Free Republic

Former New York GOP Rep. George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in federal court Friday in connection with his wire fraud and identity theft case. The 36-year-old former representative served in Congress for close to a year before being ousted in 2023 by his House colleagues. Santos had not yet been convicted of a crime at that point, but had been indicted on 23 counts related to wire fraud, identity theft, falsification of records, credit card fraud and other charges. Santos sobbed as he received his sentence, according to the Associated Press. U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert asked...

A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump from implementing an executive order that requires voters to show documentation proving their U.S. citizenship to cast a ballot in federal elections. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from going forward with the proof-of-citizenship requirements as a lawsuit plays out, the Associated Press reported. The lawsuit, filed by the Democratic National Committee and leftist voting rights groups, claims that Trump’s order is “an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans.”

Two Democrat-appointed federal judges have extended temporary blocks on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport criminal illegal aliens. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has extended an April 9 order for another two weeks that bars the Trump administration from deporting illegal aliens being held in Southern District of New York without first providing them with an opportunity for a hearing. During a hearing Tuesday, Hellerstein, a President Bill Clinton appointee, criticized the Trump administration for its approach to deportations. “This is not the Inquisition, it’s not medieval times,” Hellerstein said. Until the New York court...

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday extended his block on removal of Tren de Aragua gang members facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 91-year-old Clinton appointee, blasted DOJ lawyers during a hearing on Tuesday and accused them throwing people out of the US “because of their tattoos.” Earlier this month Hellerstein blocked the removal of two alleged Tren de Aragua gang members in New York.

Two federal judges on Wednesday blocked the removal of Venezuelan nationals and alleged TdA gang members facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. US District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., a Trump appointee, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) through April 23 or until he issues an order. “Respondents are enjoined from transferring, relocating, or removing J.A.V., J.G.G., W.G.H., or any other person that Respondents claim are subject to removal under the Proclamation, from the El Valle Detention Center; and Respondents are enjoined from...

EUGENE, Ore. — Conservation groups across Oregon have won a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management’s logging plans. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the BLM had illegally authorized the logging of old-growth forest lands within protected areas called late successional reserves.... ...The court pointed out that logging in these reserves would increase fire hazards and harm nearby habitats.... ...The Cascadia Wildlands Group, alongside other conservation groups,....

The 8-year-long federal lawsuit seeking to ban voting systems in the State of Georgia that store a voter’s intent on a QR code rather than human-verifiable text has ended today. Judge Amy Totenberg issued her ruling over a year after the trial concluded, determining that “the Court lacks jurisdiction to consider the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims.” The Gateway Pundit covered this trial from Day 1 in court, witnessing several egregious manipulations of the voting system demonstrated live and on the record in the courtroom. University of Michigan computer science professor Dr. J. Alex Halderman successfully hacked the Dominion ICX system...

A second federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Trump’s ban on transgender troops. In January President Trump signed the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order and the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive orders, which direct every element of the U.S. military to “operate free from any preference based on race or sex” and root out gender insanity and made up pronoun usage, respectively. US District Judge Benjamin Hale Settle in Washington State, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on Thursday evening. Judge Settle, a George W. Bush appointee, said the Trump DOJ’s arguments have not been persuasive.

"Nothing in the Draggieland performance offends the executive order the Board cites. No male performer in the drag show is stating an intent to become a woman. Nor does the Board point to evidence in the record establishing that the president’s executive order on “biological truth” specifically refers or applies to drag shows." "The court grants the motion for a preliminary injunction. The Board is enjoined from enforcing the ban. The Draggieland performance scheduled for March 27, 2025, in the Rudder Theatre, may proceed as originally scheduled."

A federal judge on Thursday barred DOGE from accessing social security systems. US District Judge Ellen Hollander, an Obama appointee, said DOGE’s workers are on a “fishing expedition.” “The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Judge Hollander wrote. Far-left organizations like AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and other plaintiffs sued the Social Security Administration, Elon Musk, DOGE and...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to reinstate tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a “sham” strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made...

March 13 (Reuters) - A California federal judge on Thursday ordered six U.S. agencies to reinstate thousands of recently-hired employees who were fired as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce. The ruling made by U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco applies to the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

The Trump administration could be sanctioned by a federal judge later this week after lawyers with the Department of Justice advised a federal judge Tuesday evening that they will not make a top administration official available for sworn testimony. U.S. District Judge Charles Alsup had sought to have the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Charles Ezell, testify on Thursday about the mass firing of probationary employees. But the DOJ said Tuesday that they would not make Ezell available for testimony. By making Ezell unavailable, DOJ attorneys also withdrew his sworn affidavit, a move that Judge Charles...

A federal district judge has failed to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a fired worker who obtained a job at a religious school by promising to adhere to its biblical standards, even as he was already started on a campaign to embrace transgenderism. The judge, Norman Moon, allowed the lawsuit by Jonathan Zinski against Liberty University to move forward by claiming that the school cannot "erect a shield against antidiscrimination laws by asserting that mere acceptance of a member from a particular group would impair its image." Further, he said having the Christian school employ Zinski does not significantly burden...

Judge Anthony J. Trenga, an appointee of George W. Bush, has temporarily blocked President Trump’s move to clean house in the intelligence community—specifically targeting agents involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives that have compromised national security in favor of leftist ideology. This ruling comes after a group of anonymous intelligence officers, who had been temporarily reassigned to roles implementing controversial Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) programs, have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of...

The Honorable Peter J. Messitte passed away on Saturday, January 11, 2025, after a short illness. Judge Messitte was commissioned as a U.S. District Judge on October 20, 1993. He served in the Court’s Southern Division at the Greenbelt Courthouse and was on active status until September 1, 2008. Judge Messitte continued service on senior status until his death. Judge Messitte was renowned for his judicial outreach throughout the world, and especially in Latin America. In June 2017, he received the Order of the Southern Cross for his contributions to the Brazilian Judiciary. His colleagues and Court staff deeply mourn...

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship regardless of the parents’ immigration status. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argue the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court case law have cemented birthright citizenship.

A federal judge in Seattle blocked, temporarily, President Donald Trump’s attempt to rescind birthright citizenship — the idea spelled out in the Constitution that every person born in the United States is an American citizen. Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour on Thursday was blistering in his criticism of Trump’s action as he granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide. “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades, I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour, an...

A federal appeals court decided this week to allow Davina Ricketts, a former North Carolina high school student, to continue pursuing her racial discrimination lawsuit against the Wake County Public School System, its board of education, and numerous school officials. Ricketts alleges that school and district officials did not intervene and were “deliberately indifferent” to the racial harassment and cyberbullying she endured from other students during and after a student council election in 2016.... When election day came, Ricketts discovered her name and the names of the other three Black candidates were not on the junior class ballot. The omission...

Suffolk County taxpayers could be on the hook for $60 million in a migrant class-action lawsuit for holding on to illegal immigrants until the feds could show up and ship them out of the country, officials said Wednesday. A federal judge ruled that the sheriff’s office in the Long Island county acted on its own when it held undocumented immigrants for deportation proceedings — because New York State law doesn’t allow local cops to do so. Adding insult to injury, the judge says the feds won’t have to chip in to pay off the hefty ruling — even though they’re...