A police officer sued one of her coworkers alleging he sexually assaulted her by smacking her on the butt with an open hand back in 2016. The accused officer was suspended for five days and quit while being investigated.
Last week, the female officer’s lawsuit was dismissed and the city ordered her to pay the accused officer’s legal fees, CBS Chicago <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/06/11/city-of-hammond-sends-officer-bill-for-legal-fees-after-she-loses-sexual-assault-suit-against-another-officer/">reported</a>.
The accuser, Denise Szany, claimed a fellow officer “assaulted her by grabbing her by her vest, then her belt and then by physically harming her,” according to <a href="https://casetext.com/case/szany-v-city-of-hammond-3">court documents</a>. Szany also claimed that during this same altercation is when the fellow officer, who has not been charged with a crime, smacked her on the butt.
Szany originally filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which granted her the right to sue. She filed her lawsuit in February 2017.
Szany alleged in her lawsuit that about a year after she filed it she was retaliated against by the City of Hammond, Illinois. She claimed the city knew about her lawsuit and assigned her to use the same police car as the man she accused, claiming this action put her &#8220;in a dangerous situation as well as contributed to the then ongoing pervasive hostile work environment.&#8221;
As District Court Judge Philip Simon noted, the Hammond Police Department has 200 officers and just fourteen marked cars, so officers on different shifts use the same cars. Szany, however, argued that “she was terrified” to use the same car as the officer she accused because she thought he would harass or assault her again.
“But there is no allegation that as a result of the car assignments that [the accused] and Szany were ever assigned to use the car at the same time, that they interacted with one another as a result, or that [the accused] actually did anything untoward or inappropriate to Szany during this time. After three months of this assignment system, Szany&#8217;s counsel wrote a letter and from then on Szany was no longer assigned to the same car as [the accused],” Simon wrote in September 2019.
“Here, Szany alleges only speculation that she was going to be harmed or harassed because of the car assignment system. But that is not a material adverse employment action. Notice pleading doesn&#8217;t require much, but it certainly requires more than the subjective fear of unrealized harm that Szany has offered,” Simon added.
At that time, Simon dismissed Count VII of Szany’s lawsuit, with prejudice, meaning she cannot appeal the dismissal.
Szany’s attorney now argues that since she is being ordered to pay legal fees after losing her lawsuit, she is being retaliated against yet again. Her attorney said she would appeal the decision, CBS Chicago reported.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Policewoman and partner

She Sued A Police Officer Alleging Sexual Assault And Lost. Now She’s Being Ordered To Pay His Legal Fees.

Lawsuit

Police

Sexual Assault

America’s sweetheart, Reese Witherspoon, isn’t known for controversies, so it was surprising to learn that she and her clothing company, Draper James, are being sued for misleading our nation’s teachers.
In April, the 44-year-old “Little Fires Everywhere” actress announced she was offering a free dress for teachers around the country struggling during the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/reese-witherspoon-clothing-company-sued-teachers-dress-giveaway-coronavirus">reported</a>. Witherspoon quickly found herself on the receiving end of a backlash when teachers realized she was only giving away a very limited number of dresses.
Now she’s being hit with a class-action lawsuit from three women who claim she benefited from the giveaway even though teachers did not, TMZ <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2020/06/08/reese-witherspoon-sued-draper-james-dress-giveaway-teachers/">reported</a>.
The clothing company made their offer on Instagram, writing “Dear Teachers: We want to say thank you. During quarantine we see you working harder than ever to educate our children. To show our gratitude, Draper James would like to give teachers a free dress.&#8221;
“To apply, complete the form at the link in bio before this Sunday, April 5th, 11:59 PM ET. (Offer valid while supplies last &#8211; winners will be notified on Tuesday, April 7th,)” the post continued.
The offer clearly stated that it was only valid “while supplies last,” but the lawsuit states that it wasn’t clear there were only 250 dresses available in the giveaway. Meanwhile, teachers were required to provide personal information to enter the giveaway, including their education employment ID info.
“The women suing point out that the total cost of the 250 dresses to be given away would only come out to an ‘estimated paltry $12,500 in actual cost’ to Reese and her company &#8230; ‘at a time when other individuals of [Reese] Witherspoon&#8217;s renown were offering millions of dollars to COVID-19 victims,’&#8221; TMZ reported.
The lawsuit also alleged that Witherspoon benefitted from increased publicity due to the miniscule giveaway with mentions on “Today” and “Good Morning America.”
Theane Evangelis, attorney for Draper James, told TMZ that the lawsuit was frivolous.
&#8220;Draper James looks forward to defending this case, to continuing its efforts to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions made by teachers during this time of need, and to being vindicated in court.&#8221;
&#8220;Draper James looks forward to defending this case, to continuing its efforts to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions made by teachers during this time of need, and to being vindicated in court,&#8221; she continued.
Marissa Cooley, Draper James’ senior vice president for marketing and creative departments, previously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/fashion/reese-witherspoon-draper-james-coronavirus.html">discussed</a> the shortage of dresses with The New York Times.
&#8220;We felt like we moved too quickly and didn&#8217;t anticipate the volume of the response. We were really overwhelmed. It was way more volume than the company had ever seen. We expected the single-digit thousands,&#8221; she told the outlet.
The Times also reported that the application form “crashed” almost immediately and that nearly 1 million applications were received, meaning teachers had a tiny chance of actually receiving a dress.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon And Her Clothing Company Are Being Sued By Teachers For A Misleading Giveaway

Coronavirus

The woman accused of procuring underage women for deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein won’t have to submit to questioning as part of a civil suit alleging she participated in the sexual battery of a teen girl.
ABC News <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-agrees-delay-testimony-jeffrey-epstein-confidant-ghislaine/story?id=70843577">reported</a> that Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorneys requested her questioning be postponed “because of an ongoing federal criminal investigation into Epstein&#8217;s alleged co-conspirators and because a victims&#8217; compensation fund proposed by Epstein&#8217;s estate is said to be nearing final approval.”
&#8220;I&#8217;m permitting her not to respond to [written questions] and not to have her deposition,&#8221; Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman said in her ruling. &#8220;Not forever, but at least long enough to let us know whether the claims process is likely to go forward.&#8221;
The civil suit against Maxwell came from one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Annie Farmer, who said she was “recruited and groomed by Epstein and Maxwell in 1996, and that Maxwell sexually assaulted her at Epstein&#8217;s New Mexico ranch when Farmer was 16,” ABC reported.
&#8220;Annie was extremely distressed and afraid. She was a child in a massive ranch in New Mexico, away from her family in Arizona, and isolated from any source of help. She was alone with Epstein and Maxwell,&#8221; Farmer&#8217;s lawsuit said.
Farmer’s attorney, according to ABC, argued against the delay because it was uncertain how long the criminal investigation would take.
&#8220;We have no indication of any time frame with respect to &#8230; how long that investigation could go on,&#8221; said attorney Sigrid McCawley, who represents Farmer and four other women suing Epstein’s estate. &#8220;And to not be able to get discovery and ask Miss Maxwell questions &#8230; that puts us in handcuffs with respect to being able to establish our claims.&#8221;
Magistrate Freeman addressed the concerns by saying she had “no desire to have this drag out.&#8221; ABC reported that Freeman wanted an update on the investigation in mid-June.
Maxwell, according to the outlet, has not been seen in public in months.
Maxwell’s attorney wrote in a letter to court that the British socialite “absolutely denies that she participated in this or any other sexual abuse or trafficking or assault, and no court, judge or jury has ever determined that she has.”
As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jeffrey-epsteins-alleged-madam-is-planning-a-tv-interview-to-tell-her-side-of-the-story">reported</a> in December, Maxwell was planning to give a TV interview to tell her side of the story. The interview never happened. It was reported in January that Maxwell apparently believed she could avoid prosecution by revealing “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/epsteins-madam-apparently-thinks-she-can-avoid-prosecution-because-she-has-serious-dirt-on-powerful-people">serious dirt</a>” on powerful people. At the time, one of Maxwell’s friends <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10589347/ghislaine-maxwell-dirt-powerful-people-epstein/">told The Sun</a> that the British socialite had so much dirt on rich and powerful people she thinks she can return to her party lifestyle after “the dust has settled.”
“The Brit socialite, accused of procuring underaged girls for billionaire paedophile Epstein, remains ‘totally convinced’ that she can stay in hiding and eventually clear her name,” the outlet reported.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Ghislaine Maxwell

Jeffrey Epstein’s Madam Won’t Have To Answer Questions About Allegedly Sexual Battery Of A Minor – Yet

Crime

Jeffrey Epstein

Sexual Abuse

When Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) shut down the state to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, his administration began issuing waivers to certain businesses that had been deemed not “life-sustaining,” which would allow them to remain open.
The process was not transparent, and resulted in some businesses within the same industry getting different treatment. As Spotlight PA <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/business/spl/pennsylvania-business-waivers-revoked-coronavirus-shutdown-20200513.html">reported</a> earlier this month, one photographer was granted a waiver while another was denied. A notary was granted a waiver but had it revoked without explanation the night before a list of waiver recipients was publicly posted. A trucking company that had been denied a waiver was suddenly granted one without explanation at the same time.
There was seemingly no rhyme or reason to the process, and business owners and individuals sued. One lawsuit alleged Wolf and his administration violated petitioners “constitutional guarantees against having property taken without compensation and their rights to judicial review, equal protection under the law and free speech,” The Morning Call <a href="https://www.mcall.com/coronavirus/mc-nws-coronavirus-alito-orders-wolf-respond-business-shutdown-lawsuit-20200501-fahdr2sevjghtiej4oq2v6kynu-story.html">reported</a>.
The state Supreme Court refused to review the lawsuit, but the U.S. Supreme Court ended up weighing in, ordering Wolf to respond to the lawsuit.
That particular lawsuit includes real estate agent Kathy Gregory, who told the Call that people who had agreed to sell their homes were not able to buy new properties before Wolf’s shut down order went into effect and that members of the military – who are still moving from assignment to assignment – are unable to find homes.
“How do you tell someone that housing is not a priority because the government shut us down?” she asked the outlet, adding that shelter is “basic.”
Another lawsuit, obtained by The Daily Wire includes numerous plaintiffs including a real estate brokerage firm, a home inspection company, and a swimming pool retail store. Wolf’s order essentially destroyed these businesses, who derived the vast majority of their revenue from in-person services.
Walter Zimolong, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in that lawsuit, argues that 42,000 businesses in Pennsylvania applied for waivers to continue operating, and just 7,000 received them, including Wolf’s family business, Wolf Home Products. In an email to The Daily Wire, Zimolong said one of the businesses that was granted a waiver was a hair salon conveniently located in the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Kenwood Pools, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, was denied a waiver while two of its competitors’ waivers were granted. Win Homes Inspection, another company suing Wolf and his administration, also was denied a waiver while a competitor’s was granted.
Both lawsuits alleged the Wolf administration violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because they were treated differently than competitors whose businesses were similar in all relevant aspects.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/us/corona-virus-lawsuits.html">reported</a> that Pennsylvania is not the only state getting sued due to business shut downs. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Arizona, New Hampshire, and other states.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Tom Wolf

Class-action Lawsuit Alleges Pennsylvania Government Violated Constitutional Rights When Distributing Coronavirus Business Waivers

Pennsylvania

Taking on the federal government over an injustice is, in many cases, an insurmountable task, yet that is what Sidney Longwell set out to do 38 years ago.
Longwell’s attorney, David McDonald, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/21/feds-harass-man-for-38-years-until-he-dies-without-promised-permit/">wrote</a> about his client’s case at The Federalist (where I also have a byline).
“Sidney purchased a Montana oil and gas lease from the federal government in 1982, passed a decade’s worth of rigorous environmental and archaeological reviews, and was all set to develop the land when government suspended his lease in 1993. He spent 38 years fighting a David-and-Goliath battle to use the leased mineral rights — a battle I’m still fighting as an attorney for his family,” McDonald explained.
Longwell was able to prove that environmental and tribal cultural concerns over his land were unfounded and obtained drilling approvals for the land on four separate occasions, McDonald wrote. Despite this, the federal government refused to allow Longwell to develop on the land and stonewalled him in his lawsuit against them.
“A favorable court ruling in 2016 seemed to promise a resolution. But, given 21 days to come up with a schedule to act, the government dug in its heels instead, abruptly cancelling the lease. Incredibly, the government’s lawyers justified the decision by inventing a procedural defect that contradicted what agency officials had told Sidney for 30 years,” McDonald wrote.
Longwell died last month at age 81, still waiting for the federal government to come through.
McDonald explained just why Longwell and people like him (some of whom McDonald also represents) face an impossible task while taking on the feds:
<blockquote>Federal agencies have practically limitless resources to fight court battles, in both money and manpower. They have no competition, no shareholders to placate, and no one person who can be held personally responsible for their malfeasance. They also have the cruelest weapon of all — time.</blockquote>
McDonald went on to say that there are “many examples of federal agencies weaponizing bureaucratic delay against American citizens.” In some cases, the federal government doesn’t even bother denying an application or permit – because that can be appealed – instead they just never finish processing the permit, making the person wait indefinitely. People can sue, but as McDonald already explained, the federal government has all the time in the world to wait until the person either runs out of money or dies, as in Longwell’s case.
“What happened to Sidney Longwell is a grave injustice, and one that is becoming too common. Another of my clients, Monte Ray — also in his 80s — is still awaiting a decision on mineral patents he applied for in 1991. Another client: small, family-owned, Colorado oil company WillSource Enterprise, has been fighting the federal government’s delay tactics in processing their permits since 1995,” McDonald wrote.
Longwell’s family has now inherited this battle, meaning it may continue for decades more.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">subscriber</a>.

Small man giant foot

A Man Sued The Federal Government. He Died 38 Years Later Without A Resolution.

Federal Government

The University of Michigan is embroiled in <a href="https://www.michigandaily.com/section/community-affairs/university-neglects-numerous-sexual-misconduct-claims-against-famous-voice">a sex scandal</a> involving a prominent tenured opera professor who was accused by multiple men of sexual assault and harassment.
UM President Mark Schlissel <a href="https://www.michigandaily.com/section/administration/schlissel-interview-0">was asked</a> by reporters at student newspaper The Michigan Daily about the scandal. He claimed during the interview that he was “a huge believer in due process and allowing the accused to defend themselves, to see the evidence against themselves and allowing an investigation to be thorough and complete, and then going through each of the specified faculty policies and procedures when it comes to a disciplinary action that threatens the removal of tenure.”
His remarks on this run counter to how his school’s policies work for students accused of sexual misconduct.
In 2018, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Doe v. Baum that universities must allow some form of cross-examination during allegations of sexual misconduct when the case comes down to the credibility of one person or the other. This ruling pertained to nearly all campus sexual misconduct cases, which often involve no witnesses and are a he said/she said situation where one party (almost exclusively the man) says the sexual encounter was consensual and the other (almost exclusively the woman) says it was not.
Even with the ruling, schools under the 6th Circuit and across the country continue to deny due process rights to men accused of sexual misconduct out of fear that they will receive bad press and be sued by a female accuser who will have the full backing of the media and feminist movement behind her if she claims the school didn’t take her claims seriously. Taking claims “seriously” has resulted in schools automatically believing accusers and tilting the process against the accused no matter the evidence.
UM has been no different. After the Baum ruling, President Schlissel <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/ingrid-jacques/2020/03/27/jacques-university-michigan-cant-ignore-students-rights/2916115001/">said</a> the “6th Circuit got it wrong,” and defending the school’s unfair practices.
The case that led to the ruling involved a male and female student who met while drinking, had sex, and then recounted the night differently. The female student accused the male student of sexual assault, and since there were no witnesses to the actual event and no evidence for either side, the school found the male student “not responsible.” The school interviewed 23 witnesses who provided no clarity. Some confirmed the male student’s account that the accuser wasn’t drunk and others said she seemed drunk and that she was upset after the encounter.
Because college campuses allow either side to appeal – effectively allowing double jeopardy – the female student appealed and without any additional evidence provided, the school reversed its earlier decision and found the male student responsible. He sued the school, leading to the Sixth Circuit opinion.
UM did not change its ways after the Baum decision, leading to another ruling in Doe v. University of Michigan, which found the university was up to its anti-fairness ways. Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield <a href="https://blog.simplejustice.us/2020/03/28/how-do-you-stop-a-problem-like-university-of-michigan/">wrote</a> on his blog Simple Justice that this isn’t surprising, given that court rulings are often ignored and the only way for a student to remedy that fact is to sue. Many accused students are minority and foreign students who don’t have such resources.
“As more suits are brought, more rulings obtained, holding that campus sex tribunals involve unconstitutional deprivations of due process to accused male students, some colleges will comply, but others will simply resist, firm in their belief that they are on the right side of history and, even if courts don’t agree, are doing what they have to, what they should, do to protect women. They are, in essence, challenging the courts by saying ‘make me,’ and the reality is that the &#8216;least dangerous branch&#8217; doesn’t have any really good magic to do so,” Greenfield wrote.

Judge

College President Says He Believes In Due Process. His School’s Handling Of Sexual Assault Allegations Says Otherwise.

Education

Title IX

Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson had her lawyers send a letter to the New York Times demanding they correct the “false and defamatory” article titled “From Jerry Falwell Jr to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters,” which painted Attkisson as one of those doubters.
Attkisson published the legal threat to her <a href="https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/03/read-attkisson-demands-nyt-retract-false-libelous-report/">personal website</a>, saying her attorney would “pursue legal redress” if changes were not made. Attkisson’s attorney, G. Taylor Wilson of Wade, Grunberg &amp; Wilson, LLC, says in the letter that she had attempted to get the article corrected previously, but was provided a “cavalier response” from the Times.
“Through a combination of discrete statements of fact, the defamatory headline, and the juxtaposition of defamatory statements concerning a small group of individuals with whom you have lumped Ms. Attkisson, the article conveys the false and defamatory gist that my client, among other things, lied to her readers and listeners, reported as fact lies that endanger the lives of the public, and otherwise violated the litany of ethical standards by which responsible journalists conduct themselves,” Wilson wrote.
Wilson then outlines 10 examples from the Times article that were false and defamatory toward Attkisson:
<ol>
<li>
<blockquote>The false and defamatory headline, “From Jerry Falwell Jr to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“While public health experts warn people to take precautions, these popular media figures insist that the virus is overhyped.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“Misinformation about the coronavirus continues to circulate across swaths of the American media – on popular podcasts, in blog podcasts, in blog posts, in online videos and on prime-time cable news shows – as recently as this week.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“Some are conservatives who insist the virus is being hyped for political purposes.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“Even as President Trump and the federal government’s top public health officials warn that the virus is not something to be taken lightly – and the authorities reported more coronavirus deaths in the United States on Wednesday – these commentators make misleading comments, cherry-pick facts and go so far as to claim that the virus could be a hoax or a North Korean Plot.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“One of Mr. Hannity’s top sources [Ms. Attkisson] selectively picks facts.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“In the past, she [Ms. Attkisson] has promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“The facts she has chosen recently to highlight falsely leave the impression that the deaths are not all that significant in number and largely contained to one facility.”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“‘Look at those 30-some-odd deaths – most of them were from Washington State,’ Ms. Attkisson said last week on her podcast, adding that most of those were in an assisted-living facility. ‘The vast majority of those who passed away were from one cluster in the United States – almost none anywhere else.’”</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>“And yet visitors to Ms. Attkisson’s website this week might have come away confused about the severity of the virus, as there were several ads for high-grade protective masks.”</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
As Attkisson’s attorney noted, the Times did not always specifically state how the investigative reporter dismissed the coronavirus, instead lumping her in with four other individuals and claiming things like “these popular media figures insist that the virus is overhyped.” Wilson also took issue with the claims directly written about Attkisson.
“[I]t bears noting that the portion of the Article directly referencing Ms. Attkison is equally problematic and actionable. In it, the Times chose in its editorial discretion to affix defamatory labels to otherwise accurate and fair reporting conducted by Ms. Attkisson. For instance, the Times reiterated its “cherry-picking” accusation by asserting that my client highlighted selective facts that ‘falsely leave the impression that the deaths are not all that significant in number and largely contained to one facility,’” Wilson wrote. “It comes as no surpise that my client’s accurate and factual reporting in this regard mirrors the Times’ own reporting on the virus, including that at the time of publication the deaths in the United States numbered approximately 30 and that they were concentrated in Washington State, and a nursing home facility in particular.”
Wilson noted that the Times is using Attkisson’s past accurate statements to discredit her now that new information has come to light. Attkisson even noted that what she was reporting was current information that was subject to change and directed her listeners to go to cdc.gov for the most accurate and updated information.

Sharyl Attkisson

Ex-CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Demands New York Times Correct ‘False And Defamatory’ Article

defamation

New York Times

On Friday’s episode of The New York Times&#8217; podcast “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/podcasts/the-daily/weinstein-trial.html">The Daily</a>,” Donna Rotunno, a Chicago-based attorney who has represented dozens of men accused of sexual misconduct, was asked in a pre-recorded interview about her decision to now defend disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein. 
&#8220;My role in this is to represent him in a criminal case, and as I&#8217;ve said multiple times, there&#8217;s a difference between sins and crimes. You can believe that Harvey Weinstein is a sinner, and you can believe that he did things that you wouldn&#8217;t do or you wouldn&#8217;t like, but my question here is does that rise to the level of a crime,&#8221; Rotunno told Megan Twohey, the Times reporter who co-wrote the 2017 Weinstein investigation. 
“I think quite often, we look to the accusers and we talk about the effects that these things have on their lives, but we do not look at the effects that these types of allegations and accusations have on the person being accused,” said Rotunno. 
Rotunno remains particularly concerned with the long-term effects that sexual misconduct accusations have on men, invoking an observation her mother made about the media’s rush to condemn three Duke University lacrosse team players for a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/lacrosse/2013/02/28/duke-2006-rape-allegations/1953607/">gang-rape allegation</a>: “When those boys die someday, their obituary is going to say the Duke Lacrosse players.” 
To clients who once felt hopeless, Rotunno’s legal acumen has made a world of difference. In 2013, Rotunno represented high-end fashion designer Elhadji Gueye, who was arrested when an acquaintance filed a police report alleging sexual assault, a charge Gueye maintained was filed only after he refused to pay her $50,000 in hush money, according to <a href="https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2018/The-Defender/">Chicago Magazine</a>. 
When police requested as evidence the clothing she was wearing at the time of the alleged rape, the accuser didn’t submit the pajama bottoms, and later told the court she didn’t know where they went. But during cross-examination, Rotunno pointed to a peculiarity, revealed by a security camera that recorded the accuser’s alleged hush money request: “Of all the clothes in your closet, the ones you choose to wear to meet your ‘rapist’ were the pants you were raped in?” 
Rotunno believes her pointed question led the jury to a prompt not-guilty verdict, and reflected on the trial during the Times’ interview: “He wins, but what do you win? You win your case in criminal court, and then you have to worry about building your reputation back, if you can, where people are then willing to come back and frequent your establishment.”
According to <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nishitajha/harvey-weinstein-lawyer-donna-rotunno-daily-times-interview">Buzzfeed News</a>, after the interview aired on Friday, &#8220;prosecutors argued it violated Judge James Burke&#8217;s previous order directing lawyers to not discuss the case and the witnesses in public.&#8221; Rotunno claims the interview was recorded &#8220;a long time ago&#8221; and didn&#8217;t know when it would air, but the New York Times claims the interview was recorded on January 28 and that Rotunno knew it would air Friday.
When it concerns the man who sparked the #MeToo movement, the court of public opinion has been swift and decisive. But while nearly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/us/harvey-weinstein-trial.html">80 women</a> have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, ranging from unwanted groping to forcible rape, the charges in the Manhattan trial are specific and concern only two criminal accusers. 
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/weinstein-jury-forced-to-review-his-nude-photos-following-intersex-vagina-allegation">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported, Jessica Mann, a former actress who is now a hairstylist, claims she consensually entered into a relationship with Weinstein after he forced her to permit him to perform oral sex. 
“I made the decision to be in a relationship with him,” said Mann, according to <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/jessica-mann-harvey-weinstein-trial-testimony.html">Vulture</a>. “And part of that was because I was sexual with very few people. I entered into what I thought was going to be a real relationship with him — and it was extremely degrading from that point on.”
Mann has also alleged that Weinstein violently raped her at a New York City hotel in 2013; Weinstein maintains that all encounters were consensual, and his defense team has produced emails from Mann showing that she maintained contact with him for years, and would provide him with updated contact information on multiple occasions. 
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harvey-weinstein-accuser-he-ripped-out-my-tampon-and-performed-oral-sex-on-me">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported, Weinstein has also been accused of forcibly performing oral sex on Mimi Haleyi, a production assistant for Project Runway, at his apartment in 2006. 
In total, Weinstein faces five criminal counts, including rape and predatory sexual assault, in connection with alleged assaults against the two accusers. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. 
This report has been updated to include additional information about the nature of the interview, including a statement by Rotunno and the New York Times about it&#8217;s timing and release.

Harvey Weinstein Trial Continues In New York

Lead Weinstein Attorney Speaks Out: Here’s Why I Defend Men Accused Of Rape

Harvey Weinstein

MeToo

Prison

Rape

Sexual Harassment

After taking a surprising lead in the faith-focused Iowa caucuses, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg is now being discussed as a Democratic Party presidential frontrunner. But despite being a self-proclaimed Christian, Buttigieg’s rhetoric and policies undermine rather than support religious liberty.
Buttigieg has unabashedly embraced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-house-democrats-equality-act-both-josh-hammer">Equality Act legislation</a> that would strike a massive blow to our nation’s religious institutions. Specifically, the Equality Act would create a federally protected status for gender identity, defined as the “gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of the individual’s designated sex at birth.”
Any faith-based establishment — including churches, schools, and hospitals — with theological beliefs in conflict with this definition would likely face expensive legal battles, lawsuits, and public scrutiny. Case in point: A <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-wa-and-peacehealth-agree-settle-lawsuit-involving-transgender-healthcare" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-wa-and-peacehealth-agree-settle-lawsuit-involving-transgender-healthcare&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581100427416000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGAth8sOEO3vpXX7ZIu4u4Xmi5vXA">Catholic hospital</a> was sued last year by the ACLU because it would not perform a risky sex-change surgery on a 16-year-old girl.
Unfortunately, the Equality Act would coerce health care and mental health professionals into providing dangerous gender-transition treatments for young children and adolescents, counter to their medical advice — and for many, against their religious beliefs.
Just as alarming, Buttigieg has imposed litmus tests based on what he deems theologically acceptable. We witnessed this first-hand when the former South Bend, Indiana mayor attacked Second Lady Karen Pence for teaching at a private school that adheres to her Judeo-Christian belief about marriage. In response, Buttigieg ridiculed the Pences and likened their religious views to that of “<a href="https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1086297780514115585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1086297780514115585&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2019%2F11%2F11%2Fwhy-pete-buttigieg-is-the-most-destructive-candidate-for-christianity%2F" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1086297780514115585?ref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw%257Ctwcamp%255Etweetembed%257Ctwterm%255E1086297780514115585%26ref_url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fthefederalist.com%252F2019%252F11%252F11%252Fwhy-pete-buttigieg-is-the-most-destructive-candidate-for-christianity%252F&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581100427416000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGwUBGJvLf5CXMJu3hcs6dg6abQ5g">Pharisees</a>.”
As a private institution, like thousands of such private schools that have long existed in our country, the school where Mrs. Pence teaches has the right to govern its school according to its own religious beliefs. Islamic schools, Buddhist schools, and Jewish schools are also free to do so under the United States Constitution.
As an individual running for our nation’s highest office, Pete Buttigieg is signaling how a Buttigieg administration would handle religious liberty. And his signals should frighten many.
When explicitly asked about religious freedom, Buttigieg <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/10/buttigieg_religious_freedom_makes_god_smaller_when_used_used_as_an_excuse_to_harm_other_people.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/10/buttigieg_religious_freedom_makes_god_smaller_when_used_used_as_an_excuse_to_harm_other_people.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581100427416000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGJ6Rk7gZclZ3HMbhwVWW9qPgHRiw">claimed</a>, “the right to religious freedom ends where religion is being used as an excuse to harm other people.” He gave no further explanation of his definition of “harm,” placing the ironclad religious protections that our nation has valued for generations at considerable risk under his vague interpretation.
Our founding charter, the Constitution, defends and supports the belief that America was established on the freedom of ALL religions. Furthermore, it is not just freedom afforded to spiritual individuals to put their trust in religious faith or belief. Rather, it is an essential aspect of a well-ordered society to respect that human beings are made in the image of a higher power and should be able to order their lives around their personal religious beliefs.
Mayor Pete has ignored that right, choosing instead to weaponize his beliefs as a litmus test against the beliefs of others. If an individual or entity gets in his way, he will marginalize them — no questions asked.
This complete disregard for our nation’s freedom isn’t how freedom actually works. Our rights aren’t good enough when a leader deems them acceptable to their standards; they stand on their own because the Constitution says so.
&nbsp;
Ms. Vought is executive director of the <a href="https://www.senateconservatives.com">Senate Conservatives Fund</a>. Her husband, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/russ-vought">Russ</a>, is acting director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Begins Bus Tour Across NH Ahead Of Primary

VOUGHT: Pete Buttigieg Is No Friend Of Religious Liberty

2020 Election

ACLU

Constitution

Democratic Party

First Amendment

Leftism

LGBT

Nancy Pelosi

Pete Buttigieg

Actress Jessica Mann testified in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday that when disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein allegedly raped her in 2013 that she thought he was &#8220;intersex&#8221; because he did not have testicles and appeared to have a vagina.
&#8220;Weinstein faces charges in New York City for allegedly raping Mann, and for an alleged sexual assault on former actress Mimi Haleyi,&#8221; Vulture reported. &#8220;Prosecutors have used Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra’s allegation that Weinstein raped her around late 1993 to bolster their claim that Weinstein has a pattern of predatory behavior. Weinstein has maintained his innocence.&#8221;
During her testimony, Mann said that Weinstein &#8220;would talk very dirty to me about fantasies and things, and compare me to the other things actresses that he said were doing kinky, dirty things with him. He always wanted to film me. I never gave him permission.&#8221;
At one point during her testimony, Mann said, “The first time I saw him fully naked I thought he was deformed and intersex. He has an extreme scarring that I didn’t know, maybe [he] was a burn victim …”
“He does not have testicles, and it appears that he has a vagina,” Mann said regarding the first time she saw him naked.
Vulture reported that as Mann made the allegations, Weinstein dropped his head.
When asked about Weinstein’s hygiene, Mann said, “It was very bad. He smelled like shit — excuse me, sorry, like poop. He just was dirty.”
Vulture&#8217;s report on Mann&#8217;s testimony detailed several highly graphic alleged instances of sexual assault that Mann said happened, including while she was in a brief tumultuous relationship with him.
Vulture asked Weinstein after the hearing if her description of him was accurate.
Weinstein responded: “Yeah, perfect.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Here is what <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HarveyWeinstein?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HarveyWeinstein</a> had to say when asked if <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/jessicamann?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#jessicamann</a>&#39;s description of yr body accurate: <a href="https://t.co/jdT2JDK7ZI">pic.twitter.com/jdT2JDK7ZI</a>
&mdash; Victoria Bekiempis (@vicbekiempis) <a href="https://twitter.com/vicbekiempis/status/1223356641095159811?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The sexual allegations made against Weinstein in October 2017 were the catalyst for the #MeToo movement which saw numerous high profile men go down over sexual misconduct allegations.
The New York Times broke the story on October 5, 2017, writing:
<blockquote>Two decades ago, the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein invited Ashley Judd to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for what the young actress expected to be a business breakfast meeting. Instead, he had her sent up to his room, where he appeared in a bathrobe and asked if he could give her a massage or she could watch him shower, she recalled in an interview.
“How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?” Ms. Judd said she remembers thinking.
In 2014, Mr. Weinstein invited Emily Nestor, who had worked just one day as a temporary employee, to the same hotel and made another offer: If she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career, according to accounts she provided to colleagues who sent them to Weinstein Company executives. The following year, once again at the Peninsula, a female assistant said Mr. Weinstein badgered her into giving him a massage while he was naked, leaving her “crying and very distraught,” wrote a colleague, Lauren O’Connor, in a searing memo asserting sexual harassment and other misconduct by their boss.</blockquote>
Read The Times&#8217; full report <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html">here</a>. 
This report has been updated to include additional information.

US-trial-assault-film-celebrity

Weinstein Rape Accuser Testifies: He Didn’t Have Testicles, Appeared To Have Vagina First Time I Saw Him Naked

Judiciary

Sexuality

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-considering-dramatic-expansion-of-terrorist-nations-added-to-travel-ban-list">previewed weeks ago</a> and as has also been rumored for much of this current week, the Trump administration on Friday imposed travel restrictions on six new countries.
&#8220;President Donald Trump is expected to reveal an expansion of his controversial travel ban on Friday, the same day he could be acquitted in his impeachment trial and just days ahead of the president’s annual State of the Union address,&#8221; Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/30/trump-travel-ban-expansion-109659">reported</a> yesterday. &#8220;The expected announcement — confirmed by two people familiar with the matter — had initially been planned for this past Monday to coincide with the three-year anniversary of the original order, which restricted travel from several majority-Muslim nations.&#8221;
On Friday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-imposes-new-travel-restrictions-on-six-countries-11580500874?emailToken=ee9c4d96fd7222587f6a95ea5366a1faJTb2EUg+d0M9bUrQCrIOQzQ91WSepUbYHQgY9Wk%2F8tABR%2F6914m7UCcOGLZysxL+RosZfgYd3Lb8J2OSgyyjyduSEnQYimX%2FldifLfWwadKmtNJ7tcwwfsnO5mS8469GWPrBhircuAoxdsFvkggkYQ%3D%3D&amp;reflink=article_whatsapp_share&amp;fbclid=IwAR03FzpEH7xWpUAx8Zyh0wkm5hGE__rlQ_gQW9NIAzsU5wuLbIvKnm8_tAc">confirmed the news</a>. The six new countries to have various types of travel restrictions imposed upon them are Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan, and Tanzania.
&#8220;Citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan won’t be allowed to apply for visas to immigrate to the U.S. under the policy, which the Trump administration said was designed to tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the U.S. minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration,&#8221; the Journal reports. &#8220;Two other countries, Sudan and Tanzania, will be barred from participating in the diversity visa lottery, which randomly awards green cards to 50,000 immigrants from underrepresented countries annually. Many of the recipients are from African countries.&#8221;
Specifically, Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan will have the issuance suspended of all visas that might lead to permanent residency, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ban/trump-to-expand-travel-ban-to-six-additional-countries-u-s-official-idUSKBN1ZU2WD">Reuters</a>.
Overall, &#8220;[t]he six countries [added today] will join a list of seven nations, most of them Muslim-majority, that faced significant travel restrictions under President Trump’s original travel ban, issued in 2017,&#8221; the Journal continues. Those original seven nations were Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and North Korea.
That original travel ban was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the attention-grabbing 2018 case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">Trump v. Hawaii</a>.
&#8220;By its plain language, [8 U.S.C.] §1182(f) grants the president broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States,&#8221; Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a bare 5–4 Court majority. &#8220;The president lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings — following a worldwide, multi-agency review — that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest. And plaintiffs’ attempts to identify a conflict with other provisions in the [Immigration and Nationality Act], and their appeal to the statute’s purposes and legislative history, fail to overcome the clear statutory language.&#8221;
The addition of countries with Trump administration-imposed travel restrictions placed upon them surely has a political element, and can likely be viewed as an attempt by the president to help shore up his base in the lead-up to November&#8217;s election. But the primary rationale seems to be a more emotionally detached attempt to buttress homeland security.
“These countries for the most part want to be helpful, want to do the right thing,” said Chad Wolf, acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, according to the Journal. “But for a variety of reasons, they failed to meet those requirements we laid out.”

Passport on the desk of an American businessman

BREAKING: Trump Admin Adds New Travel Restrictions For Six Countries

Department of Homeland Security

Illegal Immigration

Immigrants

Immigration

John Roberts

Judicial Branch

Muslim Immigration

Supreme Court

Famed Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, a key part of President Donald Trump&#8217;s impeachment legal defense team, is under fire for a line of argumentation he has advanced this week on the Senate floor.
“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Dershowitz said on the floor, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/29/impeachment-q-and-a-moments-that-mattered-109272">reported</a> by Politico. “And if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected — in the public interest — that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
According to Politico (which, incidentally, uses the term &#8220;unitary executive theory&#8221; while clearly <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1222991659417448448">not understanding what it means</a>), Dershowitz&#8217;s contention is &#8220;well outside the mainstream of legal scholars.&#8221; The National Law Journal, which is widely read within the legal profession, also has a paywalled <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2020/01/30/complete-nonsense-scholars-denounce-dershowitzs-trump-trial-arguments">piece today</a> entitled, &#8220;&#8216;Complete Nonsense&#8217;: Scholars Denounce Dershowitz&#8217;s Trump Trial Arguments.&#8221;
But it is those &#8220;scholars&#8221; who are, in fact, the ones peddling nonsense. Alan Dershowitz is emphatically correct. A president&#8217;s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-corrupt-motives-doctrine-11580343258?mod=e2two">subjective motives</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/trump-impeachment-defense.html">nebulous fusion</a> of political and national interests cannot transform <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/trumps-ukraine-money-holdup-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-breach-of-the-law/">constitutionally lawful conduct</a>, such as a president engaging in a core foreign policy function, into an impeachable offense.
What&#8217;s more, a &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; if conducted within the context of a political actor carrying out his constitutional authority, amounts to constitutionally protected free speech. I made this argument in November both here at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-there-is-one-terrific-impeachment-defense-that-the-white-house-is-not-making">The Daily Wire</a> and at the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/26/why-trumps-ukraine-demands-werent-remotely-illegal/">New York Post</a>.
&#8220;In 2014, a Texas grand jury indicted then-Gov. Rick Perry for supposedly abusing his official capacity when he threatened to withhold $7.5 million in funding for the Travis County district attorney’s public integrity unit unless the troubled DA ­resigned her post,&#8221; I wrote at the Post. This was clearly a &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; but it was one executed in the context of Gov. Perry exercising his authority clearly vested in him by the Texas Constitution. Therefore, I noted that &#8220;an illustrious and ideologically diverse group of legal scholars &#8230; argued that the First Amendment protects a governmental official’s right to threaten taking a lawful action to attain a preferred political outcome.&#8221; They were vindicated:
<blockquote>The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the Lone Star State’s highest court for criminal cases, agreed. “Public servants have a First Amendment right to engage in expression, even threats, regarding their official duties,” the court held. “Many threats that … public servants make as part of the normal functioning of government” would be criminalized under the special prosecutor’s legal theory, the court continued.</blockquote>
Returning to the current impeachment of President Trump, Democrats would be hard-pressed to argue that constitutionally protected free speech can somehow fit the &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors&#8221; impeachment criterion of Article II. After all, political exchanges for political value are utterly commonplace in our politics: Every high school civics student learns about the congressional practice of <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/logrolling">logrolling</a>.
And it is simply implausible to argue that a political actor&#8217;s exercising his constitutional authority and engaging in constitutionally protected free speech could somehow become impeachable due to the &#8220;corrupt&#8221; or &#8220;mixed&#8221; nature of that political actor&#8217;s subjective motives. A couple of hypothetical examples should suffice.
In our first hypothetical, a president running for re-election has become particularly interested in prosecuting and deporting Nazis — not &#8220;alt-right&#8221; dolts, but actual, living Nazis. This is something that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/21/us-deports-former-nazi-guard-germany-says-many-more-are-under-investigation/">still happens</a> in America today. In our hypothetical, the president who has suddenly deemed the prosecution and deportation of Nazis a compelling national interest is fighting hard to win Florida, where he is polling neck-and-neck with his rival. He is set to campaign next week in Florida, and is hoping to make inroads with Florida&#8217;s large Jewish community. At the same time, it turns out that the particular high-profile Nazi the president wants to prosecute and deport is elusive, but a certain European country — let&#8217;s call it Ukraine — has highly pertinent information about that Nazi&#8217;s whereabouts. Is it modern Democrats&#8217; contention that the president cannot here delay foreign aid disbursement to Ukraine and only release the aid on the condition that Ukraine pledges to assist the president hunt down the specific Nazi of his ire?
In our simpler second hypothetical, the facts on the ground are the precise same as they are in real life, but for one tiny difference: Joe Biden is not seeking the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Is it really modern Democrats&#8217; contention that Biden&#8217;s mere presence in the 2020 Democratic field (1) outright immunizes him and his son from public scrutiny about past activities, (2) ties the president&#8217;s hands with respect to ferreting out corruption in Ukraine, and (3) turns constitutionally protected free speech into activity so nefarious so as to be impeachable?
The Democrats&#8217; theory of impeachment is implausible. Worse, it would set an exceedingly dangerous precedent for future partisan impeachments. In our messy system of American politics, there is no such thing as a fine line distinguishing the personal from the national. A political actor, while engaging in constitutionally permissible conduct, is fully within his right to pursue a policy that he simultaneously believes to be in both the national and his personal interest.

Alan Dershowitz at Senate impeachment trial

HAMMER: Alan Dershowitz Is Right. ‘Mixed Motive’ Presidential Quid Pro Quos Are Not Impeachable.

Alan Dershowitz

Donald Trump

Foreign Policy

Impeachment

U.S. Senate

Ukraine

Carter Page, the former adviser for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, is suing the Democratic National Committee and those who helped pay for the salacious dossier that formed the basis for multiple surveillance warrants used to spy on Page and the campaign.
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-trump-aide-carter-page-files-suit-against-dnc-over-dossier-this-is-only-the-first-salvo">exclusively reported</a> that the lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division. The 23-page lawsuit names the DNC, law firm Perkins Coie and its partners, who paid Ex-British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on Trump. The “dirt” Steele found was nothing but rumors and innuendo. Steele himself said at least one of his sources was a “boaster” and an “egoist” who likely engaged “in some embellishment.”
The FBI used that dubious dossier, however, to obtain warrants to surveil Page and the Trump campaign. Even then, the FBI had to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ig-report-here-are-the-17-specific-inaccuracies-and-omissions-in-the-fbis-fisa-warrants-against-carter-page">omit information</a> in order to obtain the warrants. In early December, the Department of Justice Inspector General determined that the FBI violated numerous policies by omitting information and including repeated errors when obtaining the warrants against Page.
Page’s lawsuit states that the defendants “used false information, misrepresentations and other misconduct to direct the power of the international intelligence apparatus and the media industry against a private individual, Plaintiff Carter Page, to further their political agenda.”
Page had previously worked with the CIA and the FBI, which explained why he had contact with certain Russian officials. When the FBI filed its warrant applications against Page, it purposefully omitted that information even after it confirmed Page previously had been a source for the intelligence community.
“Defendants’ efforts mobilized the news media against Dr. Page, damaging his reputation, and effectively destroying his once-private life. The Defendants’ wrongful actions convinced many Americans that Dr. Page is a traitor to the United States, and as a result he has received—and continues to receive—multiple death threats. Dr. Page’s businesses have suffered greatly from the false, malicious information spread by Defendants. In short, Defendants’ actions have not only damaged Plaintiffs’ reputations and financial prospects, they have even caused Dr. Page to reasonably fear for his safety,” the lawsuit states.
Page <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-carter-page-it-was-not-political-bias-that-led-to-fbi-spying-on-me-but-policy-bias">told</a> The Daily Wire in December that he received the most threats on the day that former FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence committee. Among other threats that day, Page received a voicemail from an unknown caller, who referred to something Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said during Comey’s testimony.
The lawsuit does not seek a specific amount in damages.
Page is represented by John Pierce of Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price &amp; Hecht LLP, who is also representing Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-tulsi-gabbard-files-defamation-lawsuit-against-hillary-clinton">her lawsuit</a> against Hillary Clinton for defamation. Pierce told Fox News that Page’s lawsuit against the DNC and Perkins Coie was “a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied.”
“Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state,” he continued.
In a press release, Pierce added:
For years, Carter Page stood alone as the DNC, Perkins Coie and officials at the highest levels of the federal government attempted to destroy his life and derail President Trump’s 2016 campaign.  They failed on both fronts. It is a credit to Dr. Page’s strength of character, resilience and patriotism that he was not broken by this onslaught. He no longer stands alone. Today, Pierce Bainbridge and Dr. Page begin a campaign to restore Dr. Page’s name and hold those who targeted him accountable.  Most importantly, this is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied. Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state. But this is thanks only to the brave actions of patriotic citizens such as Dr. Page who stand up as individuals to fight for the civil liberties of all Americans.  This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high, and we will hold all those who conspired to destroy Dr. Page’s life along with the Constitution accountable. The rule of law will prevail.

Carter Page

Carter Page Files Lawsuit Against DNC Over Dossier That Targeted Him

On Tuesday evening, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney by training who previously served as a judicial law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-HnMAHs3-c">joined</a> “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network (OANN) to discuss the news from earlier this month that a divided Fifth Circuit panel, in the case of <a href="http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/19/19-40016-CR0.pdf">U.S. v. Varner</a>, denied a motion from a biological male litigant who formally moved to have the panel address him using female pronouns.
Earlier this month, Hammer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/culture-war-in-the-courts-federal-appeals-panel-divides-on-transgender-pronouns/">summarized</a> and briefly opined upon the case for The Daily Wire, referencing the &#8220;fascinating&#8221; development that Trump nominee Judge S. Kyle Duncan&#8217;s majority opinion used male pronouns, whereas Clinton nominee Judge James L. Dennis&#8217;s dissent used female pronouns:
<blockquote>Alas, the latest and most disputatious, headline-grabbing front of our ceaseless culture war has fully hit the federal judiciary. &#8230;
Ultimately, Duncan concluded, “[c]ourts would have to do the same. We decline to enlist the federal judiciary in this quixotic undertaking.” &#8230;
Good for Judge Duncan for both adhering to the letter of the law and for defiantly standing athwart the modern cultural Left’s pernicious insistence on gaslighting the American citizenry into thinking that words may not mean what they so clearly do, in fact, mean.</blockquote>
Earlier this week, prior to the OANN appearance with Wheeler, Hammer also wrote a <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/transgender-pronouns-fifth-circuit-rejects-them-and-lie-they-stand-on/">column</a> about the case for National Review:
<blockquote>To capitulate to the Pandora’s box of transgender pronouns is to pretend that, exceedingly rare intersex exceptions aside, there is more to sexual differentiation than the duality of chromosomal male and chromosomal female. To yield to the soft tyranny of transgender pronouns is to pretend that gender dysphoria is an anodyne lifestyle on which societal legitimacy should be conferred, not a psychological malady requiring compassion and psychological treatment. It is to act as if simple words that have meant the same thing for centuries can change their meanings overnight without ruinous consequence for the language’s durability. It is to encourage the <a href="https://time.com/5767844/transgender-youth-legislation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="21">premature sexualization</a> of children and accede to <a href="https://transcare.ucsf.edu/article/information-testosterone-hormone-therapy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="22">often irreversible</a> tampering of their hormones. It is to undermine the ancient Hippocratic oath: “First, do no harm.” Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, maintains that to encourage “surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”</blockquote>
Wheeler and Hammer touched upon many of the same substantive themes during the OANN TV appearance, with Hammer stating that Judge Duncan&#8217;s fearless majority opinion made him a &#8220;very proud Fifth Circuit alum&#8221;:
<blockquote>You know, I finished clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit barely over a year ago, so I&#8217;m very familiar with this court. I know both Judge Duncan and Judge Jerry Smith, who was also in the majority, personally, actually. Judge Duncan, Trump nominee — a wonderful jurist based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
So basically what happened here was a very unusual procedural posture. I mean, this took the format of an order — it was more of an order than a traditional &#8220;case&#8221; or &#8220;controversy,&#8221; we might say. But the litigant formally moved to be addressed by a transgender pronoun, which is very unusual. Certainly, in my time clerking, I never came across something like that. That is not a typical motion that as a judge or a law clerk, you see on a day-to-day basis &#8230; [but] I was a very proud Fifth Circuit alum when I saw this opinion.</blockquote>
Wheeler said that she agreed with &#8220;every word&#8221; of Hammer&#8217;s.
WATCH:
<iframe title="Court Rules on Gender Pronouns" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QVp0Vdif0KA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN 1.28.20

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: The Fifth Circuit Rejects Transgender Pronouns

Transgender

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a former judicial law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, has the following piece today at <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/transgender-pronouns-fifth-circuit-rejects-them-and-lie-they-stand-on/">National Review Online</a>.
Cultural progressives, who reject the very humanity of unborn children but confidently assure us that there are upward of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10930654/Facebooks-71-gender-options-come-to-UK-users.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="8">70 distinct genders</a>, tend to have an uneasy relationship with the truth. And the proliferation of transgender pronouns — the use of biologically inaccurate pronouns to describe those afflicted with gender dysphoria — is among the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/transgender-pronouns-conservatives-should-not-use/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="9">more pernicious tools</a> in the broader arsenal that progressives use to have us question that truth.
Earlier this month, in U.S. v. Varner, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit boldly refused to appease those who would muddle truth. Over the dissent of a Clinton-nominated judge who used female pronouns in his opinion to refer to the biologically male defendant, the majority <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/transgender-pronoun-conflict-in-the-fifth-circuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="12">refused to subordinate</a> the integrity of the judiciary to a litigant who had moved to require the court to address him as something other than what plain English would indicate he is. In so doing, the Fifth Circuit panel has provided a roadmap for how public officials interested in preserving the commonality and vitality of the English language can resist contemporary progressivism’s attempts to obfuscate truth through the propagation of biologically inaccurate and linguistically imprecise transgender pronouns.
Writing for the Varner majority, Trump-nominated judge Kyle Duncan first observed that “no authority supports the proposition that we may require litigants, judges, court personnel, or anyone else to refer to gender-dysphoric litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender identity.” Second, because “federal courts today are asked to decide cases that turn on hotly-debated issues of sex and gender identity,” Judge Duncan feared that the court’s use of subjectively felt but biologically inaccurate pronouns would “unintentionally convey” a “tacit approval of the litigant’s underlying legal position.” Third, referring to “Pronouns—a How To Guide,” a colorful five-column-by-nine-row matrix from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee LGBTQ+ Resource Center, Duncan argued that “deploying such neologisms” could “well turn out to be more complex than at first it might appear” and could “could hinder communication among the parties and the court.”
Ultimately, the panel majority logically “declined to enlist the federal judiciary in this quixotic undertaking.” Duncan’s courageous refusal to engage in it amounts, in progressive parlance, to “deadnaming” or “misgendering.” For transgender activists and the rest of the “woke” mob, such rogue behavior is akin to malicious aggression. But it is reflective of both the biological truth that sex is immutable and the linguistic truth that, for a language to remain viable, words must have readily discernible meanings.
To capitulate to the Pandora’s box of transgender pronouns is to pretend that, exceedingly rare intersex exceptions aside, there is more to sexual differentiation than the duality of chromosomal male and chromosomal female. To yield to the soft tyranny of transgender pronouns is to pretend that gender dysphoria is an anodyne lifestyle on which societal legitimacy should be conferred, not a psychological malady requiring compassion and psychological treatment. It is to act as if simple words that have meant the same thing for centuries can change their meanings overnight without ruinous consequence for the language’s durability. It is to encourage the <a href="https://time.com/5767844/transgender-youth-legislation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="17">premature sexualization</a> of children and accede to <a href="https://transcare.ucsf.edu/article/information-testosterone-hormone-therapy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="18">often irreversible</a> tampering of their hormones. It is to undermine the ancient Hippocratic oath: “First, do no harm.” Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, maintains that to encourage “surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.” &#8230;
<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/transgender-pronouns-fifth-circuit-rejects-them-and-lie-they-stand-on/">Read the rest here</a>.

Judge holding gavel, close-up

Hammer At ‘National Review’: The Fifth Circuit Rejects The Lie Of Transgender Pronouns

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning heard oral argument in the crucial First Amendment religious liberty case of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. The legal issue, as framed by <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/espinoza-v-montana-department-of-revenue/">SCOTUSblog</a>, is &#8220;[w]hether it violates the religion clauses or the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution to invalidate a generally available and religiously neutral student-aid program simply because the program affords students the choice of attending religious schools.&#8221;
Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/01/argument-preview-justices-to-consider-dispute-over-tax-credits-for-scholarships/">contextualizes the importance</a> of Espinoza through the prism of the Court&#8217;s recent First Amendment religious liberty jurisprudence:
<blockquote>Two and a half years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Missouri’s policy of excluding churches from a program to provide grants to resurface playgrounds violated the Constitution. In a footnote in their opinion in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trinity-lutheran-church-of-columbia-inc-v-pauley/">Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer</a>, the justices emphasized that their decision was limited to the facts before them and did “not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.” [In Espinoza], the justices will return to the question they left open in Trinity Lutheran, when they review a decision by the Montana Supreme Court invalidating a tax-credit program because the scholarships created by the program could be used at religious schools.</blockquote>
The Montana state constitutional provision challenged in Espinoza is a so-called &#8220;Blaine Amendment&#8221; — an unfortunate area of law that has its insidious origins in blatant anti-Catholic bigotry. <a href="https://firstliberty.org">First Liberty Institute</a>&#8216;s Jeremy Dys explained the sordid history yesterday in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dys-its-time-to-end-the-bigotry-of-blaine-amendments">Daily Wire op-ed</a> calling for the Court to end &#8220;Blaine Amendments&#8221; once and for all:
<blockquote>In 1875, &#8230; [James] Blaine introduced a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would prevent any government aid to “sectarian schools,” targeting Catholic schools in particular.
His federal amendment failed, but various states borrowed his proposal and their own constitutions were amended instead. Today, almost 40 states have a constitutional provision that prevents government aid to religious institutions. These state constitutional amendments have empowered states to legally discriminate against religious organizations when they perform the same work secular institutions do.
For years, activists have used Blaine Amendments to successfully exclude religious individuals and organizations from benefitting from public benefits. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote of Blaine Amendments in the 2000 decision of <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/793/">Mitchell v. Helms</a>, “This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.”</blockquote>
Ilya Shapiro, who filed a “<a href="https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2019-09/Espinoza-merits.pdf">friend of the court brief</a>” on behalf of Cato Institute&#8217;s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, is optimistic that the Court will do precisely what Justice Thomas called for it to do in Mitchell. Speaking exclusively with The Daily Wire, Shapiro opined: &#8220;The Supreme Court has the opportunity here to remove the last legal barrier to school choice, and I think it’s poised to do so. Constitutional principles of free exercise and equal protection don’t allow Montana to exclude religious groups from public benefits solely because of their religious nature. Similarly, there’s no room in Supreme Court precedent to exclude religious schools from programs structured around private choice (as opposed to, say, direct taxpayer funding of devotional education).&#8221;
In an additional <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/slugh-jewish-groups-must-support-ending-the-bigotry-of-blaine-amendments">Daily Wire op-ed</a> published this morning, <a href="https://www.jcrl.org/">Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty</a> (JCRL) General Counsel Howard Slugh also lambasted the bigotry of Blaine&#8217;s legacy. &#8220;Espinoza has a strong legal basis for her claims,&#8221; Slugh wrote. &#8220;The Supreme Court recently <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf">indicated</a> [in Trinity Lutheran] that excluding a religious organization &#8216;from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely&#8217; because it is religious &#8216;is odious to our Constitution … and cannot stand.&#8217; The Supreme Court should strike down Montana’s Blaine Amendment based on the same reasoning.&#8221;
Slugh, who filed a “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/116233/20190918141339707_No18-1195JRCL.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2-39Qgpp2Hc2MEbPaRhiXeeFVGOgNpEWF0_5AMTEa6onbe90Xbsc5_yzU">friend of the court brief</a>” on behalf of JCRL, was in attendance this morning at the Supreme Court oral argument. Speaking exclusively with The Daily Wire, Slugh described what he saw: &#8220;I was very pleased with how the oral argument went. It seemed that at least five justices understood that the key issue in this case is whether it was permissible for the Montana Supreme Court to act pursuant to a law that, on its face, requires discrimination against religious people without even considering whether such discrimination is permissible under the U.S. Constitution. The answer to that question is that it is not permissible, and at least five justices seemed to support that position.&#8221;
Proponents of religious liberty and school choice ought to hope that Slugh&#8217;s intuition proves prescient.

The U.S. Supreme Court Building

Supreme Court Hears Blockbuster Case On Religious School Choice

Clarence Thomas

Religion

School Choice

Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/espinoza-v-montana-department-of-revenue/">Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue</a>. Kendra Espinoza challenged a state constitutional provision, known as a “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dys-its-time-to-end-the-bigotry-of-blaine-amendments">Blaine Amendment</a>,” which requires the state to exclude religious schools from scholarship programs. Espinoza argues that she has a First Amendment right to use the scholarship funds to send her daughters to a religious school, so long as the school meets the program’s other requirements.
If Espinoza prevails, the impacts will extend beyond Montana. Thirty-seven other state constitutions contain similar Blaine Amendment-type provisions. Declaring these amendments unconstitutional could alleviate the burden that day school tuition imposes on many Jewish (and Christian) parents by allowing them to take advantage of school choice programs. Many Jewish communal organizations supported this result. But inexplicably, some Jewish groups opposed it. In light of such organizations’ opposition to a position that would benefit Jewish parents, American Jews should determine for themselves whether those group’s interests align with their own.
Espinoza has a strong legal basis for her claims. The Supreme Court recently<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf"> indicated</a> that excluding a religious organization “from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely” because it is religious “is odious to our Constitution &#8230; and cannot stand.” The Supreme Court should strike down Montana’s Blaine Amendment based on the same reasoning.
In light of the potential benefits. many Jewish organizations supported Espinoza’s position. The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty (JCRL) — for whom I serve as general counsel — filed a “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/116233/20190918141339707_No18-1195JRCL.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2-39Qgpp2Hc2MEbPaRhiXeeFVGOgNpEWF0_5AMTEa6onbe90Xbsc5_yzU">friend of the court brief</a>” highlighting the impact that this case might have for the Jewish community. JCRL explained the importance of religious schools to many Jewish families and the “Hobson’s choice” many Jewish parents face “between their financial security and their community’s religious continuity.” It highlighted the ways in which a positive ruling might lessen that burden — by increasing funding available to Jewish parents.
The JCRL was not alone in supporting Espinoza’s position. Agudath Israel submitted a<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/120704/20191030001211377_Rev%20EFile%20Copy%20of%20No.%2018-1195%20CoS.pdf"> brief</a> indicating that “the constitutional principle that this case could establish &#8230; has great significance” for the Jewish community. The Orthodox Union (OU) joined a <a href="https://advocacy.ou.org/content/uploads/OU_EspinozavMontana_Amicus-brief.pdf">brief</a> explaining that “the overwhelming majority of [religiously observant Jews] choose to send their children to Jewish nonpublic schools,” and that a ruling for Espinoza would ensure the “equal treatment of all students in access to private education.” The executive vice president of the OU explained that a ruling in favor of Espinoza would “solidify the long-term beneficial impact” of many state aid programs that the organization has supported.
Unfortunately, not all Jewish communal organizations were in harmony. Organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Men for Reform Judaism, the National Council of Jewish Women, The Central Conference of American Rabbis, and Women of Reform Judaism supported maintaining the Blaine Amendment. These groups <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/122538/20191115111640255_18-1195bsacReligiousandCivil-RightsOrganizations.pdf">joined</a> a brief, which was also signed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, that favored allowing discrimination against religious schools. It seems odd that such groups would support a law obligating states to discriminate against Jewish day schools, but they did.
The Montana Association of Rabbis (MAOR) filed its own <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/122638/20191115160743194_Espinoza%20v.%20Montana%2018-1195%20Montana%20Rabbis%20amicus.pdf">brief</a> that presented the most troubling arguments for the other side. The Montana rabbis&#8217; brief preferences depriving its Christian neighbors of student aid funding over advocating for a religiously neutral position that would benefit Jewish parents. MAOR goes further than merely arguing that Montana may legally choose to discriminate against religious schools. It argues that Montana must discriminate against religious schools in order to avoid violating the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-bladensburg-cross-memorial-case-supreme-josh-hammer">First Amendment’s Establishment Clause</a>. If the Supreme Court were to accept this position, it would threaten state aid to religious schools, organizations, and individuals in every state — not merely those with Blaine Amendments.
MAOR argues that the Supreme Court should adopt its draconian and legally dubious position because “the demographics of Montana mean that the only religious schools eligible to benefit from the state’s tax-credit program are Christians.” This outcome would be true solely because of the demographics of Montana — there is no evidence that the program would ever intentionally discriminate in favor of Christian schools. In other states, non-Christian schools would clearly benefit. But the Montana rabbis would deny Jews nationwide this benefit in order to avoid benefiting Christians in Montana.
MAOR seems either not to realize or care that the ruling in this case will affect parents nationwide, including those in states with large Jewish populations and many Jewish schools. It is short-sighted, to say the least, to ask the Supreme Court to reinterpret the First Amendment to require states to discriminate against religious organizations simply to deprive Christian parents of a benefit in a single state.
Other groups, such as the ADL, joined a less extreme brief which argued the Supreme Court should reject “arguments for a right to funding of religious education on an equal basis with private secular education.&#8221; As a necessary result of this position, states would be allowed to discriminate against religious schools (and individuals) solely because of their faith even if they qualified for state funding in every other way. That brief approvingly cites a delegate to the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1889 who stated that “[i]f we cannot support our private schools, then it’s our own fault.” Suffice to say that many Jewish parents struggling to pay for their children’s tuition at a private Jewish school would likely disagree.
The Montana Association of Rabbis is free to make denying state benefits to Christians their primary concern. The ADL is welcome to adopt pursuing a secular public square and an impenetrable &#8220;wall of separation&#8221; between church and state as a goal. But American Jews should be aware of their motivations and should question how closely such groups can truly be said to represent their interests.
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Howard Slugh is the General Counsel of the <a href="https://www.jcrl.org">Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty</a>.
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dys-its-time-to-end-the-bigotry-of-blaine-amendments">It&#8217;s Time To End The Bigotry Of Blaine Amendments</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-dallas-jewish-monthly-religious-liberty-for-all-is-good-for-jews">Religious Liberty For All Is Good For Jews</a>

SLUGH: Jewish Groups Must Support Ending The Bigotry Of Blaine Amendments

James Gillespie Blaine led an interesting life. He served as speaker of the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate. Twice he served as secretary of state, holding the position under three separate presidents. He even sought the presidency, losing to Grover Cleveland.
Blaine’s most notorious legacy, however, is an amendment bearing his name.
Blaine got his idea from a fiery speech delivered by President Ulysses Grant at the height of a national controversy over whether religion had any place within the nation’s public schools. In 1875, President Grant declared, “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”
Days later, Blaine introduced a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would prevent any government aid to “sectarian schools,” targeting Catholic schools in particular.
His federal amendment failed, but various states borrowed his proposal and their own constitutions were amended instead. Today, almost 40 states have a constitutional provision that prevents government aid to religious institutions. These state constitutional amendments have empowered states to legally discriminate against religious organizations when they perform the same work secular institutions do.
For years, activists have used Blaine Amendments to successfully exclude religious individuals and organizations from benefitting from public benefits. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote of Blaine Amendments in the 2000 decision of <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/793/">Mitchell v. Helms</a>, “This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.”
But Blaine’s legacy still lives. Just a few years ago, in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf">Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer</a>, many who hoped to attend the funeral of Blaine Amendments were disappointed when the Court stopped just short of killing Blaine. A frustrated Chief Justice John Roberts observed in the majority opinion that the Blaine Amendment at issue in Trinity Lutheran put the church to the choice of either operating as a church or “automatic and absolute exclusion from the benefits of a public program for which the [church] is otherwise fully qualified.”
How can that still stand in the year 2020? Place two organizations on equal footing — one of whom is charitably motivated because of its secularity and the other by its religious convictions. Yet only the secular organization qualifies for participation in public programs.
In fact, government officials need not rely upon the overall ability, educational or professional qualifications, financial stability, or facilities of a religious organization to decide whether it may participate. Rather, they may exclude religious organizations because they are religious organizations. Their religion may be the sole criterion for exclusion.
This week, the Supreme Court justices will have another crack at Blaine’s legacy. In <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/espinoza-v-montana-department-of-revenue/">Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue</a>, parents of young children challenge the state’s denial of the use of scholarship funds for their children to attend a religious school. The funds come from private donations for which individuals and/or organizations receive a tax credit. Montana contends this administrative act of government conceding taxes for charitable donations necessarily excludes the religious from participation.
First Liberty Institute, where I work, has experience with this. In fact, we have a good friend with more than a little personal experience. The state of Washington used its Blaine Amendment to deny Joshua Davey a promise scholarship that he intended to use to study for religious ministry at a religious college. His case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004, where the court upheld Washington’s decision in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/540/712/">Locke v. Davey</a>.
But, Davey, inspired by the attorneys who helped him with his case, went to Harvard Law School instead and now has a thriving law practice in North Carolina. He partnered with First Liberty to draft a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/116222/20190918134556011_18-1195%20Amicus%20Brief%20Forge.pdf">friend-of-the-court brief</a> in support of the Espinozas.
We argue on behalf of another client from Benton County, Washington, Forge Youth Mentoring. There, county officials ultimately decided not end their grant to Forge, which was among the only mentoring groups lending help to the troubled youth of their community. But that came only after First Liberty got involved. Otherwise, Blaine would have claimed yet another victim.
Religious organizations are as deserving of participation in public programs as anybody else. It was wrong for Blaine and his ilk to insist upon excluding Catholics from such participation in the 1800s. Insisting that we sanitize the public square of religious organizations merely begets a government intent on enforcing what Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jeremy-dys-liberal-attack-on-barrs-religious-freedom-speech-shows-hes-right">might refer to as</a> “militant secularism.”
Rather, the promise of the First Amendment is — at the very least — that government will be neutral towards religion. This welcomes religious organizations to compete in the public square on equal footing with other organizations. If they are to be denied, let it be for legitimate reasons having not the whiff of religious discrimination. Government should never tolerate the codification of religious bigotry.
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Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

SCOTUS

DYS: It’s Time To End The Bigotry Of Blaine Amendments

Discrimination

&#8220;Never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.&#8221; – Leftist Journalism 101
Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is, you see, a conservative man. In what was still a relatively rare move, at the time, Senate Democrats filibustered the judicial nomination of the then-Alabama attorney general due to their belief that Pryor was a devil-may-care extremist. In 2004, President George W. Bush first installed Pryor on the bench via <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/02/20/bush.pryor/">recess appointment</a>. During an at-times heated eventual Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, the avowedly pro-life Pryor had these <a href="https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/CHRG-108shrg91200/CHRG-108shrg91200.htm">remarkable exchanges</a> with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Arlen Specter (R-PA):
<blockquote>Schumer: Now, you have said on occasion, on several occasions, that Roe v. Wade is &#8220;the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.&#8221; Do you believe that as of right now?
Pryor: I do.
Schumer: I appreciate your candor, I really do. &#8230;
Specter: &#8220;In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court preserved the worst abomination of constitutional law [Roe] in our history.&#8221; Is that an accurate quotation of yours?
Pryor: Yes.
Specter: Is that [comment] one which would fall into the category that Senator [Orrin] Hatch has commented on, you wish you had not made?
Pryor: No, I stand by that comment.
Specter: Why do you consider it an abomination, Attorney General Pryor?
Pryor: Well, I believe that not only is the case unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution, but it has led to a morally wrong result. It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children. That&#8217;s my personal belief.</blockquote>
Since joining the federal judiciary, Pryor — on issues ranging from criminal sentencing to habeas corpus to due process to the role of religion in public life — has indeed been a consistent voice for an originalist, conservative jurisprudence. He was publicly floated as a leading contender for the Supreme Court vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, which was ultimately filled by now-Justice Neil Gorsuch. Alas, that was a botched opportunity for those of us <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-yes-alabama-legislature-right-openly-defy-josh-hammer">staunchly pro-life</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-a-political-wish-for-2020-less-socialism-more-law-and-order">traditional law-and-order</a> conservatives with no small degree of skepticism for the genre of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-three-things-conservatives-must-look-future-josh-hammer">libertarian-infused</a> originalism sometimes <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/gorsuch-dead-wrong-immigration/">peddled by Gorsuch</a>.
Regardless, the Left has never forgiven Pryor for his steadfast refusal to bend the knee at the altar of the progressive golden calf. He has repeatedly found himself, over the years, in the crosshairs of what Andrew Breitbart famously called the &#8220;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574451703003340362">Democrat-Media Complex</a>.&#8221; Which brings us to the recent 11th Circuit case of <a href="http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201715470.pdf">U.S. v. Brown</a>.
If you believe the findings of the trial court, former U.S. Congresswoman Corrine Brown of Florida is about as corrupt as an elected Democrat can come. Brown, who served in Congress for 24 years, was ultimately convicted in May 2017 on 20 federal corruption charges, ranging from mail fraud to filing false tax return documentation. In December 2017, she was sentenced to five years in federal penitentiary and ordered to pay restitution.
And now, just last week, her federal appeal in the 11th Circuit was denied — over the dissent, perhaps curiously at first blush, of Judge Pryor. For having the temerity to opine that an allegedly deeply venal Democrat is rightfully &#8220;entitle[d] to a new trial,&#8221; Pryor was <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/trump-supreme-court-shortlister-william-pryor-god-juries.html">excoriated at Slate yesterday</a> by longstanding leftist legal blogger Andrew Cohen.
It is important to understand why Cohen&#8217;s risible smear does not even pass the smell test.
Brown&#8217;s trial featured a peculiar twist. One prospective juror, to whom the dueling 11th Circuit opinions only refer as &#8220;Juror 13,&#8221; appears to have been a devout Christian. For the trial court, this was problematic. Here is how Matthew Franck <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/the-case-of-the-florida-politico-and-the-praying-juror/">accurately summarizes</a> the crux of the legally relevant issue at National Review&#8217;s &#8220;Bench Memos&#8221; blog:
<blockquote>After an eight-day trial, the jury was given its instructions by the court; at the end of the second day of its deliberations one juror (Juror 8) relayed her concern to the judge that another juror (Juror 13) had spoken of being guided by a “higher being” in reaching the conclusion that Brown should be acquitted on all counts.
Summoned to meet with the judge and counsel in the case, Juror 13 was questioned about what he had said, and about his ability to participate in deciding the case according to the evidence and testimony. After two probing — but often somewhat opaque — interviews, the judge decided to excuse the juror (and seat an alternate in his place), ruling that it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that he could not be trusted to abide by his juror’s oath to do impartial justice according to the evidence.</blockquote>
Specifically, Juror 13&#8217;s purportedly disqualifying sin was saying, at some point during juror deliberations, &#8220;something to the effect of &#8216;the Holy Spirit told me that Corrine Brown was not guilty on all charges.'&#8221;
Cohen, mocking Pryor&#8217;s &#8220;long, rambling dissent,&#8221; cavalierly asserts that &#8220;[t]he problem with Juror 13 wasn’t just that he believed he was being directed by God to render a decidedly secular verdict. The problem also was that he evidently did not understand that to say so, to believe so, would undermine his ability to abide by the judge’s instructions and evaluate Brown’s guilt or innocence based solely on the evidence in court.&#8221;
This is a disingenuous and willful distortion of the record in this case.
Pryor&#8217;s dissent, spanning 65 pages, painstakingly produces large chunks of the trial court record in order to demonstrate that Juror 13 did not do precisely what Cohen accuses him of having done. The 11th Circuit&#8217;s legal standard for dismissing a deliberating juror is the high threshold of &#8220;beyond reasonable doubt,&#8221; and as Pryor writes, &#8220;[i]f this devout juror’s religious language alone proved his misconduct &#8216;beyond reasonable doubt,&#8217; &#8230; then the phrase &#8216;reasonable doubt&#8217; has changed its meaning.&#8221;
Pryor&#8217;s dissent is a tour de force, devoting pages to citations of religious texts from manifold faiths in order to demonstrate that &#8220;every prayer implies a hope that the prayer be answered.&#8221; Every juror takes a solemn oath, after all, and it is undisputed that the taking of such an oath — &#8220;an ancient tradition of ensuring honesty by invoking supernatural sanction on those who swear a false oath&#8221; — necessarily means that jurors are allowed to pray for guidance that they reach the correct outcome. And &#8220;if religious jurors may pray for God’s guidance, it follows that they must be entitled to receive God’s guidance, or at least to believe that they have received it.&#8221;
As with so many others facets of our legal and constitutional order that leftists routinely obfuscate and bastardize, the legal principles in play here are really not that complicated. In fact, Pryor expressly and unambiguously disavows the very line of argumentation that Cohen recklessly imputes to him (some internal citations omitted and emphasis bolded):
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[A] juror who refuses or is unable to apply the law to the evidence for a spiritual reason is no less subject to dismissal than a juror who does the same thing for a secular reason. When it is apparent beyond a reasonable doubt that “‘religious inspiration’ prevent[s] [a] juror from considering the evidence at all,” United States v. Salvador, 740 F.2d 752, 755 (9th Cir. 1984), that juror may be dismissed, just like a juror who refuses to deliberate for any other reason. And when it is apparent beyond a reasonable doubt that a juror has “abandon[ed] his or her judgment [about the evidence] to what he or she perceives to be oracular signs,” that juror may be dismissed, just like a juror who decides to base her vote on any other nonevidential event, like the weather or the outcome of a coin flip.
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On the other hand, &#8220;[a]s long as the object of [a religious juror&#8217;s] prayers is an honest attempt to discern the facts from the evidence and to apply the law to those facts, the prayerful meditations of such a juror are no less valid a form of deliberation than any other.&#8221;
The Founders would have been positively aghast at the notion that this could somehow be controversial. That it is deemed controversial, in the year 2020, says everything one needs to know about the insidious secularization of contemporary society.
In short, there was nothing in a careful review of the trial court record to demonstrate that Juror 13 was incapable of assessing the evidence presented at trial. On the contrary, Juror 13 &#8220;told the district court time and time again that he was basing his decision on the evidence,&#8221; and only believed that the Holy Spirit spoke to him in the context of answering his prayers for guidance in reaching the right outcome after adducing the evidence. Those would be the same prayers for guidance that must be viewed in the context of Juror 13&#8217;s having sworn an oath, just like all his fellow jurors, to &#8220;truly try the case now before this court and render a true verdict, according to the law, evidence, and instructions of this court, so help [him] God.&#8221;
Secularists may not care for such niceties, but the reality is that, as constitutional law scholar Michael Stokes Paulsen has been fond of noting over the years, the Founding generation viewed the solemnity of oaths quite seriously. In fact, as I note in my <a href="https://fedsoc.org/contributors/josh-hammer">current Federalist Society</a> lecture on the constitutionality (or <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-646_d18e.pdf">lack thereof</a>) of stare decisis in constitutional interpretation, the gravity of the judicial oath helped undergird Chief Justice John Marshall&#8217;s iconic ruling in the landmark 1803 <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/5/137#writing-USSC_CR_0005_0137_ZO">Marbury v. Madison</a> decision:
<blockquote>Why otherwise does it direct the judges to take an oath to support it? This oath certainly applies in an especial manner to their conduct in their official character. How immoral to impose it on them if they were to be used as the instruments, and the knowing instruments, for violating what they swear to support! &#8230;
Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreeably to the Constitution of the United States if that Constitution forms no rule for his government? If it is closed upon him and cannot be inspected by him?
If such be the real state of things, this is worse than solemn mockery. To prescribe or to take this oath becomes equally a crime.
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The reality is that those like Cohen — those who would fearmonger and alienate by putting &#8220;religious freedom&#8221; in scare-quotes — reek with dripping condescension for religious Americans. Cohen, a lawyer himself, is part of the &#8220;culture of legal discourse&#8221; that Pryor rightly describes as one that &#8220;often struggles to understand religious practice or to take religious perspectives seriously.&#8221; Cohen and his ilk, part of our most supercilious bicoastal ruling class clerisy, simply despise the rubes and yokels of flyover country. They despise the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-who-will-stand-for-the-forgotten-american">forgotten Americans</a> of the heartland. And they despise those members of &#8220;our credentialed judicial elite,&#8221; such as Pryor himself, who adamantly stand for those same forgotten Americans.
This is the narrative that motivates Andrew Cohen. And he will not allow such stubborn things as facts to get in the way of his preferred narrative.
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Hand of witness on Bible in courtroom

HAMMER: Judge William Pryor Is Yet Again A Victim Of The Left’s War On Truth

Abortion

Christianity

Slate

A lawyer for infamous #MeToo perpetrator Harvey Weinstein was promptly shut down on Friday after requesting that Judge James Burke alter the jury selection process to ensure that it is “fair,” according to <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/01/harvey-weinstein-rape-trial-media-shut-out-jury-selection-motion-1202826722/">Deadline</a>. 
“Most people do not speak in front of the international media,” Arthur Aidala, an attorney for Weinstein, told Burke, according to <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/news/harvey-weinstein-rape-trial-jury-selection-media-1203463038/">Variety</a>. “That’s not a normal case. I don’t think there is any other case in this building where a juror is going to say something and it’s going to be [covered by the media].” 
Aidala presented individual jury selection as a solution to the problem, to which Burke promptly responded “denied,” reports the news agency. After Aidala protested that Burke hadn’t even read his motion, which is 14 pages long, the judge remarked that he would read the letter but quipped that he is “generally familiar with this area of the law.”
According to the news agency, the media were “strictly told not to take any photographs of the potential jurors as they were whisked into the courtroom past reporters in the hallway.”
A copy of the motion obtained by <a href="https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/jury-sequest-motion-jan-10-2020-wm.pdf">Deadline</a> reveals that Aidala also requested to remove 32 potential jurors from the trial because they were in the room when another prospective juror told the court: “I have a close friend who had an encounter with the defendant in his hotel room, and I do not think I can be a fair juror in this case.”
In another legal maneuver, Damon Cheronis, another defense attorney for Weinstein, asked to have those jurors who heard a protest going on outside disqualified, saying that “it’s this type of atmosphere that makes it impossible for Mr. Weinstein to get a fair trial,” reports the <a href="https://apnews.com/f2c3963cf21b1d5bc7b32160e5b2b342">Associated Press</a>. 
“You’re probably not aware of this, but people chant and protest outside this courthouse all the time,” retorted Burke, according to the news agency. 
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/weinstein-request-for-new-judge-denied-medical-emergency-interrupts-proceedings">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported, jury deliberations began on Tuesday for the trial of former film producer and longtime Democratic Party mega-donor Harvey Weinstein. Throughout the week, the court has been sifting through hundreds of potential New Yorkers to find jurors who can judge the case solely on the merits of the evidence presented in court. 
Weinstein stands accused of forcing a woman to let him perform oral sex on her in 2006 and raping another woman, who has not been named, at a hotel in 2013. Due to a predatory sexual assault charge, Weinstein faces up to life in prison. 
Donna Rotunno, a lead attorney for Weinstein, has claimed that the charges against her client “don’t rise to the level of rape.”
The disgraced film producer has also been charged with sexual assault in Los Angeles for two instances dating to 2013. 
In a press conference on Monday, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey said that prosecutors were requesting Weinstein’s bail be set at $5 million but acknowledged that he would not appear in court until his Manhattan trial had concluded. If convicted there, Weinstein faces upward of 28 years in state prison.

‘Denied’: Judge Promptly Shuts Down Latest Request From Weinstein’s Legal Team

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