President Donald Trump's drive to keep Jack Smith's report on his alleged illegal activity secret could be undone by his own Justice Department's push to release recordings of former President Joe Biden.Two transparency groups filed briefs with a federal appeals court this week, asking it to lift the order blocking the public release of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents.The groups — American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University — argue the appeals court has both the power and the obligation to act, according to reply briefs filed in the 11th Circuit.Court records show the report has been blocked from public release since January 2025, when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, sitting in Florida, barred the Justice Department from releasing it to protect the fair-trial rights of Trump's co-defendants, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. The criminal case collapsed weeks later — but Cannon made the order permanent in February 2026 anyway.Earlier this year, according to court filings, Trump's Justice Department reversed a years-long policy. It moved to release audio recordings of Biden's private conversations with his biographer, framing the move as a push for government transparency. Trump personally pushed to make the recordings available as a part of his years-long smear campaign against the former president."I'd like to see it," Trump said at a May Cabinet meeting. "The man was grossly incompetent."Biden sued to block the release. On July 21, according to CBS News, a federal appeals court in Washington denied his request in a 2-1 ruling, finding he had not shown that privacy laws barred the recordings from disclosure."If the government does not oppose that motion, and the court grants it, that information, no matter its public import, will remain forever hidden because there is no avenue for a third party to challenge the order," American Oversight wrote in its reply brief, calling the Biden case "curiously familiar" and turning the ruling directly against Trump's injunction.The Washington court had also found that the public holds a "weighty" and "significant" interest in scrutinizing special counsel investigations — even when no charges are brought, American Oversight noted. The group argued that interest is even stronger when charges were filed, and a prosecution proceeded before the case collapsed.The Knight First Amendment Institute separately noted in its own reply brief that neither Trump's legal team nor the Justice Department has attempted to argue that the public's right of access has been overcome — and that silence, the group argued, is enough for the court to rule against them.The 11th Circuit now holds the question.
The Biden administration's war on conservatives, especially Catholics and prolife advocates, was swift and brutal.
The post Prolife Dad Arrested at Gunpoint by Biden Regime Reaches Settlement with Trump DOJ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Ahead of late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s memorial services, communications experts weighed in on a “classy” tribute offered by Monica Lewinsky. Following the sudden death of […]
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized socialists for doing “dangerous things” to the Democratic Party, and called out New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “You know, he’s [Mamdani] a clown,” Fetterman said on CNBC’s Squawk Box Tuesday. “These are crazy people. And now they are electing people across our country, ya know, Colorado, even in my […]
Watching carefully what Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, with an overlay of his contacts and travel itinerary, it appears the next phase in Ukraine weapon production will be to build missile and long-range drones outside Ukraine. That is to say outside the reach of proactive Russian attack. Zelenskyy travelled to Portsmouth, U.K., today for a meeting with […]
The post Wait, What? Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Intends to Build Drone and Missile Factory in U.K (Portsmouth) appeared first on The Last Refuge.
Sen. Mitch McConnell's this week released another photo claiming to show him on the road to recovery, but according to one professional psychologist, the photo is still littered with "red flags" that cast doubt on his condition.McConnell has been hospitalized since mid-June after reportedly being found unconscious at his home. Due to his office's lack of transparency about his condition, conspiracy theories have exploded about his true health status, including claims that he is close to death or dead already, and that his status is being hidden to prevent a special election for his Senate seat.In the latest statement released by his office, McConnell claimed that he was still undergoing intensive physical therapy at home after being discharged from the hospital, and was not yet cleared by his doctors to return to the Senate.In a new video reacting to the photo, Dr. John Paul Garrison, a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with a specialty in body language, highlighted the numerous "red flags" that were still evident in the photo.First and foremost, Garrison noted that the composition of the photo was deliberately chosen to keep McConnell's hands out of frame, to hide any possible "edemas" that they might show, or anything else concerning about them. He also noted that, in general, the photo was designed to answer as few questions about the senator as possible, and communicate only that he is alive and smiling."They don't want you to ask any other questions; they don't want to give any other information," Garrison said.He also noted that, just like in the first photo, McConnell and his wife are looking in two different directions, a notable point of concern. However, this time around, he admitted that it was much less obvious, and that a casual viewing of the photo would not suggest anything was wrong with where they were looking. Chao, he explained, appeared to be properly looking at the camera being used to take the photo. McConnell, in contrast, appeared to be looking instead at the person taking the photo."Once again, this is the best that they could do," he explained. "It doesn't seem that they're able to get him to be with it enough to take a decent photo."Chao, Garrison observed, also appeared to be applying a good amount of pressure as she held her husband's arm in the photo. This suggested that she was putting in effort to keep him still, either because he could not manage to do so himself, or because he might be struggling to sit up properly."The amount of pressure that she has on his arm right there is not affection," Garrison argued. "This is not demonstrating closeness. This is demonstrating that she is providing stability."McConnell also appeared to have the top button on his shirt undone, despite typically having his shirts buttoned all the way up. Garrison said that this could be a sign that his team wanted to have that area of his body easily accessible, which could be for a number of medical reasons. It could also be because the senator would not be comfortable with it done up all the way."I think that tells you just how precarious this situation is," Garrison continued. "And to use the word I used last time, just how fragile he actually is. I think that McConnell is so fragile and so frail that they did some very, very subtle trickery to try to show some degree of liveliness. I do think that this is a very, very carefully positioned picture, and it doesn't show robustness or strength. It just shows that he is alive, basically."
The Department of Justice’s own witness is undermining its case against David Hearn, the former Olympic canoeist charged with vandalizing and damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.According to court documents, a grand jury witness for the government said that the pool was damaged before Hearn even approached it. NBC News reports that this witness was the only person who testified about damage to the pool.Hearn, who has pleaded not guilty, maintains that “the condition of the Reflecting Pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there,” and that he only touched a part of the pool’s detached coating. President Trump claims that vandals used a knife or blade to cause a “gash” in the pool’s lining, but has no evidence to back up his claim.Hearn has been charged with destruction of property, a felony, and accused of causing $1,000 worth of damage to the pool. His lawyers question the evidence behind that claim, noting that the alleged cost is the necessary threshold to charge him with a felony. At least three other people have been charged with misdemeanors related to incidents at the pool.Hearn’s lawyers said that the government’s main witness testimony “established that the pool had substantial preexisting damage requiring repair before any alleged conduct by Mr. Hearn.”“The government’s only witness on that element testified that the property was already deteriorated, that the identified repairs would have been needed even without Mr. Hearn’s alleged conduct, and that he could not quantify any loss caused by that conduct,” they continued. “Consequently, the grand jury’s indictment of Mr. Hearn is hard to explain. Mr. Hearn needs to learn whether the grand jury was properly instructed that the charge required him to have caused over $1,000 in damages, when the testimony failed to establish that he caused any damage at all. So does this Court.”It would seem like the government’s case may soon fall apart, just like the pool lining, which was likely damaged by President Trump in the first place.
