Tag: judges

Federal judge dismisses Justice Department lawsuit seeking Oregon’s voter rolls

A federal judge in Oregon dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Oregon’s unredacted voter rolls on Monday in another setback to wide-ranging efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to get detailed voter data from states.

In a hearing, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he would dismiss the suit and issue a final written opinion in the coming days. The updated docket for the case showed that Oregon’s move to dismiss the case was granted.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the move.

“The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,” he said in an emailed statement. “Oregonians deserve to know that voting laws can’t be used as a backdoor to grab their personal information.”

The Justice Department declined to comment.

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Magistrate Judge Blocks FBI From Accessing Devices Seized From Washington Post Reporter Who Obtained Illegally Leaked Information From Pentagon Contractor

A federal magistrate judge on Wednesday blocked the FBI from accessing devices seized from the Washington Post reporter who obtained illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.

Among the items seized from Natanson: 2 silver MacBook Pros and a Pink iPhone.

As previously reported, the FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter who obtained classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.

Feds executed a search warrant at the Alexandria, Virginia, home of WaPo reporter Hannah Natanson earlier this month as part of an investigation into a Maryland system administrator who has a top security clearance.

The FBI seized Natanson’s cell phone, two laptops (one personal and one work-related), and a Garmin watch.

Natanson is not the subject of the investigation.

According to The Washington Post, Natanson was at home at the time of the raid.

The contractor who stashed the classified documents at his home, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, is currently in jail.

FBI agents reportedly found classified intelligence reports in Perez-Lugones’ lunchbox and basement.

According to The Washington Post, Natanson was at home at the time of the raid.

The contractor who stashed the classified documents at his home, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, is currently in jail.

FBI agents reportedly found classified intelligence reports in Perez-Lugones’ lunchbox and basement.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the search was conducted at the Pentagon’s request.

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Shocking Undercover Video Shows Judges in Ohio Immigration Courts Can be Bribed to Keep Illegals in the US

Shocking undercover video obtained by Townhall shows judges in Ohio immigration courts can be bribed to keep illegal aliens in the United States.

The footage was posted to X on Tuesday morning.

The video sheds light on the underground business of smuggling illegals into the US, helping them get jobs and bribing immigration judges to rule in their favor.

A woman identified as Patricia “Pat” Golder claimed in the video that she takes some of the money given to West African migrants in exchange for her bribing judges to rule in their favor.

An undercover reporter was introduced to Golder by a woman named Cindy Reis.

“She gets them their papers. She does,” Reis told the reporter as she introduced him to Patricia Golder. “He knows about Mulberry Street.”

“I try to work with them the best I can,” Golder said.

Golder told the reporter that some of the migrants “have papers” and some don’t. She said she helps the illegals get jobs but would not name the companies because of “the threat of ICE.”

Later on in the video, Golder discloses that she visits judges at bars and restaurants.

“If I can get to the judge. You know, that’s the only person you want to talk to is the judge,” Golder says with a smile on her face.

“Wait, say that again?” the reporter said.

“If I can get to the judge it’s okay. I make conversation with them,” Golder said.

“If the judge says, “Yeah, Okay, $50,000 I send everybody to you,” she said.

“I go to the bar like everybody drink. Spot the judge. I say, ‘You work on this date?’ He’s like, ‘let me see my calendar’…give me my $50G’s,” she said.

“The judge says that?” the reporter asked in disbelief.

“He ain’t scared of nothing,” Golder said. “How they live, they pay bills just like me and you. C’mon, man.”

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Biden Judge Blocks ICE From Arresting Protestors or Using Crowd Dispersal Tools in Minnesota

A federal judge on Friday issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and blocked ICE from arresting so-called peaceful protestors.

US District Judge Katherine Menendez, a Biden appointee, also blocked ICE agents from deploying non-lethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against protestors.

Six individuals sued The DHS, DHS Chief Kristi Noem and other federal agencies to restrict ICE’s tactics.

Approximately 3,000 federal agents have descended on Minnesota to arrest criminal illegal aliens.

Judge Menendez also ruled that protestors may ‘safely’ follow ICE vehicles.

The judge ruled:

Covered Federal Agents are hereby enjoined from:

a. Retaliating against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge.

b. Arresting or detaining persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge, in retaliation for their protected conduct and absent a showing of probable cause or reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a crime or is obstructing or interfering with the activities of Covered Federal Officers.

c. Using pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge, in retaliation for their protected conduct.

d. Stopping or detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with Covered Federal Agents, or otherwise violating 18 U.S.C. § 111. The act of safely following Covered Federal Agents at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop.

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ACTIVIST JUDGE STRIKES AGAIN: Clinton-Appointed Judge Who Claimed Trump “Likely Committed Crimes” in Challenging 2020 Elections Now Blocks DOJ’s Voter Data Request — Calls It “Unprecedented and Illegal”

Another day, another radical ruling from the federal bench.

Federal District Judge David O. Carter, the same Clinton-appointed judge who previously made headlines by claiming President Trump “likely committed crimes” during the 2020 election challenges, has now moved to block the Department of Justice from securing election integrity in California.

On Thursday, Judge Carter issued a scathing order dismissing the DOJ’s lawsuit against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and the State of California, effectively shielding the state’s voter rolls from federal scrutiny.

Judge Carter granted all of their motions to dismiss, ruling that the DOJ’s request violated the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). He went so far as to accuse the Executive Branch of trying to “usurp the authority over elections.”

The DOJ had sued the Golden State to obtain unredacted voting records to ensure compliance with federal election laws, but Carter has slammed the door shut, calling the government’s request “unprecedented and illegal.”

The 14 states that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued for refusing to provide their full, statewide voter registration files are: 

  • California
  • Delaware
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • New Hampshire
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • Oregon
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • Vermont
  • Washington

The Department of Justice, under Trump administration, launched this legal battle to enforce “voter roll maintenance enforcement and compliance”.

The goal was clear: to investigate potential non-citizen voting and ensure that California’s voter lists are accurate and up to date. The DOJ requested standard data found in voter files, including names, voting history, and Social Security information, to verify eligibility.

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Judge’s Conduct in “We Build the Wall” Case Draws Scrutiny After Timothy Shea Conviction – Tim’s Family Speaks Out

The federal prosecution of Timothy Shea in the “We Build the Wall” case continues to raise serious questions about judicial conduct, jury integrity, defense representation, and sentencing fairness following Shea’s 2023 conviction in the Southern District of New York.

Shea was indicted in August 2020 alongside Stephen Bannon, Brian Kolfage, and Andrew Badolato in connection with the nonprofit organization that raised private funds to construct sections of a border wall. Shea was listed fourth on the indictment and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The case was presided over by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres.

In January 2021, then-President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon, effectively removing him from federal prosecution. Shea, a Colorado resident who lives in Castle Rock with his wife of 20 years and their three children, ultimately became the only defendant from the original indictment to face trial and incarceration.

Mistrial and Concerns Over Judicial Impartiality

Shea’s first trial in 2022 ended in a mistrial after a week of testimony and more than a week of jury deliberations. Immediately after the jury was dismissed, Judge Torres stated from the bench that she was available the following week to retry the case.

Defense attorneys viewed the remark as improper, noting that the decision to retry a case rests solely with prosecutors, not the court. The comment, they argued, suggested a predisposition toward continuing the prosecution rather than maintaining judicial neutrality.

Several months later, Shea was retried and convicted. What followed intensified concerns about the integrity of the proceedings.

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Biden Judge Blocks President Trump’s $10 Billion Welfare Funding Freeze in Five Blue States

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump’s $10 billion welfare funding freeze in five blue states.

US District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and blocked Trump’s halt on funding for childcare and social services.

On Tuesday, President Trump sent letters to California, Colorado, New York, Minnesota and Illinois to inform them of the federal cuts.

Trump made the cuts to the welfare programs due to widespread fraud in the state’s programs.

The five states were given a January 20 deadline.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the other Democrat attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration and asked the judge for an emergency order.

Judge Subramanian halted Trump’s welfare freeze for two weeks as both sides submit arguments to the court.

Politico reported:

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from freezing $10 billion in welfare funds earmarked for five blue states.

In response to a request from the states for an emergency injunction, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ordered that the money from three programs — Child Care Development Fund, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and Social Services Block Grants — must continue to flow to the states.

His decision, which expires in two weeks, was meant to give the two sides time to submit more extensive legal arguments on whether the cuts should be allowed or the ban kept in place, the judge wrote.

Earlier in the week, California, Colorado, Illinois, New York and Minnesota received letters from the federal Department of Health and Human Services notifying them of the cuts. California is in line to receive about half of the $10 billion in targeted funding.

The attempt to withhold the funds was in response to what the Trump Administration has alleged without evidence is widespread fraud and waste in the states’ welfare programs. Along with the cuts, administration officials are also requesting reams of information about how states administer the programs in an effort to bolster the claims of malfeasance and ineptitude.

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YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP: 92-Year-Old Clinton Judge Who Denied Trump’s Hush-Money Removal to Federal Court and Blocked Venezuelan Gang Deportations Now Assigned to Preside Over Maduro Case in New York

In the latest episode of the Deep State circus that’s turned our justice system into a bad joke, a 92-year-old federal judge appointed by none other than Bill Clinton back in the ’90s has been assigned to oversee the high-profile case against Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in New York.

This is the same judge who has a track record of rulings that seem tailor-made to thwart President Trump’s agenda and protect left-wing interests.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who took senior status way back in 2011, but somehow keeps popping up in major cases.

He has issued several controversial rulings adverse to Donald Trump and his administration. These rulings have spanned Trump’s time as a private citizen, his first presidency, and his current second term.

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Trump judges blast peers for letting California impose ‘state-sanctioned groupthink’ in medicine

The federal government’s refusal to register a supposedly offensive trademark for the Asian-American rock band The Slants prompted the Supreme Court to issue a sweeping precedent that protected First Amendment rights from the government-speech doctrine.

Now eight years later, that ruling is center stage again as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals extended the doctrine that steamrolls individual speech under the banner of government speech to validate California medical training. And some dissenting judges nominated by President Donald Trump on that court are raising deep concerns.

A majority of the full appeals court, whose jurisdiction stretches from the Pacific to the Rockies, refused to rehear a challenge to California’s imposition of “implicit bias” training in continuing medical education, which doctors must receive to keep their licenses, leaving intact a three-judge panel’s ruling that deemed the private courses to be government speech.

The 9th Circuit has become less liberal with Trump’s 11 nominees but Democrat nominees still dominate the largest federal appeals court, which has 29 active judges. The rehearing denial doesn’t specify the vote count.

“A proper analysis—as prescribed by the Supreme Court, our own court’s prior cases, and our sister circuits—reveals that California’s prior CME regulations did not meaningfully express or shape messages through CME courses” before the Golden State made implicit-bias training a statutory requirement in 2019, the first dissent from refusal to rehear said.

Physicians in CME courses would also be “unlikely to perceive the instructor’s message as the government’s” and the Medical Board of California’s “regulations otherwise exert very little control over CME instructors’ messages,” Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote.

He was joined by Judges Patrick Bumatay and Eric Tung, the latter only confirmed in November.

The Trump appointees blasted the “improperly anemic governmental speech analysis” by the panel, which relied on the “mere scope of California’s regulatory scheme” to conclude that “CME attendees perceive instructors as relaying the government’s views,” at odds with the “well-pleaded allegations” of the challengers.

Tung also wrote a dissent, joined by VanDyke and Bumatay, that scolded the panel for rebranding private instructors as government agents and sidestepping the scientific debate over the validity of implicit bias, which the California law asserts with no evidence is responsible for healthcare “outcome disparities” by race and sex.

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Judge Who Helped Illegal Migrant Escape ICE Resigns

A Wisconsin judge who helped an illegal alien escape from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announced she would be resigning from her position in response to “unprecedented federal legal proceedings” brought against her.

Matt Smith, the political director with WISN 12 News, shared a letter addressed to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) from Milwaukee Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on X. In her letter, Dugan expressed that the citizens of Wisconsin “deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee County Branch 31.”

“As you know, I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary,” Dugan said. “I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary. However, the Wisconsin citizens that I cherish deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee County Branch 31 rather than have the fate of that Court rest in a partisan fight in the state legislature.”

Dugan continued on to state that it was “with a heavy heart” that she was submitting “this letter of resignation.”

“My faith in God and in our legal system leads me to trust that in the long run justice will be served for our independent judiciary and for me,” Dugan added.

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