Category: Justice

‘See You in Court:’ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Responds to Biden’s Legal Threats Over Floating Border Barrier

Minnesota Sun Staff

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sent a letter Monday to President Joe Biden, formally responding to threats of legal action from the Department of Justice (DOJ) over his states floating buoy barrier installed in the Rio Grande River.

Abbott defended his authority to have the floating buoy barrier built, accusing Biden of flouting U.S. immigration law with his border policies and violating the constitutional rights of states to protect themselves from an “invasion,” the letter read. The DOJ sent a letter Thursday to Abbott, accusing him of breaking the law, according to CNN.

Read More

Censorship Case Involving State Collusion with Social Media Companies Could Be Heard by the Supreme Court

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Supreme Court could hear a case questioning a California agency’s coordination with Twitter to censor election-related “misinformation.”

O’Handley v. Weber, which concerns the California Secretary of State’s Office of Election Cybersecurity’s work with Twitter to monitor “false or misleading” election information, was appealed to the Supreme Court on June 8. The case raises questions similar to those posed in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, now being appealed in the Fifth Circuit: Can the government lawfully induce private actors to censor protected speech?

Read More

Congress Investigating Allegation Border Patrol Official Retaliated Against After Testimony

Just the News

Congressional investigating are probing whistleblower allegations that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency may have retaliated against a top agency official after he testifying before lawmakers.

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Mark Green wrote in a letter Friday that they have been told by a whistleblower that El Centro Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino was relieved of his command after he finished a transcribed interview with two congressional committees earlier this month.

Read More

Secret Service Vet on White House Cocaine: ‘Somebody’s Stopping This from Being Thoroughly Investigated’

Just the News

A security expert who worked with the Secret Service for over 20 years says he’s “surprised” the agency is closing the investigation into how cocaine was found at “one of the most secure buildings in the world” without identifying any suspects.

In briefing Congress earlier this month about the July Fourth weekend discovery at the White House, the agency said it did not conduct interviews as part of its internal investigation, citing the roughly 500 potential suspects, and that it planned to close the probe in the coming weeks.

Read More

Catholic Counselor Asks SCOTUS to Reverse Decision Allowing States to Limit Speech Outside Abortion Clinics

Minnesota Sun Staff

A Catholic sidewalk counselor petitioned the Supreme Court Friday to reverse a prior ruling that permits states to enforce laws targeting pro-life counseling outside abortion clinics.

In response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2020, Westchester County, New York passed a law creating a 100-foot “buffer zone” outside abortion clinics where it is illegal to approach another person to engage in “oral protest, education, or counseling” without consent. The law is similar to one the Supreme Court upheld in its 2000 Hill v. Colorado decision, which sidewalk counselor Debra Vitagliano, backed by Becket Law, now asks the justices to overrule.

Read More

Chauvin Will Appeal Case to U.S. Supreme Court

Minnesota Sun Staff
Derek Chauvin

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case after the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to do so Tuesday, his attorney told Alpha News.

Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree manslaughter in April 2021 in connection to the death of George Floyd. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Read More

January 6 Security Footage: Secret Service Brought Kamala Harris Within Yards of Undetected DNC Pipe Bomb

Just the News

U.S. Capitol complex security footage shows the Secret Service brought Vice President-elect Kamala Harris into a garage at the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021, just a few yards from where a pipe bomb had been planted the night before by an unidentified suspect.

The video footage, obtained by Just the News and released on Friday, raised immediate concerns with experts on presidential security and top lawmakers in Congress on how the explosive device was overlooked during security sweeps.

Read More

Federal Lawsuit Targets Race-Based Government Grant Decisions Alleged to Discriminate Against White and Other Business Owners

M.D. Kittle

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action in college admisssions, a San Antonio-based government program that allegedly uses race-based preferences to hand out federal grants faces a federal discrimination lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed this week by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), could spark a national re-examination of such taxpayer-funded, race-focused initiatives.

Read More

Delaware Court Blocks Release of Biden’s Senate Papers

The Center Square

Delaware’s highest court has blocked a request by conservative groups seeking to access President Joe Biden’s Senate papers at a state university. 

The July 6 ruling by the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision that sided with the University of Delaware in denying a request from Judicial Watch and another group seeking access to the records, which Biden gifted to the public university in 2012. 

Read More

FBI Informant Told Agents Hunter Biden Hired by Burisma to ‘Protect’ Ukrainian Firm from ‘Problems’

Just the News

A trusted FBI informant told agents in 2020 that Hunter Biden was hired by a Ukrainian energy company dealing with corruption allegations during his father’s vice presidency to help “protect” Burisma Holdings from problems including an effort to “take care of'” a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the company for corruption, according to an explosive document released by Sen. Charles Grassley on Thursday.

Read More

Former New Hampshire House Democrat Appears to Admit Having Sex with Children in Text

Minnesota Sun Staff

Former Nashua Democratic State Rep. Stacie Laughton talked about raping children and appears to admit having committed the crime in the past, according to the federal complaint filed this week.

“I was asking because I know we’ve had some back-and-forth, and I know we initially said we do nothing with kids ever again, and you said you were afraid that if we had kids if they would go back and tell the parents the same with the kids you work with,” Laughton texted to lover and co-defendant, Lindsay Groves.

Read More

Iowa Judge Temporarily Blocks State’s Newly Signed Heartbeat Abortion Ban

Susan Berry, PhD

Unborn babies up to 20 weeks’ gestation are once again able to be aborted in Iowa after a judge temporarily blocked the state’s new Heartbeat Protection Act which Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed into law on Friday.

As the measure was signed into law, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Planned Parenthood North Central States, and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed a legal challenge against its enforcement.

Read More

Vivek Ramaswamy Predicts DOJ Targeting of Trump Concerning January 6 Is Meant to Disqualify Him from 2024 Race

Kaitlin Housler

GOP presidential candidate released a four-minute video statement on Tuesday shortly after Former President Donald Trump said the Justice Department informed him that he is a target of the January 6 Grand Jury probe. Trump must report to the jury this week.

Read More

Man Charged in Alleged Threat Against Journalist Seeking Nashville Shooter Manifesto

Just the News

A Tennessee man has been charged in connection with a threat against conservative journalist and talk radio show host Michael Patrick Leahy over Leahy’s lawsuit to obtain the Nashville school shooter manifesto, allegedly telling Leahy, “I’m willing to go to prison to end you.” 

Read More

Obama-Appointed Judge Reinstates Kentucky Ban on Child Sex Change Procedures

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge ruled Friday that Kentucky can enforce its state law which prohibits sex change treatments for minors, according to Reuters.

U.S. District Judge David Hale, an Obama appointee, decided that Kentucky can prohibit the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors after ruling in June that the state law likely violated the U.S. Constitution, according to Reuters. The decision was made because a federal appeals court reinstated a similar ban in Tennessee ahead of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing both state’s cases together.

Read More

Jan. 6 Defendant Appeals to Supreme Court in Case that Could Upend Hundreds of Riot Charges

Just the News

Jan. 6 defendant Edward Jacob Lang is asking the Supreme Court to hear his challenge against one of the 11 charges he was indicted on – obstruction of an official proceeding – in a case that could upend legal proceedings against hundreds of other defendants indicted on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. 

The obstruction charge could be levied against “anyone who attends at a public demonstration gone awry,” attorneys for Lang wrote in an appeal to the Supreme Court last week. The proceeding for which the charge was brought refers to the event where Congress certifies the Electoral College votes to confirm the president.

Read More

Court Sides with Catholic School That Let Employee Go over Her Gay Marriage

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a former Catholic school employee Thursday whose contract was not renewed after disclosing her same-sex marriage.

Michelle Fitzgerald, the school’s former co-director of guidance, filed a lawsuit in 2019 after the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and Roncalli High School informed her that the school did not intend to renew her contract for the next year because she had violated her terms of agreement by being in a same-sex relationship, according to the lawsuit. Judge Richard Young rejected Fitzgerald’s appeal to a previous ruling, noting that she had violated the terms of her contract by entering into a same-sex relationship, which goes against the Archdiocese’s beliefs about marriage.

Read More

Fired Diversity Official Sues College for ‘De-Centering Whiteness’

The Center Square

Silicon Valley community college officials said “White gays and lesbians” were not welcome in its LGBT center, called Jews “White oppressors” and refused repeated requests to address antisemitism, and forced staff to mouth a “land acknowledgment” that misidentified local indigenous tribes, according to a former diversity official.

The First Amendment lawsuit by Tabia Lee builds on allegations she made against De Anza College, Foothill-De Anza Community College District and officials after they declined to renew her contract this spring, which she called retaliation for challenging its “empty ‘antiracism’ gesture[s]” that reinforce racial stereotypes such as the “noble savage” and for acting like “an ‘uppity’ Black woman.”

Read More

Probe Launched into FBI’s Targeting of House Intelligence Committee Staffers

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee formally opened an investigation into claims that the FBI spied on two Republican staffers with the House Intelligence Committee while the “Russian collusion” probe was ongoing.

As reported by Just The News, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray addressing prior reporting by Just The News that the bureau had seized from Google the private email of Kash Patel, who had served as the chief investigator for then-Chairman of the Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Read More

18 States, DC Accept Ballots after Election Day, with North Dakota’s Deadline Facing Lawsuit

Just the News
Poll workers counting ballots

North Dakota is facing a lawsuit over its acceptance of mail-in ballots 13 days after Election Day and is among 18 states and Washington, D.C., that accept and tabulate ballots post-election.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday against North Dakota State Election Director Erika White, alleges that the state’s law to accept ballots up to 13 days after Election Day violates federal law.

Read More

Voters Officially Launch Recall Campaign Against California Soros-Backed D.A.

Minnesota Sun Staff

A new political committee was created Tuesday aimed at recalling a California County district attorney with ties to left-wing megadonor George Soros.

The political committee, filed under the name “Save Alameda For Everyone (Safe): Recall DA Price,” is part of an effort to remove Alameda County district attorney Pamela Price from office, according to public filings. Price is one of many District Attorneys that have received funding from liberal billionaire donor George Soros in an effort to elect reformist candidates, according to the Capital Research Center.

Read More

Appeals Court Sides with Minnesota Gov. Walz in Lawsuit Challenging Mask Mandate, Emergency Powers

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Gov. Tim Walz on Monday in a case where a group of citizens had challenged the constitutionality of the governor’s indoor mask mandate that lasted 10 months during 2020 and 2021.

In its decision on Monday, the three-judge panel affirmed a lower court ruling from March 2021 that dismissed the case on the merits. The opinion, written by Judge Michelle Larkin, also noted that Walz was within the authority delegated to him by the legislature to declare a peacetime emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic. That order ran from March 2020 to July 2021.

Read More

Hunter Biden Mystery: The Delaware Prosecutor’s Decision to Not Bring Charges His Office Approved

Just the News

An IRS document from early 2022 states Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ office signed off on bringing a felony tax evasion case against Hunter Biden that stretched back to 2014 and money from Ukraine, creating fresh intrigue as to how the president’s son ultimately escaped more serious charges and got a plea deal on tax misdemeanors involving conduct years later.

The document, a prosecution “conclusions and recommendations” memo, escaped much notice when it was released last month by the House Ways and Means Committee along with the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.

Read More

Hunter Biden Prosecutor’s Office Briefed on Bribery Allegation Before 2020 Election, Senator Says

Just the News

The office of a Trump-era federal prosecutor who has led the investigation of Hunter Biden was briefed two weeks before the 2020 election that the FBI had allegations from an informant suggesting Joe Biden was involved in a bribery scheme involving Ukrainian business interests, according to new information released by a top Republican senator.

Read More

Pro-Life Law Firm Urges Federal Appeals Court to Uphold Right of Unborn Children to Emergency Medical Care

Susan Berry, PhD

A leading national pro-life law firm has filed an amicus brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing the Biden administration’s “guidance” to hospitals that “reminds” them of their “obligation” to provide abortions in states where the procedure is illegal is an incorrect interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

In a press statement Friday, Life Legal explained that after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, “Democrats were determined to find ways to prevent pro-life states from protecting babies in the womb.”

Read More

Federal Judge Approves Seattle’s Multi-Million Dollar Suit Against Monsanto for PCB Contamination

The Center Square

A federal judge will allow the city of Seattle’s multi-million dollar case against Monsanto for PCB contamination of the Duwamish River to move forward.

The decision comes in the footsteps of the Washington state attorney general’s office, which three years ago received a $95 million dollar settlement from the same corporation.

Read More

19 State Attorneys General Sue Biden Admin over Electric Trucking Rules

Minnesota Sun Staff

Nearly 20 state attorneys general are filing a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over regulations it has attempted to implement demanding that the trucking industry shift towards electric vehicles.

In an op-ed for Fox News, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird (R-Iowa) refers to policies first enacted back in March, in conjunction with an effort by the state of California to ban gas or diesel trucks in favor of electric trucks, ostensibly in the name of reducing so-called “global warming.”

Read More

Feds in Miami Arrest 18 Criminal Foreign Nationals, Target for Removal

The Center Square

Miami-based agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, working with Border Patrol agents, arrested 18 criminal foreign nationals who they say pose a danger to their communities.

The four-day operation was conducted from June 26 to June 30 by officials working in ICE ERO Miami Stuart suboffice. The majority arrested are Guatemalan citizens, followed by citizens of Mexico, Honduras, Brazil and Saint Lucia.

Read More

Biden Admin Asks for Emergency Order Stopping Ban on Big Tech Censorship Coordination

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Biden administration requested an emergency order Thursday night to pause the preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge to prevent officials from communicating with social media platforms to censor protected speech.

The administration asked to immediately halt the injunction, issued by Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty on Tuesday, or to issue a seven day administrative stay while their appeal to the Fifth Circuit, which was filed on Wednesday, is pending. Doughty’s injunction bars federal officials in the Department of Health and Human Services, FBI and other agencies from communicating with social media platforms for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Read More

Constitutional Law Center Urges over 150 Medical Schools to End Race-Based Admissions Following Supreme Court Decision

Susan Berry, PhD

A nonprofit law center whose mission is to defend the constitutional rights of Americans has sent a letter to more than 150 medical schools throughout the country, calling upon them to end their race-based admissions policies in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down affirmative action.

Liberty Justice Center, which won a major victory for First Amendment rights in June 2018 after the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that non-union government workers cannot be required to pay union fees as a condition of working in public service, has now announced efforts to inform the schools of their “legal obligation to end race-based admissions policies” in response to the Court’s recent ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. 

Read More

Judge Orders Attorneys in Trump Documents Case to Get Security Clearance

The Center Square

A federal judge ordered all the attorneys involved in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case to move forward with the process to get security clearance. 

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon told all the attorneys to “complete all outstanding applicant tasks required to obtain the requisite security clearances in this matter” by July 13. 

Read More

Former Minnesota Police Chief Claims City Fired Him Because He’s White

Minnesota Sun Staff

Former interim Golden Valley Police Chief Scott Nadeau, a white male, claims in a federal lawsuit filed last week that he was effectively fired because of his race.

The lawsuit, which seeks at least $75,000 in damages, accuses city leaders of violating the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Nadeau based on race. It also accuses Mayor Shep Harris of defamation because of comments he made during a March 2022 City Council meeting.

Read More

Commentary: SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision Ignores Elephant in the Room

Minnesota Sun Staff
U.S. Supreme Court

Growing up in the Jim Crow South, my parents grew up dreaming of a world where they didn’t have to use “colored-only” restrooms, sit in the back of the bus, attend segregated schools, and could sit in restaurants together with other Americans – regardless of their race, creed, or nationality.

They dreamed of equality for all. Yet, almost 70 years after the Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal,” the recent decision to strike down affirmative action makes it clear that many black progressives like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – who benefited from the Brown v. Board of Education decision – still view the issues of race and equality through rose-colored glasses.

Read More

Twitter Threatens Legal Action over Meta’s Threads App

Just the News

Social media platform Twitter warned rival Meta that intended to protect its intellectual property rights following the latter’s debut of a Threads, a Twitter competitor that is linked to Meta’s other platforms.

Twitter has raised concerns that Meta may have improperly used its intellectual property and issued the firm a cease-and-desist letter on Thursday.

Read More

Commentary: Two Americas Collide at the Supreme Court

Minnesota Sun Staff

When President Biden fumed that the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling is “not normal,” he spoke more truth than he may have intended. It is certainly not normal nowadays to acknowledge, even implicitly, that discrimination against whites is possible, or even wrong. The Supreme Court blasted the vaporous pretexts that elites have used to justify this invidious scheme, which has carried on indefinitely, feasting on countless dreams without satisfying a bottomless hunger of unquantifiable grievance. The sentimental and, arguably, self-serving wailing of the dissenters, particularly Justice Jackson, draws from that same source.

Read More

Law Enforcement Experts Warn of ‘Another 9-11’ After Bungled Release of Migrant Tied to Terrorism

Just the News

Former law enforcement officials are warning of potential terrorist attacks and a repeat of 9/11 following a Homeland Security Department watchdog report that exposed government bungling that allowed an illegal immigrant on the terrorist watchlist to be released into the U.S. and roam free for two weeks before he was apprehended.

According to a report released by the DHS’s Office of Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released an illegal immigrant on the terrorist watchlist last year, and due to a lack of coordination, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took more than two weeks to arrest the individual.

Read More

Ex-CBP Head: ‘Literally Should Take’ About 30 Minutes to ID Who Brought Cocaine into White House

Just the News

Mark Morgan, a former FBI agent and acting commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection Agency, told Just the News that it should take the U.S. Secret Service about 30 minutes to figure out how cocaine came into the White House and who brought it there.

“I was there countless times, I put my cell phone in that exact box that they’re talking about. I know it well. Oftentimes, there is a marine that’s standing there. This literally should take them about 30 minutes to solve,” Morgan said on Wednesday.

Read More

Harvard Facing New Civil Rights Complaints After Affirmative Action Ruling

Minnesota Sun Staff

Following a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court effectively ending the practice of race-based preferences in college admissions, Harvard University is facing new civil rights challenges over its practice of legacy admissions.

As reported by The Hill, the Ivy League university is now facing complaints from the Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a left-wing group representing black and Hispanic groups based in the New England area. LCR’s complaint claims that “each year, Harvard College grants special preference in its admissions process to hundreds of mostly White students — not because of anything they have accomplished, but rather solely because of who their relatives are.”

Read More

More than a Dozen States Pursuing Rail Safety Measures

The Center Square

Representatives from more than a dozen states are pursuing local measures to help ensure railroad safety.

The actions in Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia are mostly in response to the train derailment along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border on Feb. 3.

Read More

Judge Orders Biden Administration to Limit Contact with Social Media Platforms

Just the News

A Louisiana federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to limit its contact with social media platforms, determining that the government likely violated the First Amendment by working to censor disfavored political viewpoints online. Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointed U.S. District Court judge, issued a preliminary injunction barring federal officials and agencies from contacting social media firms to seek the removal of protected speech, Politico reported.

Read More

Bipartisan Effort to Reform FISA, End Abuses Could be Iced by GOP Outrage of Durham Report Findings

Just the News

Congressional Democrats have joined in bipartisan effort to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amid abuses but GOP outrage over the findings in the Durham Report, including recent calls to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland over such matters, has likely hurt such efforts.

Congressional reauthorization of FISA is due in December, with particular focus on Section 702 of the law, which permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance on foreign people outside the U.S., with the assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information.

Read More

Defiant Harvard Vows to Continue to Use Race in Admissions Decisions

Admin

Harvard University said it plans to continue to use race as a factor in admissions in the wake of the 6-3 Supreme Court decision last week that ruled affirmative action enrollment decisions are unconstitutional.

A June 29 memo to the Harvard community from President Lawrence Bacow and more than a dozen deans and provosts cited a line in the ruling that states colleges and universities may consider in admissions decisions “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

Read More

Constitutional Experts Welcome Supreme Court’s Takedown of Affirmative Action but Warn of Universities’ Attempts at ‘Workarounds’

Susan Berry, PhD

Many of those who are applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Thursday that struck down affirmative action are also warning that universities that have been steeped for decades in “equity” and “diversity” ideology are not likely to go quietly.

Read More

SCOTUS to Take Up Second Amendment Case Next Term

Just the News

After issuing a string of conservative rulings this week to close out the term, the Supreme Court will hear a key Second Amendment case later this year to determine whether a federal ban on gun possession affecting those under domestic violence restraining orders is constitutional.

At issue is a dispute involving Zackey Rahimi, whom Texas placed under a restraining order due to a violent altercation with his girlfriend, The Hill reported. He subsequently faced federal charges of possessing a firearm while under the order. He had challenged the constitutionality of the ban but pleaded guilty after losing the case.

Read More

Border Patrol Responds to Video of Agent Cutting Razor Wire to Let Migrants Enter: They Had Permission

Just the News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection responded to a video appearing to show a Border Patrol agent cutting through razor wire on private property to allow migrants through.

Fox News correspondent Bill Melguin posted the video Friday and said it is from a source in Eagle Pass, Texas, and shows the federal official cutting the razor wire placed by the state in order to let the migrants enter for processing after they crossed illegally.

Read More