Free Republic

Paul Hodgkins, according to Joe Biden’s Justice Department, is a domestic terrorist. A working-class man from Tampa, Hodgkins committed what Democrats and the media consider a murderous crime comparable to flying a packed jetliner into a skyscraper or detonating a truck filled with explosives under a crowded federal building. Paul Hodgkins entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. What exactly did Hodgkins do on that day of infamy? He followed a group of like-minded Donald Trump supporters SNIP When he entered the sacred Senate chambers, Hodgkins carried with him a weapon so offensive that the mere sight of the...

Andrew McCabe, the disgraced Russiagate FBI agent who lied four times to the DOJ and FBI, will receive his full pension more than three years after he was fired by the Justice Department, according to the New York Times. Under the terms of a settlement stemming from a lawsuit McCable filed in 2019 over his firing, he will also receive around $200,000 in missed pension payments. The DOJ has also agreed to expunge any mention of his firing from FBI personnel records, and that he would receive special cuff links given to senior executives, along with a plaque bearing his...

The recent felony conviction and eight month prison sentence of January 6th protester Paul Hodgkins is an affront to any notion of justice. It is a political charge and a political verdict by a political court. Every American regardless of political persuasion should be terrified of a court system so beholden to politics instead of justice. We’ve seen this movie before and it does not end well. Worse than this miscarriage of justice is the despicable attempt by the prosecutor in the case to label Hodgkins – who has no criminal record and was accused of no violent crime –...

The January 6 Capitol clash may be the gift that keeps on giving to cynics everywhere. In the coming months, Americans will likely see jaw-dropping bureaucratic debacles, stunning abuses by federal prosecutors, and appalling bloodlust by angry Biden supporters. Perhaps the least likely outcome is that the coming train wreck will restore faith in American democracy. The Justice Department declared last week, “The investigation and prosecution of the Capitol Breach will be the largest in American history, both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of the evidence.” The feds are sorting through “237,000...

A Florida man who was seen carrying a large red "Trump 2020" flag on the floor of the U.S. Senate during the Capitol riot received eight months in prison Monday in the first felony sentence from the Jan. 6 attack. Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38, of Tampa, was arrested Feb. 16 after the FBI received a tip identifying him among the hundreds of people seen in photos and videos inside the Capitol. He pleaded guilty in June to a single felony count of obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. "Although you were only...

Capitol siege defendant Paul Hodgkins was captured on surveillance video inside the U.S. Senate Chamber on Jan. 6, 2021. To the right, Qanon Shaman Jacob Chansley is partially visible in the frame. Captured on surveillance video waving a Donald Trump flag near the dais of the U.S. Senate Chamber on Jan. 6th, Florida man Paul Hodgkins received an 8-month prison term on Monday. Hodgkins is the first person on the U.S. Capitol breach docket to be sentenced for committing a felony, and prosecutors argued a stiff sentence was necessary to keep others from engaging in acts of “domestic terrorism.”

A judge may force the Trump administration’s Justice Department to schedule the only woman on federal death row’s execution for when after President-elect Biden takes office. US District Court Judge Randolph Moss told lawyers representing Lisa Montgomery and the Justice Department that he was vacating an order from the Bureau of Prisons director rescheduling the execution for Jan. 12. That date was set by Moss in November, after Montgomery’s attorneys contracted coronavirus and asked for an extension in order to file a clemency petition.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge is temporarily blocking the federal government’s plan to execute the first female death row inmate in almost six decades after her attorneys contracted the coronavirus visiting her in prison. The order, handed down Thursday by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, prohibits the federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year. She was scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 8 at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery’s attorneys had sought to delay the execution in order to file a clemency...

A federal judge sentenced former State Department employee Candace Claiborne to more than three years in prison and a $40,000 fine Tuesday for accepting thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from Chinese intelligence agents in exchange for information. U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss said, “sentencing is never easy,” but also called Claiborne’s crime, “a truly grave offense, a betrayal of her employer and a betrayal of her country” before giving her 40 months in prison in a Washington D.C. courtroom. Claiborne, 63, whom Moss agreed up until now had been a model citizen with no criminal history, said,...

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled Friday against the Trump administration's initial asylum ban, which was announced last November. Judge Randolph Moss vacated the government's policy barring migrants from claiming asylum if they did not enter the country through designated ports of entry. The judge found that it violates the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which oversees the ways federal rules are established. "Fortunately, the Court need not engage in such logical gymnastics because the language of the APA and the controlling D.C. Circuit precedent are unambiguous," he wrote. "The Court, accordingly, concludes that the proper remedy is to set...