Free Republic

ATLANTA — Prosecutors in Atlanta on Monday told lawyers for Rudy Giuliani that he’s a target of their criminal investigation into possible illegal attempts by then-President Donald Trump and others to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia, one of Giuliani’s lawyers said Monday. Special prosecutor Nathan Wade alerted Giuliani’s local attorney in Atlanta that the former New York City mayor could face criminal charges, another Giuliani attorney, Bob Costello said. News of the disclosure was first reported by The New York Times. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation last year, and a special grand jury...

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed the cases involving The New York Times, CBS, ABC, Gannett, and Rolling Stone Federal Judge Dismisses Nick Sandmann Defamation Lawsuits Against New York Times, Other Media Companies The controversial Nick Sandmann had his defamation lawsuits against a multitude of media companies dismissed by a U.S. District Court in Kentucky this week. Federal Judge William Bertelsman ruled that coverage of Sandmann which said he “blocked” a Native American man were “protected opinions,” and not defamation. Sandmann exploded amongst Conservative circles after footage of him when he was 16 years old at the March for Life...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge has ordered Indianapolis Public Schools to allow a 10-year-old transgender girl to rejoin her school’s all-girls softball team while a lawsuit continues against a state law that bans transgender females from competing in girls school sports. U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson in Indianapolis issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday on behalf of the girl, finding that she “has established that she has a strong likelihood of succeeding on the merits” of her claim. “She has also established that she would suffer irreparable harm for which there is no adequate legal remedy,” Magnus-Stinson wrote in her...

A man who attacked police officers with poles during the riot at the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five years in prison, matching the longest term of imprisonment so far among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions. Mark Ponder, a 56-year-old resident of Washington, D.C., said he “got caught up” in the chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” “I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, asking her for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison. That...

You might have noticed that the media has sort of taken a little interest in the Hunter Biden debacle. NewsweekDOJ Will Take Action Against Hunter Biden Within 2 Months: RepresentativeThe HillIs the clock finally running out on Hunter Biden?Yahoo: Secret Service Responds to Graphic Hunter Biden Photos, VideosPage SixHunter Biden’s marriage to Melissa Cohen is on the rocksCNNFederal investigation of Hunter Biden reaches critical juncture, sources sayAfter smothering the story for a few years, why is their curiosity piqued now?Because they know it's going to amount to nothing. There is a reason the DOJ is leaking, and it has specifically...

A federal judge on Friday dismissed five former FBI officials -- including former director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe -- from a lawsuit that former President Donald Trump filed against them and other political opponents related to the Russia investigation. Judge Donald Middlebrooks granted the Justice Department's request to substitute itself as defendants for the former FBI officials, after finding that Trump's lawsuit covered actions that they took while acting within the scope of their government employment. This is a victory for the former FBI officials, who no longer have to battle Trump in the civil litigation, which...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - On Monday afternoon, a West Virginia circuit judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of West Virginia’s 1800s-era criminal abortion ban. As a result, abortions are once again legal in the Mountain State. This case pits the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia against the State of West Virginia. The ACLU, on behalf of the Health Center, was seeking an injunction to stop the enforcement of the 100-year-old law that criminalized abortion in West Virginia. The ACLU argues the state’s criminal abortion statute cannot co-exist with modern laws passed since Roe V. Wade. That includes...

A Ramsey County judge has ruled that several Minnesota laws regulating abortion are unconstitutional. The lawsuit was originally filed by an unnamed obstetrician-gynecologist, an unnamed nurse midwife and Our Justice, a Minnesota nonprofit that helps those seeking abortion, in 2019, claiming that several state abortion laws were unconstitutional because they violate the right to privacy, equal protection, free speech, the prohibition on special legislation, and a prohibition on vague laws. What are the laws the ruling addresses? Specifically, the trio pointed to the “physician-only law,” the “hospitalization law,” “reporting laws,” the “two-parent notification law,” “felony penalties” laws, the “mandatory disclosure...

Trump White House aide’s bid to delay case due to Jan. 6 panel hearings is denied. A federal judge on Monday eviscerated nearly all of Steve Bannon’s defenses against a charge that he criminally defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee, leaving the longtime Donald Trump ally with few options to fight the contempt of Congress case against him. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols also denied Bannon’s bid to postpone for three months the jury trial set to open next Monday, rejecting defense arguments that such a delay was warranted due to intense media coverage around the ongoing...

A similar ruling was issued Monday in Louisiana, another state with an abortion "trigger law." udge in Utah has granted a restraining order that will block for 14 days the state's abortion "trigger law." Judge Andrew Stone of the 3rd District granted Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah's request for a temporary injunction following an emergency hearing Monday. Utah's abortion trigger law was passed in 2020 and was contingent upon Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, which the court did Friday. The law bans abortions in the state with exceptions for rape or...

A Louisiana judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday against the state from enforcing its ban on abortions, leading to the immediate resumption of the procedure. Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso granted the request of plaintiffs Hope Medical Group For Women and Medical Students for Choice. The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years had granted women the constitutional right to an abortion. Providers in Louisiana had stopped performing abortions on Friday, unsure of the legality of the practice due to the vagueness of the bill, according to reproductive rights...

Dr. Simone Gold, a Beverly Hills woman known for spreading debunked claims about Covid-19 was sentenced on Thursday to 60 days in prison for illegally entering and remaining in the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. Gold, founder of the group America’s Frontline Doctors, was also ordered to pay a $9,500 fine – the largest fine imposed to date among the almost 200 rioters who have been sentenced. “Your organization is leaving people with the misimpression that this is a political prosecution or that it’s about free speech,” district Judge Christopher Cooper said as he imposed the sentence, slamming...