My Life in Williamson County
Since moving from East Tennessee to the Nashville area a few months ago, one of the biggest differences we have noticed is that people are better informed and more engaged; the local newspaper (the Williamson Herald) actually resembles a newspaper, as opposed to the Daily Times‘ reprinting press releases from favored agencies and NGOs; and the body of conservative residents is robust and vocal. Unlike in Blount County, the local Republican Party is active and holds public events. There are multiple conservative groups, social media sites, and blogs. The local chapters of the Republican Women–there are two, unlike in Blount County–welcome members and do not shun bona fide Republicans with whom they disagree.
The shopping and restaurants are better, and the entertainment options (especially live music venues) are comparable to those we enjoyed for many years in Austin.
But the best thing about living in Williamson County is that I can participate as an in-studio guest on the Michael Patrick Leahy show on the John Fredericks Network (locally on WENO 760 am and streamed on X and Spotify). I used to participate by phone and Zoom when I lived in Maryville, but now I am an “All-Star Panelist” from 10-11:00 am every Monday. Michael also runs Star News Digital Media, which includes the Tennessee Star. In addition to covering state and local news, Michael addresses cutting-edge national issues with his hour-long podcasts at Michael Patrick Leahy Interviews, and produces feature-length documentaries at Michael Patrick Leahy Investigates.
Here is what Michael and I talked about this morning on the show:
John Bolton Search Warrant
As reported in the Tennessee Star and elsewhere, on Friday (8/22), the FBI conducted a search (some anti-Trump media outlets referred to it as a “raid”) of the Bethesda, Maryland home of John Bolton, former National Security Advisor for 17 months in the first Trump administration. The search was conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal magistrate judge in Maryland. The Tennessee Star reported that “Officials said the search of Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home involved a national security case that began under the Biden administration but wasn’t aggressively pursued until Patel took over earlier this year. They declined to be more specific.”
Despite having briefly served under Trump 1.0, Bolton was eventually dismissed under acrimonious circumstances and became a vocal critic of President Trump and a vehement opponent of the appointment of Kash Patel to be FBI Director. A disgruntled Bolton applauded the FBI’s unprecedented raid on Mar-A-Lago.
The Trump 1.0 DOJ had objected to Bolton’s failure to obtain clearance for his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, due to concerns that it contained classified information. Like all federal employees holding sensitive positions, Bolton signed agreements requiring him not to use or possess classified information, and to obtain pre-publication review of any books he wrote that might refer to such information.
The Biden DOJ dropped the criminal proceedings after Biden’s bogus election in 2020. As reported in the Tennessee Star, “The federal judge allowed Bolton to move forward with publishing the book, but ruled that he “likely published classified materials” and “exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability.”
Bolton has long had a reputation as a leaker. While serving in previous Republican administrations, he was hated by the left as a neo-conservative war monger. In fact, when Bolton was aligned with the GOP, prominent Democrats called for him to be investigated. The Atlantic ran an article entitled “Nobody Likes John Bolton.” Adam Schiff questioned his patriotism. Nancy Pelosi called him a “disgrace.” The left despised him and enthusiastically applauded every element of the spurious lawfare against President Trump.
But when a judicially-authorized search warrant was executed on his home, the liberals circled the wagons and declared Bolton a victim of retaliatory lawfare and accused the Trump 2.0 DOJ of conducting a witch hunt. This is utter hypocrisy. Bolton is being investigated for serious violations of national security laws, such as the Espionage Act, unlike the farcical investigations and prosecutions that President Trump endured.
Legal expert Mike Davis, who has close ties to the Trump administration, has suggested that the search warrant was prompted by far more than disputes over Bolton’s book. Bolton might have been involved in the trafficking of classified documents, details of which will eventually be released when the affidavit supporting the search warrant is made public. If true, this would be a serious crime with the potential for a lengthy prison sentence. This could be a warm-up for prosecutions of Russiagate conspirators. DOJ officials in Trump 2.0 believe that no one is above the law, and that justice demands the even-handed enforcement of laws.
This jackal-like pack behavior reminds me of the left’s 180 degree reversal on the Cheney family. Many liberals were calling for former VP Dick Cheney to be prosecuted for war crimes, until he and his daughter Liz Cheney came out as outspoken critics of Donald Trump. Then the left swooned, or pretended to, because the Cheneys had become useful idiots to the left.
Justice Gorsuch’s Concurring Opinion
The legal tide is turning in favor of President Trump. Last week an appeals court in New York threw out the half-billion dollar verdict in the trumped up civil fraud case against Trump for real estate loans that were fully-repaid, without complaint of injury to the lending banks. NY Attorney General Letitia James has egg on her face.
Even more importantly, SCOTUS is beginning to slap down rogue district court judges who issue rulings trying to thwart the President’s agenda. As the Tennessee Star has reported, in a 5-4 ruling on Thursday (with Chief Justice Roberts joining the liberal bloc), the Court allowed the Trump administration to block DEI-related granted at the National Institutes of Health totaling nearly $800 million. Lower court had blocked the action. The case was NIH v. American Public Health Association. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a103_kh7p.pdf
Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the majority opinion but issued a remarkable separate concurring opinion, which has been widely quoted. Here are some highlights:
Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them….“[U]nless we wish anarchy to prevail within the federal judicial system, a precedent of this Court must be followed by the lower federal courts no matter how misguided the judges of those courts may think it to be.” Hutto v. Davis, 454 U. S. 370, 375 (1982) (per curiam)….[W]hen this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.
If nothing else, the promise of our legal system that like cases are treated alike means that a lower court ought not invoke the “persuasive authority” of a dissent or a repudiated court of appeals decision to reach a different conclusion on an equivalent record….
If the district court’s failure to abide by California were a one-off, perhaps it would not be worth writing to address it. But two months ago another district court tried to “compel compliance” with a different “order that this Court ha[d] stayed.” (KAGAN, J., concurring) Still another district court recently diverged from one of this Court’s decisions even though the case at hand did not differ “in any pertinent respect” from the one this Court had decided. So this is now the third time in a matter of weeks this Court has had to intercede in a case “squarely controlled” by one of its precedents. All these interventions should have been unnecessary, but together they underscore a basic tenet of our judicial system: Whatever their own views, judges are duty-bound to respect “the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress.” Hutto, 454 U. S., at 375.
This is why the Supreme Court is called “supreme”: it is the final and controlling arbiter of legal issues involving federal laws or the Constitution. Lower courts must obey or they are scofflaws.
This was a brutal smackdown of defiant rogue judges, and it indicates that the Court has lost its patience with impudent, insolent activists legislating from the bench. The judicial insurrection that began shortly after President Trump took office in January is coming to an end.
There was nothing controversial in Gorsuch’s opinion; it is basic civics, drawn explicitly from the structure of Article III, which created a Supreme Court and such “inferior” courts as Congress may create. Marbury v. Madison, going all the way back to 1803, recognized the Supreme Court’s authority to determine the meaning of federal laws.
But Gorsuch’s opinion was not just a rebuke to Biden and Obama-appointed judges trying to derail the President’s authority. It was also a reminder to the fringe figures on the right who peddle the nonsensical theory of “nullification,” which gives aid and comfort to the left-wing judges and blue state governors who defy federal law and the Supreme Court’s rulings. Here in Tennessee, legislation has been repeatedly introduced (albeit unsuccessfully) that would allow state judges, the governor, and the legislature to ignore federal laws and Supreme Court rulings with which they disagree.
This would create precisely the type of chaos, anarchy, and disrespect for the law that Gorsuch condemned in his concurring opinion. The next time you hear a state legislator parroting the quack rhetoric of the John Birch Society on nullification, remember the judicial insurrection that tried to thwart the historic agenda of the Trump 2.0 administration.
John Hinderaker at Power Line had this to say about Gorsuch’s opinion:
“Democratic Party loyalist judges are mounting a rebellion–one might say, an insurrection–against the rule of law. They are trying to serve their party by impeding the Trump administration even where there is no good faith legal basis for doing so. This is an outrage. It won’t get as much public attention as other bad faith conduct by the Democratic Party, but it should.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/08/democrats-make-war-on-the-rule-of-law.php
Ghislaine Maxwell Interview Transcript
And, speaking of nonsense being peddled on the right, we can finally tune out the absurd accusations that President Trump was implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The DOJ released the transcript of Deputy AG Todd Blanche’s interview of Epstein’s girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for procuring underage girls for Epstein. Maxwell debunked the notion that Epstein was working for Mossad, that Donald Trump ever acted inappropriately, that Epstein engaged in blackmail, or that there was a “client list.” This is just another hoax to undermine President Trump. https://www.foxnews.com/us/ghislaine-maxwell-says-no-jeffrey-epstein-client-list-exists-doj-releases-interview-recordings
MAGA supporters in Tennessee should tune in.
