Free Republic

With the confirmation of William Barr as the 85th Attorney General of the United States, we now have an experienced hand leading the Department of Justice. At his confirmation hearing, Barr vowed to focus on violent crime, enforce our immigration laws, and protect the right to vote. But our country faces many additional challenges today, many of which require the active involvement of the Attorney General. Barr, who also served in the post under President George H.W. Bush, is uniquely qualified to lead the Department at this time. It would have been hard for Trump to pick someone with a...

It’s disappointing that the Supreme Court failed Tuesday to grant the Trump administration’s appeal of a lower court order that prevents the president from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But it’s not the end of the story. Importantly, the high court didn’t reject the request filed by the Justice Department to allow President Trump to end DACA. The request is still pending. If the Supreme Court grants the Justice Department’s appeal of the lower court order between now and the end of June, the case to determine the fate of the DACA program will be heard...

Hans von Spakovsky: Acting AG Matt Whitaker has no conflict of interest and no reason to recuse himselfUnder the ethics regulations that apply to Justice Department lawyers, Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker has no conflict of interest. Hence, he has no ethical or legal obligation to recuse himself from supervising Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The demands that he do so are expressions of political theater with no factual or legal basis. Whitaker is being criticized for having voiced an opinion about Mueller’s investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. For example, on Nov. 11,...

Full title: Omarosa acted dishonorably by recording confidential White House conversations – but here’s the bigger problem.Even if you strongly oppose President Trump and want to see him defeated in 2020 or impeached before then, you should hope his presidential campaign succeeds with its legal action against Omarosa Manigault Newman alleging she violated a nondisclosure agreement. And if she broke any laws you should want her prosecuted. Manigault Newman – a fired presidential aide and earlier a member of the Trump campaign staff – has set a dangerous precedent by her secret recording of conversations with President Trump and White...

The first two weeks of the trial of former Donald Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort on 18 counts of tax evasion and bank fraud charges have failed to implicate Trump or his campaign in any alleged criminal conduct. Prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller – who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election – are expected to call their final witness Monday at Manafort’s trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. If convicted on all counts, Manafort could face a maximum sentence of 305 years in prison. So far we’ve learned that the prosecution’s star...

Full title: The left's obstruction of qualified Trump nominees is yet another front in the war against the presidentMore than a year and a half after the inauguration of Donald Trump’s presidency, the left continues to obstruct the confirmation of nominees to critical posts in both the executive and judicial branches. The unprecedented obstructionism denies leadership to executive branch departments and agencies and impedes the fair and swift administration of justice. It is also an abuse of the Senate’s constitutional obligation to provide “Advice and Consent” regarding presidential nominations of judges and key “Officers of the United States.” The Senate...

Hans A. von Spakovsky Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues – including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration. KEY TAKEAWAYS There is a lot of blame to share. President Bill Clinton, the aliens themselves, the courts and immigration policies foolishly created by the Obama administration. The point of their propaganda war is to force the Trump administration to terminate its zero-tolerance policy of prosecuting all adult aliens for illegal entry. It is “regrettable” children are separated from their parents. But “people who cross the...

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by Texas and six other states may finally result in the long-overdue termination of the DACA program, which was created without legal authority by President Obama in 2012 to allow children brought into the U.S. illegally to temporarily remain here under certain conditions. The lawsuit does not address the question of whether allowing the roughly 700,000 illegal immigrants protected from deportation under DACA is a good policy or a bad one. Instead, the suit contends correctly that President Obama exceeded his authority under law and under the Constitution to create DACA without the approval of Congress...

In a resounding victory for the State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has thrown out almost all of a preliminary injunction issued by a lower court that was preventing the Lone Star State from enforcing a state law going after sanctuary cities such as Austin, the state’s capital. This is the right result, both legally and morally. Not only does the state law not violate the Constitution, as was erroneously claimed, but it’s intended to prevent the state from becoming a sanctuary – a safe haven – for criminal aliens who endanger the public. Texas certainly...

President Trump has nominated a slate of solid picks for the federal bench, including a new list of nominees this week. Among them is Kurt D. Engelhardt. Trump nominated Engelhardt to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a district that covers the area from Alabama to the Rio Grande. Engelhardt already serves as a United States District Court judge in New Orleans. Engelhardt will be familiar to PJ Media readers. He is the judge who wrote a scathing 129-page order blistering the misconduct of lawyers at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the local New Orleans U.S. Attorney's...

If you want to see the difference between a federal judge who follows the rule of law and a federal judge who ignores laws he doesn’t like in order to reach a preferred public policy outcome, just compare the two district court decisions issued in Washington state and Massachusetts over President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order.Contrary to the “travel ban” label, the executive order temporarily suspended the granting of visas from seven failed and failing countries that are supplying many of the terrorists plaguing the world.Despite what Judge James Robart of the Western District of Washington says, Trump acted fully...

In 2011, PJ Media published the Every Single One series. The series documented the Obama administration’s hiring of ideologically leftist and partisan lawyers to fill the career ranks of the lawyers in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division from the day it came into office. The different sections of the Division exercise enormous power over the everyday lives of Americans, ranging from employment, education, housing, religious liberty, abortion, prisons, policing, and much, much more. If a president wanted to launch a radical transformation of the country, he would start it in the Civil Rights Division . And a...

If the state provides free IDs, is there really an “unjustified burden” on poor voters?To better understand the contrast between an activist, liberal judge who refuses to follow the law and a judge who understands that his job is to follow precedent and the Constitution, consider two recent federal cases on voter-ID laws. On Tuesday, federal-district-court judge Lynn Adelman — a Clinton appointee, former Democratic state senator, and former Legal Aid Society lawyer — held that Wisconsin’s voter-ID requirement violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, because it places “an unjustified burden on...

In 2011, Kansas passed the SAFE Act — Safe and Fair Elections — which requires voter ID, proof of citizenship and signature verification. In other words, it’s designed to make sure that all votes cast in Kansas are cast legally by the person identified as the voter. The law was to go into effect January 1, 2013. But the Obama administration stood in the way. At issue are the forms states use to register voters for federal elections. Kansas and Arizona require proof of citizenship, while the federal government’s form — incredibly — does not. The federal government attempted to...

FAQ  on Alaska lawsuit that may prevent the write-in chaos in Alaska Tuesday.  The lawsuit cites the Kinston objection interposed by the Justice Department. The Justice Department Goes to AlaskaBy Hans A. von Spakovsky Editors’ note: See update below.For a good preview of how politics, rather than law, may drive decisions in the Obama Justice Department next year when redistricting gets underway, go north, young man, and cast your eye on the Senate race in Alaska. The latest shenanigans by Alaskan election officials and the Voting Section of Justice’s Civil Rights Division show a dangerous willingness to bend regulations in furtherance...

With the vote on the Civil Rights Commission New Black Panther report set for Friday, former DOJ attorney Hans von Spakovsky submits this affidavit rebutting former Deputy Chief of the Voting Section Robert Kengle. Kengle had contested portions of Christopher Coates’ testimony before the Commission, testimony which described Kengle’s hostility toward race-neutral enforcement of civil rights laws. The Coates testimony was deeply embarassing to Kengle, and von Spakovsky’s corroboration of Coates’ testimony is even more so.Click here  pdf to download von Spakovsky’s affidavit.

Abby Thernstrom is my friend and we usually agree on voting matters, but I have to say with due respect to her that her view of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case is wrong for a number of reasons, from her characterization of the evidence in the case to a misunderstanding of the applicable legal standards. On the other hand, Commissioner Thernstrom seems to have backed off somewhat on some issues in her latest posting at National Review. Whether or not this is because of the sharp criticism by Andy McCarthy, it is hard to tell, although I...

The ongoing investigation of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is no longer primarily about the dismissal of the voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. It’s about a much more important matter — namely, the sworn testimony that an Obama political appointee instructed Voting Section lawyers that no cases would be brought against any black or other minority defendants no matter how egregious their violations of the law.Moreover, that appointee, Julie Fernandes of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, is alleged to have instructed the lawyers not to enforce part of the National Voter...

This Commentary on January 9, 17 and 28 discussed the irresponsible and unprecedented understaffing of Presidential appointees in a host of Federal regulatory agencies, including the Federal Election Commission. (The January 17 Commentary follows: All three are accessible on the Free Congress Foundation Website, www.freecongress.org.) Understaffing alone can cause ineffective functioning in a Federal agency, as elsewhere. Understaffing to the extent of denying a regulatory agency its quorum necessary to function is, of course, completely debilitating. The bulk of this understaffing is the fault of leftist United States Senate activity and inactivity, not of President George W. Bush. The Federal...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just announced that the Senate will not clear four new appointees for the Federal Election Commission, meaning the panel that acts as a watchdog on political campaigns cannot function during the critical election-year period. Reid is blaming the White House for refusing to withdraw to allow a majority vote on the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky for a seat on the commission. Republicans want von Spakovsky approved as part of a slate of four FEC nominees or they will refuse to consider any of the nominees. Von Spakovsky was recess appointed by President Bush...