Tag Archives: Sarah K. Burris

Raw Story: Gavin Newsom calls out Trump’s ‘dementia’ after he repeats wildfire conspiracy theory

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Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) accused President Donald Trump of having dementia because he keeps repeating the same lie over and over again.

The conspiracy theory is that Newsom somehow wasn’t releasing a flood of water that could be used to extinguish the wildfires in Southern California. Somehow he was sitting on tons of water that could be used to fight the fires that comes from snow runoff.

According to Trump, the entire wildfire in Southern California would never have happened to begin with due to sprinklers.

“You wouldn’t have had the fire because all the sprinklers would’ve worked in the houses,” said Trump.

Homes don’t have fire suppression sprinkler systems. Large structures do.

“Forty-six states have completely removed the sprinkler requirements for one- and two-family homes,” said the National Association of Home Builders.

As one fact-check, from CNN, explained, “This is false. Newsom has never refused to sign a ‘water restoration declaration.’ In fact, there is no such document, as Newsom’s office said on social media on Wednesday and experts on California water policy confirmed.”

Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow in the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California think tank, told CNN in January, “At no time was water scarcity in general an issue. Rather, there were local shortages of water during the firefight, principally due to infrastructure constraints. But Southern California has plenty of water in storage right now, so this was not a limiting factor.”

Newsom even published comments on the governor’s website from water agencies, water contractors, and a metro water district dispelling Trump’s myth.

Newsom replied to Trump’s post with a screen capture in which he asks the AI site Perplexity whether it’s a sign of dementia to repeat the same “crazy conspiracies” over and over again.

People with dementia often repeat the same statements, questions, and sometimes false or mistaken beliefs, primarily because of memory loss and impaired reasoning. This repetitive behavior can include everyday concerns, but may also involve delusions of persistent falsehoods, such as believing people are stealing from them or thinking they are in danger—sometimes leading to repeated expression of these ideas,” Perplexity wrote, according to Newsom’s screen capture.

Gavin Newsom calls out Trump’s ‘dementia’ after he repeats wildfire conspiracy theory

https://www.rawstory.com/gavin-newsom-trump-2673957391

Raw Story: Ex-general warns Trump using National Guard as ‘catnip’: ‘He needs to put on a show’

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A retired American general tore into President Donald Trump and said his latest threats to send the National Guard into Democratic-run cities are merely a tactic to distract his base and the media, likening it to “catnip.”

Major General William Enyart joined MSNBC on Monday afternoon to discuss Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D) blistering speech, hitting back at Trump’s plans to send troops to Chicago.

“A barnburner of a speech from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who told the people of Illinois in no uncertain terms that what Donald J. Trump plans to do in his city is, ‘unprecedented, illegal, unconstitutional, and un-American,’ urging him publicly with the city’s business, faith and elected officials, ‘Do not come to Chicago,'” noted host Nicolle Wallace.

She added that Pritzker made a “salient, indisputable fact” that 13 of the top 20 cities when it comes to homicide rates are led by Republicans. Additionally, eight Republican-led states have the top homicide rates.

Enyart said Pritzker made a “spot-on speech.”

“Trump desperately needs to cling on to power. And I think the reason that he is taking these actions is distraction, distraction, distraction,” he said.

Enyart then hit back at Trump’s claims with statistics of his own.

“The price of hamburger a year ago today: $5.35 a pound. Hamburger today: $6.98 a pound. That’s a 33% increase. Coffee $6.32 a year ago. Today, it’s $8.41 a pound, another 30-plus percent. Food prices have gone up every single month, but one, since Trump took office,” he noted.

Enyart called out Trump for vowing to drive food prices down.

“Yet another lie. He can’t afford to face truth. And that’s why he has to have distraction,” he railed.

Enyart called Trump’s use of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and proposal to do the same in Chicago simply that.

“He is doing it in order to provide a distraction to his base and to, frankly, to most of the news media so they’ll chase that catnip,” he said, calling Trump’s tariffs a “failure,” along with his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Corn prices have cratered. Corn prices are 40% down from what they were under the Biden administration,” he added.

Soybean prices for farmers, he added, are down more than 50% since Biden’s administration.

” China used to buy 60% of their soybeans from the United States farmers. Today? 20%. Brazil took those. Why? Trump’s tariffs. His policies are incredibly unpopular, and so he needs to put on a show. He is a mastermind at showmanship, and that’s what he is doing.”

See the video below or at the link here.

Ex-general warns Trump using National Guard as ‘catnip’: ‘He needs to put on a show’

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-grocery-prices-2673917522

Raw Story: ‘Resignations seem likely’: Economist predicts investigation of Trump’s $600 billion fail

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President Donald Trump’s administration has published the terms of the trade deal with the European Union, but some of the promises Trump claimed were coming didn’t materialize after all, according to one economics expert.

University of Michigan economics and public policy professor Justin Wolfers wrote on X that after perusing the deal, he discovered Trump’s promise of $600 billion being sent to the U.S. from the E.U. isn’t on the list.

“The most important thing is what’s not there. Trump had boasted, ‘They gave me $600 billion, and that’s a gift.’ But guess what? They didn’t. He didn’t get a penny,” wrote Wolfers. “Bottom line: The final text of the EU-US trade deal delivers $5,000 less to the average American household than the handshake agreement Trump boasted of on August 5.”

“I expect there will be soul-searching, an investigation, and recriminations, as the White House explores how its negotiators fell $600 billion short of the deal the president thought he had struck. Resignations seem likely, and a re-think of the entire deal-making apparatus,” Wolfers added.

The deal mapped out on July 28 promised, “The EU will purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and make new investments of $600 billion in the United States, all by 2028.”

It explained, “The EU will invest $600 billion in the United States over the course of President Trump’s term. This new investment is in addition to the over $100 billion EU companies already invest in the United States every year.”

It appeared again toward the end of the July 28 plan: “The deal bolsters America’s economy and manufacturing capabilities. The EU will purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and make new investments of $600 billion in the United States, all by 2028.”

The Aug. 21 deal changes the language significantly, shifting from a commitment to phrases like “make new investments” and “invest,” and now saying things like they’re “expected to invest.”

“In this context, European companies are expected to invest an additional $600 billion across strategic sectors in the United States through 2028,” the document says, removing the firm commitment. “This investment reflects the European Union’s strong commitment to the transatlantic partnership and its recognition of the United States as the most secure and innovative destination for foreign investment,” the new deal says.

The deal can be read here.

‘Resignations seem likely’: Economist predicts investigation of Trump’s $600 billion fail

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-eu-trade-deal-resignations

Raw Story: ‘Please disregard!’ ICE kills lucrative bonuses within hours of reporters asking questions

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, announced this week that it was offering “cash bonuses” to help meet President Donald Trump’s quotas for deportation targets.

However, The New York Times reported Tuesday that once they started asking questions, the announcement was quickly withdrawn.

ICE announced Tuesday morning it would implement a 30-day pilot program, offering agents a bonus for deporting individuals more quickly. The agreement would pay $200 for each immigrant that a law enforcement officer can deport within seven days of being arrested. They’ll get $100 if they get the migrant out in two weeks, the memo said.

According to the memo, agents are encouraged to “maximize” their bonuses by “using a fast-track process known as expedited removal, which allows immigrants without legal status to be deported without court proceedings.”

It comes at a time when ICE is facing problems in the courts because they are alleging crimes but not allowing the accused the due process allotted to them in the courts.

It took less than four hours for ICE to kill the program.

“PLEASE DISREGARD,” said a follow-up email from Liana J. Castano, an official in ICE’s field operations division, the Times reported.

When the Times requested a comment from the national Department of Homeland Security, the spokesperson said that the program isn’t in effect. The email canceling it was sent out not long after.

The Times said the idea only draws attention to the struggle for the administration to meet aggressive targets. Already, the agency has offered $50,000 signing bonuses as it tries to hire another 10,000 agents.

Trump said during the 2024 campaign that he would only deport criminals, but the administration has done the opposite, arresting people off the street who look like immigrants. The CATO Institute revealed that one in five of those arrested has no criminal history.

In July, a lower court blocked ICE agents from racially profiling the people it was arresting. Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift a temporary restraining order that blocks immigration officers from targeting a person based on their job or the language they’re speaking.

https://www.rawstory.com/ice-cash-bonus

Raw Story: Supreme Court used wrong statute to make monumental birthright citizenship ruling: expert

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Conservative legal scholar Jack Goldsmith revealed that the U.S. Supreme Court relied on an incorrectly cited statute to justify its shocking birthright citizen ruling.

Goldsmith, a former United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel under the George W. Bush administration, wrote that the decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett contained a key error, as Slate legal reporter Mark Joseph Stern summarized.

“Justice Barrett’s opinion in the universal injunction case rests on an error: For the purposes of historical analysis, she looked at the wrong statute and got the relevant date wrong by nearly *a century,*” wrote Stern on Bluesky Tuesday.

Goldsmith’s analysis looked at 18 interim orders that deal specifically with President Donald Trump’s administration. Notably, he specified that the cases involving a kind of ban on universal injunctions came amid lower courts’ efforts to temporarily pause Trump’s executive orders from going into effect until after they can be litigated.

The ruling in June stated that injunctions should only affect those involved in legal challenges, and shouldn’t be applied over huge swathes of the public.

It specifically referred to injunctions involving challenges to Trump’s attempts to limit birthright citizenship — a Constitutional law that states anybody born in the U.S. is a citizen. It said injunctions could only affect individuals or groups involved in the legal action, not the nation as a whole.

“The Court stated that Section 11 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 ‘endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over ‘all suits . . . in equity,’ and still today . . . ‘is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,'” the article cites the ruling.

However, he noted, it appears the Court didn’t look at the text or context of Section 11 when making its ruling.

“The Court’s claim that equitable remedies are authorized by Section 11 and thus ‘must have a founding-era antecedent’ is novel,'” the article continues, meaning that it’s new or unusual. “It [is] also questionable since Section 11 cannot have authorized equitable remedies in CASA.”

That’s when Goldsmith drops the hammer, saying “Section 11 is a jurisdictional statute” and that the jurisdiction in the CASA case was “based on federal question jurisdiction and suits against the United States. Neither head of jurisdiction is mentioned in Section 11, because neither existed until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. And none of the three heads of subject matter jurisdiction in Section 11 has any legal connection to CASA.”

So, under the Supreme Court’s logic “that jurisdictional statutes authorize equitable remedies, it should have looked to the state of remedies beginning in 1875, when the federal question jurisdiction statute was enacted, not 1789.”

So it seems that Amy Coney Barrett is not much brighter than the fascist who nominated her in 2020.

Supreme Court used wrong statute to make monumental birthright citizenship ruling: expert

https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett

Raw Story: Tulsi Gabbard under fire after ‘desperate and irresponsible’ move to override CIA

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Two former CIA officials are concerned about Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her eagerness to release top secret information that could compromise sources and methods for agents.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Gabbard’s indiscriminate way of releasing classified documents regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election angered many career intelligence experts. Gabbard published the information with minimal redactions.

“Gabbard, with the blessing of President Donald Trump, overrode arguments from the CIA and other intelligence agencies that more of the document should remain classified to obscure U.S. spy agencies’ sources and methods, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, like others interviewed for this report, because of the matter’s sensitivity,” said the report.

While CIA Director John Ratcliffe has been supportive of the release of information, those who actually work in intelligence have concerns about the release, but also that the characterization of the evidence is false. Gabbard and Trump claimed that their evidence proved that Russia did not hack the 2016 election votes. However, that was never part of the allegations. Russians hacked the Democratic and Republican Party servers and leaked information from the former. Russian-funded content farms generated scores of memes and posts spreading conspiracies about Hillary Clinton while being supportive of Trump.

“Multiple independent reviews, including an exhaustive bipartisan probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee, have found that Putin intervened in part to help Trump,” characterized the Post.

The investigation documents contain multiple references to human sources that detail Putin’s plans. Those sources are among the “most closely guarded secrets,” the report said. “After the report was completed in 2020, it was considered so sensitive that it remained in storage at the CIA rather than on Capitol Hill.”

Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior CIA and White House official, revealed on an episode of the “SpyTalk” podcast that the report had “sources and methods” that “could easily” be “inferred in almost every instance.”

“I don’t know if I’ve seen a document of that sensitivity so lightly redacted,” he said of the release from Gabbard.

The report released went through multiple reviews, but the once-secret document was “circulating” among Trump administration staff. Gabbard was the one who wanted to release as much as possible.

Gabbard “has greater declassification authority than all other intelligence elements and is not required to get their approval prior to release,” said one person familiar with the process when speaking to the Post.

Trump then decided there would be “minimal redactions and no edits,” the person added.

Sen. Mark. Warner (D-VA) called Gabbard’s release of the report “desperate and irresponsible,” and said it threatens some of the Intelligence community’s “most sensitive sources and methods” it uses to spy on Russia and keep Americans safe.

“And in doing so, Director Gabbard is sending a chilling message to our allies and assets around the world: the United States can no longer be trusted to protect the intelligence you share with us,” he warned.

Tulsi Gabbard under fire after ‘desperate and irresponsible’ move to override CIA

https://www.rawstory.com/tulsi-gabbard-2673864250

Raw Story: ‘Oversized kennel’: Alligator Alcatraz worker blows the whistle on ‘inhumane’ conditions

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An Alligator Alcatraz worker is blowing the whistle on “inhumane” conditions at the notorious immigrant detention facility in South Florida after working there for less than a month.

Speaking to NBC6, Lindsey, a corrections officer, said that she only wanted to give her first name out of fear of retribution against her or her family.

She confirmed she arrived at the facility on July 6 and was there for about a week before she caught COVID and was forced to isolate.

Lindsey’s comments come just 24 hours after Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) announced that they “identified 510 credible reports of human rights abuse” against immigration detainees.

In response to questions about the report, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said in an email to NBC, “Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

DHS bragged on X that they are hard at work attacking “fake news” and announced that they “have the backs of the brave men and women of @ICEgov, who risk their lives every day protecting our homeland.”

But Lindsey said that her experience was different.

“When I got there, it was overwhelming,” she told NBC6. “I thought it would get better. But it just never did.”

She said that she knew going into it that the team would be living in a trailer, but the report described the conditions as “harsh” for the corrections officers as well as the detainees.

“We had to use the porta-johns. We didn’t have hot water half the time. Our bathrooms were backed up,” she said.

“The bathrooms are backed up because you got so many people using them,” she added.

Her story confirms the account from detainees and their family members that DHS has also denied.

When it comes to where the detainees are held, Lindsey called it “an oversized kennel.”

The large cages hold 35 to 38 inmates. There are about eight cages per tent.

“They have no sunlight. There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is. They have no access to showers. They shower every other day or every four days,” Lindsey continued.

There were reports of flooding at the facility on the day that President Donald Trump toured the tents. Lindsey said that it has continued and each time it rains water floods into the tents.

Lindsey noted that despite Trump’s promise only to deport criminals, there are a number of people there who are not criminals.

“These people are still human. They pulled them from their livelihood. They’re scared. They don’t speak our language,” she said.

When Lindsey got COVID, the facility accused her of trying to falsify medical paperwork, and she was fired. She denies their accusations.

“I was fired. And yeah, I’m pissed off. But more so than ever, like they’re doing wrong,” she said.

Detainees complained last month that there was a lack of food, and when they were provided something to eat, there were worms in it, the Associated Press reported in July. That report also cited the overflowing sewage, which was discounted by spokesperson Stephanie Hartman of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

“The reporting on the conditions in the facility is completely false. The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order,” she claimed.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump want to see the facility as the model for others.

‘Oversized kennel’: Alligator Alcatraz worker blows the whistle on ‘inhumane’ conditions

https://www.rawstory.com/ice-detention-center-whistleblower

Raw Story: ‘Family separation on steroids’: Expert lays into Trump plan to target newborn babies

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President Donald Trump’s administration has drawn up a draft of guidelines to block non-U.S. citizens from having children on U.S. soil and becoming citizens.

The Constitution details “birthright citizenship” in the 14th Amendment, saying that anybody born on American soil belongs to the nation. The Trump administration has tried to block that with an executive order.

Speaking to MSNBC, Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern said the guidelines are a backdoor effort to reinstate the family separation policy from the early days of the first Trump administration. In that case, the government took children from their parents when they came into the U.S. In some instances, the children were given to a host family, while others were thrown in a “detention center.”

“For months, federal courts have prevented the U.S. government from even beginning to plan the implementation of this executive order, finding that it violated the 14th Amendment,” said Stern, noting that the Supreme Court then stepped in to allow it.

“What we see is that this administration doesn’t plan to give any kind of grace period to the children of undocumented immigrants. It will render them noncitizens and deportable from the moment of birth,” clarified Stern.

“The administration has also repealed a 14-year-old rule that barred ICE from entering and committing enforcement actions in and around hospitals. So, the government now has a setup where it can send ICE agents into maternity wards, as you said, to monitor births to demand papers from new mothers and fathers, and to potentially take away and deport their children, their infants, from the moment they’re born. If the parents can’t prove citizenship to their satisfaction.”

Under the new memo, there are about a dozen new classifications of people who will have their U.S. citizenship taken away.

“In fact, the trump administration has already started to quietly reintroduce family separation by relaxing restrictions that had been imposed over the last few years to prevent it from happening,” Stern noted. “The government seems ready to take away infants from their parents if they deem it necessary to effectuate immigration laws. And if this order takes effect, that baby would be deportable upon birth.”

Worse, he said, those infants could be taken, denied citizenship, and under Supreme Court rulings, they could be deported to a third-party country in which they or their parents haven’t set foot.

“This would be like family separation in the first administration on steroids, with a hugely disproportionate impact on the youngest and most vulnerable among us,” he characterized.

‘Family separation on steroids’: Expert lays into Trump plan to target newborn babies

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-family-separation

Raw Story: ICE seizes 11-year-old to force dad’s deportation — despite torture risk

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President Donald Trump is trying to deport a Russian man who passed the U.S. screening process for asylum. The U.S. government has also taken away his son.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, posted an excerpt of a New York Times report revealing that the man fled to the United States after his wife was locked up for her political views.

Pavel Snegir and his 11-year-old son, Aleksandr, already passed the initial screening and confirmed that if Snegir is sent back to Russia, he will likely be tortured.

“But the Trump admin is still trying to deport him anyway, and has taken away his son until he agrees to be deported,” wrote Reichlin-Melnick.

Snegir and his son had been in ICE custody, but in May he was taken to an airport in San Diego. He was told he could take his son to the court hearing in New York. But once they were at the airport, Snegir was scared to board the plane, convinced he was about to be deported back to Russia.

“Later that day, after the flight had left, an ICE official told him he would be separated from his son because he refused to be deported,” the report said.

Snegir said he refused to give the government his child. ICE followed with threats he’d be thrown “to the ground, handcuffed and taken away if he did not relent.”

He didn’t move and “everything she promised happened,” Snegir recalled.

His son witnessed the whole ordeal. He previously watched his mother be taken by the Russian government, too.

Now, ICE is telling Snegir that he can self-deport back to Russia, or they’ll deport him anyway, without his son. They claimed he may never see his son again.

Snegir relented, but the following day, he was approved under the protection screening, which means ICE can deport him, but he can’t be sent to Russia.

This week, the administration also published its guidance on birthright citizenship, which will allow ICE to enter maternity wards and demand papers from families after their infants are born. If the parents can’t prove their citizenship, the government can take the newborn away from its parents and deport it to whatever country it wants, one legal analyst described.

ICE seizes 11-year-old to force dad’s deportation — despite torture risk

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-deportation-2673860882

Raw Story: Judge gives Alina [Bimbo #4] Habba lesson in law during blistering rebuke

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This is sizzling — read it all!

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Alina [Bimbo #4] Habba, was admonished in a New Jersey court when Judge André Espinosa of U.S. District Court found her arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka inappropriate.

Raw Story reported in May that the dressing down of the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey by the judge was so significant that the mayor was caught on a hot mic commenting: “Jesus, he tore these people a new a–hole. Good grief.”

Baraka was arrested on trespassing charges on May 9 after attempting to enter an ICE facility in Newark with members of Congress. The charges were dropped days later, but [Bimbo #4] Habba still went to court.

But more details about the dressing down were released Monday.

National security expert Marcy Wheeler posted the full transcript, as provided by the court reporter, in a post on X on Monday.

[Bimbo #4] Habba’s last day in her interim post is Tuesday, unless a panel of judges steps in to extend her job. So far, the appointment has been stalled in the Senate.

“I don’t want to belabor the proceeding today,” the judge began, noting that they were there after [Bimbo #4] Habba’s office claimed to be prosecuting the mayor, only to drop the charges before discussing the case in court.

The judge then eviscerated [Bimbo #4] Habba’s office.

“Please consider sharing with your colleagues this modest reminder of your unique duty as federal prosecutors. Your Office serves the 9.5 million people who live in the District of New Jersey, and your colleagues are charged with working to protect those people and the 13 interests of the Constitution under which we all live and that you and every one of your colleagues swore to uphold when you joined that Office,” the judge said.

“This is an immense responsibility with which comes an imperative for meticulous diligence and unwavering integrity.”

He cited a 1940 address by the Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, who warned against the temptation to prosecute for every possible offense. He told prosecutors, “the citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes.”

Espinosa said it’s clear Jackson understood the duty of the prosecutor was for the people, not for a political party or others.

“Justice Jackson warned against using the immense power of the government to pursue weak cases or to make examples without sufficient cause,” the judge continued. “Your discretion, therefore, is not merely a legal tool but a moral compass guiding the exercise of immense power. It demands a judicious restraint, a deep respect for individual liberty, and an unwavering commitment to the principle that justice is never served by arbitrary or ill-conceived actions.”

In this case, in particular, the judge stated that the arrest was “hasty” and “followed by the swift dismissal a mere 13 days later.”

He blasted [Bimbo #4] Habba, claiming that arresting a public figure isn’t to trigger an investigation. It’s the other way around; the investigation should lead to an arrest. It has been key for the office “particularly over the last two decades,” Judge Espinosa added.

The legacy has been “one of careful deliberative action,” the judge said. It implies that in this case, it was clearly ignored. He said that the office only brings charges after an “exhaustive” search for evidence.

“So let this incident serve as an inflection point and a reminder to uphold your solemn oath to the people of this district and to your client Justice itself and ensure that every charge brought is the product of rigorous investigation and earned confidence in its merit mirroring the exemplary conduct that has long defined your Office,” he said.

Raw Story: Judge gives Alina Habba lesson in law during blistering rebuke

https://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-2673535158