Free Republic

The U.S. Justice Department has agreed to provide congressional investigators confidential records on a failed gun-trafficking operation during the Obama administration known as "Fast and Furious" that long has been criticized by Republican lawmakers. In a statement issued on Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department would hand over documents to the Republican-led House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that had been withheld by Democratic former President Barack Obama's administration. The agreement reached by Republican President Donald Trump's administration will effectively end a six-year long legal battle in which the committee had gone to federal...

The Department of Justice intervened in the case of a German family seeking asylum in order to home school their children. The Romeike family fled Germany when authorities threatened to remove their children from their parents' custody if they weren't sent to public school. Lawyers for the family called teaching one's own children a fundamental parental right. Not so, said a brief filed by the US Department of Justice: “Where the boundary lies between parental authority and state authority is a matter of law. The state's interest in promoting a child's socialization as a participant in the collective body of...

The Al-Madany Islamic Center of Norwalk in Connecticut wasn’t ready to give up when its proposal for a 27,000 square foot facility was turned down by the zoning commission over matters completely unrelated to religion. The Islamic Center sued, asserting—as you might have guessed—it was religious discrimination. The cry of “Islamophobia” got the Justice Department on its side, and the zoning commission suddenly changed its mind after a closed session. The current Islamic Center was established in 1999 and serves 100 families. Feeling that more space was needed, the Center purchased the property in 2008 and made the $3.5 million...