Free Republic

As the trial against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann begins, questions have emerged over the judge’s apparent conflicts of interest.,/A>Judge Christopher “Casey” CooperIn additional to having been “professional acquaintances” with the defendant, US District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper, an Obama appointee (who was on Obama’s transition team), is married to lawyer Amy Jeffress who’s representing key ‘Russiagate’ figure Lisa Page in her lawsuit against the FBI. Jeffress also served as a top aide to former Attorney General Eric Holder, while current Attorney General Merrick Garland presided over the 1999 wedding of Cooper and Jeffress. Amy JeffressIn a Wednesday Zoom call,...

A federal judge in San Francisco tossed a lawsuit from former President Trump against Twitter because of its decision to ban him from the platform after the January 6 riots in Washington D.C. In his suit, Trump alleged that Twitter and other social media companies which moved to curb his speech were acting as de facto government agents and were therefore infringing on his first amendment rights.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday ordering a central Indiana middle school to allow a transgender student to have access to the boys restroom. The order issued by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt requires John R. Wooden Middle School to allow the seventh-grader identified only as A.C. to have access to the restroom while litigation continues. Pratt cited Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. “The overwhelming majority of federal courts — including the...

A federal judge ruled on Monday that a federal prisoner is entitled to surgical procedures that will alter his body in order to accommodate his “transgender” identity. As reported by USA Today, Judge Nancy Rosenstengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois ordered the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to provide a surgeon who will perform the operation for a prisoner going by the name of Christina Iglesias, a man who believes that he is a woman. The decision ended a case that has lasted for three years. Under the conditions of Rosenstengel’s ruling, BOP...

A federal judge on Monday ruled that a group of Georgia voters can proceed with legal efforts seeking to disqualify U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection to Congress, citing her role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The challenge filed with the Georgia secretary of state’s office alleges Greene, a Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. That violates a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection, according to the challenge. The amendment says no one...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in a hearing in federal court on Friday, sought to quash a legal challenge that would bar her from running for another term in Congress. Federal Judge Amy Totenberg heard arguments from lawyers for Greene, a first-term member of Congress from northwest Georgia, and from voters in her district who want to block her from running for reelection. The lawsuit against Greene seeks to prevent her from appearing on future ballots because it alleges she violated the Constitution by encouraging and “facilitating” the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by supporters of former President...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials improperly downplayed the climate change effects from burning coal when they approved a large expansion of an underground Montana coal mine that would release an estimated 190 million tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, a court ruled. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling that Interior Department officials “hid the ball” during the Trump administration, by failing to fully account for emissions from burning the fuel in a 2018 environmental analysis. A judge previously ruled against the disputed expansion of Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountain mine in 2017,...

A federal judge this week denied a temporary restraining order sought by environmental groups that would block grazing in six eastern Oregon pastures. The Capital Press reports U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said the plaintiffs haven’t shown that turning cattle out on the pastures will cause irreparable harm to sage grouse or to rangeland research. He said continued grazing isn’t likely to irreparably harm the ability of environmental plaintiffs to enjoy undisturbed sagebrush grassland, since the pastures have long been grazed and are rested on a rotating basis. The case was filed against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management by...

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled that portions of the law restricting the use of ballot drop-boxes, assistance for voters, and third-party voter registration drives violated the Voting Rights Act and constitutional protections because they were passed "with the intent to discriminate against Black voters."

Quite a blockbuster ruling from the federal district court. The court found that in enacting certain election laws limiting registration outreach and the use of drop boxes, Florida violated the Voting Rights Act. The court also found that Florida acted intentionally discriminating against the state’s black voters. And although the parties hardly briefed it, the Court imposed a very strong remedy of requiring that certain changes in voting rules in Florida be precleared before the court for a period of 10 years under section 3c of the Voting Rights Act.

A lawsuit that aimed to stop the Obama Presidential Center from being built in Chicago’s historic Jackson Park has been dismissed by a federal judge. The crux of Protect Our Parks’ complaint is that under regulatory statutes, federal agencies should have considered relocating the proposed Obama center site entirely to avoid damage to the environment, according to the lawsuit. The city and Obama Foundation officials have said federal agencies closed the final review into the project because they determined the Obama center’s construction and nearby roadway fixes would not pose a “significant impact” on the environment - a finding the...

Some on the right were concerned when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated a potential willingness to support the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Republicans indeed have shown more openness to support the nominees of Democrat presidents compared to vice versa, and given that Jackson’s confirmation wouldn’t change the balance of the court, it seemed possible that McConnell might ultimately join with Democrats and support her confirmation.But, Jackson has squandered that goodwill with her evasive answers during her confirmation hearings, and McConnell has since expressed concern that Jackson has been “evasive and unclear.”“She’s declined to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will be nominated for the Supreme Court, worked for seven years as a judge on the federal trial court in Washington, D.C., before Biden appointed her to the appeals court that meets in the same courthouse. Here are excerpts from some notable opinions: PRESIDENTIAL POWER In 2019, Jackson ruled on a dispute between Democrats who control the House of Representatives and the Trump administration over lawmakers’ efforts to subpoena former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify to Congress. The administration appealed, and the case bounced around the D.C. Circuit through the...

Pro-life Sen. Josh Hawley expressed alarm Wednesday about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “soft” record on child sex offenders amid growing concerns about protecting children from abuse. Jackson, President Joe Biden’s nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, also has a pro-abortion record that includes working with abortion activists on a case about suppressing pro-life advocates’ free speech. Her record on unborn babies’ rights has pro-life advocates opposing her nomination. Now, Hawley’s findings are raising additional concerns about other vulnerable children. “Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes,...

On Friday, Federal District Judge Amita Mehta ruled that a civil suit alleging a conspiracy to foment the Jan. 6 insurrection could proceed. In an extremely thorough and detailed 112-page ruling, Mehta concluded that the plaintiffs had made a “plausible” case that former President Trump himself was at the center of a conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power. While plausibility is not the same as proven, Mehta’s ruling is the first time such a finding has been made in an official proceeding.

Former President Donald Trump lost a bid Friday to toss lawsuits holding him responsible for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Federal Judge Amit Mehta rejected Trump’s attempt to dismiss the civil cases with a claim that he has absolute immunity because he was in office at the time. “To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step,” Mehta wrote in a 112-page ruling. “The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent, and the court believes that its decision is consistent with...

A judge is withholding the release of an audit report of Dominion voting machines in Georgia. Now the federal government and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has inserted itself into the case and is asking the judge to delay the report longer.We reported on this case previously. Per our report a week ago:A federal judge is being urged to release a report that, despite the secrecy surrounding it, appears to indicate there are potential flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment used in Georgia.“The public deserves to know the context of J. Alex Halderman’s claims and his testimony...

Joe Biden has reportedly narrowed down his search for his Supreme Court nominee down to four potential candidates.“What I’ve done is I’ve taken about four people and done the deep dive on them, meaning these thorough background checks, and see if there’s anything in the background that would make them not qualified,” Biden told NBC news anchor Lester Holt in a recent interview.It’s not said who these four candidates are, but among those reportedly under consideration are U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs; Ketanji Brown Jackson, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia...

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal cybersecurity agency says a report by an expert who says he’s identified security vulnerabilities in voting machines used by Georgia and other states shouldn’t be made public until it has had time to assess and mitigate potential risks. The report has been under seal since July in federal court in Atlanta, part of a long-running lawsuit challenging Georgia’s voting machines. Its author, J. Alex Halderman, said in sworn declarations filed publicly with the court that he examined the Dominion Voting Systems machines for 12 weeks and identified “multiple severe security flaws” that would allow bad...

Juliette Kayyem, a CNN contributor, Harvard professor and Obama’s former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intergovernmental Affairs, advocated for violence and property damage to deal with the freedom trucker convoy currently blocking the Ambassador Bridge. (snip) Juliette Kayyem @juliettekayyem The convoy protest, applauded by right wing media as a "freedom protest," is an economic and security issue now. The Ambassador Bridge link constitutes 28% of annual trade movement between US and Canada. Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks