Lawfare

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Excellent! Now deport. Mahmoud Khalil is a thug.

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Of course, it was an anti-Trump FBI agent. If the Russian collusion hoax, Crossfire Hurricane, and, on a lesser note, the creepy visits to those who posted anti-Biden memes weren’t evidence enough, that’s how the Arctic Frost probe began. It was an agent on a reported vendetta that spurred a mass surveillance operation that eventually covered the entire conservative movement.

The late Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA were targeted, along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). It was a fishing expedition with no smoking gun. The basis of the investigation stemmed from the shenanigans from the 2020 election. Oh, and did I forget to mention that Trump’s phone was seized during this operation (via JustTheNews):

An FBI supervisor who openly opposed Donald Trump on social media played a crucial role in igniting the controversial Arctic Frost probe, pressing to add the former president as a formal subject of the investigation and circulating articles from liberal activists and leftwing news sources to make his case, according to evidence recently turned over to Congress and obtained by Just the News.

Special Agent Timothy Thibault, who left his role as the assistant agent in charge of its Washington field office in August 2022 after his anti-Trump social posts became public, organized the initial electronic communication that authorized the start of the Arctic Frost probe.

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These are the best liberal media stories. The ones where the publication unintentionally exposes the opposite of what they’re trying to argue. Of course, The New York Times wanted to drum up some narrative about the Trump administration’s struggles with the courts. The funny part is a) Trump knew this beforehand, which is why his legal team is prepared to appeal all the things, and b) it showed that the lower courts are stacked with illiberal radicals, some of whom think they are the executive.

Twitchy had it first yesterday, and, well, have a laugh:

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A federal judge in New York blocked the Trump administration from freezing $10 billion in funding for childcare and other social services in five Democrat-led states despite recent revelations of massive fraud perpetrated through fake money laundering daycare operations. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained that it was pausing the funding because it had “reason to believe” those states were funneling money to people living in the U.S. illegally.

Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said the five states — Minnesota, California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York — had met a legal threshold “to protect the status quo” for 14 days while arguments are made in court.

“Federal district court judge rules taxpayers must fund infinite refugee daycare scams,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller noted

“This is not a legitimate system. This is not democracy,” he declared. 

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“You want something to investigate as a legislature, investigate how many times they’ve called me the N-word.”

During a Georgia Senate Special Committee on Investigations hearing on Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was triggered when investigators showed invoices from her former boyfriend Nathan Wade to the Fulton County DA’s office. Instead of responding to questions about them, she called for investigators to look into “how many times they’ve called me the N-word.” She had been called into the legislature to answer for alleged misconduct in her since-dropped 2020 RICO election case against Trump.

“I don’t review those documents,” Willis told lawmakers, “so you’re asking me to look at documents that I haven’t for the first time. What I can tell you is that I allowed Mr. Wade to bill 160 hours a week, and then Mr. Wade would be the first one in the office, making sure that my staff arrived. He corrected their behavior. They thought that 8:30 meant 8:30. He taught them that 8:30 means 7:45. He got there before them, he left after them.” The response came during questioning on how much special prosecutor Nathan Wade was paid. Willis said that she had never seen the invoices displayed during the hearing.

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Former Special Counsel Jack Smith defended his conduct before House lawmakers on Wednesday, insisting behind closed doors that politics had “no role” in the “investigations” and criminal charges he brought against President Donald Trump.

Smith appeared for a deposition with the House Judiciary Committee.

During the hearing, Republicans pressed Smith over his handling of the two federal cases targeting Trump.

One of the cases related to the 2020 election, and another was concerning the alleged retention of classified documents.

Portions of Smith’s opening remarks show the Biden administration prosecutor attempting to portray the cases as strictly legal decisions.

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Former special counsel Jack Smith told members of Congress that his team had evidence that President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Smith’s case against the president began when former Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him to lead two Justice Department investigations into Trump: the mishandling of classified documents and his post-2020 election conduct.

From The Associated Press:

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers in a closed-door interview on Wednesday that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump had criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.

He also said investigators had accrued “powerful evidence” that Trump broke the law by hoarding classified documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and by obstructing government efforts to recover the records.

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The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022, but did it anyway after pressure from then-President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, according to newly uncovered emails.

Emails released by Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office show that officials at the FBI and DOJ communicated about FBI concerns about the warrant in the months leading up to the August raid.

In one June 1 email an unidentified FBI assistant special agent in charge wrote to FBI official Anthony Riedlinger, “Very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents.”

“[FBI Washington Field Office] has been drafting a Search Warrant affidavit related to these potential boxes, but has some concerns that the information is single source, has not been corroborated, and may be dated. DOJ CES opines, however, that the SWs meet the probable cause standard.” The same agent described the “potential boxes” as “presumably of the same type as were sent back to NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] in January.”

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked a bid by the state’s Democrat attorney general to effectively sidestep a U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving a Wisconsin-based Catholic charity.

In its Monday order, the Badger State’s highest court affirmed that the Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) and its sub-entities are eligible for a sought-after tax exemption status that would allow them to not contribute to Wisconsin’s unemployment system. The decision came months after SCOTUS handed down its ruling on the matter, which favored the Christian organization.

“You’d think Wisconsin would take a 9-0 Supreme Court loss as a hint to stop digging,” Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Vice President and Senior Counsel Eric Rassbach said in a statement. “But apparently Attorney General Kaul and his staff are gluttons for punishment. Thankfully, the Wisconsin Supreme Court put an end to the state’s tomfoolery and confirmed that Catholic Charities is entitled to the exemption it already won.”

CCB first pursued the exemption in 2016 but was repeatedly denied in the years that followed by the state and ultimately, the Wisconsin court system. In rejecting the group’s exemption request, the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with the state’s claim that the CCB doesn’t qualify because it didn’t establish that it operates for a primarily religious purpose.

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The Trump administration blasted U.S. District Judge Judith Levy over the weekend for her “truly wicked” praise and deferential treatment of a predator who stole into the United States multiple times and brutalized an American citizen.

Edys Renan Membreño Díaz, a 30-year-old Honduran national, is presently serving between six and 15 years in a Michigan state prison for raping and sodomizing a woman he knew was incapable of giving consent, who has cerebral palsy and cognitive delays. Díaz, who moved to Michigan in 2021, raped the victim on two occasions: on July 15 and July 17, 2022, leaving her with injuries.

‘This isn’t justice; it’s judicial activism prioritizing criminals over citizens.’

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Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Adrienne Blais did little Monday to challenge the defense’s legal arguments that her agency’s politically motivated fraud case against two attorneys and an aide for the 2020 Trump campaign is built on a prosecution “error.”

Blais didn’t need to do much. Liberal Dane County Judge John Hyland, who refused to recuse himself from the case after explosive allegations that a retired judge was the ghostwriter of Hyland’s earlier order, ruled that prosecutors had provided enough evidence to take the phony “false electors” case to trial.

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Former FBI Director James Comey got another assist from a Clinton-appointed judge Friday as the Justice Department looks to hold him accountable for his role in Russiagate.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a Clinton appointee, ruled that Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was incorrectly appointed and therefore, the charges brought by her office against Comey were “defective.”

“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment … constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside,” the judge wrote.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced at the time that the Justice Department would be appealing the ruling.

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A federal appeals court has granted an emergency motion sought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to halt contempt hearings scheduled to start this week over the deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had scheduled contempt hearings for Dec. 15 and 16, over the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan gang member under the Alien Enemies act in March of this year.

Boasberg had issued restraining orders on the deportation of two planeloads of suspected Tren de Aragua gang members, after the planes were already airborne.

When the Trump administration followed the written orders but not the judge’s oral instructions, which DOJ attorneys said were defective, and allowed the deportation flights to complete their mission to transport the detainees to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

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President Donald Trump’s administration has removed eight immigration judges from their posts in New York City.

The move is part of a sweeping national effort to restore order to the immigration system and accelerate illegal alien deportations amid surging public concern over border security.

According to the New York Times, all eight judges worked inside 26 Federal Plaza, one of the city’s major immigration courts.

The outlet cited two officials, one from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and another from the National Association of Immigration Judges, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Among those dismissed was Amiena A. Khan, an assistant chief immigration judge who supervised colleagues inside the building.

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President Donald Trump on Thursday railed against Democratic senators using the “blue slip” tradition to block his court appointments.

In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote, “‘Blue Slips’ are making it impossible to get great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys approved to serve in any state where there is even a single Democrat Senator.”

“If they say no, then it is OVER for that very well qualified Republican candidate,” he continued. “Only a really far left Democrat can be approved. It is shocking that Republicans, under Senator Chuck G, allow this scam to continue. So unfair to Republicans, and not Constitutional.”

Trump concluded by calling on Senate Majority Leader John Thune ‘to get something done, ideally the termination of Blue Slips.”

During an appearance on Fox News, Sen. Thune (R-SD) was asked about the matter.

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With the indictment against former FBI Director James Comey dismissed on procedural grounds, we are back at square one on accountability for the Russia collusion hoax. There are some reports that Jason Reding, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, is examining the wider conspiracy involving Comey and several other key Russiagate figures who worked to conceal that the entire operation originated with the Clinton campaign. However, we have no clear sense of where that inquiry stands or whether it is moving at all.

What we do know is that any honest reckoning with Russiagate runs straight into a structural contradiction that would have haunted any prosecution of Comey and will continue to undermine any future attempt to hold the architects of the hoax to account.

No one has confronted the central problem that it is not logically or legally coherent to allege a domestic conspiracy to invent Russian collusion. At the same time, the Department of Justice keeps prosecuting Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the 2016 election to help Trump.

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A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia from federal custody, delivering a sharp rebuke to the Trump administration in a case that has ricocheted across borders and courtrooms for nearly 10 months.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that Abrego Garcia must be freed from the ICE Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, saying the administration had failed to secure the required final notice of removal that would allow him to be deported to a third country, including several African nations previously floated by federal officials.

“Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority,” Xinis said in her order. “For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia’s Petition for immediate release from ICE custody.”

Xinis had grilled Justice Department lawyers last month during a lengthy evidentiary hearing, pushing them to prove that a final removal order existed. DOJ attorney Drew Ensign argued that a 2019 immigration judge had effectively “meant” to issue such an order. Xinis dismissed that argument outright, stating, “No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia.”

The Justice Department is expected to appeal, as Ensign signaled in earlier proceedings.

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U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer once again has blocked President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles, CA.

“Six months after they first federalized the California National Guard, Defendants still retain control of approximately 300 Guardsmen, despite no evidence that execution of federal law is impeded in any way—let alone significantly,” wrote Breyer. “What’s more, Defendants have sent California Guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other plaintiffs filed a motion to enjoin this conduct. The Trump administration took “the position that, after a valid initial federalization, all subsequent re federalizations are completely, and forever, unreviewable by the courts.”

The “Defendants’ position is contrary to law,” stated Breyer.

Okay, so here’s the background because this is the third time Breyer issued this ruling.

In June, Breyer ruled that Trump’s order violated the 10th Amendment and exceeded his statutory authority.

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Here we go again: the sun rises, another federal judge kneecaps the Trump agenda. In this latest ruling, issued Monday, a Bill Clinton-appointed jurist decided that Trump hasn’t explained himself enough and “failed to justify” his decision to put a halt to the wind project madness that has swept the country.

Sometimes I wish the president would just say, “I got 77 million votes, you didn’t — that’s my justification. Buzz off.” Of course, he can’t do that:

A federal judge on Monday ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration had failed to justify its decision to suspend issuing leases and permits for new wind projects in keeping with the Republican president’s wishes.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston sided with a group of 17 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia in finding that agencies had failed to sufficiently explain why they had indefinitely paused all federal approvals of wind-energy projects.

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President Donald Trump was caught complaining about repeated blocks of his appointments after acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba resigned.

In footage posted on social media, Trump could be heard venting about his judicial appointments being blocked as the press was shepherded out of the room.

“You know I can’t appoint anybody,” Trump said. “Everybody I’ve appointed, their time has expired. Then they’re in default, then we’re losing.”

Trump’s disdain for the “blue slip” practice for judicial nominees is well known, and he’s repeatedly called for Congress to abolish it. Republicans have so far given rare resistance to Trump’s wishes, with Senate Republicans siding with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who has been a strong defender of the century-old unofficial rule.

The Senate Judiciary Committee typically doesn’t advance judicial nominees unless both senators from the state of the appointment return a blue slip in favor of the nominee. With Democrats steadfastly against Trump’s nominees, he has been forced to appoint his picks to short terms that quickly expire. Attempts to stay past their deadline have been dealt a critical blow in the courts, most recently resulting in the resignation of a major Trump ally, Habba.

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President Trump has had enough of the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition that allows senators to put the kibosh on certain presidential nominees for positions in their home states, and he’s demanding Senate Republicans to due away with the “scam.”

In a Truth Social message posted Thursday morning, the president called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to terminate blue slips so that several of the White House’s picks for U.S. Attorney vacancies can make their way through the confirmation process. Trump also had pointed words for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying it’s “shocking” Grassley allows the tradition to continue.

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Explosive new court documents unsealed Tuesday detail the alleged judicial misconduct of the Wisconsin judge presiding over a politically-driven criminal case targeting the attorneys who represented the 2020 Trump campaign in the battleground Badger State. Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Hyland had outside help from a former judge with a “grudge,” according to the court filings.

Hyland, in so many words, told defendants to go pound sand. He will not remove himself from the case and the march to a perfectly-timed election-year trial will go on. To the people who feel more than ever that it will be impossible to get a fair trial in far-left Dane County, the judge effectively said, Trust me.

Earlier this week, attorneys for Jim Troupis, President Donald Trump’s Wisconsin recount counselor following the rigged 2020 presidential election, filed several motions not only asking Hyland and his staff to step aside, but to vacate the judge’s August order rejecting the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case. The omnibus motion and an appendix spelling out the allegations were sealed  — that is until Hyland opened them Tuesday afternoon.

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Former Special Counsel Jack Smith is teaming up with other anti-Trump prosecutors to launch a new law firm. The hordes of Mordor might be forming again. Smith tried to ensnare President Trump in two investigations, one on the January 6 riot and the other concerning Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, all of which were dismissed. The latter was part of the federal raid on Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022, which, in hindsight, sealed the Democrats’ fate regarding the 2024 election (via Yahoo! News):

Jack Smith, the former U.S. Justice Department special counsel who prosecuted Republican President Donald Trump following his first term in the White House, is teaming up with three other ex-prosecutors ‌to launch a new law firm.

Smith is starting the firm with Tim Heaphy, David Harbach and Thomas Windom, each ‌a former federal prosecutor with decades of public service.

Heaphy in a statement said the firm will launch in January and provide full-service legal work, including investigations and litigation. He said the team will design a legal practice focused on “integrity, commitment, and zealous advocacy” for public and private clients.