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Republicans on the panel have grilled Garland with questions about the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and his now-scuttled plea deal, as well as special counsel Jack Smith’s two indictments of Trump. During the hearing, Republicans have attacked Garland over the handling of the investigation as well as the appointment of US Attorney David Weiss — who negotiated a scuttled plea deal with Hunter Biden — to be special counsel last month. The report details the backdrop of Mr. Bragg’s decision to charge President Trump with 34 felony counts using a novel legal theory that bootstrapped misdemeanor allegations into a felony, alleging that the prosecution was motivated by political calculations. The Supreme Court’s press office said in a statement Thursday afternoon that the orders do not contain justifications, but said the company and people with suspended accounts can gain access by requesting the decisions from the court.
US committee releases sealed Brazil court orders to Musk’s X, shedding light on account suspensions
Victims of Violent Crime in the District of Columbia - House Judiciary Committee
Victims of Violent Crime in the District of Columbia.
Posted: Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, legal and regulatory reform, innovation, competition and anti-trust laws, terrorism and crime, and immigration reform. The Committee has jurisdiction over all proposed amendments to the Constitution, and each of its subcommittees has roots in that document. The House Judiciary Committee usually sends the greatest number of substantive bills to the House Floor each year. Judiciary Republicans' new report reveals alarming evidence of federal law enforcement engaging in broad financial surveillance and prying into the private transactions of American consumers. This surveillance, not predicated on specific evidence of criminal conduct, targeted terms and transactions related to core political and religious expressions protected by the Constitution. It’s the latest display of the new normal on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who have long billed themselves as the champions of police and “law and order” are deeply at odds with federal law enforcement and the FBI, accusing the bureau of bias dating to investigations of Trump when he was president.
Judicial Impeachment: 110th and 111th Congresses
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie suggested that Attorney General Merrick Garland could be held in contempt of Congress for declining to answer questions about an ongoing investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was not instructed to charge Donald Trump with federal crimes, pushing back against comments made by the former president over the weekend. The only January 6-related sentence to date that is at or above the 20-year mark was handed down to Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of multiple felonies including seditious conspiracy. Though Tarrio wasn’t at the Capitol on January 6 – he had been ordered to leave Washington after an arrest two days prior – Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, said, “Mr. CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz, Holes Lybrand, Zachary Cohen, Devan Cole, Casey Riddle and Abby Baggini contributed to this report. For President Joe Biden, it’s a story about money, influence, and protecting the Biden family brand.
Ranking Member
Terms like “censorship” and “free speech” have turned into political rallying cries for U.S. conservatives since at least the 2016 presidential election, frustrated at seeing right-leaning commentators and high-profile Republican officials booted off Facebook and Twitter in its pre-Musk version for violating rules. On April 6, Musk took to X to challenge de Moraes, questioning why he was “demanding so much censorship in Brazil”. The following day, the tech mogul said he would cease to comply with court orders to block accounts — and that de Moraes should either resign or be impeached. Predicting that X could be shut down in Brazil, he instructed Brazilians to use a VPN to retain their access. Wray did say that classified documents are required to be stored in what’s known as a “sensitive compartmented information facility,” or SCIF.
Committee on the Judiciary (117th Congress)
While Musk has repeatedly decried de Moraes’ orders as suppressing “free speech” principles and amounting to “aggressive censorship,” the company under his ownership has bowed to government requests from around the world. “To comply with its obligations under U.S. law, X Corp. has responded to the Committee,” the company said in a statement on X on April 15. Arkansas State Police said it would forward the case file on its investigation Tuesday to the local prosecutor to determine whether the shooting was justified. Such investigations don't include a recommendation, state police said, and wouldn't review the agency's tactics.
But contrary to Massie’s suggestion, Zink was not a mere observer just filming the riot; according to court documents, he recorded himself on Capitol grounds making enthusiastic comments like, “We knocked down the gates! ” And while Kennedy provided a link to a local news article from 2021 that claimed Zink was facing up to 21 years in prison, it is a virtual certainty that he will not receive a sentence approaching that length; rioters with roughly similar cases have received much shorter sentences. Late Wednesday, soon after the court orders were released, Bolsonaro capped off a speech at a public event by calling for a round of applause for Musk. About 40 million Brazilians, or about 18% of the population, access X at least once per month, according to market research group eMarketer.
Its infrequent but important role in impeachment proceedings has also brought it much attention. In the 116th Congress, the House flipped from Republican to Democratic control. Doug Collins, a Republican from Georgia's 9th congressional district, became ranking member and served from 2019 to 2020. In early 2020, Collins stepped down from his leadership position when he became a candidate in the 2020 special election held to replace retiring U.S. Under House Republican rules, members must relinquish leadership positions if they launch a bid for another office.[3] Collins was succeeded as ranking member by Jordan, who represents Ohio's 4th congressional district, but who has never taken a bar examination or practiced law.
House Republicans grill FBI director over claims of bias and probes of Biden family
In a time of great change and scientific progress an expanding list of issues, including intellectual property, cloning, and the internet, require committee members to possess a wide breadth of knowledge in order to effectively address concerns from these and other new areas. The Antitrust Task Force during the 110th Congress was established February 28, 2007, as a temporary subcommittee to examine the pending merger between XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.[10] The task force operated like any other subcommittee, except that it only has a six-month term. In the 118th Congress, the chairman of the committee is Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio, and the ranking minority member is Democrat Jerry Nadler of New York. The House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report detailing mismanagement, waste, and abuse of government resources by senior leadership at the FTC—specifically Chair Khan, her direct staff, and the Bureau of Competition Front Office. The report also details what it describes as evidence of Mr. Bragg’s open animosity towards President Trump while taking a sharply critical view of the DA’s decision to bootstrap misdemeanor charges into felonies. In the U.S., free speech is a constitutional right that’s much more permissive than in other countries, including Brazil.
President Trump has denied the affair and any wrongdoing, alleging that the case is politically motivated. The committee highlighted Mr. Pomerantz’s various grievances with President Trump, as outlined in his book, along with the former special prosecutor’s eagerness to see the former president prosecuted. “Pomerantz’s own words show how the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, populated with partisans who openly bragged about their desire to get President Trump, used its immense power in the persecution of a person, not a crime,” the report states. Mr. Pomerantz, who authored a book titled “People vs. Donald Trump,” was a Manhattan prosecutor under Mr. Bragg. He resigned in 2022 because of Mr. Bragg’s initial unwillingness to pursue a criminal case against the former president.
Because of the legal nature of its oversight, committee members usually have a legal background, but this is not required. The committee is responsible for considering and reporting legislation related to these areas, as well as conducting oversight of the executive branch and the federal judiciary. The committee also has the authority to impeach federal officials, including the President, and to consider articles of impeachment. Established in 1813, the House Judiciary Committee is the second oldest standing committee in Congress. Today, the Committee is at the forefront of some of the most significant issues facing our nation, including protecting constitutional freedoms and civil liberties, oversight of the U.S.
Republicans have held hearings with former FBI agents, Twitter executives and federal officials to make the case that the FBI has been corruptly using its powers against Trump and the right. The GOP has formed a special committee on “weaponization” of government, also led by Jordan, to investigate abusee. Three panels opened a joint investigation into the Hunter Biden case, and one announced Wednesday that the two IRS whistleblowers who claimed Justice improperly interfered in the case will appear before Congress next week. The Committee on the Judiciary has been called the lawyer for the House of Representatives because of its jurisdiction over matters relating to the administration of justice in federal courts, administrative bodies, and law enforcement agencies.
Wray, meanwhile, acknowledged a difference over Garland’s 2021 memo instructing the FBI to coordinate with local law enforcement over threats against school boards. Jordan opened the hearing reciting a federal judge’s recent ruling against the government’s efforts to halt misinformation on social media and listed other grievances over the FBI’s treatment of conservatives. Garland also highlighted the Justice Department’s efforts to expand access to abortion after last year’s Supreme Court decision, noting that the Biden administration has already scored an early victory in a lawsuit brought against an extremely restrictive abortion law in Idaho. The Colorado Republican has expressed skepticism toward the GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The House Judiciary Committee is chaired by the Speaker of the House or, in the Speaker's absence, the Majority Leader. The ranking minority member is the Minority Leader or, in the Minority Leader's absence, the Minority Whip.
But most legal experts see his brash tactics as legally sound and furthermore justified by extraordinary circumstances of democracy imperiled. They note his decisions have been either upheld by his fellow justices or gone unchallenged. The committee chairman, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, said he is trying to stop what Republicans call the “weaponization” of the federal justice system, which they say is tilted against conservatives, including Trump and his allies. Wednesday’s hearing has also offered a preview of the House Republican’s impeachment inquiry into the president – which will have its first hearing next week – and the partisan brawling that will accompany it. Buck said that Garland would have been accused of obstructing the Hunter Biden investigation had he removed Weiss, who was appointed by Trump, when he became attorney general. He also would have been accused of interference had he removed Weiss for not moving fast enough or if he had appointed someone else as special counsel, Buck said.
De Moraes has overseen a five-year probe of so-called “digital militias,” who allegedly spread defamatory fake news and threats to Supreme Court justices. The investigation expanded to include those inciting demonstrations across the country, seeking to overturn Bolsonaro’s 2022 election loss. Those protests culminated in the Jan. 8 uprising in Brazil’s capital, with Bolsonaro supporters storming government buildings, including the Supreme Court, in an attempt to oust President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from office. House Judiciary Committee on Monday asked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to provide documents and information about its raid at the home last month of the Little Rock airport director who died after a shootout with agents serving a search warrant. “I will say to you the same thing that I said to all 56 of our field offices as soon as I read the memo, which is that the FBI is not in the business of investigating or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else for that matter,” said Wray. But the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, said the hearing was “little more than performance art” by Republicans who are undertaking what he called baseless investigations too far-fetched to be true.
In the 115th Congress, the chairman of the committee was Republican Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, and the ranking minority member was initially Democrat John Conyers of Michigan. On November 26, 2017, Conyers stepped down from his position as ranking member, while he faced an ethics investigation.[2] On November 28, 2017, Jerrold Nadler of New York was named as acting ranking member. “Bragg’s politically motivated prosecution of President Trump threatens to destroy this notion of blind justice by using the criminal justice system to attack an individual he disagrees with politically, and, in turn, erodes the confidence of the American people,” it added. It isn’t clear whether the 150 suspended accounts represent the entirety of those de Moraes ordered suspended. Until the committee report, it wasn’t known whether the total was a handful, a few dozen or more.
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