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@julie_kelly2 Judge: “This is what law enforcement is supposed to do. I don’t see anything on the entrapment front. In my mind, law enforcement deserves a pat on the back.” He claimed the FBI informants “pulled the plug early” and commended the agency for its “careful monitoring.” 🙄 This same judge has aided DOJ in this bogus case from the start, denying defense motions to present damning evidence at trial and refusing to compel testimony from FBI informants, agents for defense. His conduct in retrial was a disgrace

... At least a dozen FBI informants working with FBI handlers and undercover agents out of numerous FBI field offices engineered the hoax in 2020. Dan Chappel, a contract truck driver for the Postal Service, was hired as the key informant in March 2020; he primarily led the effort to stitch the random group of outliers together. The FBI compensated Chappel roughly $60,000 in cash and personal items, a sum Chappel admitted at trial had exceeded his annual salary. Chappel particularly fixated on Fox, who lived alone at the time in the dilapidated cellar of a vacuum repair shop without...

A judge ruled on September 29 that federal agents who raided 1,400 safe-deposit boxes in March 2021 at a private vault company did not violate search and seizure laws, court documents shared with Insider show. A lawsuit filed in August alleged the FBI and the US attorney's office in Los Angeles obtained warrants against US Private Vaults in Beverly Hills, California, by concealing critical details from the judge who approved them. In his ruling, District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner found no impropriety in the way the government got or executed the warrants for the raid. He dismissed the class-action...

A federal court on Tuesday canceled a hearing over Trump election lawyer John Eastman’s attempt to reclaim his seized phone. The court canceled the hearing after the corrupt Justice Department obtained a second search warrant which undermined Eastman’s case. The judge continued, “The undersigned will take the Government at its word that the warrant was issued, and the Court’s decision will be based in part on that representation.” “With this in mind, the Court will vacate the hearing currently set for September 6, 2022, and will decide Eastman’s motion on the written submissions of parties,” the judge wrote. The hearing...

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The alleged masterminds of an extremist plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war ahead of the 2020 presidential election will be re-tried after a jury failed to reach a verdict in their cases earlier this year. A federal judge set a trial date in August for Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. Thursday after declining their lawyer’s request to clear them of conspiracy and weapons charges. “We don’t know what the jury was thinking. … There’s enough here to say that a rational jury could still go against Mr. Fox, go against Mr. Croft, even...

A federal judge in Missouri on Monday pushed a lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers against The Gateway Pundit back to a Missouri circuit court for additional proceedings. Plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss filed the case against James Hoft, Joseph Hoft, and TGP Communications LLC (the business which operates The Gateway Pundit) in December 2021. The suit alleges two counts of defamation (one involving Freeman, the other involving Moss) and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress. It seeks nominal damages, compensatory damages (including general, actual, consequential, and special damages), punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs, but...

January 6 protester Dustin Thompson was found guilty on Thursday of a felony and several misdemeanors. After Dustin Thompson’s guilty verdict was read, he was removed from the courtroom in shackles, with little objection from his attorney. It wasn’t expected that he’d be ordered detained like this before sentencing. As two older security guards removed his belt, ring, and personal items from his pockets, Judge Reggie Walton said in a harsh tone that Thompson was “weak-minded.” ____________________________ Judge Walton, “Trump is a charlatan who caused an insurgency. He is tearing America apart. That’s the reason why our country is falling...

WASHINGTON — A Florida man who bragged he "broke the internet" when he was photographed carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's podium during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 75 days in prison on Friday. Adam Johnson, a stay-at-home father of five boys, traveled to D.C. in support of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden. U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton sentenced Johnson to prison on Friday, saying Johnson made "a mockery" of the events by grabbing Pelosi's lectern and...

Mariposa Castro, also known as Imelda Acosta, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton. She also received a $5,000 fine from the judge, who said the January 6 attack had "totally undermined" the peaceful transfer of presidential power, NBC News reported. Throughout the day, Castro posted videos on her Facebook account showing the riot from inside the building and outside on restricted grounds. One video shows her climbing through a broken window, using the platform located at the lower west terrace of the Capitol, according to court records. As she was entering the Capitol, she could be heard...

Signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, Assembly Bill 173 amended state firearms laws to allow California to turn over gun owners’ personal information to gun violence researchers. Finding there was no “emergency” to warrant restraining California from sharing millions of gun owners’ personal information with gun violence researchers, a federal judge Wednesday declined to block the state’s enactment of Assembly Bill 173.U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns heard from attorneys for Jane and John Does and Attorney General Rob Bonta regarding a constitutional challenge to Assembly Bill 173, a law which amended California firearms laws to authorize...

Chief Justice John Roberts asserted the independence of the federal courts from what he called "inappropriate political influence," in a year-end report released Friday that comes amid widespread political criticism of the Supreme Court, and calls to dramatically reform its structure.

Afederal judge knocked former President Trump on Monday for his repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, arguing that former Vice President Al Gore "was a man" and accepted his election loss in 2000. "Al Gore had a better case to argue than Mr. Trump and he was a man about what happened to him," Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said, according to CNN. "He accepted it and walked away." Walton was referring to Gore's decision to concede the race to President George W. Bush after weeks of legal battles, which were triggered due to an extremely...

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates in schools violates the Americans with Disabilities Act — freeing local officials to again create their own rules. The order comes after a months long legal dispute between parents, a disability rights organization and Texas officials over whether the state was violating the 1990 law, known as the ADA, by not allowing school districts to require masks. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel barred Attorney General Ken Paxton from enforcing Abbott’s order. “The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs,”...

On Friday, a federal judge imposed the largest fine yet in any Capitol riot case. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton sentenced husband and wife Thomas Vinson and Lori Vinson to five years of probation and 120 hours of community service for their participation in the January 6 insurrection. The Kentucky couple was also ordered to pay $5,000 each, which Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillman noted is the largest fine so far. "I know that's a lot, but I want the sentence to hurt," Walton said. In July, the Vinsons pleaded guilty to charges of entering and remaining in a restricted building; disorderly...