Judgefare

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The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted Thursday to challenge a federal judge’s order requiring President Donald Trump’s name to be removed from the performing arts center.

According to court filings, the board formally appealed US District Judge Christopher Cooper’s ruling just before the court-imposed deadline for removing Trump’s name from the building and related materials.

Earlier Thursday, the board also voted to seek a stay of Cooper’s order, according to two individuals familiar with the meeting who spoke to The Washington Post.

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The Federal Judicial Center (FJC) has had its fair share of controversies throughout the past year.

The taxpayer-funded agency was caught stuffing citations to left-wing climate activists into its most recent Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, which offers guidance to federal judges on science-related cases. Subsequent Federalist investigations also revealed the radical left-wing partisanship of the authors tasked with writing manual’s climate and forensics sections.

The FJC is intended to serve as the unbiased educational and research arm of the judiciary. Although it doesn’t have any “policy-making or enforcement authority,” these findings have raised concerns about its objectivity and central role in providing “accurate, objective information and education” to judges across America’s federal court system.

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WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a government watchdog’s request for a court order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from forging ahead with a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for compensating people who claim to be victims of a weaponized government.

But the judge ended a hearing by issuing a “fair warning” to President Donald Trump’s administration: “Don’t play possum with this court,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon told a government attorney.

Leon ruled from the bench in favor of the administration, which argued that the watchdog’s lawsuit is moot because acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress last month that the government is scrapping its plans for the fund. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said he accepts Blanche’s representation for now.

The judge’s refusal to issue a temporary restraining order isn’t the final word on the fate of the government’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” Leon said he will consider a separate request by the plaintiffs – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – for a preliminary injunction that would block payouts from the fund on a more permanent basis.

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Senior officials in Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s administration allegedly hired outside investigators to monitor and intimidate whistleblowers who raised concerns about widespread fraud in state social services programs, according to a congressional report released Monday.

The more than 200-page report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform alleges that officials within the Democrat governor’s administration retaliated against employees who attempted to expose fraud.

The efforts to silence whistleblowers came while state leaders failed for years to act on repeated warnings about questionable payments and abuse of taxpayer-funded programs.

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The House Oversight report landed Monday. By Monday night, it had teeth.

Vice President JD Vance announced that he referred allegations involving Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Justice Department’s Fraud Division for a potential criminal investigation over alleged fraud in federally funded social services programs.

Vance made the announcement on Fox News when asked about the freshly released committee report.

“We’re certainly going to investigate this, Jesse,” Vance said, according to Fox News. “And before I did, we actually referred this particular case to the Department of Justice for a full criminal investigation.”

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“Fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government, meaningful corrective action was delayed or avoided.”

A Republican-led House Oversight Committee report has alleged that the fraud that has been highlighted in Minnesota’s social services programs was caused by year of inaction from Democrat Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, and other officials, allowing for the siphoning off of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds going to fraud. The report found that fears of getting called “racist” also contributed to the inaction.

Fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government, meaningful corrective action was delayed or avoided, and payments continued long after credible signs of fraud emerged,” the report read in part.

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A federal judge struck down a Trump administration immigration policy that tightened requirements for immigrants from dozens of countries seeking to enter or remain in the United States.

District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. invalidated the policy in a sharply worded ruling that accused US Citizenship and Immigration Services of exceeding its legal authority and failing to follow required administrative procedures.

The policy was enacted after the shooting of two National Guard members and affected immigrants from 39 countries.

In his ruling, McConnell argued that the administration’s actions left immigrants facing uncertainty about their legal status and failed to comply with federal law.

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President Donald Trump is accusing the federal judge who blocked his plans for the Kennedy Center of having a serious conflict of interest, pointing to the judge’s wife and her extensive ties to high-profile Democrats, the Jan. 6 committee, and several prominent Trump adversaries.

The criticism follows a ruling by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, who rejected efforts to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump and halted plans tied to the administration’s broader vision for the institution.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump argued that Cooper’s wife, attorney Amy Jeffress, has deep connections to individuals and causes aligned against him and suggested those relationships should have required the judge to step aside from the case.

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Representative Brandon Gill, chairman of the Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses, delivered opening remarks on Wednesday during a fraud hearing where he highlighted the widespread fraud within Medicaid waiver programs, particularly among the Somali community.

At the hearing titled  “Universal Basic Fraud: Vulnerabilities in Medicaid Waiver Programs,” Gill cited recent reporting on alleged abuses of Medicaid-funded programs in Ohio, claiming that fraudulent billing schemes have resulted in an estimated $1.2 billion in taxpayer losses in the state alone.

“I know that the Democrats are going to cheat. No one’s really addressing the problem that I spent my time in prison as retribution for, and that was exposing the election machines that allow the votes to be flipped. I’m very concerned and burdened with why no one is talking about this.” – Tina Peters, Election Fraud Whistleblower, after being released from prison. She had been locked up for 20 months.

Go Deeper

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The Trump administration was blocked by a federal appeals court from banning almost 30 transgender-identifying individuals from being able to serve in the United States military.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that 28 transgender individuals — who had filed a lawsuit when the Trump administration barred transgender individuals from serving in the military — are allowed to “continue serving while the case proceeds,” the New York Times reported.

While the court’s ruling “applies only to 28 plaintiffs,” the plaintiffs have called for the court “to extend the protection to all transgender troops,” according to the outlet.

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A federal court is trying to pull a judicial mulligan after the Supreme Court gave Alabama another shot at using its GOP-backed congressional map.

The Supreme Court threw out a lower-court order barring Alabama from using the congressional map the state adopted in 2023 and sent the dispute back to the lower court for another look. But a three-judge federal panel again blocked Alabama from using that map for the 2026 midterms.

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The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Trump administration on Tuesday in a dispute involving its policy regulating immigration judges’ “work-related speech.”

In its per curiam opinion, the high court vacated and remanded a decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals that centered around the government’s rules governing the executive’s immigration courts. The specific policy in question — which was enacted in October 2021 under the Biden administration — required immigration judges “to obtain supervisory approval for public speeches relating to their official duties” and was designed “to ensure that employee speech which may be seen as bearing the ‘imprimatur’ of the Office is consistent with its official positions,” according to SCOTUS.

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Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito blasted their Supreme Court colleagues on Tuesday for ducking a pivotal interstate dispute over issuing commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to illegal aliens who can’t read or speak English.

The verbal smackdown came about in the high court’s most recent order list, in which the justices disclosed which cases they will not be taking up and hearing arguments in during its upcoming 2026 term. Among the rejected cases was Florida v. California and Washington, in which Florida sought to file a lawsuit against California and Washington “for defying federal law by providing commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens who cannot read English,” as summarized by Thomas.

In its October 2025 filing, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked the high court to greenlight and consider his state’s legal complaint against the aforementioned Democrat-run states over the contested policy. He noted that Florida’s “serious and dignified” claims “arise under the United States Constitution,” and that “there is no alternative forum to provide adequate relief.”

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The Department of Justice is acknowledging it’s removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is acknowledging it has removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, calling the information about the prosecutions “partisan propaganda.”

The purge of news releases documenting criminal charges, convictions and sentencings is the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the assault on the Capitol, when hundreds of supporters of Republican President Donald Trump stormed the building in an effort to halt the congressional certification of his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

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Look, a lot has happened over the past few weeks, with Operation Epic Fury being the least of it—particularly the fiasco involving the January 6 pipe bomber who evaded the FBI for years. The Blaze probably jumped the gun in its story, identifying former Capitol Police Officer Shauni Kerkhoff, 31, as a potential suspect. This has led to a lawsuit since she had an alibi, and another suspect, Brian Cole, was arrested and charged in December 2025. Still, conspiracy theories and palace intrigue will likely surround Ms. Kerkhoff since she reportedly failed an FBI polygraph. She was cleared as a suspect, but in this era, that will continue to fan the flames.

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The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Washington D.C. Bar, escalating the Trump administration’s fight against what it describes as politically motivated disciplinary actions targeting conservative government lawyers.

The lawsuit challenges the D.C. Bar’s recommendation to disbar Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official in President Donald Trump’s first administration. Clark had been accused of violating legal ethics rules over actions connected to efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.

According to the complaint, the administration argues that state and local bar authorities are improperly interfering with executive branch functions by pursuing disciplinary action against federal attorneys over legal advice and internal deliberations.

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Last week, a federal judge in Rhode Island demanded that DHS take down a press release. The release was factually true: It warned citizens that Judge Melissa DuBose had ordered the release of an illegal alien wanted for murder in the Dominican Republic. Because the press release reflects legitimate debate regarding a judge’s ruling, DHS refused to take it down.

Over his four years in office, President Biden transformed large portions of the judiciary by appointing judges so radical that senators like Joe Manchin would not even support them. For sixteen months, DHS has suffered the consequences of that transformation.

In Rhode Island, the dispute arose because a federal court ordered ICE to release Mr. Bryan Rafael Gomez, an illegal alien subject to an international arrest warrant for murder in the Dominican Republic. After that order came down, DHS issued a press release explaining that a judge in Rhode Island had ordered the release of a man wanted for murder.

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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been issuing increasingly vitriolic solo dissents directed at the majority on the Supreme Court. The issue is not so much her simplistic and ideologically driven substance, but that she insults her colleagues.

We have covered multiple prior instances:

Her most recent outburst came in the Louisiana redistricting case, where she lashed out after all the other Justices granted a request to expedite entry of judgment in light of the election calendar. She was so over the top that a rebuke was issued from Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch. We covered it in Alito Obliterates Jackson’s Dissent: ‘Groundless and Utterly Irresponsible’.

I had a chance to discuss KBJ’s  tactics on the Tony Katz show (transcript excerpt, may contain transcription errors, lightl

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Democrat Gov. Tim Walz is facing mounting scrutiny after Vice President JD Vance confirmed that federal authorities are investigating whether Minnesota officials failed to properly respond to massive fraud allegations tied to taxpayer-funded programs across the state.

The investigation follows a sweeping federal operation carried out across the Minneapolis area late last month.

FBI agents and federal investigators executed more than 20 search warrants targeting businesses connected to child care services, autism treatment programs, and other publicly funded operations.

Federal officials say the probe centers on allegations involving fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements, abuse of state and federal child care assistance programs, and broader misuse of taxpayer dollars.

Trump administration officials have suggested the total amount under investigation could ultimately reach into the billions.

“[Minnesota is] under investigation by our great vice president,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

“They’re finding a lot.”

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PHOENIX — The Justice Department is aiming to weed out immigration judges who it feels are ruling too slowly or aren’t following the law, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday, as the Trump administration seeks to remake the courts and cut down on the backlog of 3.7 million cases to ease its mass deportation push.

Blanche was in Phoenix to address the Border Security Expo, a yearly gathering that draws top immigration officials, local and state law enforcement officers and representatives from companies doing business with the federal government. Blanche’s appearance at the gathering reflects the way immigration enforcement and border security have become priorities throughout the Trump administration.

Blanche, who has led the Justice Department since Pam Bondi was ousted last month, spoke to The Associated Press after his appearance at the conference. His comments were some of the most detailed on the changes to immigration courts since he took over the role.

“You take an oath and you’re not allowed to make decisions based upon what appear to be just sympathy or your whim,” Blanche said.

“If there’s judges that are just not applying the law in the way that it needs to be applied, delaying inappropriately, have backlogs that are just unacceptable, they’re the folks that we’re going to try to find somebody different to fill that spot.”