Author: Julie Kelly

Commentary: DOJ and Judge Chutkan, Not Trump, to Blame for ‘Delay’ in J6 Case

Julie Kelly
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan

The Supreme Court will hear history-making arguments on Thursday in the case of Donald J. Trump v United States. For the first time, the highest court in the land will publicly debate the untested and unsettled question as to whether a former president is immune from criminal prosecution for his conduct in office. And despite claims by Democrats, the news media, and self-proclaimed “legal experts” to the contrary, the matter is far from clear-cut.

The case arises from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against Trump related to the events of January 6 and alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. Smith’s flimsy indictment—two of four counts are currently under review by SCOTUS and the other two fall under similarly vague “conspiracy” laws—-and an unprecedented ruling issued last year by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan will be put to the test by the justices.

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Commentary: Another Defense Against Bragg’s ‘Sham’ Indictment

Julie Kelly

Jury selection has begun in the New York City “hush money” trial of Donald Trump, who is charged in a 34-count indictment with falsifying business records of the Trump Organization.  This case is part of a Democrat-led effort to engage in lawfare on various Progressive battlefields.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: The Supreme Court Can Right an Egregious Wrong in Jan 6 Cases, But Will It?

Julie Kelly

In July 2023, Joshua Youngerman was arrested in California on five misdemeanors for his participation in the events of January 6. According to charging documents, Youngerman entered the Capitol at 2:37 p.m. — 20 minutes after the House went into recess amid the escalating chaos — through an open door as Capitol…

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Ties Between Judge Merchan’s ‘Child’ and Adam Schiff Represent Major Conflict in Hush Money Trial

Julie Kelly

At the end of 2019, Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was leading the first impeachment effort against President Donald Trump.

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Commentary: Biden’s DOJ Thumbs Nose at SCOTUS on Key J6 Felony Charge

Julie Kelly
Matthew Graves

Donald Trump filed his brief Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his argument that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. Noting the lack of historical precedent and dire ramifications for the future, Trump’s attorneys warned that “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”

Oral arguments on the groundbreaking question are set for April 25; a final opinion, which could be announced in late May or sometime in June before the current SCOTUS term ends, represents a do-or-die situation for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president for the events of January 6 and his alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The case is now on hold awaiting a decision by SCOTUS.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: In the Room at Friday’s Florida Hearing in Trump’s Classified Documents Case

Julie Kelly
FL Judge Aileen Cannon Infront of florida courthouse

I am digging into a few other matters related to this case, the contempt order issued Thursday against veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, and a new appellate court ruling overturning the use of a sentencing enhancement for J6ers convicted of the controversial 1512(c)(2) charge so unfortunately I can’t write a full article on yesterday’s hearing that I attended in person in Fort Pierce. So I want to share my X posts about what happened.

A few additional observations: Judge Cannon’s approach and style is inimical from that of judges in D.C. For part of the proceedings, I kept thinking how DOJ’s J6 prosecution in Washington would be so different if only half the judges were as careful and prepared and nontheatrical as Cannon. I shared this with a J6 defense attorney last night and he agreed.

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Commentary: ‘Disturbing’ Collusion Between Biden White House and Trump Prosecutors

Julie Kelly

Before the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith in November 2022, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice was in the process of conducting two separate criminal investigations into Donald Trump: his attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of sensitive government files.

Smith took over both matters to demonstrate the DOJ’s “independence” from politics, the public was told, although he took with him prosecutors and investigators already assigned to the existing inquiries. His team continues to insist their work is devoid of any influence from or cooperation with the Biden regime. Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland say the same.

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Commentary: DC Appellate Judges Use ‘Unprecedented Approach’ to Get Trump’s Twitter Files

Julie Kelly
Trump DC

In January 2023, two months after his appointment as special counsel, Jack Smith applied for a search warrant to obtain all of the data associated with Donald Trump’s long-dormant Twitter account. Smith sought not just public posts but direct messages, drafted and deleted posts, and the identity of any individual with access to the account. Smith also asked for “all users [Trump’s account] has followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked, and all users who have followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” Trump’s account.

The application was stunning in scope with no justification as to why the government needed such a limitless trove of information—particularly one that clearly ran afoul of Trump’s right to assert executive privilege. So, Smith neatly settled that matter by additionally asking for a nondisclosure order that prevented Twitter from notifying Trump about the search warrant for 180 days.

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Commentary: The Hackery of Judge Florence Pan

Julie Kelly

If a court proceeding held in the nation’s capital on Tuesday is an indication of how 2024 will go—things will be a lot worse than even the biggest skeptic predicted.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia—Biden appointees Florence Pan and Michelle Childs and George H. W. Bush appointee Karen Henderson—heard oral arguments for Donald Trump’s appeal of a lower court decision that concluded presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution for their conduct in office. The appeal originated out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president related to the events of January 6.

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Commentary: As DOJ Threatens to Charge ‘Thousands’ over J6 Trespassing, Judges Signal Skepticism

Julie Kelly

In a brazen act of political theater worthy of an ethics investigation, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves gave an hourlong rehash of the events of January 6 to a handful of reporters last week. Graves, a Biden 2020 campaign advisor who was appointed by Biden in November 2021, is overseeing the Department of Justice’s unprecedented and ongoing criminal investigation into the four-hour disturbance that has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 Americans.

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Commentary: Biden’s Valley Forge Theater and the Unraveling of January 6

Julie Kelly
January Six

Joe Biden plans to commemorate the third anniversary of the events of January 6 by giving a speech Friday morning near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the historic site where General George Washington regrouped the Continental Army despite all odds in 1777-78.

After years of comparing Jan 6 to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Oklahoma City bombing, Biden will again desecrate hallowed ground and the graves of the victims—roughly 2,000 soldiers died over a six-month period at the Valley Forge encampment—to prioritize the largely peaceful protest at the Capitol as a pivotal event in American history. Fighting Trump and his supporters, the stunt apparently is supposed to demonstrate, is just like living in subhuman conditions fighting starvation, hypothermia, and deadly diseases to prevail over the British crown. (Ironically, Biden moved up the speech from Saturday to Friday amid bad weather forecasts.)

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Lower Courts Dare SCOTUS to Act with Lawless Rulings, But Will They?

Julie Kelly

Throughout 2020, both Republicans and Democrats warned that the U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately determine the winner of the presidential election — albeit for different reasons.

Democrats feared a conservative majority would uphold what they called “voter suppression” laws to tighten voting requirements that might benefit President Trump. Republicans worried how the court would handle cases related to lax absentee voting measures enacted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that gave Joe Biden a big advantage.

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Commentary: Is SCOTUS Poised to Overturn Key J6 Felony Count?

Julie Kelly

An order published by the Supreme Court on December 13 represented a moment hundreds of January 6 defendants and their loved ones had been waiting for: the highest court granted a writ of certiorari petition in the case of Fischer v. USA.

In a nutshell, after more than two years of litigation before federal judges in Washington, SCOTUS will review the Department of Justice’s use of 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding, in January 6 cases. A “splintered” 2-1 appellate court ruling issued in April just barely endorsed the DOJ’s unprecedented interpretation of the statute, passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the aftermath of the Enron/Arthur Anderson accounting scandal.

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Commentary: Where Are the J6 Committee Videos?

Julie Kelly
January 6 Riot

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case against Donald Trump for the events of January 6 is inextricably tied to the work of the special House committee that conducted an 18-month investigation into what happened before, on, and after that day.

In fact, one could safely argue that Smith lifted much of the language directly from the committee’s findings to prepare his 45-page indictment. Three of the four criminal referrals made by the committee, formed by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in June 2021, are reflected in Smith’s indictment. As Kyle Cheney, Politico’s legal affairs reporter recently noted, “the words in Smith’s filing are almost verbatim the case that the committee’s vice chair, Liz Cheney, made at the panel’s first public hearing.”

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Commentary: House Republicans Must Expose the Full Truth of January 6

Julie Kelly

On a near-daily basis, the Department of Justice announces new arrests related to the events of January 6. Authorities arrested a Minnesota man on Wednesday for allegedly obstructing law enforcement and other minor offenses; U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, trumpeted the news on his office’s X account.

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Commentary: Chaos in the Classified Documents Case

Julie Kelly

At one point during a contentious hearing in her Florida courtroom on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon confronted the Department of Justice about its concurrent federal indictments against Donald Trump.

Cannon pressed Jay Bratt, the chief prosecutor on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case, to name another instance when the government brought charges against the same defendant on two different matters within a few months of each other. (Smith indicted the former president last June in the southern district of Florida for unlawfully keeping national defense information at Mar-a-Lago and obstruction of justice. Seven weeks later, Smith charged Trump in the District of Columbia with four counts related to the events of January 6.)

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Trump Wants Cameras in the Courtroom but the DOJ Does Not, and They Are Ready to Fight About It

Julie Kelly

For nearly three years, the American people have received media-filtered coverage of court proceedings for January 6 defendants in the nation’s capital.

Pandemic-era rules enabled the public to access hearings by telephone during the early stages of the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Capitol protesters. But as the first jury trials commenced in the spring of 2022, phone-in lines for most D.C. courtrooms were shut down. Now anyone, including reporters, interested in covering the district court in Washington—where jury trials, plea agreements, and sentencing decisions for January 6 defendants take place—must attend in person. Electronic devices are not permitted in the courtroom; media rooms are often full for high-profile cases.

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Commentary: Hillary’s ‘Deprogramming’ Wish and the FBI’s Latest Excuse to Hunt MAGA ‘Terrorists’

Julie Kelly

To the surprise of no one paying attention, Newsweek just confirmed the FBI is targeting supporters of Donald Trump in advance of the 2024 election. “The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” investigative journalist William M. Arkin reported on October 5.

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Commentary: Yes, Jamaal Bowman Deserves the January 6 Treatment

Julie Kelly

Congressional Democrats are coming to the defense of their demonstrably unhinged colleague, Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York. Bowman, last seen attempting to assault Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.), pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon House office building as debate over a continuing resolution to fund the federal government intensified Saturday afternoon.

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Commentary: Fact-Checking Merrick Garland’s ‘Fair’ DOJ

Julie Kelly

It might go down as the whopper of the year.

During his opening statement to the House Judiciary committee on Wednesday morning, Attorney General Merrick Garland attempted to head off expected criticism from Republicans by insisting his Department of Justice is blind to politics. “[We] apply the same laws to everyone. There is not one set of laws for the powerful and one for the powerless. One for the rich and another for the poor. One for Democrats and another one for Republicans. The law will treat each of us alike.”

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Commentary: Jack Smith’s Real-Life Bogeyman

Julie Kelly

One must wonder if Special Counsel Jack Smith checks under his bed every night to make sure a large man wearing an oversized blue suit, long red tie, and MAGA hat isn’t there.

Smith, the public has been assured, is a nerves-of-steel prosecutor who has taken on some of the world’s most dangerous criminals during his time at the U.S. Department of Justice and The Hague. Following Smith’s appointment in November 2022, one former colleague swooned to the New York Times how Smith “has a way about him of projecting calm” and that “people look to him for steady guidance.”

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Commentary: Another Whitmer Fednapping Case Goes Boom

Julie Kelly

In another blow to the FBI’s concocted plot to kidnap and assassinate Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, a jury in Antrim County today acquitted three men indicted on state charges for their alleged role in the scheme.

Michael and William Null, twin brothers, and Eric Molitor were found not guilty of providing material support for an act of terrorism and unlawful possession of firearms. Jurors began deliberations Thursday afternoon following a 14-day trial before Judge Charles Hamlyn.

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Commentary: The Insatiable, Unaccountable, and Unsatisfied Bloodlust of the DOJ

Julie Kelly

Nejourde Thomas “Jord” Meacham was the sort of person the elites in Washington despise.

One of ten children in what appears to be a tight-knit family, Jord lived in rural Utah near the Nevada border working on his family’s ranch; he enjoyed fishing, hunting, and riding horses. “He was a big history buff. Listening to music was a big part of his life and young kids were drawn to him,” his obituary read. Jord is survived by his parents, siblings, grandparents, and “many aunts, uncles, and cousins.”

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