Free Republic

In a major but likely controversial victory for free speech, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned the conviction of a retired Air Force colonel for using a racial epithet at the shoe store on the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia. Jules A. Bartow, who is white, was arrested after a bizarre and disgraceful exchange with an employee, including the use of the “n word” with the African American woman. The highly offensive and repugnant language of Bartow was denounced by the court, but the unanimous panel still reversed T.S. Ellis III, Senior District Judge of...

Vindicating Larry Franklin ELI LAKE January 16, 2007 When President Bush announced the new Iraq strategy Wednesday evening, acknowledging that Iran was effectively at war with us in Iraq by supplying terrorists with advanced improvised explosives, my thoughts turned to Lawrence Franklin. Nearly a year ago, Judge T.S. Ellis III, sentenced this Pentagon Iran analyst to almost 13 years in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to discussing classified information with two former lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The case, which is thus far the Bush administration's only successful anti-leaking prosecution, illustrates the strategic confusion of...

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer pleaded guilty today to conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia, Assistant Director for Counterintelligence John Brown of the FBI and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III accepted the plea.

President Trump on Friday morning said he felt “very badly” for Paul Manafort, but that he has not discussed a pardon for his former campaign manager, who was sentenced to 47 months in prison. “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,” the president told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before departing on a trip to survey the tornado damage in Alabama. He said this “is a very, very tough time” for Manafort, 69, who still faces sentencing in a separate case next week in DC, where a judge could impose as much as 10 more years...

Just when you thought MSNBC couldn't get any more vulgar, along comes Donny Deutsch this morning to suggest that the judge who yesterday sentenced Paul Manafort had a "hard-on" against the Mueller investigation.For those unfamiliar with the expression, in this context it would mean that the judge held a grudge against the investigation. But the origin of the phrase is, of course, of a graphically sexual nature. Get the res of the story and view the video here.

Judge T.S. Ellis, a Reagan appointee to the Federal District Court for Eastern Virginia, is well-known for speaking his mind. Yesterday, in sentencing Paul Manafort, he rebuked Team Mueller’s harsh sentence recommendation of 19-24 years’ imprisonment as “excessive,” and instead set a lot of progressives’ hair on fire by imposing a sentence of 47 months, and recommended counting the nine months of time served (much of it in solitary confinement, imposed by Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a separate case in DC District Court) against that total, meaning just over three years of imprisonment. Paul Manafort's mug shot -...

Paul Manafort was sentenced Thursday to just under four years in prison for a massive fraud scheme tied to his work as a political consultant for Ukraine’s pro-Russian government, according to reports from the Virginia courthouse. The 47-month sentence imposed by federal Judge T.S. Ellis III was far below sentencing guidelines of 19-1/2 to 24 years, which Ellis called “excessive.”

not the 20-24 years the Feds wanted

A federal judge in Virginia Monday abruptly canceled the sentencing hearing for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, originally scheduled for next month. The hearing in which Mr. Manafort would have learned his fate for a host of financial fraud crimes was initially set for Feb 8. But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis said it was “prudent” to delay the hearing because of a separate, but related dispute in Washington, D.C. “Because it appears that resolution of the current dispute in defendant’s prosecution in the District of Columbia may have some effect on the sentencing decision in this case,...

Judge T.S. Ellis III revealed in open court Friday that he has received death threats relating to his presiding over Paul Manafort’s trial for bank and tax fraud at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The judge has since retained the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service. “I have the marshal’s protection,” Ellis said. “I don’t even go to the hotel alone. I won’t even reveal the name of the hotel.” “I had no idea this case excited this emotion in the public,” he added.

The judge in Paul Manafort’s trial suggested to a prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller that he is “so frustrated” that there were tears in his eyes. Bloomberg reported that U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III made the comment to prosecutor Greg Andres during a discussion out of earshot of the jury and members of the media. “I understand how frustrated you are,” Ellis said. “In fact, there’s tears in your eyes right now.’’ Andres disputed Ellis’s statement, to which the judge replied, “Well, they’re watery.” Tensions have broken out between the prosecutors and Ellis throughout the trial: The judge...

Mere seconds into the first words spoken to a jury from the special counsel team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, Judge T.S. Ellis III interrupted. “Focus on the elements of the offense,” the 78-year-old jurist interjected Tuesday as Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye described Paul Manafort as a man who believed he was above the law. Soon after, Ellis interrupted again, as Asonye sketched for jurors Manafort’s luxurious lifestyle. “It isn’t a crime to be profligate in your spending,” Ellis said. He soon admonished defense attorney Thomas Zehnle in a similar fashion. “I take it you plan to...

Special counsel Robert Mueller is planning to call 35 witnesses to the stand during the trial starting Tuesday against President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The list of witnesses includes Richard Gates, who was indicted alongside Manafort on charges of bank and tax fraud, but pleaded guilty. The prosecution is also planning to call Democratic operative Tad Devin, who served as Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) chief strategist when he ran for president in 2016, and Manafort’s assistant, Alex Trusko. Trusko granted FBI investigators access to a storage locker containing evidence Manafort tried to keep out of the trial, according...

A federal judge in Virginia agreed Monday to grant immunity to five potential witnesses in Paul Manafort’s upcoming trial — but, in a blow to special counsel Robert Mueller, said their identities would be made public. Mueller’s team wanted the identities of their witnesses to remain confidential, saying in a filing last week that they haven’t been criminally charged and not naming them would avoid “undue harassment.” But Judge T.S. Ellis, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said they would be identified. He also ordered Mueller’s office to provide a list of about 30 witnesses to Manafort’s lawyers. President Trump’s ex-campaign chairman...

Judge T.S. Ellis lost his temper and blasted prosecutors a couple weeks ago and said he believes Mueller is using the Manafort case to provide material that would lead to Trump’s “prosecution or impeachment”. Judge Ellis also ordered the government to hand over the unredacted Rosenstein memo. The Judge told Mueller’s prosecutors, “We don’t want anyone with unfettered power.” Last Thursday, Robert Mueller’s office begrudgingly gave Judge T.S. Ellis the unredacted Rosenstein memo detailing the Special Counsel’s scope in a sealed court filing. Mueller knew the day would come he would be challenged by an honest judge so his team...

It was just over a week ago that President Donald Trump and his legal team in their eyes got vindication -- a federal judge that questioned the scope of special counsel Robert Mueller's now one-year-old probe. The judge, T.S. Ellis, questioned the scope of the probe as he presided over a second case involving former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Ellis, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, caught the attention of many in that early May hearing after he poked, prodded and even appeared to question the motives of the prosecutor arguing against the effort to have the case...

WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office notified a federal court in Virginia on Thursday it had filed under seal an unredacted memorandum that is expected to shed light on the scope of his wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The filing, made as part of Mueller’s criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was requested by the judge, who told prosecutors earlier this month he wanted to see an unredacted copy of an August 2017 memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein which fleshed out Mueller’s investigative mandate. In a...

Special counsel Robert Mueller is used to getting kid-glove treatment. That changed Friday in a federal courtroom in Virginia, where Judge T.S. Ellis directed a blunt challenge to the Mueller team prosecuting former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on charges of tax and bank fraud, some of which date back to 2005. “I don’t see what relation this indictment has with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate. You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” Judge Ellis told Michael Dreeben, who was representing Mr. Mueller in court. “What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort...

A federal judge lost his temper on Friday during a Manafort hearing and accused special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors of using the case just as a pretext for trying to oust Donald Trump from office. District Judge T.S. Ellis told Mueller’s prosecutor Michael Dreeben: “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud”, arguing that Mueller’s team is only interested in the President’s impeachment or prosecution. Judge T.S. Ellis is a Ronald Reagan appointee and during the Friday hearing, he ordered the US government to disclose the Rosenstein memo full monty, i.e. unredacted, while stating that: “We don’t...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sharply criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal case in Virginia against President Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and openly questioned whether Mueller exceeded his prosecutorial powers by bringing it. “I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis in the Eastern District of Virginia said. At tense hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the judge said Mueller should not have “unfettered power” in his Russia probe and that the charges against Manafort did not arise...