BREAKING: A federal judge DISMISSES the DNC's lawsuit against the Trump campaign, Russia, WikiLeaks et al. with prejudice, and DENIES the Trump campaign's sanctions motion.
@CourthouseNews As for the "second-level participants" in the alleged racketeering scheme, Koeltl says that they are shielded by the First Amendment from liability related to disseminating the stolen emails.
@CourthouseNews Judge Koeltl, a Clinton appointee, cited the Pentagon Papers case in finding that there could not be liability for the publication of stolen materials.
@CourthouseNews "If @WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them 'secret' and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet."
-Judge Koeltl on 1A concerns
@CourthouseNews@wikileaks DEVELOPING story for @CourthouseNews on the ruling dismissing the DNC's suit. Still awaiting comment from many of the parties, and a new update is in the editing queue.
DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson just sent me this statement.
Story will be updated soon.
From Roger Stone’s attorney, with echoes of George Papadopoulos’s attorney’s statement.
This statement from Trump is misleading.
The judge did not say the DNC case was “entirely divorced” from the facts. He wrote that the DNC’s claim that Trump campaign and Russia conspired in the hack itself was “entirely divorced” from what they alleged in the lawsuit.
The distinction is subtle but important.
Judges don’t decide the facts on a motion to dismiss. They rule on whether the allegations represent a plausible claim.
Final updates coming up soon.
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Lineberger's case was filed in the Southern District of Florida's Fort Pierce division, virtually guaranteeing a favorable judicial assignment for Trump DOJ.
Instead of Cannon, the case goes to newly minted Judge Ed Artau, who has this tangled history. politico.com/news/2025/06/2…
Trump DOJ opposes the release of SPLC grand jury transcripts, but what the memo *doesn't* say speaks volumes. Feds don't dispute the SPLC's account of the Trump admin's "gross misrepresentations" about the informant program.
Instead, the US Attorney says that's "not relevant."
Why that matters.🧵
The SPLC's motion seeking the grand jury records rattled off a series of "false statements" by Trump and his surrogates about Charlottesville and the informants program.
By the DOJ's own account, the SPLC's informant program was cheap and effective.
For a fraction of a *percentage* of their annual budget, SPLC penetrated the nation's worst hate groups and published their secrets with info from their turncoats.
The DOJ's case assumes donors felt defrauded by this. buff.ly/cwTnYg6
The Trump DOJ alleges that the SPLC spent about $3 million on informants over the course of a *decade.*
Check out of the SPLC's revenue and expenditures from 2024, the last fiscal year records were public. That's a typical year, and it's a drop in the bucket. projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/org…
In return, SPLC infiltrated the KKK, the neo-Nazis, and other extremist groups, and they shared their secrets with federal law enforcement until Kash Patel put an end to that last October.
Two Trump appointees on the D.C. Circuit panel blocked Boasberg from even INVESTIGATING contempt of court related to the March 2025 flights to El Salvador.
The dissent: "Without the contempt power, the rule of law is an illusion, a theory that stands upon shifting sands."
This is the second time Judges Rao and Walker granted a writ of mandamus, an "extraordinary" rebuke of a lower court judge.
But Walker went out of the way to praise Boasberg, saying he was in a tough spot even as Walker overruled him.
The nuance here will be important to note in light of the Trump DOJ's campaign to vilify Boasberg, whose D.C. Circuit peers largely stood up for him even when his rulings didn't hold.