Donald Trump has called for "deranged" Jack Smith to be "thrown out" of the country - Trump's latest warning to the federal prosecutor behind his stalled January 6th case.
Trump has long argued that Smith is a partisan agent of the Democratic party. Smith, a private citizen, was appointed by the Biden Justice Department to prosecute Trump after he launched his 2024 campaign.
While discussing immigration with New York City radio hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby, Trump suggested Smith should be classified as insane and sent out of the country.
“Jack Smith should be considered mentally deranged, and he should be thrown out of the country,” Trump told WABC 770 AM’s Cats and Cosby show.
“You have to let people in, but they have to come in legally...And you have to get the killers, the murderers, and mentally deranged, you have to get them out. And we should throw Jack Smith out with them, the mentally deranged people," he continued.
Smith brought charges against Trump over January 6th and classified documents last year.
While Smith had furiously pushed to prosecute Trump before the election, both cases ran into obstacles. The documents case was tossed by the judge, who found that Smith, a private citizen, was improperly appointed Special Counsel.
The January 6th case was originally set for March, but the case was delayed by Trump's appeals on the issue of presidential immunity. The Supreme Court's July ruling, which mostly favored Trump, forced Smith to reshuffle his indictment, drawing things out further.
With the possibility of Smith's January 6th case collapsing altogether if Trump wins the presidency, Smith has sought to convict Trump in the court of public opinion.
Smith was widely rebuked for releasing an "October surprise" filing full of allegations against Trump this month, with many, including Trump, accusing Smith of trying to tip the scales in the presidential election.
In a separate interview Thursday with Hugh Hewitt, Trump pledged to fire Smith "within two seconds" of returning to the White House.
Trump's lawyers have asked Chutkan - who has ruled consistently in Smith's favor - to dismiss him, arguing his appointment poisoned the January 6th case from the beginning.
“The proposed motion establishes that this unjust case was dead on arrival — unconstitutional even before its inception,” Trump’s legal team said.
Republicans have asked the Supreme Court to step into a dispute over the rules of next week's election in the all-important battleground of Pennsylvania.
The Republican National Committee is asking the Supreme Court to stop the counting of provisional ballots from voters who return invalid mail-in ballots.
The state's election code says that provisional ballots "shall not be counted" from voters who cast mail-in ballots that are "timely received."
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to require the counting of provisional ballots from voters who cast mail-in ballots that are timely received but cannot be counted because of a defect such as a lack of a signature or secrecy envelope.
Republicans say the state court effectively created a new process to "cure" defective mail ballots that the state legislature never approved.
Without the Supreme Court's intervention, "tens of thousands" of ballots could be wrongly counted, Republicans argued, noting mail voting is well underway.
"Weeks after mail voting began in Pennsylvania—and less than two weeks before Election Day—a sharply divided 4-3 Pennsylvania Supreme Court departed from the plain terms of the Election Code to dramatically change the rules governing mail voting," they argued.
"It did so in the midst of the ongoing General Election in which millions of Pennsylvanians have already cast ballots for President, U.S. Senate, Congress, and scores of state and local offices."
The RNC is asking the court to either block the impacted provisional ballots or separate them from the official tally while the legal case continues.
"This case is of paramount public importance, potentially affecting tens of thousands of votes in a state which many anticipate could be decisive in control of the U.S. Senate or even the 2024 presidential election," lawyers for the Republicans wrote. "Whether that crucial election will be conducted under the rules set by the General Assembly or under the whims of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is an important constitutional question meriting this court's immediate attention."
The request is part of a blitz of final pre-election litigation (although technically, the election has already started) to set the rules of the November elections. Virginia, in a separate dispute with the DOJ, has asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to remove 1600 self-declared non-citizens from the voter rolls.
Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes make the state the biggest prize among the battlegrounds. President Trump has taken a narrow lead in Pennsylvania in recent polls.
As election tensions build, experts indicate a minimal likelihood of the U.S. Supreme Court intervening in the aftermath of November 5.
Election-related legislation and court restructuring reduce the chances of Supreme Court involvement in the 2024 presidential election, Fox News reported.
Under the 2022 amendments to the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA), the Supreme Court’s role in election disputes has been significantly limited. These changes were primarily aimed at speeding up the litigation process relating to electoral issues and clearly defining the vice president's role during the electoral vote count as solely ministerial.
The updated ECRA also introduced a new legal framework that necessitates that election-related lawsuits first be heard by a three-judge panel at the district court level. This approach ensures that cases are addressed swiftly, with the provision for direct appeals to the Supreme Court on an expedited basis.
Jason Torchinsky, a legal expert, explains the high threshold for Supreme Court involvement, "It's got to be super, super close," emphasizing the need for an election outcome to be extremely narrow to warrant the High Court's intervention.
However, despite the streamlined process, the scope for issues that can be escalated to the Supreme Court under the ECRA is concise and clearly delineated. This stringent scope has led to a variety of legal challenges, including a notable case in Georgia where the timing of county election results certification, amid fraud concerns, has become a contentious issue.
Adding another layer of complexity, the composition of the Supreme Court, heavily consisting of justices appointed during Republican administrations, is perceived to influence the judicial outlook on such cases. Joseph Burns, a partner at a leading law firm, commented on the court's makeup, "In terms of the makeup of the court, there's no question you've got six appointees of Republican judges at this point."
Burns added that these justices are likely to interpret statutes - whether state or federal - faithfully to the letter, reinforcing a conservative approach to legal interpretations. This conservative bent could potentially shape the outcomes of election-related litigation.
Still, the overall sentiment among analysts is one of judicial restraint. John Hardin Young, a legal advisor, noted the justices' reluctance to step into electoral matters unless absolutely compelling circumstances demand it. "I think that there's now a sensitivity among the nine justices not to get involved unless it were absolutely necessary," he said.
Greg Teufel and other experts highlight the introduction of a specific pathway into federal court for certain types of electoral disputes as a result of the recent amendments. "It does kind of create a new route into the federal court for a specific limited set of issues being raised under the Electoral Count Act," Teufel remarked.
He was quick to add, however, that the likelihood of such cases reaching the Supreme Court remains limited due to the narrow scope defined under the ECRA. "There are very limited issues that can be raised under that Act," Teufel further explained, hinting at the high barriers for such litigations to escalate.
Concerns about the broader impacts of these legal provisions are also prevalent. If utilized in controversial ways during the election, the ECRA itself may face significant challenges. "The entirety of the act may come under challenge if it's utilized in a way that impacts the outcome of the election in a way that people view as improper, unfair, or unlawful," warned Teufel.
Despite these legislative changes and judicial thresholds, uncertainties remain as to how future electoral disputes will be handled. Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School, emphasized these uncertainties saying, "There are just so many unknowns that we have to see how things play out."
The combination of legislative amendments to the ECRA, the specific legal processes prescribed, and the current composition of the Supreme Court sketch a complex framework for dealing with election disputes post-November.
Ultimately, the practical implications of these legal frameworks in a real-world election scenario will test the resilience and effectiveness of the reforms designed to uphold electoral integrity and the democratic process.
The Arkansas Supreme Court has issued a major ruling on early voting in the state.
The top court ordered election officials to hold early voting at two churches in West Memphis, in a victory for the city's mayor and self-described voting rights advocates.
The dispute pitted a pair of residents and the mayor of West Memphis against the Crittenden County Board of Election Commissioners, which voted against having early voting in the city.
The board voted to allow early voting in the city of Marion instead, but a lower court judge ordered officials to hold early voting at the Seventh Street Church of Christ in West Memphis, the biggest city in the county. A lone Democrat on the board voted in favor of early voting at the church.
The state's Republican attorney general, Tim Griffin, joined the board's appeal to the top court. Griffin accused County Clerk Paula Brown of stepping on the elections board, but mayor Marco McClendon says it's a black-and-white issue of voter access.
“This is a major victory for our city, ensuring greater access to voting for our community,” McClendon said in a statement.
The top court upheld a ruling from Circuit Judge Chris Thyer which held that Brown had the authority to designate Seventh Street Church of Christ as an early voting location.
The court reversed part of Thyer's ruling that said the board did not have to hold early voting at the First Baptist Church.
The Supreme Court differed, ruling the board must continue to allow early voting at First Baptist because the site was already established in 2022, and the board did not vote to change it.
The ruling came down before early voting began on October 21.
“I’m just thrilled that we got a fair and reasonable decision and that the court followed the law and that the voters in West Memphis are the ones who are going to benefit from it,” said Attorney Jennifer Standerfer, who represented two West Memphis voters in the case.
Early voting is underway in states all across the country, as polls show President Trump tied with Kamala Harris in the presidential race. Arkansas is not considered competitive, as the state has consistently for Republican presidents for decades.
A protracted post-election legal battle is possible, although some predict a more decisive result as soon as Election Night.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The U.S. Supreme Court now has been asked to decide whether noncitizens should be on the voter rolls in the state of Virginia.
It's illegal, of course, for them to vote. But a lower court judge ruled just days ago the state must restore 1,600 names of people who self-identify as noncitizens to voter rolls.
At issue is the National Voter Registration Act that forbids "systemic" removals of names within 90 days of an election.
The state has explained its removal of those names was not "systemic" but based on the noncitizens themselves who identified as ineligible to vote.
Now the Center Square reports Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has confirmed the state is going to the Supreme Court, on an emergency basis, to block the addition of those names to the voter rolls.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which leans far left in its political ideology, affirmed the district judge's order just hours earlier.
Miyares defended the efforts by the commonwealth to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, claiming the ruling was "politically motivated."
"It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter," he said. "The Department of Justice pulled this shameful, politically motivated stunt 25 days before Election Day, challenging a Virginia process signed into law 18 years ago by a Democrat governor and approved by the Department of Justice in 2006."
The move by the Biden DOJ has been criticized as another move in its campaign to "weaponize" the federal government.
"Now their truly Weaponized Department of 'Injustice,' and a Judge (appointed by Joe), have ORDERED the Great Commonwealth of Virginia to PUT NON-CITIZEN VOTERS BACK ON THE ROLLS. This is a totally unacceptable travesty," President Donald Trump said.
It is uncertain if the Supreme Court would take the dispute, or rule, before the Nov. 5 election.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Ohio Supreme Court is being urged to tell a school district to stop discriminating against Christian students.
It is the American Center for Law and Justice that reports it has filed a major brief in the lawsuit it recently brought against the Columbus City Board of Education.
The district is attacking the rights of parents to choose their children's education by refusing to transport children to private schools, including many Christian schools.
That appears to be in violation of a state law that expressly requires the district to provide such transportation.
The legal team's report said, "Ohio law requires school districts to provide transportation to all students in their jurisdiction, regardless of what school they attend. When a school district decides that it cannot provide transportation, Ohio law mandates that the school board provide transportation at least as long as a parent is appealing their decision."
The ACLJ said, "The Columbus School Board has violated that obligation on a large scale, canceling transportation for over 1,000 students. The law requires that a decision be made at least a month before school starts and proper notice is given; but many students and their families, including our client, did not find out about the decision to stop providing busing until after the school year began. Imagine the first day of school and your kids are waiting for the bus, and it never comes. Most importantly, the school board has refused to provide any transportation to the families who are appealing its decision despite its mandatory obligation to do so."
The ACLJ said, "This violation of the law has no excuse."
The report said the school wants the case dismissed, because the law "imposes a penalty on school districts" when they refuse to provide the required transportation, and the school claims "this penalty is sufficient to address the harms."
The ACLJ said its newest filing explains the school has an obligation to provide transportation and the law provides no excuse to refuse.
"This plain statutory language is not optional or in any way subject to the discretion of the school board. It contains no exception for if the interim transportation is costly or difficult. It instead reflects a basic policy judgment of the Ohio General Assembly; rather than force students to re-obtain their rights to transportation after a potentially lengthy process of mediation and administrative review, suffering all kinds of harm along the way, the general assembly made clear that if a student challenges a school board's impracticality determination, the student is immediately entitled to transportation for as long as the dispute resolution lasts," the team argued.
It pointed out to the court that the law "is not a suggestion."
The fight, the ACLJ said, is "about the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children without undue government interference."
A challenge to Mississippi election law could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court after a ruling in federal court Friday, NBC News reported. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that counting mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day is against federal law.
The three-judge panel said that the state's practice of counting ballots postmarked before Election Day but received up to five days after was a violation of federal law. This ruling will not impact November's presidential election as the judges did not grant an injunction.
However, it does provide an avenue for further lawsuits. "Congress statutorily designated a singular ‘day for the election’ of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors," the court's opinion stated.
"Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm this ‘day for the election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials," it added. That interpretation of the law could spell trouble for states that count late votes.
According to the judge's opinion, as of November 2022, 18 states and the District of Columbia allowed late ballots to be counted. They believe this contradicts the straightforward language of the federal law, which supersedes state law.
"Federal law requires voters to take timely steps to vote by Election Day. And federal law does not permit the State of Mississippi to extend the period for voting by one day, five days, or 100 days," the judges claimed in the ruling.
Of course, such a commonsense reading of the law will not be popular with leftists who push mail-in balloting. University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Rick Hansen said the ruling is "bonkers" in a blog post on Friday.
"Suffice it to say that federal law has left this to the states, and requiring that people vote by election day is not the same as saying their ballots must be received by election day. Every other court to face these cases has rejected this argument" Hansen wrote.
"I would be very surprised if any court changed the rules for Mississippi at this late date, and even more surprised if such an order would survive Supreme Court review," he added. Nevertheless, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley called it a "MASSIVE ELECTION INTEGRITY VICTORY."
While the fight in Mississippi may reach the Supreme Court, others are challenging vote-by-mail over fairness and security concerns. The Hill reported that problems with the mail system continue to plague the balloting process.
Election officials believe these persistent issues could have a significant impact on the upcoming election. The postal service countered by claiming that election mail "routinely outperforms" other types of mail.
According to the Postal Service, 99.89% of ballots had a turnaround time of seven days in 2020 and then increased to 99.93% in 2022. However, that might not be adequate closer to Election Day, especially since 32 states require ballots to be received by that important date.
Mississippi becomes one of at least 10 states that require ballots received within five days of Election Day while many others allow up to seven days. This could be a significant issue as at least 43% of people voted by mail in 2020 and 31% in 2022.
Elections should be conducted in person, on paper, and on Election Day, with a process for absentee voting with cause. This is the only way to ensure free and fair elections, and it negates arguments over how many days such ballots should be counted.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court over Wisconsin's refusal to remove his name from the presidential ballot, The Hill reported. Kennedy dropped out of the race and endorsed former President Donald Trump, and some worry that including his name on the ballot could siphon votes from the GOP candidate.
Kennedy has been through the wringer during this presidential election season. After Democrats stonewalled him and his presidential bid, Kennedy switched parties before joining forces with Trump. The GOP candidate and his supporters rejoiced that they were joining forces.
This came after Kennedy ran as an independent candidate due to difficulty getting his name on some of the state's ballots. However, since dropping out, Kennedy has experienced the opposite problem, as some states insist on keeping his name in place.
The latest fight happened after the Wisconsin Elections Commission ruled that Kennedy would remain on the ballot since independent candidates must withdraw sooner than major party candidates to remove their names. Kennedy took this issue to the high court Wednesday in an emergency request docket, claiming it violates his equal protection rights.
Kennedy previously petitioned the Supreme Court and lost on this issue regarding New York's refusal to allow him on the state ballot. Now, Kennedy hopes for a favorable decision in his new request for Wisconsin to remove him.
The legal filing not only cited equal protection but also compelled speech. "In Wisconsin, he wants everyone who will listen to him to vote for Trump," the application said.
"That is core political speech and it’s protected under the First Amendment. To ensure that message is conveyed clearly and without confusion, he asked that his name not appear on the Wisconsin ballot," the filing went on.
"He wanted to be clear: his endorsement was for Trump," it added. With the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump a statistical toss-up, the presence of a third-party candidate could make all the difference.
Unfortunately, even if Kennedy's request is granted, there are significant practical concerns. On Tuesday, over 97,000 people cast ballots in Wisconsin as in-person absentee voting began. Given that fact, it's unclear what the remedy from the Supreme Court would be, if any.
The legal battles are just a portion of what Kennedy has endured since he switched sides to support Trump. He anticipated as much when he made his announcement on August 23, Fox News reported.
"I've made the heart-wrenching decision to suspend my campaign and to support President Trump. This decision is agonizing for me because of the difficulties it causes me, and my children and my friends," Kennedy said at an event in Phoenix, Arizona.
Kennedy's decision came after the Democratic Party "waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself" as they "ran a sham primary." Unfortunately, his family has rejected him for it. USA Today reported that his sister Kerry Kennedy began stumping for Democrats, claiming there was "an endless number of Kennedys who are wanting to and willing to help out with this."
"Donald Trump is anathema to everything our family stands for. I distance myself and reject everything that Bobby is doing and saying because I think that it's a rejection of our family's values and everything that I've spent my life working for," Kerry Kennedy said.
The battle over the ballots continues as Election Day is less than two weeks away. Democrats are so desperate to do anything to help Harris win that they'll even leave a man on the ballot who has no interest in being there.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A federal judge has ruled on CNN's claim it is protected from a defamation lawsuit because it was using Shariah law ideology when it charged a man helping people escape from Afghanistan after the disastrous troop withdrawal done by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was "black market."
And that claim goes "too far," the ruling said.
A Fox News report explains also that the plaintiff in the case, Zachary Young, "did not act illegally or criminally," in contradiction to what the network publicly claimed.
Hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghanis who had supported the American presence there were abandoned by Biden and Harris when they ordered the abrupt departure of American troops.
While they left behind billions of dollars worth of America war machine, which ended up in the hands of the terror-creating Taliban, the human toll was huge, and the Taliban cracked down on anyone it viewed as not being fully supportive of its terror agenda.
Young charges that CNN "destroyed his reputation and business by branding him an illegal profiteer who exploited desperate Afghans" during that time frame.
Fox reported it obtained documents in which Judge William S. Henry ruled Young did not act "criminally or illegally," and said CNN comments about a black market ring were about Young.
The CNN programming included host Jake Tapper "informing viewers that CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt discovered 'Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.'"
Then Young singled out Young in its claims of "black market," "exploit" and "exorbitant."
The report noted CNN's lawyers had claimed there are multiple definitions of "black market" and that his actions "implicated Taliban or Sharia law violations."
The judge found, "First, there is nothing in the record to suggest that any Taliban or Sharia law which would restrict the movement of persons (especially women) within or out of Afghanistan was properly enacted, adopted or recognized law to even suggest that evacuating individuals from Afghanistan was a criminal or illegal activity. In fact, the only information contained in the record suggests that formal adoption of any rules restricting travel within or out of Afghanistan did not occur until 2024 – almost three years after the publications in this case."
And the judge pointed out that CNN's own reporting "did not uncover illegal or criminal activity committed by Young."
A trial now is scheduled to start Jan. 6, 2025, in Florida.
CNN was widely mocked earlier for claiming the protection of Shariah.
Sharia, for example, according to an online definition, calls for atrocities including amputation of a thief's hands, killing people for criticizing the Quran, killing people who deny Muhammad was a prophet, killing people who lead a Muslim away from Islam, killing a non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman, killing homosexuals (although sodomizing young boys is allowed), and "taqiyya" or lying to non-Muslims, is encouraged.
Please be aware of multiple instances of offensive language in the following:
Just recently, a Florida appellate court affirmed that Young, a U.S. Navy veteran, and his company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., could seek punitive damages from CNN.
The report said Young's lawyer charged that Young lost $40-60 million in economic opportunity.
The former prosecutor who was caught in a scandalous affair with Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis made several damaging admissions to Congress about her efforts to take down Donald Trump.
In recorded testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Nathan Wade said that Willis planned to investigate Trump before she took office on January 1, 2021.
The transcript of Wade's testimony was released Monday by House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-Oh.).
House Republicans were initially unable to find Wade when they subpoenaed him to testify. The witness gave a confusing explanation for his absence, saying he turned his phone off while he recovered from a sprained ankle.
Wade acknowledged two meetings with White House staff in 2022 that he recorded in his invoices, including with White House lawyers. However, Wade avoiding giving details about those meetings.
Wade's confession appears to back up Donald Trump's claim that the White House coordinated with state and federal Democratic prosecutors to derail his presidential campaign with "lawfare."
Sometime after the 2020 presidential election, but before taking office, Willis called for a "search committee" to find a special prosecutor who would lead a Trump investigation, Wade told Congress. The special committee formed on January 1, 2021.
That would place Willis' plans to pursue Trump before the January 6th, 2021, Capitol riot that Democrats have widely cited to lambast Trump as a "threat to democracy."
Wade told Congress that he served on the search committee, and reluctantly accepted the special prosecutor role after Willis struggled to fill it.
“And was there outreach to you to be part of the search committee prior to January 1, 2021?” investigators asked.
“Absolutely,” he replied, adding he was contacted "sometime after the election, but prior to her taking office.”
Willis brought charges against Trump and 18 allies last year for "overturning" the 2020 election in Georgia. The case brought her notoriety, but that soon gave way to public disgrace and humiliation when her affair with Wade was exposed.
The paramours defended their affair at a dramatic public hearing, where they denied Willis had profited off of hiring her lover for the high-profile case.
Wade came onto the case with little experience, telling Congress that he needed "RICO school" to learn about racketeering law.
In March, the judge allowed Willis to remain on the case if Wade stepped aside. The trial has been delayed by Trump's continued appeals of the disqualification ruling.