Jack Smith is taking a risk by prosecuting Donald Trump for communications with former vice president Mike Pence, according to a legal analyst.
Smith was forced to modify his January 6th indictment after the Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents have broad immunity for their "official acts."
In a stunning move that was widely seen as legally improper, Smith released a trove of evidence against Trump to the public last week.
While many see Smith as trying to interfere in the presidential election, the official purpose of his filing was to convince judge Tanya Chutkan that the charges against Trump can stand as "private acts" after the Supreme Court's immunity ruling.
While Smith removed some charges against Trump, he preserved many of the original allegations but characterized them as "private acts" of a presidential candidate.
Smith's efforts to retain some of the allegations against Trump have raised eyebrows. In particular, Smith has alleged that Trump's communications with his vice president, Mike Pence, constituted private acts.
The Pence allegations cut to the core of Smith's conspiracy narrative: that Trump pressured Pence to overturn the 2020 election results. But some legal analysts are skeptical that Smith's argument will fly.
Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said he is skeptical that Judge Chutkan, and higher courts, will agree that Trump's conversations with his vice president were private rather than official conduct.
"Communications with Pence will be the hardest challenge for Smith, who has to persuade Chutkan and then higher courts that the conversations between the president and his running mate in this period are personal," Gillers said.
Trump's best chance of exoneration, however, likely depends not on the caprices of Judge Chutkan but the will of American voters.
Chutkan has been overwhelmingly favorable to Smith, so it appears quite possible that she would retain the Pence allegations, however legally groundless they may appear to outside observers.
It was Chutkan who allowed Smith to release 165 pages of evidence against Trump just weeks before the presidential election, in what has been widely criticized as a breach of legal norms.
Smith's filing has widely been condemned - not just by Trump, but by legal analysts across the political aisle - as an improper attempt to litigate the case in the court of public opinion and damage Trump's hopes of winning re-election, with a jury trial in doubt.
Smith is well aware that if President Trump wins the election, he could dismiss the case and tell Smith to pound sand.
The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a decision that reinforces a lower court ruling, which restricts federal intervention in Texas regarding abortion rights as interpreted by the Biden administration under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), the Associated Press reported.
This verdict marks a significant impediment for opponents of Texas' abortion regulations and underscores the persistent legal and healthcare challenges for pregnant women in the state, where hospitals are wrestling with the uncertainties surrounding abortion law exceptions.
On Monday, the nation's highest court announced its choice to uphold the lower court's order. This ruling stipulates that federal hospitals within Texas are not mandated to perform pregnancy terminations if such actions contravene state legislation. The decision signifies that Texas remains uniquely exempt from the federal abortion directives enforced under EMTALA, a federal law mandating emergency rooms accepting Medicare to perform necessary abortions in life-threatening situations.
The Supreme Court's ruling came without an extensive explanation or any noted dissent among the justices, leaving the reasoning behind the decision open to interpretation. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the ruling, noting it as a "major victory" for state autonomy and its restrictive abortion laws. For Texas, this decision arrives in a politically charged atmosphere, as the presidential election looms with abortion as a pivotal topic on the agenda, especially for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
EMTALA, which serves as the foundation for the federal government's stance, mandates that emergency medical care must include abortion when necessary to safeguard a patient's life or health. However, conflict has arisen as the Texas government rigidly enforces its abortion ban with few exceptions. This case is exacerbated by complaints that some pregnant women in Texas experience delays or denials of emergency care, sometimes leading to severe health repercussions.
The Biden administration, citing a legal precedent in Idaho, argued that emergency abortions should be permissible while awaiting judicial resolution. Nonetheless, Texas contended that their situation presents distinct challenges due to their own state-imposed exceptions for abortion. These legal tensions highlight the ongoing struggle between federal policies and state-level abortion restrictions that have only intensified since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Amid this controversy, Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, voiced his concern, emphasizing the risks to reproductive health brought about by the loss of federal protective measures following the overturn of Roe. His warnings echo those of other advocates who argue that women's access to healthcare is in jeopardy amidst the murky waters of conflicting federal and state regulations.
In the U.S. Senate race, abortion remains a hotly contested issue, with candidates Colin Allred and Ted Cruz at the forefront. Allred, in particular, has expressed his commitment to restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade if elected, citing the ongoing "health care crisis" that poses a serious risk to patients.
Professional organizations and healthcare representatives continue to grapple with the practical implications of such laws on medical practice. Mary Ziegler, a legal scholar, highlighted the hesitation among physicians to provide abortions, even under the purported exceptions, due to the severe penalties and ambiguous legal language.
Hospital staff in Texas face daunting prospects as they attempt to navigate the unstable legal landscape. State penalties for performing abortions that do not align with the law are severe, creating an environment where doctors are inclined to err on the side of caution. These developments illustrate the overarching climate of fear and uncertainty in medical settings influenced by legal constraints. This atmosphere, argued by legal experts, significantly impacts patient care availability, with potentially life-altering consequences for women in medical emergencies.
The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously determined that the federal government was overstepping its boundaries concerning Texas through its interpretation and enforcement of EMTALA. This revelation further solidified Texas's position against federal mandates and reinforced their localized approach to handling abortion legislation.
Despite this, some pro-life groups, like SBA Pro-Life America, supported the Supreme Court's ruling. They assert that Texas doctors currently perform a limited number of essential healthcare abortions per month, suggesting the exceptions in place adequately protect patient welfare under extreme circumstances.
This legal and ethical battle continues to unravel in the public domain, where it resonates deeply with individuals and advocates on either side of the issue. Kamala Harris articulated her firm stance on maintaining access to emergency medical care, advocating for the restoration of broader abortion rights.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A sharply divided Colorado Supreme Court, a body known for its left-leaning activism, has thrown out a transgender's complaint against a Christian baker for refusing to use his artistry to endorse a transgender "coming-out" by a man who now represents himself as a woman.
The fight involves the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which previously was scolded by the U.S. Supreme Court for its "intolerance" of Christianity, and Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips.
It's also part of a nationwide agenda by leftists promoting the LGBT ideology to force Christian photographers, bakers, florists and others to violate their faith and promote the agenda under the canopy of "nondiscrimination."
Phillips previously won a battle before the U.S. Supreme Court after two homosexuals sued him, before the state-run commission, for refusing to use his talents to promote a same-sex wedding.
At the time that case developed, a lawyer contacted Phillips to attack him as a "hypocrite and bigot," according to the ADF, which has represented Phillips in multiple attacks on his faith over 12 years.
That lawyer, a man, then contacted Phillip's business to demand a pink cake with blue frosting, and specifically bragged it was to celebrate transgenderism.
Phillips again declined to be forced to violate his faith and celebrate a perspective deviant to Christianity.
So the lawyer, now identifying as Autumn Scardino, filed a complaint with the commission, which ruled against Phillips.
However, Phillips, already with the experience of the charges from the homosexual duo, and the Supreme Court's decision to affirm his religious rights over Colorado's "intolerance" of Christianity, brought a First Amendment lawsuit against the commission and state.
Quickly, a confidential settlement was reached and the commission, at an emergency meeting, shut down Scardina's case.
He then went to court to file the same charges, but the state court's majority said the process for discrimination complaints in Colorado doesn't allow that, and tossed the case entirely on the technicality.
"Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It's time to leave him alone," said ADF lawyer Jake Warner. "Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government cannot force artists to express messages they don't believe. In this case, an attorney demanded that Jack create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female. Because that cake admittedly expresses a message, and because Jack cannot express that message for anyone, the government cannot punish Jack for declining to express it. The First Amendment protects that decision."
The 303 Creative decision also came from the U.S. Supreme Court, and also was a loss for Colorado's official position of discriminating against Christians. There, a web designer challenged the state's demand that she promote same-sex weddings in her business, and won at the high court.
The ADF noted, "Phillips won his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, when the court found that Colorado officials who punished Phillips acted with hostility toward his faith. That ruling did not address Phillips's free-speech rights to decline to create custom cakes expressing messages that violate his faith. Now, the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling has ended the most recent lawsuit against Phillips, dismissing the case because the attorney who filed it did not follow the right process. Like the prior win, this ruling does not address Phillips' free-speech rights."
But those speech rights were addressed in 303 Creative.
That decision "upheld free speech for creative professionals like Phillips."
"We granted review to determine, among other issues, whether [the attorney] properly filed [this] case," the Colorado Supreme Court wrote in its opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina. "We conclude that [the attorney] did not."
Scardina, in fact, not only had demanded a custom cake to celebrate transgenderism, but also demanded Phillips provide a custom cake, "one depicting Satan smoking marijuana, to 'correct the errors of [Phillips] thinking.'"
Phillips repeatedly has made clear he will decline to provide cakes that express messages in violation of Christian beliefs, and the one making the request makes no difference.
Columnist Thomas Jipping at Real Clear Wire had described the attacks on Phillis.
"Phillips and his wife, Debra, are Christian co-owners of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado. In business since 1993, Masterpiece sells pre-made goodies in the store, and custom cakes that Jack designs and creates. Phillips has said that he strives to be obedient to Jesus Christ 'in all aspects of his life,' including in his business and in exercising his personal skill in creating designer cakes. To that end, the Masterpiece website states that Phillips 'cannot create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events that conflict with his religious beliefs.'"
Colorado, meanwhile, created special protections for members of various "sexual orientation" classes and gives them the power of the state government to punish those it considers have committed offenses against its ideology.
He explained, "Here's a recap of Phillips' first round. In 2012, a same-sex couple asked him to create a cake for their wedding. When he declined, they filed a discrimination complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC). The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled in Phillips' favor, but on factual grounds unique to that case. Statements and actions by CCRC members, the Court held, 'cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission's adjudication of Phillips' case.'"
He explained, "That's a polite way of saying that the CCRC's overt and ugly anti-religious bigotry fell far short of 'the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion.' The Court stopped there, however, and did not address more generally how to handle these conflicts between civil rights statutes and the First Amendment right to freely exercise one's religion."
That was the situation when Scardina, "a biological male who identifies as a woman," demanded a promotion of transgenderism.
"Scardina could have purchased a pink cake with blue frosting almost anywhere, but chose Masterpiece. Scardina specifically sought a custom cake that Phillips would personally create, asking for one without an explicit message and withholding the information certain to elicit a refusal. This gambit was so that Phillips' religious exercise objection would be based on how the cake was used rather than its objective appearance. One way or another, Scardina was determined to deprive Phillips of any room for exercising his faith while staying in business," Jipping explained.
He explained the lower courts simply were wrong.
"Phillips has no problem making a custom pink cake with blue frosting for a man who identifies as a woman and, had that been the request, would have done so for Scardina. The disclosure of 'what the cake was for,' however, turned that generic request into one that would require Phillips to knowingly contribute to celebrating something that violated his religious beliefs. That, no doubt, was exactly what Scardina had in mind."
He continued, "In other words, Phillips made his decision about making this custom cake not based on anything related to Scardina, but on something very important to him: his exercise of religion. This is what courts, like the one in this case, don't seem to grasp."
Ironically, the state commission put its anti-Christian bias on the record. During the original dispute with Phillips, a publication contacted a number of Denver bakeries run by homosexuals, and asked for a cake quoting the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality.
All refused, and the commission exonerated them on the basis that such a message violated their beliefs.
The Colorado court decision, in fact, specifically said it was not ruling on any free speech rights, or nondiscrimination issues. It said that the case had to be dismissed because none of the paths allowed in Colorado law included Scardina filing the complaint in district court.
The only option open for him, would have been to appeal the dismissal that happened after Phillips sued the state for First Amendment violations, but he did not do that.
Three dissenting justices in the 4-3 ruling, still advocating for state control of religious beliefs, complained that the majority wouldn't "reach the merits of this case"
The dissenters complained, "Substantively, the majority's ruling throws Scardina completely out of court and deprives her (sic) of the opportunity to seek a remedy for alleged discriminatory conduct based on a novel interpretation of law that no party asserted and, to my knowledge, no court has adopted. Moreover, although the majority rules solely on procedural grounds, I am concerned that Masterpiece and Phillips will construe today's ruling as a vindication of their refusal to sell non-expressive products with no intrinsic meaning to customers who are members of a protected class (here, the LGBTQ+ community) if Phillips opposes the purpose for which the customers will use the products."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A judge has determined that a written assault on a young football fan wearing facepaint in honor of his team and his heritage by Deadspin, in the words of a column on its pages, is actionable.
A report from the Associated Press said the judge found the "image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL's diversity efforts and, in its description of the child," actually crossed the line of protected speech.
"Having reviewed the complaint, the court concludes that Deadspin's statements accusing H.A. of wearing black face and Native headdress 'to hate black people and the Native American at the same time,' and that he was taught this hatred by his parents, are provable false assertions of fact and are therefore actionable."
The decision is from Delaware Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg, who rejected Deadspin's demand that the lawsuit by the family of the child be dismissed.
The publication had argued its blast at the child was "opinion."
Case was brought by Californians Raul Armenta Jr. and his wife, Shannon, on behalf of their son, Holden, 9.
He wore the costume at a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders last November.
The court documents explained that Holden's family heritage is Chumash-Indian, and he wore his face painted half black and half red at the game.
But Deadspin used an image of the boy showing only the black side, and writer Carron Phillips said, "The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress. They're doubling up on the racism. Are you going to say anything, Roger Goodell?"
Phillips claimed that the child "found a way to hate black people and the Native American at the same time" and suggested such "hatred" was taught by his parents.
The falsehood of the Deadspin report soon were documented online, but Phillips just doubled down, with, "For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse. Y'all are the ones who hate Mexicans but wear sombreros on Cinco."
The result was threats against the Armentas.
A month after the lawsuit was filed, G/O Media, which owned Deadspin, sold the name to Lineup Publishing and the entire staff was dismissed.
WND reported it took months for a "correction" to appear.
The publication said its "report" was based "upon the available photo" of the child.
"Unfortunately the article drew attention to the fan, though our intended focus was on the NFL and its checkered history on race, an issue which our writer has covered extensively for Deadspin," it said.
"We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan. To that end, our story was updated on Dec. 7 to remove any photos, tweets, links, or otherwise identifying information about the fan. We have also revised the headline to better reflect the substance of the story."
Special Prosecutor Jack Smith has pursued Republican nominee former President Donald Trump with crazy-eyed abandon for the better part of the last two years, but a legal expert suggested in a Monday op-ed in The Hill that Smith has actually "botched" the indictments to the point where Trump will never be convicted.
Smith "has pursued Trump with the zeal of Inspector Javert, but has thus far come up empty handed," James Zirin said in the piece.
One of Smith's cases against Trump involving mishandling of classified documents was dismissed because the judge ruled that as a private citizen not confirmed as special prosecutor by Congress, Smith didn't have standing to bring it.
The other has been hacked to pieces by the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, which also delayed its timeline until after the 2024 presidential election.
Zirin argues that Smith's latest motion amounts to election interference. He said,
Straining to right a listing ship, Smith has filed a 165-page, procedurally irregular dump of his grand jury materials, containing evidence that Trump cannot refute. The filing obviously flouts the internal Justice Department rule that “Federal prosecutors … may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”
He referenced Elie Honig, a legal expert from CNN, who called the brief “Smith’s October Cheap Shot” in another op-ed piece, agreeing that it is a "late hit" intended to hurt Trump with voters.
It's nice to see even some liberals wringing their hands about how President Joe Biden's Justice Department has been trying to put their finger (or in this case, maybe something much heavier) on the scale in order to help Democrats and hurt Trump in the 2024 election.
The Trump campaign probably doesn't need to worry too much about Smith's brief because the kind of Americans who haven't made up their mind yet who to vote for are not politically engaged enough to be swayed by it. As least not in any significant numbers.
Any voter who would be swayed by the brief not to vote for Trump has had plenty of ammunition already for that position.
On the other hand, the brief could very well make some undecided voters angry enough about yet another blatant attempt by Democrats to smear their opponents that they decide to vote for Trump.
"The reasons for the rule not to mix politics with law enforcement are obvious," Zirin said. "Smith could have waited a month. There was no hurry."
But Zirin pointed out other Smith blunders in addition to the brief.
Waiting 2 1/2 years to indict Trump was no doubt intended to coincide with Trump's candidacy in 2024, but Smith underestimated Trump's ability to delay proceedings (as anyone able to afford a passel of expensive lawyers can do easily, Zirin argued).
Bringing the classified documents case in Florida instead of Washington D.C. was another blunder, in Zirin's opinion. A D.C. jury would have ripped Trump to shreds whether the case had any merit or not.
Smith's incompetence has been Trump's gain, and he's laughing all the way to the ballot box.
Jack Smith's attempt to damage Donald Trump's electoral chances with an "October surprise" legal filing could backfire on Democrats, conservative legal analyst Jonathan Turley warned.
In a column for the Hill, Turley blasted Smith for releasing evidence against Trump just weeks before Election Day.
If voters re-elect Trump, Smith will likely never have the chance to bring Trump to trial over January 6th, Turley said. So instead, Smith is bringing his case directly to the voters, in violation of legal norms.
Smith was unable to speed the trial along despite having a sympathetic judge, Tanya Chutkan, who has consistently ruled in Smith's favor, Turley noted.
Last week, Chutkan and Smith jointly released a 165-page legal filing full of evidence against Trump. Turley condemned the move as "premature" and politically motivated.
"If voters reelect Trump, then neither Chutkan nor Smith will likely see a jury in the case," Turley added. "This is why they must convict Trump now in the public eye or else admit to an effective acquittal by plebiscite."
Smith is "making his closing election argument to voters because he knows that the 2024 election will be the largest jury verdict in history," Turley said.
While Smith appears determined to tip the scales against Trump, the political timing of Smith's "October surprise" could have the opposite effect, Turley warned.
"Their timing could well backfire. The weaponization of the legal system is central to this election, including the role of the Justice Department in pushing the debunked Russia-collusion allegations from the 2016 race," Turley wrote.
Smith's "October surprise" has faced criticism across the political spectrum. CNN legal pundit Elie Honig, who is normally aligned with the left, accused Smith of violating the norms of the legal profession to take a "cheap shot" at Trump.
"Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects," Honig wrote in a column for New York magazine.
Meanwhile, Turley quipped that Smith's "October surprise" is not surprising, but consistent with Smith's relentless, politically driven approach to prosecuting Trump.
"For years, Smith has been unrelenting in his demands for a trial before the election," Turley wrote.
"Smith never fully explained the necessity of holding a trial before the election beyond suggesting that voters should see the trial and the results — assaulting the very premise of the Justice Department’s rule against such actions just before elections."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A team of animal rights activists has filed a lawsuit in the state of Colorado seeking an order that a highly respected zoo free its elephants.
And the state Supreme Court actually is going to consider it.
Apparently, "free" is a relative term, as they animal rights activists would just prefer they go to a "sanctuary" instead.
The fight comes from the Nonhuman Rights Project, which sued the zoo and its officials for the elephants' freedom.
"We are so thankful that they felt this case was important enough to hear it," explained Courtney Fern of the animal rights group. "So we're very excited and optimistic about the hearing on October 24."
Fern charged, "So elephants suffer in captivity, they should never be held captive and so we hope the with the Supreme Court that they will right this wrong and they will recognize elephants right to liberty and really demonstrate that the law is following up with science and what many people know to be true."
The zoo explained, in a statement to the broadcast outlet, "Because our community is smart and capable of seeing through their sensationalism, let's lay out how absurd their legal position is and let's call this what it is … a fundraising act playing off people's love of animals, complete with a publicity stunt in Denver this weekend."
The animal rights activists explained, "We came to Colorado because Colorado has a very favorable case law for the types of cases that we file and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, the elephants there are in great need of rescue, they are five wild born female African elephants who are suffering greatly."
The zoo warned, of course, that the wrong precedent could have far-reaching impact.
"We hope Colorado isn't the place that sets the slippery slope in motion of whether your beloved and well-cared-for dog or cat should have habeas corpus and would be required to 'go free,' at the whim of someone else's opinion of them."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Biden-Harris regime has lost a key battle in its agenda to impose an abortion-on-demand ideology on states, with the Supreme Court declining to take up the administration's case that demanded an endorsement of what Democrats and other leftists insist are emergency abortions.
The dispute involved the abortion rules in Texas, which ban most procedures and is one of the strictest definitions in the country.
Abortion promoters have claimed that the federal emergency medical services law requires physicians to perform abortions, whether they want to or not, under certain circumstances.
The Supreme Court, without comment, let stand allow a lower court's ruling that bars those procedures that violate state law.
The lower court ruling, which now stands, said hospitals cannot be required to provide abortion if they are in violation of state law.
Biden and Harris in this case and in another involving a similar law in Idaho had claimed that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act trumped any state law that imposed what they thought were limits on emergency abortions.
The Democrats wanted the high court to toss that lower court ruling, claiming hospitals are required under federal law to do abortions.
The justices had dismissed the Idaho case just weeks ago, and the result there was that lower courts allowed emergency abortions to resume while the state's challenge continues.
The pro-abortion agenda in the White House had cited a Texas Supreme Court ruling that said physicians are not required to wait until a woman's life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally.
But the state explained that its law, unlike Idaho's, contains an exception for the health of a pregnant patient.
A report from CBS explained the decision "leaves in place a lower court decision that blocked the federal government from enforcing guidance it issued to hospitals notifying them that they must provide emergency abortions if the health of the mother is at risk."
The move has been one of a multitude by Biden and Harris to push for vast expansions of America's lucrative abortion industry. They've often done this not by changing the law, but by manipulating "rules" and "regulations" to impose an abortion-for-all ideology.
In this case, the regime used the rules issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. which told states in 2022 that if a state abortion law does not include the abortion promotions they want, it was preempted by federal law.
"In the Idaho case, the Supreme Court's decision indicated that the majority believed the court intervened too early. The justices did not address the underlying question of whether the federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, trumps near-total bans in certain circumstances," the CBS report said.
The Democrats abortion promotion was triggered by the Supreme Court's decision to throw out the faulty 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that "created" a "right" to abortion federally.
That decision returned governance of the billion dollar abortion industry to the states, and since then, some two dozen have adopted laws to reduce the abortion free-for-all Biden and Harris have endorsed.
When the federal demand for emergency abortions was issued, Texas sued.
At the district court, a judge sided with Texas and blocked the Biden-Harris demands, ruling that hospitals cannot be forced to do abortion in violation of state law.
The report said, "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld that order, ruling that EMTALA 'does not govern the practice of medicine' or mandate physicians to terminate pregnancies when it is the necessary stabilizing treatment for a medical emergency."
IN recent months the issue has been raised several times when women died, allegedly after not getting an abortion immediately and locally. However, those cases have been misrepresented in media outlets, as the women were suffering from conditions that were legally treatable at the time they suffered side effects from the abortion drugs.
One of former President Donald Trump's trials made headlines for an especially concerning reason last week.
According to the Daily Caller, a man who threatened to murder Judge Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing Trump's classified documents case, was indicted and now faces six charges related to the threats against Cannon.
In addition to threatening to assault and kill the judge, defendant Eric Rennert threatened to abduct the judge's family in St. Lucie, Florida.
While Judge Cannon wasn't specifically named as the target of the threat, she's the only district judge in the area where the threats were made.
Judge Cannon sparked anger from the left after she dismissed the classified documents case Trump was facing after making the determination that Jack Smith was improperly appointed as special counsel.
An Illinois man named Eric James Rennert has been charged with threatening to kidnap & murder a Florida federal judge & with threatening the judge’s family. The judge isn’t named but there are strong indications it’s Judge Aileen Cannon, who tossed the Trump classified docs case. pic.twitter.com/niUOjDpi6C
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) October 5, 2024
Even prior to the case being thrown out, Cannon was accused by many anti-Trump people on the left of being too easy and lenient with the former president.
Of course, Smith has sought to appeal the decision that led to the case being thrown out, though it's still undetermined whether or not he'll have any luck doing so.
The Daily Caller noted:
Rennert allegedly acted with “the intent to communicate a true threat of violence and with recklessness as to whether the communication would be viewed as a true threat of violence,” according to the indictment. The indictment also states that Rennert made the alleged threats starting in May 2024, and later made more threats in July 2024.
Many across social media assumed, based on the left's nasty rhetoric concerning Judge Cannon, that the defendant is also an anti-Trump leftist. It wasn't clear what the defendant's political leanings are, but probably not difficult to guess.
"More radicalized leftist violence," one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, sarcastically, "So much love and tolerance, I can just feel it."
"These insane woke liberals belong in gitmo," another person wrote on X.
Obviously, the rhetoric coming from the anti-Trump left in the media is having a serious and potentially deadly outcome on a far-too-regular basis. It needs to stop.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
When authorities in Wilmington, Delaware, carried out an eviction order in 2021, they ignored the fact that the documents named someone other than the family living in the home.
They ignored the fact that the tenant actually showed them a current, paid-up lease.
They ignored the fact that the father, a 52-year-old blind widower, was being forced on to the streets in a snowstorm.
Along with his daughters, 11 and 17 at the time.
None of that mattered.
And now the Rutherford Institute is calling on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hold those officers responsible for their actions.
The legal team wants the officers held responsible for their "evict first, ask questions later" practice that left William Murphy and his family injured.
The lower court dismissed a lawsuit over the eviction assault after it granted a type of judicial immunity to constables "who knowingly evicted the wrong person."
The institute also is arguing that "the eviction was an objectively unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that not providing proper notice and a reasonable accommodation for the blind tenant violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process protections and the Americans with Disabilities Act."
"Due process rights mean nothing when the government is allowed to sidestep those safeguards against abuse whenever convenient," said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of "Battlefield America: The War on the American People."
"By allowing government agents to operate above the law, immune from wrongdoing, we have created a situation in which the law is used as a hammer to oppress the populace, while useless in protecting us against government abuse."
The legal team documented the case:
William Murphy, a blind, 52-year-old widower and his two daughters, aged 17 and 11, moved to Wilmington, Del., in Nov. 2020, to be closer to other family members. Murphy signed a one-year lease and received rental assistance from Social Services. The landlord complained about a delay with receiving the partial rent payment from Social Services, and in Feb. 2021, the water and electricity to the home were shut off in violation of state law. Then, on the morning of Feb. 11, during a bitterly cold snowstorm, constables arrived at the Murphy home, ordered them to vacate the premises, and gave the family 30 minutes to collect their belongings and leave. Even though the person named in the Eviction Order was someone other than Murphy, and despite Murphy showing proof of a signed lease in good standing, Murphy and his daughters were still ordered to leave the home, unable to take most of their personal possessions.
While it took only a week for a state magistrate to determine the eviction was unlawful, a subsequent civil rights lawsuit now is pending at the appeals court.
WND earlier reported that Whitehead was warning, "Increasingly, the courts have become fixated on siding with government against rather than with safeguard the rights enshrined in the Constitution."
He has explained because the error should have been obvious, a federal civil rights complaint was filed against those responsible for tossing the family into the street.