The Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a long-running public records case pitting the state’s top law enforcement officer against a national watchdog group that is digging into his ties with the Republican Attorneys General Association.
At issue is whether GOP Attorney General Dave Yost should be required to provide records to an appeals court that had been requested by the Center for Media and Democracy, which pertain to the nonprofit Republican association as well as its fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund. Yost’s office also is fighting a magistrate’s order requiring the attorney general to be deposed in the now five-year-old case.
The center, an investigative group, is seeking records from a period when RAGA — a nonprofit that accepts corporate donations — organized a letter opposing clean air restrictions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that was signed by Republican attorneys general. More recently, the association came under fire for soliciting thousands of supporters of Donald Trump to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Ohio Solicitor General T. Elliot Gaiser told the court Wednesday that its decision could have ramifications for public records law in the state.
“Essentially, this is a question of if a precedent is set for a deposition of an attorney general in this case, it would be open season for lawfare and the weaponization of the public records act for witchhunts by every gadfly,” Gaiser said.
The center initially requested the documents in March 2020, including records associated with RAGA’s winter meeting of that year.
Yost responded at the time that his office had no pertinent records to turn over or that the information being sought wasn’t a record. As part of a legal challenge by the center, a Tenth District Court of Appeals magistrate ordered his office to answer a series of questions about the communications and subsequently directed him to produce certain documents for private, in-camera review.
The lower court said a review of the requested materials would help it determine whether they were public records or not — dependent on factors such as whether the communications were carried out on state time, were conducted by public employees or involved Yost’s official duties.
Yost appealed the magistrate’s orders to the state’s high court, arguing in part that searching for the requested records would potentially reach into the communications of Republican attorneys general in other states as well as his own staff’s personal and campaign email accounts.
He has also said that the discovery could potentially sweep in irrelevant information having nothing to do with RAGA or its fundraising arm, such as communications about multistate lawsuits his office might be involved in, say, against an e-cigarette maker or Google.
Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy asked Wednesday whether the lower court’s order might be asking too much of the state — for it to produce information, as opposed to records. Justice Jennifer Brunner, the panel’s lone Democrat, asked whether allowing the public official to determine on their own that records aren’t public would be a slippery slope.
“Depending on how this decision comes out, if an official decided to engage in illegal or unethical behavior, he would just simply do it on a private email and the public would probably not be able to find out,” she said.
Jeffrey Vardaro, the Center for Media and Democracy’s attorney, reminded the court that the outstanding order would merely allow the Tenth District magistrate — not the center or the public at large — to review certain documents. He said that undercuts the state’s argument that the lawsuit is intended to harass or embarrass Yost, who he reminded has the job of enforcing Ohio’s public records law.
Vardaro warned the court against making a decision that could allow a public official to unilaterally determine that “entire categories of what should be public records are not public,” prevent courts from weighing in, and empower the official to “refuse to testify about what the records were even about.”
“And so it would take the Sunshine Act and turn it into a black box,” he added.
In an extraordinary turn, a judge Friday set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money criminal case for Jan. 10 — little over a week before he’s due to return to the White House — but indicated he wouldn’t be jailed.
The development nevertheless leaves Trump on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signaled in a written decision that he’d sentence the former and future president to what’s known as an unconditional discharge, in which a conviction stands but the case is closed without jail time, a fine or probation. Trump can appear virtually for sentencing, if he chooses.
Rejecting Trump’s push to dismiss the verdict and throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending second term, Merchan wrote that only “bringing finality to this matter” would serve the interests of justice.
He said he sought to balance Trump’s ability to govern, “unencumbered” by the case, against other interests: the U.S. Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity and the public’s expectation “that all are equal and no one is above the law,” and the importance of respecting a jury verdict.
“This court is simply not persuaded that the first factor outweighs the others at this stage of the proceeding,” Merchan wrote in an 18-page decision.
Trump lashed out at Merchan on his Truth Social platform Friday, writing that it “would be the end of the Presidency as we know it” if the judge’s ruling is allowed to stand.
He repeated his claims that the case was an “illegitimate political attack” and “nothing but a Rigged Charade” perpetuated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat. He didn’t elaborate on potential next legal moves.
Bragg’s office declined to comment on Merchan’s ruling. Former Manhattan Judge Diane Kiesel said the ruling can’t be appealed under New York law, but Trump nonetheless might try to appeal it. In any event, he can appeal his conviction — a step that can’t be taken until he is sentenced — but he won’t be able to pardon himself. Trump’s case was tried in state court, but presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.
Trump takes office Jan. 20 as the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.
The Republican was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The charges involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016. The payout was made to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with the married Trump years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.
A California appeals court has overturned the rape conviction of former San Francisco 49er Dana Stubblefield after determining prosecutors made racially discriminatory statements during the Black man’s trial.
The retired football player was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in October 2020 after being convicted of raping a developmentally disabled woman in 2015 who prosecutors said he lured to his home with the promise of a babysitting job.
The Sixth Court of Appeals found Wednesday that prosecutors violated the California Racial Justice Act of 2020, a law passed during a summer of protest over the police killing of George Floyd. The measure bars prosecutors from seeking a criminal conviction or imposing a sentence on the basis of race.
Prior to the law, defendants who wanted to challenge their convictions on the basis of racial bias had to prove there was “purposeful discrimination,” a difficult legal standard to meet.
The appeals court said prosecutors used “racially discriminatory language” that required them to overturn Stubblefield’s conviction.
The case was “infected with tremendous error from the minute we started the trial,” said Stubblefield’s lead attorney, Kenneth Rosenfeld.
In April 2015, Stubblefield contacted the then-31-year-old woman on a babysitting website and arranged an interview, prosecutors said.
According to a report by the Morgan Hill Police Department, the interview lasted about 20 minutes. She later received a text from Stubblefield saying he wanted to pay her for her time that day, and she went back to the house.
The woman reported to the police that Stubblefield raped her at gunpoint, then gave her $80 and let her go. DNA evidence matched that of Stubblefield, the report said.
During the trial, prosecutors said police never searched Stubblefield’s house and never introduced a gun into evidence, saying it was because he was famous Black man and it would “open up a storm of controversy,” according to the appellate decision.
By saying Stubblefield’s race was a factor in law enforcement’s decision not to search his house, prosecutors implied the house would’ve been searched and a gun found had Stubblefield not been Black, the appeals court said. The reference to controversy also links Stubblefield to the events after the recent killing of Floyd based on his race.
Defense attorneys said there was no rape, and Stubblefield said the woman consented to sex in exchange for money.
“The trial had a biased judge who didn’t allow the evidence from the defense, the fact that she was a sex worker, to be heard in front of a jury,” Rosenfeld said. He called the incident a “transactional occasion” between Stubblefield and the woman.
He remains in custody until a hearing next week, during which his attorneys will ask a judge to approve a motion to release him. Prosecutors have several options, including asking the court to stay their decision so they can appeal to the state’s Supreme Court, or refile charges.
The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office said it was “studying the opinion.”
Stubblefield began his 11-year lineman career in the NFL with the 49ers in 1993 as the league’s defensive rookie of the year. He later won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1997 before leaving the team to play for Washington. He returned to the Bay Area to finish his career, playing with the 49ers in 2000-01 and the Raiders in 2003.
A nearly two-year investigation by Democratic senators of Supreme Court ethics details more luxury travel by Justice Clarence Thomas and urges Congress to establish a way to enforce a new code of conduct.
Any movement on the issue appears unlikely as Republicans prepare to take control of the Senate in January, underscoring the hurdles in imposing restrictions on a separate branch of government even as public confidence in the court has fallen to record lows.
The 93-page report released Saturday by the Democratic majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee found additional travel taken in 2021 by Thomas but not reported on his annual financial disclosure form: a private jet flight to New York’s Adirondacks in July and jet and yacht trip to New York City sponsored by billionaire Harlan Crow in October, one of more than two dozen times detailed in the report that Thomas took luxury travel and gifts from wealthy benefactors.
The court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023, but it leaves compliance to each of the nine justices.
“The highest court in the land can’t have the lowest ethical standards,” the committee chairman, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, said in a statement. He has long called for an enforceable code of ethics.
Republicans protested the subpoenas authorized for Crow and others as part of the investigation. No Republicans signed on to the final report, and no formal report from them was expected.
A spokesman for Crow said he voluntarily agreed to provide information for the investigation, which did not pinpoint any specific instances of undue influence. Crow said in a statement that Thomas and his wife Ginni had been unfairly maligned. “They are good and honorable people and no one should be treated this way,” he said.
Attorney Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Thomas who has been tapped for the incoming Trump administration, said the report was aimed at conservatives whose rulings Democrats disagreed with.
“This entire investigation was never about ‘ethics’ but about trying to undermine the Supreme Court,” Paoletta said in a statement posted on X.
The court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thomas has said he was not required to disclose the trips that he and his wife took with Crow because the big donor is a close friend of the family and disclosure of that type of travel was not previously required. The new ethics code does explicitly require it, and Thomas has since gone back and reported some travel.
The report traces back to Justice Antonin Scalia, saying he “established the practice” of accepting undisclosed gifts and hundreds of trips over his decades on the bench. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and retired Justice Stephen Breyer also took subsided trips but disclosed them on their annual forms, it said.
It also detailed a 2008 luxury trip to Alaska taken by Justice Samuel Alito. He has said he was exempted from disclosing the trip under previous ethical rules.
Alito also declined calls to withdraw from cases involving Donald Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after flags associated with the riot were seen flying at two of Alito’s homes. Alito has said the flags were raised by this wife.
Thomas has ignored calls to step aside from cases involving Trump, too. Ginni Thomas supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The report also pointed to scrutiny of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade. Justices have also heard cases involving their book publishers, or involving companies in which justices owned stock.
The investigation found that Thomas has accepted gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors worth more than $4.75 million by some estimates since his 1991 confirmation and failed to disclose much of it. “The number, value, and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” according to the report.
Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early Saturday of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, dropping President-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season. But the day’s outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now.”
The House approved Johnson’s new bill overwhelmingly, 366-34. The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just after the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.
“This is a good outcome for the country, ” Johnson said after the House vote, adding he had spoken with Trump and the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”
President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process throughout a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law Saturday.
“There will be no government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. And it raised stark questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry GOP colleagues, and work alongside Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.
Trump’s last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around his pressure for a debt ceiling increase. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass any funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to slash the federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.
Instead, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” scoffed Musk on social media ahead of the vote.
The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.
Gone is Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
It’s essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demand.
But it’s far smaller than the original bipartisan accord Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.
House Democrats were cool to the latest effort after Johnson reneged on the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.
TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agreed to sell it.
Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged the justices to step in before the law’s Jan. 19 deadline. A similar plea was filed by content creators who rely on the platform for income and some of TikTok’s more than 170 million users in the U.S.
“A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,” lawyers for the companies told the Supreme Court.
President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a ban but then pledged during the campaign to “save TikTok,” said his administration would take a look at the situation.
“As you know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. His campaign saw the platform as a way to reach younger, less politically engaged voters.
Trump was meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly about them and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The companies have said that a shutdown lasting just a month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.
The case could attract the court’s interest because it pits free speech rights against the government’s stated aims of protecting national security, while raising novel issues about social media platforms.
The request first goes to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals from courts in the nation’s capital. He almost certainly will seek input from all nine justices.
On Friday, a panel of federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied an emergency plea to block the law, a procedural ruling that allowed the case to move to the Supreme Court.
The same panel had earlier unanimously upheld the law over a First Amendment challenge claiming that it violated free speech rights.
Without a court-ordered freeze, the law would take effect Jan. 19 and expose app stores that offer TikTok and internet hosting services that support it to potential fines.
It would be up to the Justice Department to enforce the law, investigating possible violations and seeking sanctions. But lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance have argued that Trump’s Justice Department might pause enforcement or otherwise seek to mitigate the law’s most severe consequences. Trump takes office a day after the law goes into effect.
The Supreme Court could temporarily put the law on hold so that the justices can give fuller consideration to First Amendment and other issues. They also could quickly schedule arguments and try to render a decision by Jan. 19.
On the other hand, the high court could reject the emergency appeal, which would allow the law to take effect as scheduled.
With that last prospect in mind, the companies’ lawyers asked for a ruling on their emergency request by Jan. 6 because they’d need the time “to coordinate with their service providers to perform the complex task of shutting down the TikTok platform only in the United States.”
The case has made a relatively quick trip through the courts once bipartisan majorities in Congress approved the law and President Joe Biden signed it in April.
A federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok as soon as next month, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company’s challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”
TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, though its unclear whether the court will take up the case.
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he argued the statute “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”
Though the case is squarely in the court system, it’s also possible the two companies might be thrown some sort of a lifeline by President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against such action.
“He wants to save TikTok,” Rep. Michael Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, said Friday during an interview on Fox Business.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a yearslong saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China.
The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect. The European Union on Friday expressed similar concerns as it investigates intelligence that suggests Russia possibly abused the platform to influence the elections in Romania.
Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2025/01/14 15:46
