed implementation of the requirement until last year’s municipal elections....

On Tuesday a 2-1 Democrat majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated a good West Virginia law protecting girls’ sports against invasion by male-bodied transgender students. The Richmond-based tribunal held that West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates the federal Title IX law, which was enacted to protect girls’ sports, and also that West Virginia’s protection of girls’ sports may further violate the Constitution. The Biden-appointed judge who wrote this absurd decision repeatedly used the propaganda term “sex assigned at birth,” as if sex were arbitrary and merely “assigned” to a newborn. On the contrary,...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The ruling comes amid a wave of anti-trans legislation cropping up across the country, as well as efforts to fight back against it. The ban in West Virginia was originally signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and introduced as the "Save Women's Sports Act." It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete's participation in...