Tag: judges

Judge Blocks Kennedy Center from Closing for Repairs, Orders Trump Name Removed From Venue

A federal judge issued a ruling blocking the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts from closing for repairs, and also ordered Trump’s name removed from the institution.

In a ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper argued that while the trustees of the institution “might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways,” the decision for the center to close for two years beginning July 4, to address repairs “was not one,” NBC News reported.

The judge also noted that “the preliminary injunction will not prevent the Center from moving forward with the capital repair work it has planned,” adding that it was “sorely needed.”

The preliminary injunction granted by the judge will also not “prohibit the Board from closing the Center should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center,” according to the outlet.

In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump criticized the judge’s decision, and shared that his administration would be “working with Congress to transfer” the center “back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do” with it.

“Shockingly, a Judge appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, Christopher Cooper, ruled that The Kennedy Center, which was going to close in early July for largescale renovations and construction due to years of neglect, decay, and poor maintenance, and which was to be transformed by the Trump Administration into the Finest Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World, is not allowed to close for these renovations, which would not be possible to properly do without such a closure,” Trump said.

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Meet the Prominent Police Officer Who Carried Out a Steamy, Two-Year Sexual Affair with Married Obama Judge in Her Chambers

The individual who carried out a loud, steam >affair with an Obama federal judge has been unmasked as a prominent Atlanta policeman, causing the scandal to take another turn for the worse.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, a special committee for the Eleventh Circuit discovered that a judge nominated by former President Barack Obama carried out a two-year sexual affair in her “chambers and during business hours” with a police commander.

According to Bloomberg Law, the incidents all occurred within “earshot” of law clerks.

On Thursday, Bloomberg Law identified the judge as Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia. She is married to a DeKalb County judge and former prosecutor.

Ross was also found by the committee to have attended a partisan political event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign and to have lied to judges investigating her conduct.

Now, Bloomberg Law has identified the person who carried out this graphic affair with the Obama judge: 55-year-old Kelley Collier, a deputy chief in the Atlanta Police Department (APD).

Collier has worked for the APD since 1998.

More from Bloomberg Law:

The officer was identified by the person familiar with the situation as Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Kelley Collier, who commands the department’s community services division, according to the department’s website.

The report said the officer had worked for the police department since 1998, serving as the “commander of a certain division” since 2025.

Those years align with Collier’s biography on the police department’s website and his now-deleted LinkedIn profile.

The APD said on Thursday that it is now investigating Collier.

“The Atlanta Police Department has launched an investigation to determine if the person mentioned in the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States is indeed an employee of the Atlanta Police Department,” the department announced on its website.

Despite the taxpayer-funded scandal, neither Collier nor Ross has resigned to date.

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Federal Judge Given “Private Reprimand” After Holding Sexual Trysts In Chambers… And Then Lying About It

There is a bizarre controversy out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, where a federal judge has been reprimanded for engaging in repeated, loud sexual encounters during office hours in chambers with a police officer. While the judge lied to investigators and disrupted the work of court staff, the Eleventh Circuit decided to give only a “private reprimand” and to withhold the identity of the district court judge. However, legal sleuths have pieced together clues and identified one judge in Atlanta as the likely culprit.

In February, the Judicial Council issued an order with a “private reprimand.” The order contained an array of details that law professor John Blackman analyzed with impressive research. While he admits that he cannot conclusively prove that she is the referenced judge, he declared that “there is only one judge who checks all of those boxes: District Court Judge Eleanor Ross.”

Ironically, among the clues about the judge’s identity, the order mentions that the judge attended the “victory party for a District Attorney” in 2024, the night before “the judge’s summer interns’ first day.” The Georgia primary was on May 21, 2024, and the date coincides with the victory party for Fani Willis, who won the Democratic primary for Fulton County District Attorney. The irony would be crushing since Willis destroyed her own case against Trump and his associates after appointing an attorney with whom she had a sexual relationship.

Putting the judge’s identity aside, I am more concerned with the Circuit’s conclusion that the judge should be left with a private, anonymous reprimand, given the astonishing scope of the misconduct found by the Judicial Council.

The Court describes repeated sexual encounters during office hours that were so audible that clerks and staff were left in uncomfortable silence. The other individual is described as “a high-ranking PD officer.” The court states that

“It is also worth noting the fact that the Subject Judge created a vulnerability to extortion. For two years, the Subject Judge was a federal district judge who routinely heard criminal cases engaged in a secret extramarital relationship with a prominent officer of a large law enforcement agency in the judge’s district—with the affair consisting of sexual intercourse in the Subject Judge’s chambers during working hours.”

The Court describes the awkward moments as staff were subjected to moans and noises from the judge’s chambers as these trysts took place. The court recounts:

“The Subject Judge characterized the allegations as ‘outrageous’ and ‘baseless’ and specifically denied each one.11 Apparently aware that Law Clerk A was the source of the allegations, the Subject Judge noted that the judge had repeatedly chastised Law Clerk A for performance issues, including ‘being on [the clerk’s] cell phone in court and in the office,’ ‘arriving to the office late,’ and wearing attire that the judge considered ‘too casual.’ The Subject Judge implied that Law Clerk A might have made allegations as a means of retaliating against the Subject Judge.”

So this judge not only lied but attacked the clerk. The court order contained emails and communications in which the judge states that the clerk is disgruntled and unreliable. The result was an investigation as the judge continues to lie about the long-standing affair.

The other individual is described solely as a high-ranking police officer.

This is an extraordinary and serious series of ethical violations. It directly undermined the integrity of the court and created a dysfunctional work environment. The officer and the department are likely parties in cases before the court. The judge must be independent in dealing with officers and the department. The use of the chambers for sexual encounters must have created a hostile work environment for many clerks and staff.

Then there are the repeated lies to fellow judges and investigators. Lying to federal investigators can be a crime under 18 U.S.C. 1001, and such cases can come before this judge.

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Corporations Can Vote in Some Delaware Elections, Judge Says

Corporations, partnerships, trusts, limited liability companies, and other “artificial entities” have the right to vote in Delaware elections under some circumstances, a judge said in a novel ruling Tuesday.

Judge Craig A. Karsnitz rejected an ACLU challenge to a charter permitting voting in local elections by the entities that own most of the property in the Town of Fenwick Island, one of several municipalities in the state with similar provisions. Karsnitz dismissed the lawsuit from Delaware’s Superior Court, citing “the principle of one person/entity/one vote.”

“Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction,” but “trusts, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations are expressly recognized as ‘persons’ in the Delaware Code,” the judge said.

The dispute over municipal voting in a tiny coastal community represents an unusual flashpoint in the decades-long fight over the free speech rights of corporations and the dark money flooding the American electoral system. The US Supreme Court held in 2010’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that political spending counts as constitutionally protected speech.

Ever since that ruling effectively ended corporate campaign finance regulation, the prospect of outright voting by business entities has served as fodder for both critics and comedians.

Delaware, home to more corporations than people, is a fitting place for reality to outpace satire. The state constitutional provisions expressly enshrining corporate personhood reflect Delaware’s budgetary reliance on the billions in fees it raises annually from the more than 2 million business entities chartered there.

Karsnitz, writing in a 19-page opinion Tuesday, rejected an array of constitutional arguments advanced by the ACLU, including the claim that entity voting dilutes the political power of living people.

The lawsuit “does not allege discrimination based on race or political partisanship,” show “that entity property owners vote sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the preferred candidates of natural persons,” or assert “that Fenwick’s charter distinguishes between natural persons and entity property owners with the discriminatory intent to fence out natural persons,” the judge said.

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Alabama Judge Who Called Herself “Ultimate Authority” Suspended After Making Racist Remarks Against White Clerk

An Alabama judge was suspended after making a racist remark against a White clerk.

Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard was hit with a 120-page complaint after she delayed cases to walk her dog and even attacked a White woman with racially charged comments.

Blanchard called herself the “ultimate authority” in conversations with her staff.

Judge Blanchard is accused of ethical and judicial misconduct by delaying cases so she could walk her dogs.

In one case, a patient was hospitalized for an additional two weeks because of Blanchard’s delays.

“This patient will now remain hospitalized for an additional two weeks solely due to the lack of timely access to the hearing process,” an email from hospital staff read, according to the complaint.

“This not only prevents her from being home with her family for Thanksgiving, but it also generates unnecessary hospitalization costs and creates avoidable emotional distress for the patient,” the email read.

Blanchard attacked a chief clerk named Amanda Reid.

“Oh, I forgot you all like kissing white ass,’” Blanchard said to her staffer about her fondness of Reid.

WBRC reported:

A judge in Jefferson County who reportedly told her staff she was the “ultimate authority” with “no boss” has been suspended following a 120-page complaint filed by the Judicial Inquiry Commission.

Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard is out of the courtroom indefinitely and through this complaint, is formally accused of ethical and judicial misconduct.

Judge Elisabeth French, the presiding judge in Jefferson County, appointed retired Probate Judge Sherri Friday to serve temporarily in Blanchard’s place and appointed retired Judge Carole Smitherman to temporarily serve as Chief Election Official for Jefferson County.

The complaint lays out dozens of allegations against Blanchard that claim she ran the Probate Court in an incompetent and unprofessional manner, routinely targeting attorneys and staff, and manufacturing a backlog that created havoc in involuntary commitments.

The commission charges Blanchard with pattern and practice of failing to diligently discharge judicial duties, pattern and practice of failing to follow the law, pattern and practice of exhibiting bias against attorneys appearing in Blanchard’s court, failure to disqualify from a case in which Blanchard served as an attorney, harassment, intimidation, and retaliation against probate court staff, allowing other court officials subject to Blanchard’s direction and control to engage in harassment and intimidation of probate court staff, and failure to maintain professional competence in judicial administration.

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Federal Court Strikes Down Landmark Fluoride Ruling on Technicality — ‘Not the Science’

 A federal appeals court has vacated a landmark decision that found fluoridated drinking water poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not challenge the substance of the lower court’s findings — that fluoride is toxic to children and ought to be regulated. Instead, the court based its decision on procedural issues related to the lower court’s handling of the litigation.

The case will now go back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where District Judge Edward Chen will be required to exclude all scientific evidence that became available after 2020.

Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender the court “instructed Judge Chen to travel back in time to 2020 and make this ruling based on a stale factual record.”

Connett said the directive to ignore years’ worth of evidence on fluoride’s dangers runs counter to the intent of the TSCA — which is to protect hundreds of millions of Americans from substances that are harmful to human health.

The federal appeals court ruling, handed down late Thursday, stemmed from a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought by consumer advocacy groups including Food & Water Watch, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and Moms Against Fluoridation.

The groups sued after the EPA refused to consider their 2016 citizens’ petition asking the agency to regulate fluoride.

After two bench trials, Chen ruled that fluoride at the federally recommended concentration of 0.7 milligrams/liter (mg/L) posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health and ordered the EPA to regulate it accordingly.

However, the 9th Circuit panel said the lower court violated the “party presentation principle” — a legal doctrine requiring courts to act as neutral arbiters rather than taking control of a case’s factual development.

Connett said the decision was “a very expansive and unprecedented application of the party presentation principle.” He said that to date, “this principle has really only been applied to situations where judges raise new legal issues, not where judges use procedural mechanisms to resolve the issues presented.”

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Panel of Leftist Federal Judges Defy Supreme Court, Order Alabama to Reinstate its Rigged and Racially Gerrymandered Congressional Map

A panel of leftist judges decided to snub the United States Supreme Court and throw out a perfectly constitutional redistricting map today.

As The Associated Press reported, a three-judge panel in Alabama’s redistricting case issued a preliminary injunction barring the state from switching maps.

It requires Alabama to continue using the 5-2 racially gerrymandered map the court ordered for congressional elections in 2024. The state had recently voted to reinstate its old map, which was 6-1 Republican.

This also means Democrats will regain an additional Black-majority seat for now.

This is after the Supreme Court SPECIFICALLY ruled that racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional.

The AP reported:

Federal judges on Tuesday temporarily blocked Alabama’s plan to use a new congressional map that could give Republicans an advantage in a key House race in the midterm elections.

A three-judge panel in the state’s long-running redistricting case issued the preliminary injunction that prevents the state, at least for now, from switching maps. It requires the state to continue using the same court-ordered districts that were used for congressional elections in 2024.

Lawyers representing Black voters in the state’s lengthy redistricting case had sought the preliminary injunction, arguing the same panel in 2023 found the state map was intentionally discriminatory against Black voters. They also argued Alabama was creating chaos by trying to change lines in the middle of an election year.

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DNI Gabbard presses to declassify secret but critical court opinion during FISA renewal debate

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is pushing to declassify a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion expected to reveal major compliance failures in the government’s use of Section 702 surveillance powers, Just the News has learned.

The effort comes as Congress is debating whether to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the government to collect communications of foreign targets located abroad.

Civil liberties advocates and constitutional scholars have long argued the program also sweeps in large volumes of Americans’ communications without warrants, creating what critics describe as a loophole around Fourth Amendment protections.

At the center of the controversy is the government’s ability to conduct so-called backdoor searches, in which analysts query databases containing incidentally collected American communications. 

The pending court opinion is expected to detail concerns over how federal agencies have managed queries of Section 702 databases and whether internal guardrails designed to prevent abuse were circumvented, according to a senior intelligence official.

The Justice Department reportedly discovered in 2024 that the FBI had used a filtering mechanism that enabled personnel to query Section 702 data without fully complying with oversight requirements established under the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act. 

Investigators reportedly found the system lacked adequate counting, tracking, and approval procedures that are required under the law.

Although officials said the specific tool was later shut down, the still-classified court opinion reportedly indicates that similar tools may continue to exist elsewhere within the intelligence community, including at the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Gabbard announced Friday she is stepping down June 30 to spend more time with her husband, Abraham, who was recently diagnosed with bone cancer.

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Democrat Sen. Van Hollen Roasted For Celebrating Obama Judge’s Decision to Drop Criminal Case Against MS-13 Gang Member Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen got roasted for celebrating a federal judge’s decision to drop the criminal case against MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

A federal grand jury in Tennessee previously indicted Kilmar Abrego Garcia for “transporting undocumented migrants within the United States.”

He was charged with one count of conspiracy to transport aliens and one count of unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens.

According to the indictment, Kilmar Abrego Garcia and co-conspirators from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and the US were trafficking illegal aliens from 2016 through 2025.

Read the indictment here.

A federal judge on Friday dismissed the criminal indictment against MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Judge Waverly Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss the human trafficking case for vindictive and selective prosecution in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

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Out of the Twilight Zone: Judge praises behavior of gang rapists, sentences them to ‘rehabilitation’

A judge handling the case of a teenage gang convicted of luring two young girls and then raping them gave them rehabilitation orders instead of jail.

And he praised them for their behavior.

“You have all done very well with the restrictions put in place throughout the trial,” claimed the judge, in the United Kingdom. “I think of you as very young and none of you have (sic) been in any big trouble before.”

It was in a report at Not the Bee that the details of the judge’s near-advocacy for crime appeared.

“Sane human beings know these little monsters deserve the most serve punishment available. This being in the UK, however, means they don’t even go to jail,” the report said. “The judge handed down ‘rehabilitation sentences’ for the three gypsy perpetrators while somehow excusing their despicable actions.”

The Daily Mail noted the gypsies, of the “traveller community,” were convicted of rape as well as taking indecent images of a child, because they recorded their own abuse of a 15-year-old girl.

The case was in Southampton Crown Court, where the judge said, “None of you need to go to prison.”

The boys targeted one victim on Snapchat, “before luring her to an underpass where they laughed and filmed themselves as they raped her,” the Mail reported.

First it was two 14-year-old boys. Then a few months later they were joined by a 13-year-old boy for a second attack, this time raping a young girl at knifepoint.

The Daily Mail said all three were convicted of rape during a five-week trial.

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