Free Republic

Hunter Biden is asking appellate courts in both of his criminal cases to consider dismissing his tax and gun charges, according to court documents. Biden asked the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday to hear his arguments for dismissal after a judge in Delaware denied Biden’s requests to drop three felonies related to a 2018 gun purchase. Biden had argued to Judge Maryellen Noreika that his charges should be dropped by claiming that a since-withdrawn plea agreement was actually active and had immunized him from being charged; that special counsel David Weiss, who is overseeing Biden’s prosecutions, was inappropriately...

Here’s the newest example of how New York City is in favor of violent crime. In Manhattan, a 30-year-old man named Jean Carlos Zarzuela punched a 54-year-old woman so hard that he broke her nose.Zarzuela was arrested for that, but Manhattan Judge Laurie Peterson released him without bail.Four days after Judge Peterson released Zarzuela without bail, he punched a 9-year-old girl in the head.This is yet even more proof that New York City is in favor of violent crime.

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) stated that if 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump wins in 2024, he’ll nominate more judges who believe that unelected federal agency officials shouldn’t make crucial policy decisions and that this should be left to Congress. While discussing judicial nominees and courts, Klobuchar said, “It matters, you…are going to discuss later in your program whether or not a president is above the law, whether or not he can claim immunity for any act, because that’s what Donald Trump is claiming. We know, with the Mifepristone decision,...

Even if you don’t happen to be a lawyer, law professor or legal scholar, it isn’t hard to see a big problem with many of the published decisions made by judges who are hearing defense arguments and motions made by President Trump, in the continued “lawfare” cases being used by the DNC (not the United States) to persecute him financially, and block him politically. There are a number of these judicial positions that are out in the press. I’d like to focus on just one: the most recent case in Georgia involving free speech.I’m not going to write up a...

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. - She must go. That’s the unanimous recommendation from a hearing panel investigating Douglas County Probate Judge Christina Peterson. The first-time judge has also been the subject of several FOX 5 I-Team investigations since she took office in late 2020. The three-member panel for the Judicial Qualifications Commission decided Peterson is guilty of "systemic incompetence" because she ignored courthouse rules, abused courthouse personnel, made inappropriate posts on social media and, in repeated cases, failed to do her job. The extraordinary decision to remove Peterson follows four separate hearings starting in September 2023 where Peterson had a chance to...

A gag order issued Tuesday in the New York hush money case bars Donald Trump from popping off against witnesses, jurors, and "court staff" — but it makes no mention of the judge and members of his family, who remain fair game. Trump wasted little time exploiting that loophole Wednesday, when he used his Truth Social account to take aim at both state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and the judge's progressive daughter, Loren Merchan. The daughter is a Democratic political consultant whose social media has been critical of Trump, including during his administration, when she condemned his family-separation border...

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Wednesday indicated that he would not support President Joe Biden's judicial nominees if they could not secure the support of at least one upper chamber Republican. "Just one Republican. That’s all I'm asking for. Give me something bipartisan. This is my own little filibuster. If they can't get one Republican, I vote for none. I've told [Democrats] that. I said, 'I'm sick and tired of it, I can't take it anymore," he said, according to Politico. The moderate senator, who is retiring at the end of his current term, has long taken positions...

In a move hailed by some as a significant stride towards judicial impartiality, the Judicial Conference of the United States has announced a new policy aimed squarely at curtailing the practice known as “judge shopping.” This policy requires that, in certain civil cases with statewide or national implications, judges are to be assigned randomly within the judicial district, effectively dismantling a litigant’s ability to handpick judges likely to rule in their favor. The new policy, which touches on cases that seek either a declaratory judgment or any form of injunctive relief against state or federal actions, arrives in the wake...

Three incumbent judges on the state’s highest criminal court — all opposed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who disagreed with their ruling on an election law case in 2021 — were behind in early returns in Tuesday’s Republican primary.Paxton and an allied organization, Texans for Responsible Judges, targeted three Republican judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals, saying they should be replaced after ruling that the Texas Constitution prohibited the attorney general from investigating election fraud unless invited to do so by a county prosecutor. Presiding Judge Sharon Keller — seeking a fifth six-year term — was almost 26 percentage...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is not on the March Primary ballot, but he’s been active in the race, campaigning around the state for Republican candidates challenging some House members who voted to impeach him. But Paxton is also mounting a different campaign effort that could have a more significant impact. He is backing challengers to three Republican judges who currently serve on the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court. It comes after those judges ruled the Texas Constitution prevents Paxton from prosecuting voter fraud cases. In an interview Wednesday, Paxton called the decision “ludicrous” and urged...

Texas is under threat of a George Soros-backed takeover. Soros-funded RINO judges have been elected in some of the highest courts in Texas. These judges implemented restrictions that have blocked nearly a thousand cases of voter fraud from being investigated or prosecuted from across the state. These new restrictions are similar to ones in place in states like George, Arizona, and Wisconsin, leaving Texas more susceptible to election corruption than ever. If Texas falls to corruption, America will lose its largest bastion of conservative electoral power in the nation. Without Texas, Republicans WILL NOT be able to win national elections...

Fani Willis, currently starring as Javert in the Fulton County dinner-theatre production of Les Magarables, took the stand yesterday. It was an arresting turn: FANI WILLIS: "Where's Belize? What continent? I'm not being funny. I don't know. I've been to Belize with him. I've been to The Bahamas with him. I've been to Aruba with him. Don't embarrass me. I'm not sure what continents those are on." pic.twitter.com/Cs1sGFT5je — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 15, 2024 Well, you can't really blame someone in Georgia for not knowing the Bahamas are in Antarctica. On the other hand, Florida is a contiguous state......

QUEENS, NY (TND) — A shocking arrest was made in an apparent homegrown terrorism case involving two brothers in Queens, New York. Authorities said an arsenal of homemade weapons and a "hit list" listing "cops, judges, politicians, celebrities" and “banker scum” were found when the suspected anarchists were arrested at their home. New York police arrested 39-year-old Andrew and 51-year-old Angelo Hatziagelis. On January 17, a search warrant was served at their Astoria apartment that the brothers shared with their mother and another brother.

At an undetermined date, in an undisclosed location, the Biden administration began operating a secretive new court to protect Europeans’ privacy rights under U.S. law. Officially known as the Data Protection Review Court, it was authorized in an October 2022 executive order to fix a collision of European and American law that had been blocking the lucrative flow of consumer data between American and European companies for three years. The court’s eight judges were named last November, including former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Its existence has allowed companies to resume the lucrative transatlantic data trade with the blessing of...

In a 14-page opinion and ruling today [SEE pdf HERE] four judges from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals deconstruct the previous ruling from their own court as well as the DC judge beneath them that gave Special Counsel Jack Smith access to President Trump Twitter account data and then enforced a non-disclosure order. There are multiple layers to this story, but the substantive part is the scheme and the construct of how the Lawfare took place. There’s no way this was coincidental; I’ll explain why. First, there are only 7 members on the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals....

As the year 2023 came to a close, a number of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees are still pending confirmation, including some who couldn’t answer basic constitutional questions.Two nominees who failed to answer questions on simple legal terms during their confirmation hearing were advanced on party lines through the Senate Judiciary Committee in May following the late Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s return after recovering from shingles. But, months later, neither has been voted on and confirmed by the full Senate.Charnelle Bjelkengren was nominated on Sept. 19, 2022 to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of...

Earlier this week, the Colorado State Supreme Court determined in a 4-3 ruling that Trump is ineligible under the 14th Amendment to appear on the ballot in the state. This nonsensical ruling essentially declares that even though Trump has never been convicted of, much less tried with sedition or participating in an insurrection, he is nevertheless guilty of such. The ruling is bound to be taken up by the Supreme Court, and experts on both sides of the aisle believe it will be promptly overturned. But that doesn't change the fact that four justices in the highest court in the...

If we possess a right to keep and bear firearms, it stands to reason that we must also have the right to acquire one, but according to a federal judge in Colorado no such right exists. U.S. District Judge John L. Kane, an 86-year-old appointee of Jimmy Carter back in 1977, made the eyebrow-raising decision in a case known as Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis, which challenges Colorado’s newly-enacted three-day waiting period on all gun sales. Kane denied the group’s request for an injunction that would have halted enforcement of the waiting period while the litigation continues, ruling the...

Trump attorney Alina Habba joined "Sunday Morning Futures" with host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday to discuss the latest on the former president's civil fraud trial in New York and argued New York Attorney General Letitia James should dismiss the case. Habba told Bartiromo that she would be filing for a mistrial but said the judge was the same judge who issued a gag order. "These accusations that he overvalued assets what kind of third party people did you have or did Donald Trump have in terms of doing their own evaluation because, I mean, when you — go to get...

A teenager in Philadelphia has been arrested and charged for plotting what authorities have called a “catastrophic terrorist attack.” The 17-year-old boy was arrested by SWAT forces on August 11, following an investigation FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. The teen is accused of being in contact with Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad, an extremist Islamist group affiliated with Al Qaeda. Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad was officially designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department in 2022. He received instructions from the group on the construction of IEDs and purchased materials used to make explosives as well as...