Free Republic

A U.S. District Judge in Washington, D.C. has declined to grant an injunction against the city’s ban on “large capacity” magazines, ruling that while magazines in general are “arms” protected by the Second Amendment, LCMs fall outside of the scope of the amendment because they’re a “poor fit” for self-defense purposes. The challenge to the District’s magazine ban, known as Hanson v. D.C., involves four legal gun owners from D.C. who all say that they would possess and carry “large capacity” magazines in their firearms if they weren’t banned by law. The District’s prohibition comes complete with a potential three-year...

Three undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers joined the march of protesters up the northwest side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—including one who climbed over a barricade and pushed others toward the Capitol, and another who walked behind Ashli Babbitt and predicted that “someone will get shot,” according to newly disclosed court documents. New court motions filed by Jan. 6 defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, also show MPD bicycle officers stopping four armed men in plainclothes on Jan. 6. The men turned out to be federal agents. Video included with Pope’s filings also shows uniformed MPD officers saying,...

A court has rejected a lawsuit seeking to force the public disclosure of federal records about a 2018 episode in which a gun belonging to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was allegedly thrown in a trash can. In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras found that the public interest in the handling of any investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the episode was “significant,” but that the importance of Hunter Biden’s privacy as a private citizen outweighed the value of releasing any such records to the public. “The privacy interest here is...

The Washington D.C. police officer who beat a Minnesota woman with a metal baton at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is a 19-year veteran with a history of use-of-force complaints. Victoria C. White, of Minnesota, was struck nearly 40 times in a four-minute span in the Lower West Terrace tunnel leading into the U.S. Capitol, security video footage showed. The officer who delivered most of the blows was identified in new court filings as Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) commander Jason Bagshaw, 45. “The tunnel CCTV footage shows that over an almost two-minute span running from approximately 4:07:00 to...

A federal judge invalidated the results of an oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday saying the Biden administration failed to properly account for the auction's climate change impact. The decision has cast uncertainty over the future of the U.S. federal offshore drilling program, which has been a big source of public revenue for decades but also drawn the ire of activists concerned about its impact on the environment and contribution to global warming. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for 15% of existing U.S. oil production and 5% of dry natural gas output, according to...

WASHINGTON — A federal court has rejected a plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling, saying the Biden administration did not adequately take into account the lease sale's effect on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, violating a bedrock environmental law.The decision Thursday by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington sends the proposed lease sale back to the Interior Department to decide next steps. The judge said it was up to Interior to decide whether to go forward with the sale after a revised review, scrap it or take other steps.Environmental groups hailed...

Obama Appointed FISA Court Judge Contreras Who Recused Himself from Gen. Flynn Case Reportedly Involved in Multiple FISA Court Abuses FISA Court judge Rudolph Contreras who oversaw General Flynn’s case is friends with corrupt FBI agent Peter Strzok who set up General Flynn in the White House. The judge is now reportedly involved in fraudulent warrants in front of the FISA Court. In December 2017 we reported that the judge overseeing the General Flynn case who accepted the General’s guilty plea, Judge Rudolph Contreras, recused himself from the Flynn case before sentencing: U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of DC recuses...

An outrageous ruling from a federal judge will halt hundreds of oil and gas drilling projects across 500 square miles in Wyoming because he says the government did not adequately take into account climate change when granting the leases on public lands. Talk about out-of-control Judiciary. NBC News: U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington appeared to go a step further than other judges in his order issued late Tuesday. Previous rulings focused on individual lease sales or permits. But Contreras said that when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management auctions public lands for oil and gas leasing, officials must...

BILLINGS, Mont. — A judge blocked oil and gas drilling across almost 500 square miles in Wyoming and said the U.S. government must consider climate change impacts more broadly as it leases huge swaths of public land for energy exploration. The order marks the latest in a string of court rulings over the past decade - including one last month in Montana - that have faulted the U.S. for inadequate consideration of greenhouse gas emissions when approving oil, gas and coal projects on federal land. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington appeared to go a step further than other...

The hearing would be the former Trump national security adviser's first court appearance since pleading guilty more than seven months ago. A pair of legal filings suggesting that special counsel Robert Mueller's office is almost-but-not-quite ready to set a sentencing date for former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn have prompted a federal judge to order Flynn and lawyers for both sides to make an unexpected trip to court next week. than seven months ago. The hearing set for next Tuesday would be the first court appearance for Flynn since last December, when the former Defense Intelligence Agency chief appeared...

Rumor and speculation as to why District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused from Flynn case An option being discussed by attorneys, pundits and supporters is that Flynn withdraw his guilty plea before sentencing The Office of Special Counsel complied with a federal judge’s order and as a result turned over all evidence related to former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s case, according to two sources who spoke to this reporter. In December, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller to provide Flynn’s attorneys with any and all information that may have been withheld from...

Of the 11 FISA court appointed judges, 10 of them were appointed by Obama, including the corrupt Rudolph Contreras that granted the FISA warrant after another judge rejected it. He is also the same judge who had to recuse himself days after the Michael Flynn plea. This is yet another inconvenient fact that the media and Democrats don’t want to discuss. The entire FISA court basically was full of Obama appointees. The one Trump apoointee to the FISA court also replaced an Obama appointee named Susan Webber Wright who’s term expired May of 2016. Keep an eye on the story...

On the night of Thursday December 7th, 2017 it was announced that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused from the case against General Mike Flynn. This recusal came five days after Judge Contreras accepted the initial pleading from Flynn. Almost two months have passed, and there’s no explanation why? (Reuters) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday. (read more) If sufficient judicial conflict existed on December 7th,...

The word is getting out. People are slowing beginning to piece together the BIGGER STORY of what fundamentally lies behind the Obama administration’s 2016 use of FISA 702(16)(17) surveillance, and how an the intentional non-oversight of the Department of Justice National Security Division was used in the construct of the unlawful FBI surveillance and spying operation against presidential candidate Donald Trump. During a radio interview on WMAL legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney General for Washington DC, Joe DiGenova, specifically highlights the DOJ National Security Division head John P Carlin and his role in the 2016 FISA warrant. Other than...

Last Thursday it was announced that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras was mysteriously recused from the Special Counsel case against General Mike Flynn, five days after Judge Contreras accepting the initial pleading. No explanation as to ‘why’? (Reuters) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday. (read more) One might think the media apparatus, or pundit proletariat writ large, might be curious about why a U.S. District Court Judge...

The Judge recused himself tonight from Flynn's sentencing hearing. Why? His Bio: Judge Rudolph “Rudy” Contreras was appointed to the District Court in March 2012. Prior to joining the District Court, Judge Contreras served from 2006 to 2012 as the Chief of the Civil Division of the United States Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia. In that capacity, he supervised 39 Assistant United States Attorneys who defend and bring civil cases on behalf of the United States. Judge Contreras was awarded his Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University in 1984 and his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude,...

The judge who took a guilty plea from President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn last week has recused himself ahead of a sentencing hearing. A court spokeswoman confirmed to Politico and other outlets that the case was reassigned after Judge Rudolph Contreras, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, recused himself. Judge Emmet Sullivan, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, was randomly selected to take his place in the case. The switch comes after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians in the month before Trump took office. Flynn's guilty plea...

Blaming 'oversight' and the blizzard that hit Washington, D.C., the State Department on Friday sought to delay the release of the last batch of 55,000 emails scheduled for Jan. 29. But the journalist who forced the State Department to release them to begin with is having none of it. Lawyers for Vice News reporter Jason Leopold filed a motion on Monday in an attempt to prevent the Department's request to extend the deadline until Feb. 29, conveniently after the first four state nominating contests.  The Obama administration "has failed to show good cause for the requested extension, that it is necessary or...