Free Republic

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday allowed the release of the volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s report dealing with President-elect Trump’s efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power. In a five-page ruling, Cannon denied an effort by Trump and his two co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago documents case to block the release of both volumes of the report, noting that prosecutors argued the election inference report has little to do with the ongoing trial against the two men. “Based on these representations, the Court sees an insufficient basis to grant emergency injunctive relief as to Volume I,”...

Within one month of each other, two federal judges ruled that a law passed by Congress is “likely unconstitutional” and ruled in favor of small businesses. At issue is the Corporate Transparency Act, which Congress passed in 2021, overriding a veto issued by then President Donald Trump. The law requires entities incorporated under state law to disclose the personal information of their stakeholders, including current address, identification documents, and other sensitive information, to the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. After Trump’s veto was overridden, several small businesses in Texas sued U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, arguing the...

In a major victory for cable companies and telcos that raises concerns about the Federal Communications Commission's regulatory authority in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the agency’s net neutrality rules. The rules require broadband operators to treat all internet traffic equally and banned them from giving preferential treatment to some sites by speeding up or slowing down consumer access. The FCC had implemented net neutrality rules under former President Barack Obama, which were then dropped during the Trump administration. Last April the FCC voted 3-2, along party...

From U.S. v. Saleem, decided [yesterday] by Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson, Steven Agee, and Allison Rushing: The Supreme Court in Heller defined "arms" as "any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another." Therefore, "the Second Amendment extends … to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." While a silencer may be a firearm accessory, it is not a "bearable arm" that is capable of casting a bullet. Moreover, while silencers may serve...

A federal judge has halted President Joe Biden’s plans to open the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to illegal aliens enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In May, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced a final rule to open Obamacare rolls to some DACA illegal aliens enrolled in the program. Former President Barack Obama first created the DACA program via executive order, shielding more than a million illegal aliens from deportation through the years. On Monday, District Judge Daniel Traynor granted a preliminary injunction and stay to ensure that Biden’s agencies cannot implement such...

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a high-profile case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT). The decision mandates the FDA to release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) file for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine no later than June 30, 2025. The case stemmed from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the PHMPT, which sought comprehensive data related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA initially claimed it would need up to 75 years to process and release the requested documents....

A few hours before the city of Prattville’s annual Christmas parade was to start, a federal judge ordered the city to allow an LGBTQ pride group’s float to be included. Prattville Pride called the order “a powerful affirmation of the importance of visibility, representation, and inclusion for all members of our community,” in a Facebook post. “The Christmas parade is a cherished holiday tradition, and we are excited to celebrate alongside our neighbors and friends in the spirit of love, joy, and unity.” “While we celebrate this important step forward, we must also acknowledge the challenges and hateful rhetoric that...

A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has the authority to deport illegal immigrants even if local leaders try to impede the process. The case arose after King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order in 2019 that instructed county officials to prohibit “fixed base operators” (FBO) on a county airfield from servicing flights chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants who are lawfully removable. FBO’s “lease space from the airport and provide flights with essential services, such as fueling and landing stairs,” according to the ruling.The...

The Ninth Circuit has long been the left-most federal appellate court in the United States. However, the day after Thanksgiving, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision that must have made President-elect Donald Trump very happy: It concluded that the Supremacy Clause means what it says, namely, that when it comes to the border, local political bodies cannot use regulations governing private parties to override the federal government’s supremacy on immigration matters. United States v. King County revolved around Boeing Field, an airport in King County, Washington (i.e., the Seattle area). In 1941, King County conveyed the field to the U.S....

The federal government has the authority to deport foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally over the objection of local authorities, a panel of three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled. The 29-page ruling was written by Judge Daniel Bress, with judges Michael Hawkins and Richard Clinton concurring. At issue is an April 2019 executive order issued by King County Executive Dow Constantine, which directed county officials to prohibit fixed base operators on a county airfield near Seattle from servicing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights used to deport illegal foreign nationals. Constantine’s order prohibited King...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday stopped the federal government from destroying a fence of razor wire that Texas installed along the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from entering the country illegally. The ruling, criticized by activists, came hours before Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told President-elect Donald Trump that immigrants headed to the U.S. are being “taken care of” in her country. Texas had placed more than 29 miles of wire in the Eagle Pass area by last September when Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents’ alleged illegal destruction of state...

A federal appeals court has upheld an Indiana law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children under the age of 18, one of numerous such laws passed by Republican-controlled states. The 2-1 decision from the seventh US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday comes as the US supreme court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee, which may ultimately determine whether all such state laws around the country can be enforced. The seventh circuit had already allowed the law to take effect in February while it considered the challenge by families of...

A federal appeals court has ruled the Department of Education improperly rejected Grand Canyon University’s switch from for-profit to nonprofit status, granting a key point in the Christian school’s appeal of a record fine. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision Friday. It overturned a 2022 summary judgment by a lower court because the department failed to apply a relevant federal law to the Phoenix campus. The Education Department denied the nonprofit status in 2019, arguing it would enrich the for-profit company that previously owned GCU, even though the IRS and state...

The Western District of Louisiana’s US District Court has ruled in favor of the State of Missouri, allowing additional discovery in the significant Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which scrutinizes government collaboration in social media censorship. This decision comes after the Supreme Court, in June, overturned a prior injunction, then-named Murthy v. Missouri, which had prohibited entities including the White House, CDC, FBI, CISA, and the Surgeon General’s office from pressing social media platforms to suppress speech protected under the Constitution. [link to Court's Order] [snip] The depth of the Biden Administration’s involvement in these censorial activities likely would have remained...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A federal judge has overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that strictly interpret the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms. U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn’s said his Friday decision applied universally, not just to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. The Protect Illinois Communities Act, signed into law in January 2023 by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, took effect Jan. 1. It bans AR-15 rifles and similar guns, large-capacity magazines and an assortment of attachments largely in response to the 2022 Independence Day shooting at a parade in the Chicago suburb...

Update - 9:30 AM Eastern:: Late Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Pitlyk issued her ruling on Missouri's request for a temporary restraining order as to DOJ attorneys dispatched to monitor a polling location in the City of St. Louis. Pitlyk denied Missouri's request for a TRO on the basis that the state did not adequately demonstrate that it would be irreparably harmed by allowing "two individuals at one polling place to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act." It's important to note that the proposed monitoring as to the City of St. Louis derived from a settlement...

Since 1986, whistleblowers have been in the forefront of the government’s war on fraud, accounting for $53 billion, or more than 70%, of the $75 billion recovered from swindlers on defense contracts, from Medicare and from other federal programs.There’s no debate over what’s driving this record: It’s a 1986 federal law that awards whistleblowers up to 30% of the recovery. For the federal government, this is a bargain. Without the law, the government might never even know about most of the $75 billion in fraud that was unearthed. That makes the law “one of the government’s top fraud-fighting tools,” says...

On September 27, 2024, Federal District Court Judge Michael T. Liburdi rendered a decision in American Encore v. Adrian Fontes that weaponized algorithms surreptitiously embedded in various state boards of elections official voter registration database, turning them into a tool to block elections that bear the modus operandi of mail-in ballot election fraud from being certified.In his decision, Judge Liburdi referenced a provision in the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, had issued. That provision required the Secretary of State to certify an election by excluding the votes of any county that refused...

A district court judge in Kentucky has ruled that the “buffer zone” law outside an abortion facility in Louisville cannot be enforced, granting pro-life groups a court victory and the ability to continue counseling women. A permanent injunction was placed on the buffer zone ordinance on September 13, following a legal battle which lasted over three years. The court’s permanent injunction has effectively struck down Louisville’s unconstitutional buffer zone law, permitting sidewalk counselors to do what they do best — offer desperate women life-saving and empowering alternatives to abortion. “We are thrilled with this victory after a years-long battle that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Missouri put a temporary hold on President Joe Biden’s latest student loan cancellation plan on Thursday, slamming the door on hope it would move forward after another judge allowed a pause to expire. Just as it briefly appeared the Biden administration would have a window to push its plan forward, U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp in Missouri granted an injunction blocking any widespread cancellation. Six Republican-led states requested the injunction hours earlier, after a federal judge in Georgia decided not to extend a separate order blocking the plan. The states, led by Missouri’s...