Free Republic

Below is my column in The Messenger on what I called Biden’s “break-the-glass” option after the disaster in Delaware. After the column ran, Fox News asked White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre about the possibility of a pardon. Jean-Pierre cut him off and responded unequivocally “no.” I hope that proves to be true but it would have been more assuring to come from someone who did not clearly misrepresent the President’s earlier denial just a day earlier and change his long-standing position. The President previously denied a series of facts that have been proven, including the fact that his son did...

A North Dakota man accused of mowing down an 18-year-old with his car because he thought the young man was a “Republican extremist” has pleaded guilty to manslaughter after initially being charged with murder. Instead of the prospect of life in prison, Shannon Brandt, 42, now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars in connection with the death of Cayler Ellingson, KVRR-TV reported. Brandt’s attorney, Mark Friese, told the news station earlier this month that the local prosecutor had dropped the murder charge on her own and that “it was not a part of any plea deal.” Continue...

"He will be on probation for five years. A convicted murderer has been allowed to plead guilty to a drug offense in exchange for dismissal of a rape charge filed after he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a light rail station at the Mall of America five months ago.Kendell R. Jones, 40, of Minneapolis admitted Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court to a felony drug count, while prosecutors agreed to drop a third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge.

Queens District Attorney-elect Melinda Katz announced Tuesday she will go softer on criminal defendants when she takes over as the borough’s chief prosecutor on Jan. 1. Katz said she will make it easier for criminal defendants to have their cases heard by a grand jury within five days of an arrest, without losing their right to plea bargain.

Michael Cohen, in Recorded Phone Call, Walks Back Parts of Guilty Plea Michael Rothfeld 8-10 minutes Michael Cohen has disavowed responsibility for some of the crimes to which he has pleaded guilty, privately contending in a recent recorded phone call that he hadn’t evaded taxes and that a criminal charge related to his home-equity line of credit was “a lie.” As he prepares to begin a three-year prison term on May 6, Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, expressed dismay during the conversation that after testifying for more than 100 hours to federal and congressional investigators about his work for...

Exclusive: A top Trump campaign adviser close to plea deal with Mueller Anchor Muted Background By Katelyn Polantz and Sara Murray, CNN Updated 6:16 PM ET, Thu February 15, 2018 Who is Rick Gates? Play Current Time 0:05 Duration Time 1:15 Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%0:05Fullscreen Configuration Subtitles Now Playing Who is Rick Gates? Source: CNN Who is Rick Gates? 01:15 Washington (CNN)Former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates is finalizing a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller's office, indicating he's poised to cooperate in the investigation, according to sources familiar with the case. Gates has already spoken to Mueller's team about...

With no smoking gun, the anxious Left’s euphoria is premature. Former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn’s endlessly hyped plea bargain does not signal the beginning of the end for the Trump administration, no matter how ardently the mainstream media and left-wing political hacks want it to be so. It is merely an inevitable consequence of the perjury traps set by the corrupt Washington swamp-dwelling Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III and sprung by otherwise law-abiding Trump operatives. Mueller was appointed May 17 by Rod J. Rosenstein, in his capacity as acting Attorney General by virtue of Attorney General Jeff...

The Justice Department has reopened the investigation of Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified material on her private email system while she was secretary of state, and is considering offering her a plea bargain if she will agree to plead guilty to charges of breaking the law, according to a Clinton attorney. The discussion of a plea bargain took place late last month and was offered by a high-ranking Justice Department official to the Clinton lawyer. During the exploratory talks with the prosecutor, the Clinton attorney was told that despite former FBI Director James Comey's decision last July not to prosecute...

What’s more surprising about this story… that the alleged crime was charged in the first place or that you’re hearing about it at all? On March 4th in St. Paul, Minnesota, a pro-Trump rally took place on the steps of the State Capitol rotunda. No sooner had the event gotten underway than liberal “counter-protesters” wearing masks showed up and began attacking the rally participants with mace, tasers, fireworks and fists. We’ve seen these tactics of violence and intimidation by the Left at Berkeley, in New York City and too many other places to list here, so the incident itself sadly...

full title....EXCLUSIVE: Anthony Weiner has checked into a SEX ADDICTION treatment center after his sexting relationship with a 15-year-old girl triggered FBI investigation of him, wife Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton...................................Anthony Weiner, the husband of Hillary Clinton's closest aide Huma Abedin, has checked into a rehab facility for treatment of sex addition. Out-of-control Weiner, who has been sending sexually-charged messages and obscene pictures to women and at least one teenage girl for years, is now in a treatment facility, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. Friday's dramatic disclosure by the FBI that it had discovered new emails relevant to their investigation into...

The five terrorists who in 2013 threw rocks at the car of the Biton family and critically wounded two-year-old Adelle, ultimately resulting in her death two years later, were on Thursday sent to 15 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. It was reported in December that the terrorists’ attorneys signed a plea bargain under which all five terrorists will confess to and be convicted of manslaughter, receive a prison sentence of 15 years and each will pay 30,000 shekels to the Biton family. The plea bargain was approved by the Military Court in Samaria.

full title...Former Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl hit with charge that has rarely been used since WWII and could mean life behind barsMilitary prosecutors have reached into a section of military law seldom used since World War II in the politically fraught case against Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier held prisoner for years by the Taliban after leaving his post in Afghanistan. Earlier this year Bergdahl was charged with desertion after the deal brokered by the United States to bring him home. And now he has also been charged with misbehavior before the enemy, a much rarer offense that carries...

Former Republican Rep. James Rogan, who served as one of the House managers of the impeachment case against Bill Clinton, says the White House launched a full-fledged attack on onetime intern Monica Lewinsky when word came out about the president’s sexual escapades with her. “History shows that Ms. Lewinsky was treated horribly by the White House: When her relationship with the president first blared across the headlines, the White House began a full-court press strategy to destroy her: White House operatives portrayed her as a deranged stalker to any reporter willing to listen,” said the former California congressman. […] Rogan...

Guilt or innocence was never really the big question at hand in the bizarre and sickening case of Ariel Castro, the Ohio-area man who kidnapped three women, imprisoned them in his home, repeatedly raped them, and starved and beat one victim into having multiple miscarriages. Shortly after the three women were finally returned to freedom back in May, however, the big question that arose was whether Castro could face the death penalty for deliberately killing the victim’s children in the womb. In Ohio, causing “the unlawful termination of another’s pregnancy” against her will constitutes aggravated murder, and the death penalty...

The Military Court at Machane Ofer north of Jerusalem convened Wednesday for a session in the ongoing trial of the murderers of Asher and Yonatan Palmer, the father and baby son who were targeted in their car on September 23. Video MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) was also present at the session. Michael Craig Palmer, father of Asher and grandfather of Yonatan, has enlisted the services of Attorney Adrian Agassi – until recently a judge at the same military court. Agassi asked the court to give him the status of the victims' representative in the trial. He was recruited because...

More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?” ... I was stunned by Susan’s...

A convicted sex offender arrested in May after DNA evidence linked him to the death of a little girl was sentenced to life without parole Tuesday after negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors. Scott Eby's plea deal, accepted by Will County Judge Richard Schoenstedt, spares him from the death penalty for the rape and murder of Riley Fox. The courtroom was packed Tuesday with relatives and supporters of the Fox family. Reporters and court personnel were in tears as both Kevin and Melissa Fox read their victim's impact statements. Kevin went first, saying he has waited six years for this...

Kaczur was accused of buying OxyContin; Secretly helped DEA in indicting supplier. Starting New England Patriots offensive lineman Nicholas Kaczur was arrested in April on a charge of illegal possession of prescription painkillers and then secretly cooperated with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in a sting operation that resulted in the indictment of his alleged drug supplier, according to a lawyer and two people briefed on the investigation. Kaczur - a 28-year-old, 315-pound offensive tackle - wore a hidden recording device during three different drug transactions in May at gas stations in Foxborough and North Attleborough and a supermarket parking...

In a June 2000 photo shoot for a story in SI's College Preview issue, Vick was photographed with his pit bull Champagne. Read enough legal documents -- indictments, subpoenas, lawsuits -- and you begin to think of some lawyers as artists. They can write a sentence that appears simple, its point obvious, but if you read it again and again the meaning changes. It becomes more like poetry than legalese, everything subject to your own interpretation. The statement of fact filed Friday in a federal courthouse in Richmond, Va., as part of the plea agreement for Falcons quarterback Michael Vick,...

A private investigator who worked to get condemned inmates off death row pleaded guilty Monday to forging documents to support their appeals. Kathleen Culhane, 40, admitted that she forged documents to try to stop the executions of four condemned inmates since 2002, including Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death for the 1981 rape and murder of a Central Valley teenager. The plea agreement by the San Francisco-based investigator was entered in Sacramento County Superior Court and settles a case that the state attorney general called the largest fraud ever against the state's criminal justice system. "This case is not...