Free Republic

It’s a sure sign of desperation whenever lawyers try to raise President Richard Milhous Nixon from the dead. And so it is that a group of former Watergate special prosecutors this week resurrected the Ghost of Watergate Past in a last-ditch effort to keep alive the federal court case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The gang, adopting the sobriquet “Watergate Prosecutors,” asked permission from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to allow them to intervene in the Flynn case so they can – to put it bluntly – tell his honor how to think and what to do. The...

Now the purpose of the leaked conference call, aka instructions, from former President Barack Obama come into play. In a very unusual move today Michael Flynn’s judge, Emmet Sullivan, enters an order granting outside parties the time to enter amicus briefs (friend of the court) to assist in guiding the court; a briefing schedule to follow. …”Given the posture of the case the court anticipates individuals and organizations will seek leave to file amicus briefs” … It looks like the judge wants to give former DOJ employees (2,000 signatures on letter) an opportunity to publicly undermine and undercut the position...

D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an order Tuesday indicating that he'll soon accept "amicus curiae," or "friend of the court" submissions, in the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn -- essentially allowing the court to use an "ask the audience" lifeline in what has already proved to be an unpredictable and chaotic prosecution.

A federal judge said Tuesday that he would allow interested parties to weigh in on Michael Flynn's case, an unusual move for a criminal prosecution, after the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought to drop the charges against the former national security adviser. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the D.C. District Court said in a brief order that "at the appropriate time, the Court will enter a Scheduling Order governing the submission of any amicus curiae briefs." The case was upended last week when the DOJ moved to dismiss its charge against Flynn for lying to the FBI about his conversations with...

Attorneys representing three high school girls in a lawsuit aimed at barring transgender female athletes from competing in women’s divisions have filed a motion calling on the presiding judge to recuse himself after he forbid the attorneys from referring the transgender athletes as “males.” The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom in February on behalf of the families of three female high school track athletes who say their transgender competitors are enjoying an unfair advantage. The lawsuit challenges the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that allows students who identify as female to participate in women’s sports and argues...

US District Judge Emmett G. Sullivan unquestionably knows that when a federal defendant pleads guilty but then asks to be relieved of his fate, it is up to the court to decide the merit of his argument — no matter who supports it, including a prosecutor who has switched sides. Sullivan is presiding over the case in which former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty twice to serious federal crimes and is ready for sentencing. The fly in the ointment is a recent request by Attorney General William Barr that basically says: Never mind. Ignore those guilty pleas; Flynn...

A strip club in Houston will reportedly be allowed to open its doors but “solely as a restaurant without additional entertainment,” according to court documents seen by KHOU. A federal judge recently ruled that Club ONYX can reopen in the early phases of Texas' phased reopening process but it will not be allowed to feature entertainment from dancers for the time being, “even if the entertainers are fully clothed.” The ruling follows the club reportedly reopening earlier this month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) allowed the state’s stay-at-home order to expire at the end of April and announced the...

U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny, a Bill Clinton appointee who Obama tried unsuccessfully to elevate to the federal appellate court, said in an April 16 conference call with the attorneys that they had to abide by his politically-correct terminology for the student-athletes at the heart of the case, according to a transcript obtained by the National Review. “What I’m saying is you must refer to them as ‘transgender females” rather than as ‘males.’ Referring to these individuals as ‘transgender females’ is consistent with science, common practice and perhaps human decency. To refer to them as ‘males,’ period, is not accurate,...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday backed a lower court’s ruling that a Kansas voter identification law crafted by former Secretary of State Kris Kobach is unconstitutional and violates the National Voter Registration Act. The law heralded by Kobach took effect in 2013 and mandates that people provide documentation proving U.S. citizenship before being allowed to register to vote. The decision from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after a federal district court struck down the law on the same grounds. The judges said the state had failed to provide convincing arguments in its appeal that Kansas was...

The federal judge presiding over retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn’s case issued a surprise order telling the former national security adviser’s previous attorneys to conduct another search of their entire case archive after it was revealed they failed to turn thousands of documents over to Flynn’s new defense team. The ruling by Judge Emmet Sullivan was made public Tuesday afternoon after Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony, Flynn’s former lawyers at the powerhouse firm Covington & Burling, claimed there were 6,800 records they had only just now unearthed and turned over to Flynn’s current defense team, which has been led by...

In the District Court, petitioners challenged a New York City rule regarding the transport of firearms. Petitioners claimed that the rule violated the Second Amendment. Petitioners sought declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the rule insofar as the rule prevented their transport of firearms to a second home or shooting range outside of the city. The District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected petitioners’ claim. See 883 F. 3d 45 (CA2 2018). We granted certiorari. 586 U. S. ___ (2019). After we granted certiorari, the State of New York amended its firearm licensing statute, and the City amended...

A federal judge has rejected a Columbus bridal shop's lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order allowing it to reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge says state officials have legitimate reasons for restricting business operations. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine says the state's goal is to safely get as many people back to work as possible starting May first, beginning with hospitals: DeWine says large gatherings - including sporting events and concerts - will not be among the first to return because they present the most social distancing problems.

The Department of Justice will appeal to the Supreme Court after it was ordered to hand over sealed documents from former special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation to Congress. The department on Friday asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay its ruling while it petitions the high court. "Whether and under what circumstances Congress may resort to the courts to seek grand jury materials generated in a criminal investigation in aid of an impeachment inquiry is plainly a question of great significance to all three branches of government, as well as to the functioning of the grand jury...

The Supreme Court is making it harder for noncitizens who are authorized to live permanently in the United States to argue they should be allowed to stay in the country if they've committed crimes. The decision Thursday split the court 5-4 along ideological lines. The decision came in the case of Andre Barton, a Jamaican national and green card holder. In 1996, when he was a teenager, he was present when a friend fired a gun at the home of Barton's ex-girlfriend in Georgia. And in 2007 and 2008, he was convicted of drug possession in the state. His crimes...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's decision that an immigrant with lawful permanent resident status cannot fight deportation due to a previous offense, even though that crime was not grounds for his removal. In a 5-4 ruling with conservative justices on one side and liberals on the other, the court ruled for the Trump administration in holding that the statute in question, as drafted by Congress, requires deportation in the case of Andre Barton, even though the assault offenses that prevent him from appealing were not enough to deport him in the first place. "Removal of...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that prosecutors did not break the law in negotiating a plea agreement with Jeffrey Epstein while keeping his victims in the dark more than a decade ago. A three-judge panel on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that federal prosecutors, led at the time by former Trump administration Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, did not violate victims' rights laws in negotiating a lenient and secretive plea agreement for the late financier. But the ruling tore into the prosecutors for their handling of Epstein's case, which the judges called a "national disgrace. "Despite...

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a lower court’s decision temporarily blocking Gov. Kevin Stitt’s ban on abortion care in Oklahoma during the coronavirus pandemic. This means abortion providers in the state can continue providing essential, time-sensitive abortion care. Abortion providers will now seek a preliminary injunction from the district court which will continue to block the ban from taking effect until the case concludes. “Today Oklahomans can breathe a temporary sigh of relief. But the fight is not over. Instead of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Stitt is wasting valuable time and...

Texas will again be allowed to implement its temporary ban on abortion, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday afternoon. Per the order, any abortion "not medically necessary to preserve the life or health" of the patient must be halted as part of the state's directive suspending "non-essential" medical procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic. The ban was briefly lifted on Monday evening when a lower court ruled the suspension of abortion services was unconstitutional and in violation of Supreme Court precedent, including Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. "I thank the court for their immediate...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A federal appeals court in Cincinnati, for now, has declined to get involved with a lawsuit over how abortion providers in Ohio can continue to provide their services amid a public-health order restricting non-essential surgeries during the coronavirus pandemic. A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday issued an order dismissing Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s appeal of a ruling from Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett issued last week. The ruling temporarily blocked Ohio officials from using Health Director Dr. Amy Acton’s health order to completely bar women from access to...

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a plea from Michael Cohen for a sentence reduction as the coronavirus spreads across New York, where President Trump’s former lawyer is serving a three-year prison term. In a two-page order, U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley appeared unmoved by Cohen’s latest sentence-reduction request and largely deferred to federal prosecutors who said the former fixer was “manifestly ineligible” for compassionate release. “Ten months into his prison term, it’s time that Cohen accept the consequences of his criminal convictions for serious crimes that had far reaching institutional harms,” Pauley wrote. Cohen has been incarcerated since...