Free Republic

Despite delusions of grandeur at the district court level the White House is winning.While mainstream news outlets, cable networks and social media obsess over Elon Musk’s latest antics, they have neglected a far more important story — the Trump administration is accumulating a significant catalogue of appeals court and SCOTUS victories. Last Friday alone three more wins were added to the list. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House may exclude AP from its press pool while SCOTUS stayed a district court order requiring DOGE to heed a Freedom of Information Act request and ruled that...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing anti-diversity and anti-transgender executive orders in grant funding requirements that LGBTQ+ organizations say are unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar said Monday that the federal government cannot force recipients to halt programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or acknowledge the existence of transgender people in order to receive grant funding. The order will remain in effect while the legal case continues, although government lawyers will likely appeal. The funding provisions “reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and...

On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government of Mexico may not continue its lawsuit seeking to hold firearms manufacturers and a firearms distributor civilly accountable for their role in causing cartel-driven gun violence in Mexico. Having taken the case at an unusually early stage in the litigation, and so working from an undeveloped factual record, all nine justices agreed that Mexico’s current complaint does not even satisfactorily allege that the defendants have aided and abetted U.S. dealers who illegally sell guns to traffickers who then get them to the cartels in Mexico. What’s worse, Justices Clarence Thomas...

A federal appeals court is allowing the Trump White House to ban the Associated Press from the Oval Office and other restricted spaces for now in a ruling that blocked a lower court's ruling that claimed the ban was unconstitutional. In a 2-1 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted in part a stay of the lower court's April 8 ruling that declared the content-based ban unconstitutional. Both of the judges who ruled in the administration's favor were nominated by President Trump in his first term.

Former DC Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant Shane Lamond has been sentenced to 18 months in prison by crooked activist Judge Amy Berman Jackson for speaking to Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in an attempt to prevent clashes between his group and Antifa militants. Lamond was arrested for telling Tarrio that the DC Police had a warrant out for his arrest for vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner. Before his arrest, Lamond had been with the department for 22 years and served as supervisor of the Intelligence Branch for his last four years. Judge Berman-Jackson convicted Lamond in December 2024 for...

Another day, another black-robed tyrant subverting President Trump’s constitutional authority and the rule of law. As CNN reported, a U.S. District Court Judge in Boston on Thursday stepped in and blocked the Trump Administration from preventing foreign nationals from entering Harvard University to study. On Thursday, President Trump issued a proclamation suspending the visas of new students seeking to study at Harvard University for an initial six months, but allows extensions beyond that time. The order also instructs the State Department to consider revoking the academic visas of current Harvard students. Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee, issued a two-page ‘temporary’...

A federal judge in Manhattan issued an order on June 3 preserving a previous preliminary injunction that had blocked the Department of Education from canceling extensions to states for accessing COVID-19-related funds for school districts. School officials can be grifters too. The $1.1 billion in unused COVID-19 relief funds earmarked for elementary and high schools across 16 states and Washington, D.C. must be given to them. The aid was originally granted under the American Rescue Plan Act to support pandemic recovery efforts such as tutoring, building upgrades, and assistance for homeless students. Far-left U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos’ ruling blocks...

BOSTON – A federal judge in Boston on Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump from barring US entry of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard University. Under a two-page temporary restraining order granted to Harvard, US District Judge Allison Burroughs enjoined Trump’s proclamation from taking effect pending further litigation of the matter amid an escalating dispute between the Ivy League school and Republican president. The judge ruled that Trump’s directive prohibiting foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard for the next six months would cause “immediate and irreparable injury”...

SummarySanctions target ICC judges over Afghanistan, Israel cases ICC condemns sanctions as undermining judicial independence Sanctions complicate financial transactions for targeted judges WASHINGTON/THE HAGUE, June 5 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court, an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal's cases regarding alleged war crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and over the court's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Washington designated Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler...

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently blocked Texas from enforcing a state law allowing illegal immigrants living in the Lone Star State to pay in-state tuition rates for public universities after the Trump administration challenged the statute. The two-decades-old law was overturned after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreeing with the Justice Department’s contention that the statute “expressly and directly conflicts” with federal immigration law. “[T]he Court hereby declares that the challenged provisions … as applied to aliens who are not lawfully present in the United...

Activist judges like Judge Boasberg are are issuing blatantly unlawful nationwide injunctions. It’s not judicial review, it’s judicial sabotage.

Scott Gibb was playing in a secluded area at Terry Hershey Park in Houston on May 26, when he was confronted by Eunice Isgur, 76. 'She said I had no right to play here in this public park,' 'She said, "I'm gonna call my husband. He's a federal judge and he's gonna make you stop",' Gibb told the outlet, referring to Isgur's husband US District Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur of the Southern District of Texas. But Isgur reportedly became further angered that she was being recorded, which is when she allegedly hit the victim's arm while swiping at her phone....

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador a chance to challenge their deportations. U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven’t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges. The judge wrote that “significant evidence” has surfaced...

The family of Colorado terror suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman won’t be tossed from the United States for now after a Biden-appointed judge slammed the brakes on their imminent deportation Wednesday. Soliman’s wife, Hayam Salah Alsaid Ahmed Elgamal, 41, their daughter Habiba Mohamed Sabry Farag Soliman, 18, two more minor daughters and two minor sons were all detained and facing a swift deportation — before Judge Gordon Gallagher stepped in.

When a judge starts out his opinion with Kafka, you know you're in for a ride.... This case — J.G.G. v. Trump, involving the removal of Tren de Aragua (TdA) members pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act — has already been a ride-and-a-half. There's a new twist to it, as Judge James Boasberg has now issued a new ruling on the case. And, yes, his opinion begins with Kafka: "One morning, Kafka’s Josef K. awakens to encounter two strange men outside his room." [snip] Subsequently, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and refined some of their claims. In Wednesday's order,...

Nope, not satire. Just your tax dollars at work. The federal Bureau of Prisons must continue providing hormone therapy and social accommodations to hundreds of transgender inmates following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that led to a disruption in medical treatment, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said a federal law prohibits prison officials from arbitrarily depriving inmates of medications and other lifestyle accommodations that its own medical staff has deemed to be appropriate. Ready for the twist? He was a Reagan appointee, in fact! The woke rot goes deep, friends.

A judge in California on Monday blocked the Trump administration from using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants in the Los Angeles area, ruling that the government hasn't promised adequate due process. The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Holcomb — who was nominated by President Trump in 2019 — is the latest to limit the administration's controversial practice of rapidly deporting people accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua under the 1798 law, which allows removals during an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" of the United States. Courts in three other states have also...

A Supreme Court more interested in playing politics than faithfully upholding the Constitution is one that will lose Americans’ trust. If there was any doubt left that a majority of Supreme Court justices are more interested in playing politics than upholding Americans’ constitutional rights, it was all flushed down the drain following the Monday release of the high court’s weekly order list. A week after refusing to defend the free speech rights of a Massachusetts minor, the nation’s highest court declined to take up two pertinent cases involving the Second Amendment. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, one involved a...

It took a federal jury an hour to convict a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy of using excessive force after he assaulted and pepper-sprayed a woman outside a supermarket in Lancaster in 2023.The prosecutors made their case in a three-day trial in February, ultimately persuading jurors to find Trevor Kirk guilty of a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law. Kirk faced up to 10 years in prison.But on Monday, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson sentenced Kirk to four months in prison, after last week granting the government’s request to dismiss the felony charge. With that...

June 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to the legality of state restrictions on assault-style rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines, passing up for now cases that offered the justices a chance to further expand gun rights. The justices turned away two appeals after lower courts upheld a ban in Maryland on powerful semi-automatic rifles such as AR-15s and one in Rhode Island restricting the possession of ammunition feeding devices holding more than 10 rounds. The lower courts rejected arguments that the measures violate the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and...