'No one is above the law': The two framings of Hunter Biden's criminal case — and the prosecution's secret weapon



Judging from the opening statements in Hunter Biden's federal gun case, it appears as though Ashley Biden's troubling diary may no longer be the heaviest piece of familial baggage President Joe Biden has to lug into the November election.

The Democratic president and gun control advocate's son faces three counts related to his alleged unlawful possession of a handgun: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on a federal firearms application, and possession of an illegally obtained gun.

If convicted of all three counts, Biden could land up to 25 years in prison as well as fines up to $750,000. It will also amount to a black eye for the White House, which has made significant hay out in recent days of former President Donald Trump's conviction.

Prior to hearing opening statements from prosecutors and the defense, Trump-appointed Judge Maryellen Noreika of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware expressed a willingness to permit the jury — comprising four black men, three black women, two white men, and three white women — to see images of the president's son in states of undress with illicit drug paraphernalia, reported the New York Times.

After it became clear that damning images from the laptop long discounted by the liberal media and intelligence community would come to haunt the Biden family once again, and latecomers were seated, prosecutors and the defense delivered their opening statements to a packed courtroom.

Once the two framings were established, the prosecution introduced a disembodied witness whose authoritative insights into Hunter Biden's bad choices and debauched lifestyle served to greatly undermine his defense.

The prosecution's framing

Prosecutor Derek Hines, a senior assistant special counsel, co-opted a statement recycled by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland and other Democrats when speaking about former President Donald Trump's cases. Hines said that even in this case, "Nobody is above the law. It doesn't matter who you are, or what your name is."

'Nobody is allowed to lie, not even Hunter Biden.'

While Hunter Biden dodged the legal consequences everyday Americans alternatively face over their use of illicit substances, Hines made clear he shouldn't be able to skate for lying on a federal gun application.

"Nobody is allowed to lie, not even Hunter Biden," said Hines.

The prosecutor made clear to jurors, some of whom self-identified during jury selection as having addicts in their respective personal orbits, that the president's son was not in court simply because he was a junkie.

"Addiction may not be a choice, but lying and buying a gun is a choice," said Hines.

NBC News noted the extent to which Hines' emphasized this theme.

Hunter Biden "chose to illegally own a firearm" and "chose to lie," said the prosecutor. Hines later added that Hunter Biden also did not throw away the gun by choice. Rather, it was taken from him by a former lover, his brother's widow Hallie Biden, who ditched it in a trash can outside of a supermarket.

Hines provided the jury and the country with a preview of what to expect.

Gordon Cleveland, the man who sold Biden a gun at Starquest Shooters, is expected to testify about Biden's deception. Hallie Biden, granted an immunity agreement, "will testify about her own crack use" and potentially her disposal of Hunter Biden's gun. Zoe Kestan, one of Biden's sexual partners also granted immunity, will detail her observations on Biden's nonstop crack use.

The jury will also hear from Biden's ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; FBI agent Erika Jensen; Delaware State Police Corp. Joshua Marley; Delaware State Police Lt. Millard Greer; forensic chemist Dr. Jason Brewer; and potentially a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent.

Extra to these witnesses, the prosecution will likely introduce textual communications and drug residue to prove Hunter Biden lied, reported the Times.

The defense's framing

Biden's defense attorney Abbe Lowell downplayed the severity of Biden's alleged crime; displaced blame, throwing Buhle and Cleveland under the bus; suggested Biden's drug use was not consistent, at least not enough to infer his use at the time of the gun's purchase; and intimated that Biden's drug-addled intentions at the time of purchase are unknowable.

"Hunter bought a small handgun," said Lowell. "It was never loaded."

Lowell stressed that Biden never used the Colt Cobra .38 Special revolver.

Lowell indicated that it is incumbent upon prosecutors to demonstrate that Biden "knowingly violated the law." To do so, Lowell suggested they will have to show that the president's son entered the gun store with the intention to purchase a weapon while also recognizing himself as an addict. While the prosecution has a witness who will attest to seeing Hunter Biden smoke crack every 15-20 minutes and stop only when it came to sleep, Lowell suggested that intent will be impossible to prove.

NBC News indicated that the defense may also attempt to defuse some of the prosecution's arguments about Hunter Biden's drug use and boozing around the time of the gun purchase by suggesting he routinely deceived Hallie Biden.

Finally, Lowell indicated that the defense will attempt to shift blame onto the gun seller, Cleveland, insinuating that he skirted protocol to make the sale.

First up to bat

After a brief recess punctuated by a hysterical outburst by Biden's current wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden — who called a former Trump White House aide a "Nazi piece of s***" — the trial resumed, and Erika Jensen took the stand.

Prosecutors played clips of Hunter Biden reading his memoir, "Beautiful Things," wherein he admitted to crack cocaine addiction for a four-year period leading up to a 2019 trip to California.

Hunter Biden bought the gun in October 2018. The defense has suggested that contrary to Biden's autobiographical account of the four-year crack binge, he didn't know he was an addict when entering the gun store.

In one of the passages heard by the court, Hunter Biden mentions his "superpower": locating crack wherever he goes.

Jensen, an FBI agent of nearly 20 years who was assigned to Hunter Biden's case last year, authenticated ATM receipts, providing some additional context for Hunter Biden's possibly incriminating literary admissions, reported CNN.

Prior to the court breaking for lunch, Hunter Biden did much of the leg work for the prosecution by way of his audio recording, which played to a captive audience, including first lady Jill Biden and Cohen-Biden.

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Federal judge orders Blaze News' Steve Baker to 'comply' with release conditions; Baker says he has



A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday ordered Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker to "comply" with the conditions of his release following his March 1 arrest in Dallas over his January 6 reporting — but Baker told Blaze News he's been in compliance all along.

What are the details?

Baker told Blaze News he received a complaint Friday from the U.S. District Court in D.C. outlining pre-trial conditions of his release — and that a D.C. pretrial services officer stated as part of it that Baker is not in compliance with some of them. Baker told Blaze News the assertions aren't correct.

What's more, the presiding judge in Baker's case — Christopher R. Cooper — on Monday issued the following minute order: "In light of the ... Pretrial Violation Report, Mr. Baker is hereby ordered to comply with his conditions of release, as directed by his pretrial services officer."

Image source: Blaze News

Cooper's words — publicly available — got around Monday:

— (@)

Baker told Blaze News that according to his pre-trial restrictions, he's not allowed to possess a firearm and he has to report every contact he has with law enforcement to his pretrial services officer.

But this presents two problems for Baker: He told Blaze News he carries a gun as a means of self-defense due to online threats he's received, and part of his job with Blaze News is speaking to law enforcement personnel — and doing so confidentially.

Baker told Blaze News he explained all of this to his North Carolina pretrial services officer, and things seemed well on both fronts. But Baker said despite that, the D.C. pretrial services officer after that somehow reported Baker as being in noncompliance with both conditions, which Baker told Blaze News is not the case.

Baker also told Blaze News that the D.C. pretrial services officer said he was in noncompliance because he didn't want to remove firearms from his North Carolina home due to threats against him — but Baker again told Blaze News that's not accurate.

In fact, Baker added to Blaze News that he turned in his handgun to his attorney in Dallas prior to his March 1 surrender, that his gun is now stored in his attorney's safe, and that he hasn't been carrying since then. Baker added to Blaze News: "I am NOT carrying now and am in complete compliance in that regard."

As for the condition of reporting law enforcement contacts, Baker noted to Blaze News that the D.C. pretrial services officer misinterpreted his conversation with the North Carolina pretrial services officer and, again, incorrectly found Baker in noncompliance.

What's more, Baker told Blaze News his attorneys have been in the process of getting the language of his pertinent pre-trial conditions adjusted, which should happen soon. But Baker said Monday's order to comply wasn't pleasant to read about online.

Baker issued the following statement to Blaze News:

"To say this is all 'new to me' is an understatement. My attorneys tell me this kind of tedium and 'nothing burgers' are to be expected as I go through this process. In this instance, I'm trying to accept that it's nothing more than the left hand of the D.C. pre-trial services officer not knowing what the right hand of my N.C. pre-trial services officer has already taken care of. But it doesn’t seem like it. While the complaint I received Friday lists how I am allegedly not in compliance with some of my pretrial release conditions, it also states my initial meeting with my N.C. pre-trial services officer already is scheduled, and everything will be handled — per agreement — at that time. D.C. even acknowledged that I have not yet been home since my self-surrender and release, so how could I have possibly been out of compliance with regard to firearms at my home while I'm still on the road and away from my home? My N.C. pre-trial services officer already arranged these things to be dealt with upon my return to N.C.

"Then, this morning, I got an order from the judge to 'comply'?

"Respectfully, to the court: Each item already has been arranged, per the court's order, in an amicable and agreed-upon timeline with my pre-trial services officer according to my travel schedule and date of return to my residence in N.C. The other items are also already being taken care of in a reasonable exchange between my attorney and the prosecutor. The fact is, I am in full compliance and intend to remain so. My N.C. pre-trial services officer thus far has been a pleasure to work with and has given me no indication that I need to handle things differently. I do believe that if the court had been made fully aware of my compliance and the pending and agreed-upon arrangements with my return to N.C., that public order to 'comply' would have been unnecessary."

Here's an interview Tucker Carlson conducted with Baker last week on his legal ordeal with the federal government:

— (@)

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Sam Bankman-Fried's mom suggests he's too autistic for prison in bid to spare him from accountability



A U.S. District Court in Manhattan will hand down a sentence on March 28 for convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. While the Democratic mega-donor faces up to 110 years behind bars, Stanford Law professor Barbara Fried told the court in a filing Tuesday that her fraudster son is too delicate for prison.

Barbara Fried — sued in September along with her husband, Joseph Bankman, for allegedly enriching herself with money that her son stole from customers — painted Sam Bankman-Fried as a misunderstood autist in a bid to have him serve no more than 6.5 years.

A federal jury determined in October that Sam Bankman-Fried stole $8 billion from FTX customers to blow largely on Democratic candidates, leftist causes, real estate purchases, investments in other companies, and other pet causes. He also reportedly gave his parents tens of millions of dollars and gifted them a $16.4 million property in the Bahamas.

Bankman-Fried was ultimately convicted of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy; two counts of wire fraud; one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering; conspiracy to commit commodities fraud; and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

In the filing, Barbara Fried, a liberal who ran a donor network for Democratic candidates, suggested her 32-year-old son is a victim of public ridicule now that his "eccentricities" are no longer charming now that he's a poor criminal, reported the New York Post.

"The broader public was charmed by many of his eccentricities — or at least pretended to be — while he was on top of the world. The moment he fell, the same public became merciless, ridiculing his awkward traits and verbal style, taking them as a sign of duplicity or worse, and portraying him as a freak with evil intentions," wrote Fried.

"The media's weapon of choice is words," continued the fraudster's wealthy mother. "The same cannot be said for prisons."

Fried insinuated that her Adderall-dependent son has some form of autism, which might make life difficult for him in the slammer.

"[Bankman-Fried] has a number of mannerisms that are associated with high-functioning people with ASD," wrote Fried, referencing Autism Spectrum Disorder. "He's bad at responding to social cues in 'normal' ways, uncomfortable looking people in the eye, uncomfortable with outward shows of emotion."

"It may be that some of the inmates will come to appreciate Sam once they get to know him. But miscommunication in that environment is dangerous, and Sam's traits greatly increase the likelihood of its occurring," she added.

Marc Mukasey, the lawyer overseeing the fraudster's sentencing, cited Fried's letter and others as indications of the former billionaire's "neurodiversity."

"He can be perceived as abrupt, dismissive, evasive, detached, or uncaring," said the filing.

Despite Sam Bankman-Fried's track record of ruining various lives and livelihoods, the fraudster's father, Stanford Law School professor Joseph Bankman wrote, "Nothing he has done can justify putting him at risk."

Miriam Baer, vice dean at Brooklyn Law School, told the Times that even if Judge Lewis A. Kaplan does not throw the Democratic mega-donor away for a century, he "could still give a very serious sentence given how young Mr. Bankman-Fried is — say, a 30- or 35-year sentence."

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The Case To Remove Trump From The Colorado Ballot Is Constitutionally Illiterate

The Denver District Court ruled that the 14th Amendment insurrection law in question ultimately doesn’t apply to Trump.

Federal appeals court further curbs Biden administration's ability to police and censor Americans' speech online



The Biden administration suffered another crushing defeat Tuesday in the Missouri v. Biden saga.

A U.S. district judge issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration in July, barring its agencies and top officials from leaning on social media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce "content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."

Like the White House, the Biden Department of Justice expressed its displeasure with the Trump appointee's decision and filed an appeal.

Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dashed the administration's hopes, upholding the lower court's ruling. However, among the apparent rogue agencies the three-judge panel left unchecked was one of the worst offenders.

On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit remedied this oversight, expanding the injunction to include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, noting that "for many of the same reasons as the FBI and the CDC, CISA also likely violated the First Amendment."

The White House appears ready to take this battle to the Supreme Court.

What's the background?

The plaintiffs in the suit included the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff; Jill Hines, the activist behind the "Reopen Louisiana" initiative; and the states of Missouri and Louisiana.

Bhattacharya noted in a recent op-ed that that he joined the suit in August 2022 at the request of the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general with the aim of ending the government's role in running roughshod over the First Amendment rights of critics and questioners of the Biden administration's COVID-19 policies.

President Joe Biden, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Anthony Fauci, and various other Biden administration officials and entities were named as defendants.

In his judgment filed on July 4, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote, "If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history. In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment's right to free speech."

According to Doughty, the plaintiffs were "likely to succeed on the merits on their claim that the United States Government, through the White House and numerous federal agencies, pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech."

On the basis of this understanding, Doughty barred Biden administration officials, including in the FBI, DOJ, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from engaging social media companies regarding "the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."

TheBlaze previously reported that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre similarly indicated the DOJ was "reviewing this" and that the Biden White House disagreed with Doughty's decision.

The DOJ asked Doughty for a stay of the injunction, which he denied.

On July 10, the department asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay, suggesting that a failure to stay might — among other things — hinder the Biden administration in fighting "misinformation circulating online [that] could impede relief and response efforts" after a natural disaster.

A partial win

A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion on Sept. 8 validating the argument that the Biden administration had been violating Americans' First Amendment Rights by unlawfully censoring them by proxy via social media companies, reported Newsweek.

The panel confirmed that the White House, surgeon general, CDC, and FBI likely had violated the First Amendment. Accordingly, the judges affirmed the district court's judgement with respect to these entities. However, the Appeals Court reversed the injunction as it pertained to all other officials.

This partial victory was bittersweet, noted RealClearInvestigations editor Ben Weingarten, not only because the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the State Department were not subjected to the injunction but because CISA got out unscathed.

Weingarten told lawmakers in May, "CISA has served as a censorship 'switchboard,' collecting purported misinformation from government and non-government actors in the form of tweets, YouTube videos, and even private Facebook messages, and relaying the flagged content to the platforms to squelch it."

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has called CISA "the 'nerve center' of the vast censorship enterprise, the very entity that worked with the FBI to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story."

Going the distance

The Republican attorneys general for Missouri and Louisiana requested a rehearing on Sept. 28. The court obliged them.

The three-judge panel withdrew its previous opinion and extended the injunction to CISA as well.

"We find that, for many of the same reasons as the FBI and the CDC, CISA also likely violated the First Amendment," says the opinion. "First, CISA was the 'primary facilitator' of the FBI's interactions with the social-media platforms and worked in close coordination with the FBI to push the platforms to change their moderation policies to cover 'hack-and-leak' content."

"Second, CISA's 'switchboarding' operations, which, in theory, involved CISA merely relaying flagged social-media posts from state and local election officials to the platforms, was, in reality, '[s]omething more,'" continues the opinion. "CISA used its frequent interactions with social-media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on censoring election-related speech. And CISA officials affirmatively told the platforms whether the content they had 'switchboarded' was true or false. Thus, when the platforms acted to censor CISA-switchboarded content, they did not do so independently."

The Fifth Circuit judges further bolstered the district court's view that the Biden White House, the FBI, the surgeon general, the CDC, and CISA "likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content, rendering those decisions state actions. In doing so, the officials likely violated the First Amendment."

The defendants are barred from coercing or significantly encouraging a social media platform's content moderation decisions. They have less than a week to update their request to the Supreme Court.

In its third supplemental memo to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding an emergency stay application on behalf of the defendants, the DOJ accused the Fifth Circuit on Oct. 5 of having reached its decision on the basis of a "flawed conception of the state-action doctrine," stressing that it will impose "grave harms" on thousands of government employees.

USA Today indicated that the DOJ declined to comment. Brandon Wales, executive director of CISA, has suggested his agency does not censor speech.

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Obama-appointed judge overseeing Trump's criminal case developed a reputation as 'toughest punisher' of Jan. 6 protesters



The federal judge assigned to former President Donald Trump's criminal case, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, is a leftist Obama appointee whose history of ruthlessly hammering Jan. 6 defendants, fighting the Trump administration, and rubbing shoulders with Biden donors might be of some concern for the Democratic incumbent's top political rival.

Charges and assignment

Trump was indicted Tuesday on four criminal charges related to his alleged attempt to undo the 2020 election.

He stands accused of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.; conspiracy to impede an official proceeding (i.e., the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of the electoral vote); obstructing and impeding the certification of the electoral vote; and conspiracy "to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of" the right to vote and have one's vote counted.

The indictment states that from November 2020 through late January 2021, Trump "did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States—that is, the right to vote, and to have one's vote counted."

Trump could receive more than 55 years in prison if convicted on the four counts.

This is the Republican presidential candidate's third indictment, having first been slapped with charges in March 2023 by New York County's leftist District Attorney Alvin Bragg and indicted a second time in June for having allegedly handled classified documents in a Bidenesque fashion.

The Trump campaign said of the Aug. 1 indictment, "This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins."

The Trump campaign further stressed that this latest indictment amounts to "election interference."

Following the indictment, special counsel Jack Smith said, "The attack on our nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. ... Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment."

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has been assigned to Trump's case. Trump's arraignment is set to take place on August 3.

Obama's judge at Hunter Biden's firm

Chutkan, a native of Kingston, Jamaica, joined the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2014 after her nomination by former President Barack Obama. Her husband, retired Judge Peter Kratuhamer, was also an Obama appointee.

After working with the D.C. Public Defender Service for over a decade, Chutkan worked as a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner from 2002 until her confirmation as a federal judge.

The Daily Mail highlighted how this particular law firm has "strong connections to the Democratic Party" and is where Hunter Biden served for several years as counsel during Obama's tenure in office.

The firm's three founders contributed a combined $174,000 to Joe Biden's presidential campaign and the Biden Victory Fund, reported the Washington Free Beacon.

Chutkan's old firm also happened to have the scandal-plagued Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as a client, courtesy of the first son.

After her work at Hunter Biden's old firm, Chutkan worked ardently to hinder the Trump administration's efforts to restart the federal death penalty, going so far as to halt federal executions on the grounds that they would violate the statute authorizing the Food and Drug Administration.

TheBlaze previously reported that in 2018, the Obama-appointed judge also granted the entire illegal alien population, including young teens, class action certification to demand unfettered access to abortions.

The previous year, Chutkan ordered the government to "promptly and without delay" transport a 17-year-old illegal alien to a Texas abortion provider in order so that she might have her 16-week-old child exterminated after the Trump administration had attempted to bar her from leaving the detention facility.

NBC News indicated that Chutkan has already ruled against Trump twice when he attempted to assert executive privilege in response to subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 committee over documents related to the events surround the Jan. 6 protests.

Avenger for the Jan. 6 protests

The Washington Post noted that Chutkan has been the most ruthless sentencing judge on the D.C. federal court for Jan. 6 protesters, having sentenced every one of the 31 defendants who came before her to jail or prison time.

In addition to throwing critics of the 2020 election in jail, Chutkan reportedly went far beyond prosecutors' recommended sentences on nine occasions while accepting harsh recommendations as sent 14 other times.

For instance, in October 2021, prosecutors recommended three months of home confinement and probation for Matt Mazzocco of Texas, who had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for joining others in entering the Capitol building on Jan. 6.

ABC News reported that Chutkan instead sentenced Mazzocco to 45 days in jail plus 60 hours of community service, noting that "there have to be consequences."

The Post indicated that Chutkan is exceptional in this regard, since "judges have sentenced below government recommendation about 80 percent of the time."

Chutkan has made no secret of her contempt for the Jan. 6 protesters or for Trump.

Chutkan has underscored that she is trying to make an example of unarmed protesters who she reckons were trying to topple the U.S. government, stating, "It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment."

During one Jan. 6 defendant's sentencing, Chutkan appeared to pre-emptively insinuate Trump's culpability, saying the protester "did not go to the United States Capitol out of any love for our country. ... He went for one man."

Her retributive fervor appears to be quite selective.

At a sentencing hearing on Oct. 4, 2021, Chutkan said, "The country is watching to see what the consequences are for something that has not ever happened in the country before," adding that the Jan. 6 protesters, who did a fraction of the damage the BLM rioters had the previous year, "soiled and defaced the halls of the Capitol and showed their contempt for the rule of law," reported CNN.

At the same hearing, she suggested that comparison between the BLM rioters and the Jan. 6 protesters "is a false equivalency and downplays the very real danger that the crowd on January 6 posed to our democracy."

Whereas the Jan. 6 protests allegedly did $30 million in damage, Axios reported that the initial BLM riots inside the U.S. inflicted $1 billion in damage and were the "most expensive in insurance history."

Other estimates put the cost closer to $2 billion.

One police officer was killed and 2,037 officers were assaulted or injured in the BLM riots. At least 97 police cars were torched and another 300 were damaged.

RealClear Investigations reported that between 6 and 20 persons were killed in the riots.

16,241 arrests were made and 2,385 incidents of looting and 624 arson incidents were reported inside that time period.

While Chutkan figured the BLM riots for "mostly peacefu[l]" protests "for civil rights," she stressed that the Jan. 6 protests amounted to "a violent attempted overthrow of the government ... and it almost succeeded."

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Trump case assigned to anti-Jan 6 judge | Morning in Americayoutu.be

Court Halts Minnesota’s Attempt To Ban Christian Colleges From Offering Free Credits To Religious High Schoolers

Christian colleges in Minnesota will be allowed to keep offering free dual credits to high school students -- for now.

Government Responsible For Fatal 2017 Texas Church Shooting After Failing To Report Domestic Violence

A district court ruled that the U.S. government is directly responsible for a mass shooting that took the lives of 26 people at a church in Texas in 2017.

Federal Judge Strikes Down CDC Moratorium On Evictions

A federal judge in Washington D.C. struck down a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention policy that halted landlords from evicting tenets.
Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Sidney Powell's 'Kraken' lawsuits defeated in Georgia and Michigan



A federal judge on Monday dismissed the "Kraken" election fraud lawsuit filed in Georgia by attorney Sidney Powell, who sought to decertify the Georgia presidential election results declaring former Vice President Joe Biden the winner.

Judge Timothy Batten of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia listened to arguments for a little more than an hour before ruling from the bench to grant a motion to dismiss from lawyers for the state of Georgia, WSB-TV reported. He said that this sort of case belongs in state court, not federal court, that the plaintiffs lacked standing, and that Powell waited too long to file her complaint about Dominion Voting Systems machines.

"The courts have convincingly held that these types of cases are not properly before federal courts. These are state elections. State courts should evaluate these proceedings from start to finish," Batten said.

"Moreover, the plaintiffs simply do not having standing to bring these claims," he added.

"Additionally, I find that the plaintiffs waited too long to file this suit," Batten said. "Their primary complaint involves the Dominion ballot marking devices. They say those machines are susceptible to fraud. There is no reason they could not have followed the administrative procedure act to the rule-making authority that had been exercised by the Secretary of State."

"This suit could have been filed months ago at the time these machines were adopted," Batten concluded. "Instead the plaintiffs waited until over three weeks after the election to file the suit. There's no question in my mind that if I were to deny the motion to dismiss, the matter would be brought before the 11th Circuit, and the 11th Circuit would reverse me."

Powell in recent weeks claimed that her "massive" lawsuit would "save" the Trump presidency by uncovering evidence of a widespread conspiracy to commit election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. She alleged, among several other claims, that international and domestic persons used Dominion Voting Systems, the company that manufactures the voting machines in Georgia, to fix the election by switching votes for Trump to Biden.

In arguing to have the case dismissed, the defendants pointed out that Georgia has certified its election results three times: Once after the first count, a second time in a hand-counted audit of the 5 million ballots cast, and a third recount that confirmed the results from the previous two.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he will recertify the state election results, confirming that Joe Biden won Georgia by roughly 12,000 votes.

"Today the Secretary of State's office will be re-certifying our state's election results," Raffensperger said. "Then the safe harbor under the United States Code to name electors is tomorrow, and then they will meet on December 14th to officially elect the next president."

Additionally, a federal judge in Michigan denied an emergency request filed by Powell to overturn the election in that state, making similar arguments about the timing of Powell's lawsuit and the complaint being moot and adding that the court lacks the power to overturn an election.

"Plaintiffs ask this court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters," U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her 36-page opinion. "This, the Court cannot, and will not, do."

Parker also said that "the ship has sailed" on this case and that the lawsuit was filed too late.

"Plaintiffs could have lodged their constitutional challenges much sooner than they did, and certainly not three weeks after Election Day and one week after certification of almost three million votes," Parker wrote.

She also criticized the allegations of fraud made in Powell's affidavits as "an amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation that such alterations were possible" (emphasis hers).

"With nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden, plaintiffs' equal protection claim fails," her opinion stated.

On Nov. 22 before this lawsuit was filed, President Trump's legal team distanced itself from Powell in a statement making clear that she "is practicing law on her own" and "is not a member of the Trump legal team," despite the fact that she appeared with Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in a press conference just days earlier.