All posts tagged "Department Of Justice"

A federal judge ordered the Trump Justice Department to fast-track a watchdog group's request for Epstein files, including records mentioning President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling in a memorandum opinion filed Wednesday. She granted in part a motion for summary judgment from Democracy Defenders Fund, finding the group is entitled to expedited processing of three Freedom of Information Act requests it submitted to DOJ in July 2025.

"BIG WIN for making the Epstein Files public," Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, celebrated in a post on X after the ruling. "Orders DOJ to get busy giving us the docs. We will hold their feet to the fire."...

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang cheered a Minnesota federal judge's swift reply to Attorney General Todd Blanche's judicial misconduct complaint.

Phang broke down the filing in a video Wednesday on the Katie Phang News Channel. The Justice Department lodged the complaint with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against U.S. District Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim, along with unnamed colleagues on Minnesota's federal bench. It targets comments they made to The New York Times for a September 17 article on the Trump administration's immigration enforcement surge in the state.

The complaint, signed by DOJ officials Stanley Woodward and Trent McCotter, accuses the judges of "unethical and partisan commentary" and asks that they be recused from cases involving the Department of Homeland Security. It also seeks an investigation into judges who it says "covet publicity."...

A federal judge threw out the Trump Justice Department's lawsuit demanding Georgia voters' Social Security and driver's license numbers.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Marie Calvert of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia dismissed the case in an order filed on Wednesday. She granted Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's motion to dismiss and denied the DOJ's motion to compel him to hand over the records.

The fight began in July 2025, when the DOJ asked Raffensperger's office for Georgia's full, unredacted voter registration list. According to the order, federal officials said they wanted to run it through the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database, which checks citizenship status. Follow-up letters in August demanded that every field be visible, including dates of birth and Social Security numbers....

A Justice Department lawyer dared a federal judge to rule against the Trump administration rather than give the court advance notice.

Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias flagged the exchange in a Tuesday livestream, saying it was "urgent enough that it deserved the alert" his viewers received. The line came from "a trial lawyer for the Department of Justice's civil division," Elias said.

"If you want to enjoin us, enjoin us," the lawyer said, per Elias....

A federal appeals panel that includes one of President Donald Trump's own judicial picks refused to lift penalties imposed over the president's anti-weaponization fund.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request for a stay Tuesday in an order issued "by the court," with no judge dissenting. Judge Kevin Newsom, a Trump appointee, sat on the panel alongside Judges Adalberto Jordan and Robin Rosenbaum, both appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The ruling leaves in place sanctions U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams imposed in July after finding that Trump's lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department was collusive. Williams concluded the suit was filed to legitimize "a 'settlement' that had no viable basis in law or fact," according to the order....

Attorney General Todd Blanche admitted in a court filing that he violated the Epstein files law, according to the journalist suing him.

Journalist and lawyer Katie Phang made the claim in a Saturday video posted on her YouTube channel, "Katie Phang News," as she walked viewers through Blanche's answer to her lawsuit seeking the unredacted Epstein files.

The key passage, she said, came in Blanche's response to her complaint, which alleged the Justice Department pulled previously released documents relating to President Donald Trump. Blanche admitted that "at times specific discrete documents were removed from the Epstein library," citing material posted "without redaction where redaction was appropriate whether by a victim or a member of the public."...