Category Archives: Law (US)

Felicity Huffman among dozens charged over admissions fraud at top US schools

Posted on by

Scheme helped wealthy Americans buy their children’s way into elite universities including Yale, Georgetown and Stanford

US federal prosecutors have charged the Hollywood actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, along with almost 50 other people, over a $25m scheme to help wealthy Americans buy their children’s way into elite universities including Yale, Georgetown, Stanford and the University of Southern California.

Huffman appeared in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon, where a magistrate judge said she could be released on a $250,000 bond. The judge ordered the Desperate Housewives star to restrict her travel to the continental United States. Huffman’s husband, the actor William H Macy, attended his wife’s initial court appearance. He has not been charged and authorities have not said why.

Continue reading...

Trump’s legacy: conservative judges who will interpret US law for decades

Posted on by

Senate Republicans have confirmed 89 Trump-nominated judges to serve at all levels of the federal court system

Many Americans watching the turmoil in US institutions and political norms are yearning for the day when Donald Trump is no longer president. But whether he leaves after 2020 or 2024, Trump has built a legacy in one vital area that can be expected to stand for decades, long after his Twitter feed has fallen silent, analysts across the political spectrum agree.

That legacy comprises the 89 judges, and rapidly counting, that Trump has nominated, and Senate Republicans have confirmed, to serve at all levels of the federal court system. They are taking up posts from the district courts (53 Trump nominees confirmed out of 677 total) to the appellate courts (34 out of 179) to the US supreme court (two out of nine). Put together they form a kind of conservative judicial revolution that could impact all aspects of American life.

Continue reading...

Trump might have a solid case for emergency declaration, analysts say

Posted on by

Though Trump himself suggested there is no real emergency, courts are unlikely to second-guess a presidents’ broad leeway

Many legal analysts who watched Donald Trump declare a national emergency over immigration on Friday thought the president had weak legal grounds for doing so. In particular, many thought Trump hurt his own case by admitting, right there in the White House Rose Garden: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

“This quote should be the first sentence of the first paragraph of every complaint filed this afternoon,” tweeted George Conway, a top Washington lawyer and the husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway.

Continue reading...

El Chapo’s wife aided in 2015 prison break, cartel member testifies

Posted on by

Dámaso López Núñez told the jury at Guzmán’s trial that Emma Coronel Aispuro ‘was giving us his orders’

The wife of the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán played a key role in his infamous 2015 escape from prison through a tunnel dug into the shower of his cell, one of Guzmán’s top lieutenants told a court in New York.

Dámaso López Núñez told the jury at Guzmán’s trial that Emma Coronel Aispuro helped her husband trade messages with his sons and others who coordinated the breakout at Altiplano prison in central Mexico.

Continue reading...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses supreme court arguments for first time in 25 years

Posted on by

Court spokeswoman says Ginsburg, 85, is working from home as she recuperates from cancer surgery last month

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on Monday missing supreme court arguments for the first time in more than 25 years, as she recuperates from cancer surgery last month, the court said.

Ginsburg was not on the bench as the court met to hear arguments. It was not clear when she would return to the court, which will hear more cases on Tuesday and Wednesday and again next week.

Continue reading...