Misrule of Law

There are always plenty of legal outrages (and highlights) to discuss on the Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

First, N.Y. Attorney General Letitia “Big Tish” James’ tenant in her rental property in Virginia—the one that the E.D. Va. grand jury found she had procured through mortgage fraud–was revealed to be a relative who happened to be a repeat offender on the lam from North Carolina! Was Big Tish harboring a fugitive?

Nakia Thompson, Big Tish’s grandniece, has been living in the rental property with her four children since 2020, according to the New York Post. The Post reports that “Thompson is officially listed as an “absconder” who is wanted by authorities in Forsyth County, North Carolina, for failing to finish her probation.” The Post adds: “‘Ms. Thompson was sentenced to probation for misdemeanor convictions for assault and battery and trespassing, and has willfully avoided probation supervision,’ Keith Acree from the North Carolina Department of Corrections told the Daily Mail.” Thompson was arrested twice for assaulting police officers.

Another relative living in another of Big Tish’s houses, Cayla Thompson-Hairston, is “an OnlyFans star with a public, X-rated social media presence — [who] was charged in April 2024 with lying about her felony criminal record when she tried to buy a gun in Suffolk, Virginia, according to court docs,” according to the Post.

New York’s Attorney General epitomizes the sleaze and hypocrisy that characterize the leadership of the nation’s blue states and blue cities. In a democracy, voters get the government they deserve. New York may be content with electing criminals, fraudsters, and lowlifes, but red state Americans deserve better. MAGA!

Second, as reported in the Tennessee Star, former National Security Advisor John Bolton was indicted by a grand jury in Maryland for 18 counts of improperly handling classified information. Legal experts such as law professor Jonathan Turley believe that Bolton may be in serious trouble. The evidence was strong enough that Bolton was being investigated by the Biden administration prior to the 2024 election. The facts alleged in the 18-count indictment are damning. Prosecutors claim that while serving as National Security Advisor Bolton routinely sent “diary entries” consisting of his notes of classified meetings, and totaling more than 1,000 pages, via unsecured and unencrypted email to unidentified recipients. According to the indictment, Bolton’s email was hacked by Iran in 2021, but he did not reveal to the government that he had shared classified information through the account or that the hackers now had possession of government secrets. When the FBI searched his home and office pursuant to a warrant, they found “highly sensitive national security” information.

The 76-year-old Bolton is likely to be convicted and sentenced to prison. Who’s next? Former Special Counsel Jack Smith? Former CIA Director John Brennan? Former FBI Director Christopher Wray? Claims that President Trump is being “vindictive” and “retaliating” against his political opponents by “weaponizing” the justice system were debunked recently by Roger Kimball in an article entitled “Trump inherited a weaponized justice system.” Kimball reminds us of the many victims of the Democrats’ witch hunts:  “Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Jeffrey Clark and George Papadopoulos…, [and] the more than 1,200 people convicted over the January 6 protest at the Capitol.” Kimball regards President Trump’s prosecution of culpable Democrats as “necessary purgative”:

Here is the moral of the story. Deterrence works only because there lurks in the background a credible threat of retaliation. Before Trump, Republicans were too lily-livered to mount any such threat. Would it be better if an incoming administration did not set about indicting its predecessors? Yes. Which is why the President’s vigorous effort to call to account those who waged lawfare against him is a necessary purgative. If vigorously pursued, it may just reset the conventions and courtesies of our political life. (Emphasis added.)

Third, in Chicago, a “sanctuary” for illegal aliens, where the city and state governments are in a state of rebellion against the Trump administration, and where ICE agents are under siege at the Broadview facility by Antifa and violent mobs, Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt has ordered the fencing protecting ICE Agents at the Broadview facility to be removed. (Of course, as her name might suggest, LaShonda Hunt is a black woman. 63% of Biden’s 235 judicial appointments were women, and 60% were people of color. Biden appointed 40 black women to the federal bench, including the notorious Ketanji Brown Jackson, discussed below.)

Blue cities such as Portland and Chicago are condoning civil unrest in defiance of ICE’s attempts to apprehend illegal aliens. It is appalling that a federal judge would order that ICE personnel trying to protect themselves must be exposed to violent protesters.

Fourth, speaking of affirmative action judicial appointments resulting in left-wing activists  being installed as rogue judges, in the District of Columbia a Biden-appointed Superior Court judge, Kendra Briggs, granted probation (with no jail time!) to two of the thugs who brutally assaulted and attempted to carjack Edward Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer who was nicknamed “Big Balls.”

The two defendants, a male and female both 15 years old, were the only participants in the mob who staged the unprovoked, bloody attack who were apprehended. Both of the defendants pleaded guilty to the charges in juvenile court. The male pleaded guilty to felony assault, simple assault, robbery and attempted robbery related to the incident, while the girl pleaded guilty to simple assault. The male got 12 months of probation, and the female got 9 months.

Judge Briggs explained the lenient sentence by saying that juvenile court’s purpose isn’t to punish, but rather to rehabilitate. The feral gang left the 19-year-old Coristine with a concussion and a broken nose. A slap on the wrist is inappropriate for a violent assault, regardless of the age of the offenders. They deserved jail time. The vicious assault on a former DOGE staffer was one of the reasons cited by President Trump for federalizing law enforcement in D.C. The lenient treatment of criminal creates a “broken windows” effect that promotes lawlessness due to a perception that chaos is acceptable and no one is in charge. This is the sad state of America’s blue cities.

Fifth, in a further display of judicial unfitness by a Biden-appointed judge, during the oral    argument in a Voting Rights Act case (Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais), Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that race should be a consideration when drawing congressional districts because black people are systemically “disabled” and don’t have proper access to voting systems. Her statement shocked observers as both racist and wildly inapposite. Jackson drew a comparison between the redistricting cases in question and physical accessibility to buildings under the Americans with Disabilities Act. As reported in The Federalist, KBJ used this faulty comparison to bolster her underlying argument that past race-based discrimination should allow for a present race-based remedy. (Imagine the blowback if a white Justice said that blacks were “disabled” because they couldn’t manage to vote effectively.)

Even during her short tenure on the Court (since June 30, 2022), KBJ has earned the reputation as one of the least intelligent Justices to serve in recent decades—and the Justice who also espouses the most overtly-political left-wing positions. Recall that during her confirmation hearing KBJ said that she could not answer Senator Marsha Blackburn’s question to define “what is a woman?” on the grounds that she is “not a biologist.”

When Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement in 2022, President Biden vowed to replace him with a black woman. KBJ got the nod. Biden first made this commitment in 2020, when his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President was foundering. (Biden lost the Iowa caucuses and Bernie Sanders beat Biden in the New Hampshire and Nevada primaries.) Observers speculate that Biden promised influential South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn to appoint a black woman to the Court in exchange for Clyburn’s support in the crucial South Carolina primary. The deal paid off for Biden. After a series of losses, Biden won in South Carolina and went on to become the Democrat nominee.

Instead of selecting the most qualified candidate, Biden picked KBJ as an affirmative action hire.

Sixth, and finally, in the “good news” department, citizens in northern Virginia came to the aid of beleaguered parents who were trying to vindicate their sons from the madness of the Loudoun County Public Schools. The parents were nearly crushed under the boot heel of a left-wing federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton, Leonie Brikema. First, the backstory:  

Loudoun County is a liberal suburb of Washington, D.C. Its public school system is very woke. You may remember the father who was arrested a few years ago at a school board meeting while speaking out against his teenage daughter’s sexual assault by a “transgender” in a school rest room. The “transgender” later sexually assaulted another female student at a different school. That was Loudoun County. (Fortunately, Republican Governor Glenn Younkin granted the father a complete pardon.)

In defiance of President Trump’s executive orders, the LCPS continues to allow biological females to use locker rooms and bathrooms reserved for biological males, and vice versa. A biological female “identifying” as a male went into a male-only locker room at LCPS’s Stone Bridge High School and videoed some of the male students. According to news reports, “In that video, … the boys can be heard questioning why the female student was in the boys’ locker room and saying they are uncomfortable.” For this, two male students were suspended and found guilty of violating Title IX on the grounds that they discriminated against and sexually harassed the female classmate for objecting to her presence in the boys-only locker room, filming them! This is both Orwellian and Kafka-esque.

The U.S. Department of Education found that the LCPS had violated Title IX by retaliating against the two male students. But the suspension and ruling by LCPS stood, so the parents had to file suit in federal court. This is where they encountered Judge Leonie Brikema, the 81-year-old left-wing Clinton appointee. She issued a ruling that the parents must file a massive ($125,000) bond within days in order to proceed with the lawsuit—to cover the LCPS’s legal fees in the event that the parents did not prevail. The activist judge was obviously trying to bully the parents into dropping their lawsuit because she was aligned with the LCPS’s scofflaw attitude toward President Trump’s executive orders on Title IX.

Here’s the good news: With the help of Laura Ingraham and other conservative media figures, the parents were able to crowd source $130,000 within a matter of days, allowing the lawsuit to proceed. This case perfectly illustrates the damage that a single rogue judge can inflict on the rule of law. Fortunately, community sentiment supported the parents.

Rogue federal judges must be brought to heel, by either the Roberts Court or Congress (through impeachment or legislation).