U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday granted special counsel Jack Smith’s motion to vacate deadlines in his D.C. election case against President-elect Donald Trump.
Read MoreJudge Grants Special Counsel Move to Pause D.C. Case Against Trump
Tag: DoJ
Commentary: The Great Electoral Landside of 2024 and Its Consequences for Democrats
While there are a few close states not officially yet called, Trump is on his way to what we called several weeks ago, something close to a 312 – 226 Electoral College vote victory. He’s swept all seven swing states. He made New Hampshire and Virginia competitive, expanding his electoral map and forcing Democrats to spend resources in the race’s waning days. Best of all, he won a resounding popular vote victory, the final numbers of which will come in the days to come.
Read MoreMissouri Secretary of State Sues DOJ over Poll Monitors
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) sued the Department of Justice on Monday for trying to place poll monitors at polling locations in the state on Election Day. The DOJ announced on Friday that it was planning “to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states” for the general election. One of those jurisdictions is St. Louis.
Read MoreDOJ Invokes Civil War-Era Law in Warning Federal Agents Not to Respond to Polling Places with Guns
In recent days, federal law enforcement agents across the government received a jarring communication from the Justice Department: a warning they could be prosecuted under a Civil War-era law if they respond to an election polling place with guns, even for a fake report of a crime.
Read MoreBiden DOJ Fights Election Integrity Efforts with Lawsuits Across the Country Ahead of Election Day
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice is suing states and towns across the country in an effort to thwart election integrity measures ahead of the presidential election, resulting in pushback from election integrity advocates.
Read MoreFlorida Sues Biden-Harris DOJ for Allegedly Blocking Trump Assassination Attempt Investigation
Florida sued the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) Wednesday for allegedly blocking the state’s investigation into the second Trump assassination attempt.
Federal officials almost immediately began “taking steps to halt the state’s investigation” into Ryan Wesley Routh, who was indicted for attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course in September, the lawsuit states.
Read MoreReport: Immigration Courts Broke Records in Fiscal 2024
The number of cases before federal immigration judges totaled nearly 1.8 million, a record, in fiscal 2024, according to the latest analysis by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan, independent research organization.
Federal immigration courts fall under the Department of Justice and are located in 28 states, the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico. The DOJ’s fiscal 2024 year was Oct. 1, 2023, through Sept. 30, 2024.
Read MoreDOJ Sues Virginia over Removing Non-Citizens from Voter Rolls Ahead of November Election
The Department of Justice has sued Virginia over removing non-citizens from its voter rolls ahead of the November election.
Read More‘Remedying These Harms’: Federal Government Weighs Breakup of $2 Trillion Tech Giant
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering recommending a federal judge to force Google to sell parts of its business in a bid to eliminate its alleged monopoly on online search, according to a court filing Tuesday.
A U.S. judge ruled in August that Google built and abused a “monopoly” by spending billions on exclusivity agreements to be the automatic search engine for browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox. The DOJ could force Google to sell segments of its business, including its Chrome browser and Android operating system, which place Google as its default search engine, the DOJ filing showed.
Read MoreCommentary: Foreign Censorship Threatens American Free Speech
On the eve of a highly-anticipated live X “Spaces” conversation between Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump, the powerful European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton warned in August that authorities would be “monitoring” the conversation for “content that may incite violence, hate, and racism.”
While reminding Musk that the EU was already investigating X for alleged failures “to combat disinformation,” Breton said he and his colleagues “will not hesitate to make full use of our toolbox … to protect EU citizens from serious harm.”
Read MoreJack Smith’s Use of Obstruction Law Limited by Supreme Court ‘Fatally Undermines’ Case, Trump Attorneys Argue
Special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case falls apart under recent Supreme Court precedent, former President Donald Trump’s attorneys said Thursday.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Fischer v. United States, which scaled back the Biden-Harris Department of Justice’s (DOJ) overbroad use of an obstruction statute designed to target corporate document shredding against Jan. 6 defendants, “fatally undermines” two counts and requires dismissing two others, Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Read MoreNational Archives Delays Release of Biden VP Records with Hunter Biden Info until After Election
The Department of Justice notified a legal group suing for Joe Biden’s vice presidential records that president’s lawyers claimed an extension, blocking the release of the records until after the election.
America First Legal sued for the records—communications involving Hunter and James Biden about several business dealings—in 2022. The group has struggled to obtain records in a timely fashion, delayed by the Archives and the Biden administration.
Read MoreKey House Chairman to Ask Congress to Repudiate Democrats’ January 6 Findings in Face of New Evidence
No, Donald Trump didn’t grab the wheel of his presidential limousine and try to commandeer it. Yes, Nancy Pelosi felt responsible for security lapses at the Capitol, including the failure to pre-position National Guard there.
There’s no doubt that Trump did in fact order the Pentagon to send troops to secure the U.S. Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of electoral votes, but political and military brass declined to do so. And yes, there were both intelligence and security blunders by police that led to the breach of one of America’s most storied buildings.
Read MoreDOJ Sues Alabama over Attempt to Remove Noncitizens from Voter Rolls
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday it is suing Alabama for trying to remove noncitizens from voting lists, arguing the effort comes too close to the presidential election in November.
According to the Washington Times, the DOJ asked a federal judge to order Alabama to put the names of the presumed ineligible voters back on the active voter lists, in part because it claims that some actual citizens were told that they had been moved to an inactive voter file.
Read MoreNYC Mayor Eric Adams Pleads Not Guilty, Will Request Case Be ‘Dismissed’
Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday in a Manhattan courtroom after he was indicted by federal prosecutors on five federal charges allegedly connected to illegal contributions to his 2021 campaign.
Read MoreEric Adams Claims Biden-Harris Admin Targeted Him After He Spoke Out About ‘Broken Immigration Policies’
Democratic Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said on Wednesday that he was “innocent” after being indicted by a federal grand jury following multiple federal investigations, accusing the Biden administration of retaliating against him for criticizing its “broken immigration policies.”
Federal prosecutors in New York secured an indictment against the former New York Police Department captain, who had been under investigation over corruption charges, The New York Times reported. Adams accused the Justice Department of targeting him after he spoke out about the effects that the influx of migrants had on the city.
Read MoreDOJ IG Horowitz Won’t Say How Many Confidential Human Sources Were Among Crowd on January 6, 2021
U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday would not say how many U.S. government confidential human sources were among the protestors during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when pressed on the matter by a lawmaker on Wednesday. Horowitz was asked if he has evidence of the number of confidential human sources that were operating on the Capitol grounds on January 6th.
Read MoreJustice Department Alleges Illegal Monopoly in Visa Civil Suit
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Visa alleging illegal monopolization of debit markets.
Read MoreSuspect in Second Trump Assassination Attempt Wrote Note Months Prior Saying He Wanted to Kill Him
Ryan Routh, the suspect accused of attempting to assassinate former President Trump in Florida, apparently wrote a note months prior to the incident indicating he intended to kill Trump, according to a court filing released on Monday.
Read MoreCommentary: Media Push Misleading Crime Stats to Protect Democrat Narrative
Crime is a major issue in this year’s election, yet major media ignored the release of a significant new government report showing a surge in violent crime. The increase in violent crime during the Biden administration is a record increase.
The latest data released last Thursday from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reveal a sharp increase in violent crime under the Biden-Harris administration compared to when Trump left office.
Read MoreAlaska Man Arrested for Threatening to Murder Six Supreme Court Justices
An Alaska man was arrested Wednesday for threatening to murder six Supreme Court justices, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Panos Anastasio sent over 465 messages intended for the justices through the Supreme Court’s website between March 2023 and July 2024, which allegedly became threatening after Jan. 4 and included “violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric coupled with threats of assassination via torture, hanging, and firearms,” according to the indictment. Anastasio, who will come before Judge Kyle Reardon Thursday for a detention hearing, has been temporarily detained, according to court records.
Read MoreDOJ Sues Owner, Operator of Vessel That Hit Francis Scott Key Bridge for $100 Million
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the owner and operator of the vessel that hit Francis Scott Key Bridge on Wednesday for $100 million in May.
“The Justice Department is committed to ensuring accountability for those responsible for the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which resulted in the tragic deaths of six people and disrupted our country’s transportation and defense infrastructure,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement.
Read MoreCommentary: DOJ Gets Political Before 2024 Election
Attorney General Merrick Garland broke precedent just weeks before the November election, delivering politically charged remarks at the U.S. Attorneys’ National Conference in Washington – pointedly speaking publicly rather than privately in a departure from his usual practice. “Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon,” he said before a packed house, gathered in the Great Hall of DOJ headquarters on Sept. 12. “Federal prosecutors and agents may never make a decision regarding an investigation or prosecution for the purpose of affecting any election or the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
Read MoreBiden DOJ Dropped Nearly Half of Pending Obstruction Charges for January 6 Defendants After Supreme Court Ruling
The Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped nearly half of pending obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants since the Supreme Court issued a major ruling in June, according to recent data.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that in charging Jan. 6 defendants, the DOJ had interpreted too broadly a statute that carries up to 20 years in prison for anyone who corruptly “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.” Since the Fischer v. United States ruling, around 60 of 126 defendants had the pending obstruction charges dropped, DOJ data from Sept. 6 shows.
Read MoreYouTube Takes Down Conservative Podcast Network Tied to DOJ Russia Indictment
YouTube terminated the accounts of a conservative influencer and her media company Thursday evening, one day after the Justice Department indicated the company was tied to a Russian scheme to influence the 2024 election.
The accounts for Tenet Media and Lauren Chen were removed one day after Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference Wednesday announcing an indictment of two Russians in an alleged scheme to influence the 2024 election. A note on Tenet Media’s channel states that it “violated our Community Guidelines” and Chen’s personal account on the Google-owned video site was listed as “not available” Friday morning.
Read MoreHunter Biden Changes Plea in Federal Tax Case Twice in One Day, Intends to Plead Guilty
For the second time in one day, Hunter Biden changed his plea in the federal case centered on nine tax charges ahead of the jury selection that was set to begin Thursday.
Read MoreDOJ Indicts Two RT Employees for ‘Covertly Funding’ U.S. Company That Advanced Russian Interests
The Department of Justice on Wednesday indicted two Russian nationals for spending about $10 million on a “scheme” to advance “Russian government messaging” to U.S. audiences.
Read MoreDOJ Charges Six Senior Hamas Leaders over ‘Terrorist Atrocities’ in October 7 Attack
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday the unsealing of terrorism, murder conspiracy and sanctions-evasion charges against six senior Hamas leaders.
Read MoreUtah Man Arrested in Connection with January 6 Capitol Riot
The Justice Department announced the arrest of a Utah man for alleged felony and misdemeanor offenses during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The FBI arrested Hal Ray Huddleston on Monday in Utah.
Read MoreJulie Kelly Commentary: Kamala Harris Likely to Tap Matthew Graves for Attorney General
Democrats ended their four-day convention on Thursday with a vacuous speech by the party’s installed candidate, Kamala Harris. Her short stint on the main stage made the regime media, which has blessed her with 84 percent positive news coverage since the Pelosi coup according to one analysis, drunk with joy. Harris,…
Read MoreFBI Let Suspect in Plot to Kill Trump into U.S. on Parole Despite Terror Ties, Iran Trip, Memos Show
The FBI allowed Asif Raza Merchant, the Pakistani man charged with plotting with Tehran to assassinate Donald Trump and others, to enter the U.S. in April with special permission known as “significant public benefit parole” even though he was flagged on a terrorism watchlist and recently traveled to Iran, according to government documents reviewed by Just the News.
Read MoreCatholic Group Urges DOJ to Investigate Pro-Abortion Attacks on Churches, Pregnancy Centers
A Catholic organization that tracks attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches is urging the Justice Department to investigate over 400 known attacks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The organization, CatholicVote, requested a meeting to discuss probes of pro-abortion violations of the FACE Act in a letter to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke that it shared with The Daily Signal.
Read MoreFBI Now Thinks Gaming Account in Trump Shooter’s Name That Issued Warning Was Not His: CNN Report
CNN is reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation now thinks the gunman who shot former President Donald Trump at an outdoor campaign rally last weekend did not write an anonymous message on the gaming platform Steam in the days leading up to the assassination attempt.
Read MorePro-Life Father of 11 Avoids Prison Time Sought by Biden DOJ
A Tennessee judge ruled Tuesday that pro-life activist Paul Vaughn will not serve time in prison for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Tennessee abortion clinic.
Read MoreCommentary: Supreme Court Overturns DOJ’s Use of Key January 6 Felony Court
In a devastating but well-deserved blow to the Department of Justice’s criminal prosecution of January 6 protesters, the U.S. Supreme Court today overturned the DOJ’s use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2), the most prevalent felony in J6 cases.
The statute, commonly referred to as “obstruction of an official proceeding,” has been applied in roughly 350 J6 cases; it also represents two of four counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s J6-related criminal indictment of Donald Trump in Washington.
Read MoreJulian Assange Reaches Plea Deal with U.S. That Avoids Jail Time
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the United States on Monday that would allow him to avoid any time in prison, according to new court documents.
Read MoreTrump’s Former DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark Files Post-Hearing Brief Poking Holes in the D.C. Bar’s Disciplinary Panel Findings
Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, is fighting a recommendation from the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel to discipline him over his concerns about illegalities in the 2020 election. Last month, he filed a Post-Hearing Brief challenging a nonbinding preliminary finding of culpability for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials advising them of their options in dealing with the irregularities.
Read MoreCommentary: Trump’s Trial Is a Symptom of a Larger Crisis in American Justice
Naturally, the cataract of commentary on Thursday’s Stalinist guilty, guilty, guilty verdict against Donald Trump has divided itself into two distinct pools. One is gleeful. The other is alarmed. Rather than anatomize the differences between the two, I’d like to start by simply noting the size and fervor of the response. There are, I believe, two essential points to bear in mind.
The first is that the outpouring is only incidentally about Trump. You might find this a surprising statement since the news has been full of little besides Trump.
Read MoreNorfolk Southern Reaches $310 Million Settlement with EPA, DOJ over East Palestine Derailment
Norfolk Southern reached a $310 million settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice on Thursday over a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last year.
The settlement, which has yet to be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, requires Norfolk Southern to spend an estimated $235 million for clean-up, $30 million for water quality monitoring, $25 million for a 20-year community health program, and $6 million to prioritize addressing historical pollution through a “waterways remediation plan,” reported the Washington Examiner.
Read MoreBiden Attempt to Hide Tapes to Collide with Precedent from Past Democratic Probes
President Joe Biden’s attempt to assert executive privilege over the tapes of his interview with federal investigators in his own classified documents case could run into the history of Democratic tactics to obtain information from former President Trump.
For example, recent court decisions surrounding Trump’s efforts to invoke executive privilege over subpoenaed documents by the Jan. 6 Select Committee confirmed a legitimate congressional investigation is often a strong basis for requesting documents or information from the executive. Though, Biden’s current control of the executive branch may allow him to stonewall successfully.
Read MoreCommentary: Defund and Investigate Jack Smith
Special Counsel Jack Smith was supposed to be basking in glory right now.
In his ideal world, Smith would be hot off a quick conviction of Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. for the former president’s alleged role in the events of January 6 and attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The special counsel then would have immediately moved his victorious prosecutors to Palm Beach for the summer to prepare for Trump’s second federal trial related to allegedly stealing national defense information and impeding the Department of Justice’s investigation.
Read MoreCommentary: Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.
In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date—an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future—Cannon declined to set another date, calling it “imprudent” at this stage of the process. She noted a “myriad” of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 42-count indictment against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government’s investigation.
Read MoreFrom Watergate to Now: John Solomon Exposes Deepening Collusion and Tampering in Trump Investigations
From his studios at Just the News, John Solomon joined Steve Bannon on WarRoom on Monday to examine previous impeachment proceedings and investigations concerning Donald Trump. He exposed some breaking news, reporting that there is extensive evidence of tampering and witness tampering in the Ukraine impeachment and subsequent investigations.
Read MoreJulie Kelly Commentary: The DOJ’s Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid
A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office.
Read MoreD.C. Bar Disciplinary Panel Makes Nonbinding Preliminary Determination of Culpability for a ‘Thought Crime’ in Disbarment Trial of Trump’s Former DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark
The disciplinary trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark wrapped up on Thursday with the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel making a nonbinding preliminary determination that Clark was culpable on at least one of the two counts against him.
Read MoreFeds Crack Down on Pernicious Chinese Hacking Group that Targeted U.S. Gov’t, Dissidents
The U.S. on Monday announced actions aimed at exposing a sweeping Chinese hacking campaign that has targeted U.S. government institutions, critical infrastructure, media and political dissidents for more than a decade.
Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company, Limited (Wuhan XRZ), served as a front company for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), which deals with overseas policing and espionage, allowing Chinese hackers to hide a multitude of malicious cyber operations, the Treasury Department said after sanctioning the organization on Monday in a statement alongside other U.S. agencies and the United Kingdom. In an indictment unsealed separately, the Department of Justice accused Chinese nationals Zhao Guangzong, Ni Gaobin and five others for their role “in furtherance of [China’s] economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives” over the past 14 years.
Read MoreImpeachment Probe Dramatically Pivots to Questions of CIA, DOJ Coverup in Hunter Biden Case
After a bombastic hearing with Hunter Biden’s business partners, House impeachment investigators are dramatically pivoting to allegations of a possible coverup in the first son’s criminal tax case as the inquiry transitions to a new phase.
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee sued the Justice Department seeking to force two attorneys there to comply with subpoenas and testify about whether there was any political interference in Hunter Biden’s tax prosecution.
Read MoreCommentary: Biden’s DOJ Thumbs Nose at SCOTUS on Key J6 Felony Charge
Donald Trump filed his brief Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his argument that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. Noting the lack of historical precedent and dire ramifications for the future, Trump’s attorneys warned that “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”
Oral arguments on the groundbreaking question are set for April 25; a final opinion, which could be announced in late May or sometime in June before the current SCOTUS term ends, represents a do-or-die situation for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president for the events of January 6 and his alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The case is now on hold awaiting a decision by SCOTUS.
Read MoreCommentary: America’s Intelligence Community is Broken
In the current discourse surrounding the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), a prevailing narrative has emerged, as highlighted in a recent Politico article, that mistakenly warns of a future Trump administration’s destruction of the IC as we know it. This perspective is biased and misguided. The real crisis in the Intelligence Community is not what Trump will do if reelected but how to resolve the total erosion of public trust in the IC due to the actions of the D.C. intelligence establishment over the past several decades.
The intelligence officials quoted by Politico, in decrying politicization, ironically contribute to it, exacerbating the broader loss of faith in our institutions. The Intelligence Community, a cornerstone of our national security, must operate insulated from politics — a necessity for its credibility and effectiveness in safeguarding national interests.
Read MoreCommentary: In Prosecuting Trump, Democrats Have Exonerated Him
Despite their best efforts, have Democrats begun an inexorable elevation of former President Donald Trump? For the better part of a decade, Democrats and the Left have thrown everything they could think of against the man they live to loathe. In the process, they have created a quasi-caricature that appears to be decreasingly believable to an increasing proportion of Americans. The question is whether these attacks have come full circle, accomplishing what Democrats most sought to avoid. Have they vilified Trump to victimhood and prosecuted him back into the presidency?
Since Trump burst on the political scene in 2016, Democrats and the Left have busted their guts laughing at him. When that didn’t work and he won, they burst all boundaries going after him. Their efforts have ranged from slights to a Russian dossier to two impeachments. Even after Trump left office, they refused to stop. Unquestionably, these efforts have had an effect — and equally unquestionably, Trump has given ample fodder to use against him: the result being that with Trump poised to win an unprecedented third successive major party presidential nomination (a feat last accomplished by Franklin D. Roosevelt 84 years ago), he has become a highly polarizing figure.
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