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President Trump was granted at least a brief reprieve Monday after a federal judge issued a scathing order allowing the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to subpoena his tax returns from accounting firm Mazars USA. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals put the subpoena on hold after Trump's attorneys filed an emergency appeal. “We are very pleased that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued a stay of the subpoena issued by New York County District Attorney Cy Vance,” Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said. The administrative stay will only be in place while the court reviews the...

President Donald Trump lost Monday in his effort to stop the release of his personal and corporate tax returns as part of a criminal investigation in New York. Trump immediately appealed the decision handed down in U.S. district court in lower Manhattan. In August, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. subpoenaed eight years of the president’s tax returns from account firm Mazars USA. The prosecutor is probing hush money payments made to two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, ahead of the 2016 election.

The U.S. Forest Service lifted the suspension of sales of fuelwood permits to collect firewood in New Mexico’s five national forests Tuesday after a U.S. District Judge in Arizona modified his original order banning all timber management in the state. The legal dispute centered on protecting a species of spotted owl, which had stopped all timber management — including fuelwood collection — which is critical to many families who use wood to heat their homes and for tribal activities. Other timber management activities, such as timber sales, forest thinning and prescribed burns, were excluded from the judge’s new ruling....

Freshman Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is in hot water after blocking users on Twitter. A federal judge set a precedent in May outlawing politicians from blocking users on Twitter, contending President Donald Trump would violate the U.S. Constitution by preventing certain Americans from viewing his tweets on the “designated public forum.” The same ruling applies to the socialist “Squad” leader. Former Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who describes himself as a “proud Jewish American and a staunch supporter of Israel,” filed a lawsuit against Ocasio-Cortez after she blocked him. Ocasio-Cortez tried to get the case dismissed, arguing Hikind...

SANTA FE, N.M. — The U.S. Forest Service announced Thursday that it was suspending fuelwood permits in all five national forests in New Mexico, as well as one in Arizona as the result of a court-ordered injunction having to do with protections for the Mexican spotted owl. The owl is listed as a threatened species by both the U.S. and Mexican governments. In addition, timber management activities have been suspended, according to a news release. Southwestern Regional Forester Cal Joyner said that the agency is working to resolve the issue. “Our staff is exhaustively exploring every possible option to come...

Senior district judge Marianne O. Battani sentenced Rand Paul’s attacker, one Rene Boucher, to imprisonment for 30 days. Sentencing guidelines prescribed a 21-27 month sentencing range. Recalling the severe injuries sustained by Senator Paul, one wonders how Judge Battani came up with a 30-day sentence. So did the government. The government appealed Judge Battani’s sentence to the Sixth Circuit. Yesterday the Sixth Circuit vacated Boucher’s sentence and returned the case to the district court for resentencing. Here is the introductory paragraph of the Sixth Circuit opinion (embedded below): Senator Rand Paul was mowing his lawn when he stopped to gather...

A group of Seattle-area baristas who argued in court that they should not be restricted from serving drinks in bikinis and other revealing clothing may have to cover up ⁠— at least for now. CNN reported Saturday that a federal appeals court ruled that women at an Everett, Wash., drive-thru coffee stand may have to cover up. The ruling, made by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, vacated U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman's 2017 decision that placed an injunction on a city ordinance requiring "quick-service facility" workers to wear, at minimum, shorts and a...

A local Islamic schoolteacher who cultivated sexual video conversations with a 15-year-old student will go to prison for 10 years. Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, 30, was convicted at trial in Alexandria federal court earlier this year of sending pornographic images to the girl and trying to persuade her to respond in kind. “Your case is an unusual one,” Judge Leonie M. Brinkema told Kokayi. “You had an absolutely improper infatuation with this child, and you acted inappropriately on it.” But, she said, “it’s not the typical pornography case.” Federal guidelines calling for a life sentence were “way out of proportion” for...

A San Francisco-based federal appeals court ordered a judge Friday to reconsider her ruling against President Trump’s decision to ban transgender people from the military. In a unanimous, unsigned order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals told a federal district judge in the state of Washington to take into account executive privileges in reweighing her decision. The U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on the judge’s nationwide injunction in January, allowing the ban to take effect while the government appealed to the 9th Circuit. Friday’s decision continued that hold. Gay rights lawyers who brought the...

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered portions of Mueller’s unredacted report to be released to the public. Judge Sullivan ordered portions of Mueller’s report related to General Mike Flynn to be made public by May 31, 2019, the Associated Press reported. ...

May 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Kentucky cannot ban the second-trimester abortion procedure infamous for dismembering babies in the womb, U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley declared Friday in a ruling state leaders plan to appeal. Last year, Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signed HB 454 into law, which bans the dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion procedure. D&Es are more commonly known as “dismemberment abortions” because they function by tearing a preborn baby apart limb by limb. The left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) quickly sued, and on Friday McKinley sided with them, the Louisville Courier Journal reports. McKinley, a Bill...

upreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted against President Donald Trump’s proposed immigrant asylum restrictions from the hospital where she had cancer surgery Friday, according to media reports. NBC reported that Ginsburg voted from her hospital bed. National Public Radio and Mother Jones magazine said she cast the decisive vote in the 5-4 decision against the Trump administration shortly after her surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her lungs. The ruling blocks the Trump administration from implementing new rules prohibiting people from seeking asylum if they cross the border illegally. By Friday night Ginsburg, 85, was sitting up in...

A three-judge federal appeals court panel has ruled in favor of the Trump administration in its effort to deport about 100 Iraqi immigrants convicted of crimes years ago. The panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 Thursday that the lower court that ordered the government to free the Iraqis did not have the jurisdiction to make that decision. The ruling said deportation orders are up to the attorney general and immigration judges. The dissenting judge wrote that the lower court did have the proper jurisdiction. She said the Iraqis showed evidence they would be...

Split 3rd Circuit Upholds NJ's Ban on Large-Capacity Gun Magazines The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has rejected a challenge to New Jersey’s ban on firearm magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The appeals court, by a 2-1 margin, said the law limiting high-capacity magazines does not violate the Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The court affirmed an order from the U.S. District Court that denied challengers’ motion to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the law. Judges Joseph Greenaway Jr. and Patty Shwartz ruled to affirm the lower court....

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down a portion of federal law that makes it a crime to encourage illegal immigration, ruling that the statute violates the First Amendment. “Criminalizing expression like this threatens almost anyone willing to weigh in on the debate,” Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote in his opinion for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Politico reported. Federal prosecutors argued that the law should apply only to individuals who provide "substantial assistance" to immigrants entering or residing in the U.S. illegally, according to Politico, which noted that the law took effect before President Trump took office....

Judge Robert S. Lasnik, United States District Judge of the Western District of Washington, at Seattle, issued a permanent injunction against the Trump Administration State Department. The injunction is to prevent the State Department from implementing a court settlement with Defense Distributed, allowing them to exercise their First Amendment rights. The permanent injunction was issued on the 27th of August, 2018, in Seattle, Washington State.  The temporary restraining order had been issued on 31 July.   Judge Lasnik has taken the power of deciding what may or may not be lawful, based on the principle of potential harm. Potential, or irreparable...

A federal judge on Monday granted a preliminary injunction to a coalition of states seeking to block a Texas-based company from posting online blueprints for how to make 3D-printed guns. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik followed an initial temporary restraining order he granted in late July that blocked the federal government from implementing terms of a settlement the company, Defense Distributed, struck with the State Department earlier this year that would have allowed founder Cody Wilson to start posting the files again. The ruling Monday means the blockade will continue while the judge considers the broader...

A federal judge Friday knocked the Trump administration for withholding information from those suing it over the transgender military ban as she decided to withhold ruling on the case. In an order issued Friday, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied both the defendant’s and the plaintiff’s motions for summary judgment, which is when a judge makes a ruling on case without a full trial. Rather than granting either party’s motion for summary judgment, she concluded, “the court will allow plaintiffs the opportunity to complete discovery.” In a memo accompanying the order, Kollar-Kotelly wrote that...

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order blocking the release of downloadable blueprints for 3D-printed firearms. Lasnik’s ruling comes a day after Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a suit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to allow the release of the blueprints. A federal judge in Seattle has granted a temporary restraining order blocking a Texas man from releasing downloadable blueprints for 3D-printed plastic firearms. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik’s ruling Tuesday comes a day after Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a suit challenging the Trump administration’s decision last month...