politics Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

Appeals court stops Trump’s Hampton Dellinger fight

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 21:35:31 +0000

Left: President Donald Trump gives remarks during an event celebrating the 2024 Stanley Cup Champion the Florida Panthers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 3, 2025 (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images). Right: Hampton Dellinger (Office of Special Counsel).

A federal appeals court has rejected President Donald Trump‘s attempt to boot the Biden administration’s whistleblower advocate Hampton Dellinger from his post at the Office of Special Counsel, voting 2-1 to let him keep his job through a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a lower court judge. Trump’s Justice Department had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to rule by noon Friday, saying it has “the opportunity to seek expeditious review” from the Supreme Court, should they be swatted down. The rejection came Saturday just before 11 p.m.

“The relief requested by the government is a sharp departure from established procedures that balance and protect the interests of litigants, and ensure the orderly consideration of cases before the district court and this court,” wrote judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs in the late night ruling. “The government asks us to resolve disputed issues that plainly have not been finally adjudicated by the district court. The litigation of Dellinger’s motion for a preliminary injunction is ongoing … and that litigation raises issues that are overlapping, if not identical, to those that would be presented in an appeal of the TRO.”

Trump’s DOJ filed motions last week for an “immediate administrative stay” of the lower court’s TRO in both district and appeals court after it was granted by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to allow Dellinger to keep his job while she weighs whether his firing by Trump on Feb. 7 was legal. The move came after Dellinger, who was appointed by Biden in February 2024 to enforce whistleblower laws, filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia after being fired by the Trump administration “in a one-sentence email,” according to his federal complaint.

In its appeals motion, the DOJ said it was “unaware” of any other occasion in American history where a federal court has “purported to install a principal officer of the United States after the president has removed him — let alone to do so without finding that he was likely to prevail on the merits of his claim, as the district court did here.” The motion pointed to SCOTUS precedent as well as former President Joe Biden’s own 2021 firing of Andrew Saul, who was social security commissioner at the time, as reasons for slapping down the lifeline Jackson tossed to Dellinger last week.

In a 12-page dissent to the Saturday ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Greg Katsas — a Trump appointee — said he believes the president “is immune from injunctions directing the performance of his official duties, and Article II of the Constitution grants him the power to remove agency heads.” Katsas argued that “the extraordinary character of the order at issue here” is the fact that it directs the president to “recognize and work” with an agency head whom he has already removed, which warrants “immediate” appellate review.

“The TRO unjustifiably intrudes into a core institutional prerogative of the President, while Dellinger’s modest individual injury could be remedied in an action for backpay,” the dissenting judge wrote. “An injunction preventing the President from firing an agency head —and thus controlling how he performs his official duties — is virtually unheard of. And in any event, Article II of the Constitution empowers the President to remove the head of an agency with a single top officer.”

In their ruling, Pan and Childs said they felt that it was ultimately the lower court’s job to decide whether Dellinger was allowed to keep his job through the TRO issued by Jackson, a 2011 Barack Obama appointee, on account of TRO’s “ordinarily” not being an appealable order. “The government asks us to make an exception and hear its appeal because the TRO ‘works an extraordinary harm’ and is set to last for 14 days,” the judges note.

The government had requested that the appeals court “construe its stay motion as a petition for a writ of mandamus and grant the petition,” which the judges said would have the same effect of reversing the TRO. “The government filed its appeal and stay motion on the evening of February 12, 2025, and requested a ruling from this court within two days, by noon on February 14, 2025, so that the Acting Solicitor General ‘has the opportunity to seek expeditious review from the Supreme Court if this Court denies relief,”” the judges explained.

“Instead of entertaining an emergency appeal of a TRO, the normal course would be for us to wait for the district court to issue a ruling on the preliminary injunction, which would be immediately appealable,” the pair concluded. “Indeed, many of the issues raised in the stay motion will be addressed by the district court at the preliminary-injunction hearing on February 26, 2025. The district court has promised to issue its preliminary-injunction ruling with ‘extreme expedition.’”

In district court, Trump’s DOJ claimed last week that Dellinger had not established how he will suffer irreparable harm if Jackson’s TRO is stayed pending an appeal. “A stay is not necessary to prevent any cognizable harm to plaintiff,” the DOJ’s motion said.

In his complaint, Dellinger claims that by firing him from the Office of Special Counsel, the Trump administration “jeopardized” the functioning of an agency designed to stop exactly that. The DOJ, however, insists that OSC can function just fine without Dellinger in charge.

“To the extent Plaintiff asserts irreparable harm to the functioning of OSC itself, that assertion is misplaced,” the department’s district court motion said last week. “Both because OSC can continue to function with an Acting Special Counsel (who had already assumed Plaintiff’s role before the district court’s order) and because Plaintiff would lack standing to raise such a harm.”

Dellinger, 57, was appointed by Biden to serve a five-year term before he was fired by Trump. His termination and lawsuit came less than a week after an employee of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency that enforces labor laws and protects workers’ rights to organize, sued Trump after being axed in January in similar fashion.

A group of federal watchdogs who got booted from their posts last month have also teamed up to sue the Trump administration — saying the firings violated “unambiguous federal statutes” — in a joint legal bid to get their jobs back.

The group of watchdogs suing the Trump administration includes former Department of Defense inspector general Robert Storch; former Department of Veterans Affairs IG Michael Missal; former Department of Health and Human Services IG Christi Grimm; former State Department IG Cardell Richardson; former Department of Education IG Sandra Bruce; former Department of Agriculture IG Phyllis Fong; former Labor Department IG Larry Turner; and Small Business Administration IG Michael Ware.

Last Monday, the White House reported that Cathy Harris — who is on the three-member Merit Systems Protection Board, which protects terminated federal workers from “partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices,” according to its government website — was being fired, along with its vice chair Ray Limon. Harris responded to her termination with a lawsuit as well, calling it “unlawful” and having “no basis in fact.”

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Fired labor board member challenges her removal by Trump

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 21:26:15 +0000

Left: Gwynne A. Wilcox (National Labor Relations Board). Right: President Donald Trump gives remarks during an event celebrating the 2024 Stanley Cup Champion the Florida Panthers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 3, 2025 (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).

An employee of the National Labor Relations Board who was fired by President Donald Trump is firing back in court with a federal lawsuit, calling her removal “unprecedented and illegal.”

Gwynne A. Wilcox called her Jan. 27 firing by late-night email a blatant violation of the National Labor Relations Act, which allows the president to remove board members only in cases of “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause,” and only after “notice and hearing,” according to the complaint.

“The President’s unprecedented removal of Ms. Wilcox defies 90 years of Supreme Court precedent that has ensured the independence of critical government agencies,” Deepak Gupta, an attorney for Wilcox, said in a statement. “Federal law is clear: The members of the National Labor Relations Board may only be removed for neglect of duty or misconduct, and only after a notice and a hearing. The President has violated the law.”

“To ensure that the Board can continue protecting American workers, this lawsuit seeks a ruling reinstating Ms. Wilcox as a member of the NLRB,” he added. “We trust that the courts will uphold the law’s longstanding protections for agency independence.”

In a statement, Wilcox, a Joe Biden appointee to the independent federal agency that enforces labor laws and protects workers’ rights to organize, said, “President Trump’s attempt to remove me from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is both unlawful and unprecedented. When Congress established the National Labor Relations Board almost 90 years ago, it made sure that the law would protect its independence from political influence. My removal, without cause or process, directly violates that law. I hope to be able to fulfill the job that the Senate confirmed me to do so the crucial work of the NLRB can continue.”

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment, POLITICO reported. A Trump administration official has told the news outlet that Wilcox and Jennifer Abruzzo, a general counsel at the NLRB who was also fired, were “far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump Administration, which was given a mandate by the American people to undo the radical policies they created.”

The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s action against Wilcox is part of a string of openly illegal firings in the early days of the second Trump administration that are “apparently designed to test Congress’s power to create independent agencies like the Board.”

In a statement after her firing, Abruzzo said, “It’s been the greatest honor and privilege to be General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board and to work alongside such talented and dedicated federal employees.”

“We have accomplished so much through our robust education, protection, and enforcement efforts, including empowering workers to collectively seek improved wages, benefits and working conditions from their employers,” she added. “There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle. So, if the Agency does not fully effectuate its Congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands in order to get well-deserved dignity and respect in the workplace, as well as a fair share of the significant value they add to their employer’s operations.”

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Jan. 6 rioter and Oath Keeper gets time served

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 09:10:02 +0000

Thomas Caldwell is seen wearing a blue hat outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Attorney’s Office).

A U.S. Navy veteran and Oath Keeper who rioted on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol in a Depends adult diaper was sentenced to time served this week.

Thomas Caldwell, 70, learned that he will avoid any further time in custody at his sentencing hearing on Friday in front of U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, court documents said. He served 53 days of incarceration at the Central Regional Jail in Virginia after his 2021 arrest.

Caldwell was acquitted of charges of seditious conspiracy. His conviction for obstructing Congress was overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that it was wrongly applied to Jan. 6 defendants.

In their supplemental sentencing memo asking for the court to sentence Caldwell to 48 months, or four years of incarceration, prosecutors said Caldwell plotted with other affiliates of the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the certification of the 2020 presidential election. They said he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol.

“In his own words, Caldwell ‘heard that Pence f–––ed us … so I grabbed up my American flag and said let’s take the damn capitol’ and ‘let’s storm the place and hang the traitors.’”

Caldwell “climbed the steps after breaking 2 rows of barricades, then got on the parapets” and cheered as “the people in front of me broke through the doors and started duking it out with the pigs who broke and ran,” and “Then we started stealing the cops riot shields and throwing fire extinguishers through windows.”

In Caldwell’s view, “It was a great time,” court documents note.

“But when it became clear, roughly a week later, that law enforcement was investigating Caldwell and his associates, he destroyed evidence of their involvement in these crimes,” the government’s filing reads. “Caldwell’s efforts to obstruct the investigation into the attack on the Capitol, like his participation in the attack itself, show a disdain for the rule of law that merits the government’s recommended sentence.”

Caldwell’s lawyer, David W. Fischer, reacted in an email to The Associated Press, saying, “Mr. Caldwell was cleared of the four most serious counts and sentenced to no additional jail time by a highly respected federal judge.”

“Obviously, he should be considered for a pardon by President Trump,” the attorney added, referring to the returning president’s often-stated vows to grant clemency to Jan. 6 participants.

In court documents, Fischer said the government orchestrated an expensive, pre-dawn “Waco-style raid” on Caldwell’s home, “complete with a battering-ram tank, a dozen agents wielding machine guns, and laser dots pointed on Mrs. Caldwell’s forehead.”

“The FBI, as noted in previous filings, mistakenly believed that ‘Commander Tom’ — a reference to Caldwell’s Navy rank– was the ‘Commander’ of the Oath Keepers; that Caldwell was scouting an attack on the Capitol via a ‘pre-strike recce,’ which turned out to be a quest to determine the number and location of Port-o-Potties near the Ellipse and ended at Camelot D.C.; that Caldwell personally led a group of Oath Keepers inside of the Capitol; that Caldwell physically entered the Capitol based upon a picture of an outdoor construction tunnel; and that Caldwell plotted a pre-planned attack on the Capitol,” the defense filing reads.

“The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia at the time, Michael Sherwin, admitted that his office engaged in fast-moving ‘shock and awe’ tactics to dissuade future events like January 6,” he added. “The Government was obviously in a rush to make January 6 related arrests, which resulted in an unnecessary pre-dawn raid of Caldwell’s farm.”

He was among a group of Oath Keepers accused of crimes related to the Jan. 6 riots, including leader Stewart Rhodes, Law&Crime reported.

His wife told a jury her husband wore “Depends” adult diapers that day, Law&Crime previously reported. She denied her husband had any intent to break the law or overthrow the government, claiming he had severe back pain that day from multiple surgeries. One such surgery, she said, required pinning her husband’s shoulder to keep it in its socket.

Adam Klasfeld contributed to this report.

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Trump threatens to sue New York Times, Penguin Random House

homesafetytechpros — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 03:23:02 +0000

Insets: New York Times and Penguin Random House buildings (YouTube/Fox News/Penguin Random House). Background: President-elect Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly sent a $10 billion warning shot across the legal bows of Penguin Random House and the New York Times — threatening to sue the print giants for eleven figures — over allegedly “false and defamatory statements” that were published about him in articles before the election, the companies say.

“There was a time, long ago, when the New York Times was considered the ‘newspaper of record,’” a letter reads from Trump’s attorney, Edward Andrew Paltzik, to Penguin Random House and the Times, which was reviewed and first reported by Columbia Journalism Review on Thursday.

“Those halcyon days have passed,” the letter says, blasting the Times as a “full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party” that employs “industrial-scale libel against political opponents,” per CJR.

The newspaper reportedly had “every intention of defaming and disparaging the world-renowned Trump brand that consumers have long associated with excellence, luxury, and success in entertainment, hospitality, and real estate, among many other industries, as well as falsely and maliciously defaming and disparaging him as a candidate for the highest office in the United States,” the letter asserts.

When CJR reported the legal threat on Thursday, it said the letter was received a week before the 2024 election. The ten-page warning names writers Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner as being behind “false and defamatory statements” published by the Times and Penguin Press, which is a publishing company within the Penguin Random House Group.

Some of the “defamatory” comments cited in Trump’s letter, per CJR, are about the future and former president’s alleged financial dealings, with there being references to Buettner and Craig’s recently released book, “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” which was spurred on by a 2018 expose by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters and former Times journalist David Barstow, who disputed Trump’s claims of being a self-made billionaire.

“Drawing on over twenty years’ worth of Trump’s confidential tax information, including the tax returns he tried to conceal, alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump’s financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again,” a description reads from Penguin Press.

Some other writings cited by Trump’s lawyer come from an October 20 article written by Baker for the Times — titled, “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” — in which he declared that “no major party presidential candidate, much less president, in American history” had been “accused of wrongdoing” as many times as Trump has. Publishers Weekly referred to “Lucky Loser” as a “scrupulous takedown of Trump’s competence and character” in its September review.

“Given the long list of well-known and historic business achievements by President Trump and his family, President Trump’s remarkable business, literary, media, and real estate achievements, and the fact that President Trump — and his life story — are the epitome of the American Dream and what it means to be an American patriot, as well as his lifelong support for America’s men and women in uniform, these defamatory statements are all the more despicable in their falsity,” Trump’s letter said.

The document claims that “harm” has been done to the value of Trump Media, per CJR, and reportedly demands $10 billion in damages. Trump is seeking this same amount in a lawsuit against CBS News over an October “60 Minutes” interview it aired with Vice President Kamala Harris, with his attorneys claiming the aired footage was “doctored” to “confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” to “tip the scales” in favor of Democrats before the election. Trump’s camp has blasted the move as “election and voter interference.” The complaint for that case was filed on Oct. 31 in the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, where U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — a Trump appointee — is the lone federal judge.

On Nov. 5, Trump’s legal media crusade continued as he sent a four-page letter on behalf of campaign manager Chris LaCivita to the Daily Beast, per CJR, demanding that the outlet issue a correction and retraction for articles published about his co-chief, including one on Nov. 2 that is now titled, “Trump Raged at Daily Beast Revelation That Campaign Boss’ LLC Got $19.2 Million.”

The Daily Beast initially claimed that LaCivita “raked in” $22 million to help Trump win the 2024 election. An editor’s note has been added to the Nov. 2 story to clarify that it was actually $19.2 million in wake of Trump’s letter.

“Editor’s Note: The original version of this article mistakenly reported that LaCivita’s firm had received a total of $22 million from Trump’s campaign and affiliated PACs,” the Daily Beast says. “Based on a further review of FEC records, the correct total is $19.2 million. The Beast regrets the error. The article has also been updated to make clear that payments were to LaCivita’s LLC not to LaCivita personally.”

Trump’s crusade may have kicked off before the election, but it’s gained even more steam with his win and recent comments he’s made, with free speech advocacy watchdog group PEN America touching upon this in a press release on Friday.

“President-elect Donald Trump’s legal threats mark an ominous start to his transition to the White House, signaling his intent to escalate attacks on journalism and publishing,” said Tim Richardson, program director for Journalism and Disinformation at PEN America, in response to CJR’s reporting. “While The New York Times and Penguin Random House may have the resources to defend themselves against these clearly frivolous claims, smaller news outlets and publishers do not and may be forced to censor themselves rather than risk critical coverage of Trump. That is the point.”

According to Richardson, legal threats and lawsuits like the ones being hurled at CBS and the Times “aren’t about stopping false reporting or even winning cases” brought against them. “They’re about intimidating journalists, writers, and publishers into self-censorship,” Richardson charged. “The worrisome results will be less accountability for our elected leaders and a less informed public.”

Speaking in the press release, PEN America condemned the threats from Trump as being part of a “broader pattern by the President-elect targeting media organizations.” It cited the Times and Random House letter in the release, as well as the CBS lawsuit, the Daily Beast editor’s note and a recent Federal Election Commission complaint against the Washington Post.

“PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide,” the group says in a description. “We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.”

An insider tells CJR that Penguin Random House responded to Trump’s legal warning with a statement, saying it stood by everything it published. It’s unclear whether Trump’s lawyer has replied.

The Daily Beast, meanwhile, was unable to get off the hook with its editor’s note as Trump’s team sent a follow-up letter on Nov. 12 saying the move “does not remedy the overall messaging of the story — which depicts Mr. LaCivita as deceptively pocketing campaign money for his own personal gain and that he was and is on the verge of being ‘fired’ because of it,” Politico reports.

“This entire narrative is completely false and a result of malicious and irresponsible reporting by the Daily Beast,” the letter said. “Specifically, the now ‘corrected’ reporting has adjusted the $22 million figure to $19.2 million instead. While not all Daily Beast articles on this subject have yet incorporated the ‘corrected’ figure, some have been ‘updated’ with an editor’s note which stating that ‘This article was updated to clarify that the $22m went to LaCivita’s LLC and not to him personally.’ The remainder of the reporting has remained substantially the same, and despite the addition of the editor’s notes and corrections, it continues to falsely imply that Mr. LaCivita personally pocketed $19.2 million allegedly paid by the Trump campaign for campaign advertising.”

CBS has said that Trump’s lawsuit against the outlet is “completely without merit,” adding that it will “vigorously defend” itself against it. The Committee to Protect Journalists, another watchdog group, has blasted Trump’s legal attacks as being a “clear and direct danger to media freedom.”

“The hostile media climate fostered during Donald Trump’s first presidency — expected to continue in his forthcoming second term — poses great risks to media inside and outside the country,” the group said in a Nov. 6 statement.

“The threats against, and lies about, the media that have characterized much of the Republican Party’s presidential campaign represent a clear and direct danger to media freedom,” added CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “CPJ will continue to defend a free and independent press in the United States as we do around the world and to take all measures to keep reporters safe.”

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Township supervisor gets reelected after child sexting bust

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 06:14:40 +0000

Former Delta Township Supervisor Ken Fletcher (Facebook/Eaton County Sheriff’s Office/WILX).

A township supervisor in Michigan was reelected on Tuesday — running uncontested against a pair of write-in candidates — just months after he was busted in a sting operation for allegedly sexting a minor.

Democrat Ken Fletcher, 58, is currently facing felony charges of accosting a child for immoral purposes and using a computer to commit a crime, but that didn’t stop him from winning back his longtime Delta Township supervisor seat on Election Day.

Fletcher, who resigned from his post after being arrested in September and serving as supervisor for over a decade, was allegedly caught by Michigan State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and deputies with the Eaton County Sheriff’s Office after he began messaging with a law enforcement officer who was posing as a 15-year-old on the dating app Grindr.

Fletcher’s arrest report, first obtained by NBC’s Lansing affiliate WILX, alleges he was having sexual conversations with the officer and planned to meet up with them. He allegedly claimed he was “just talking” with them, per WILX.

With a court date set for Nov. 12, Fletcher must now decide whether he plans to give himself a second chance as supervisor or if he will stay far away from the position. Michigan state law had required him to stay on the ballot.

Former Delta Township Supervisor Ken Fletcher in court (WILX/YouTube).

“He can vacate the office if he does not get sworn in by then, he could get sworn in and resign, or obviously he could get sworn in and stay,” said Mary Clark, Delta Township’s clerk and acting supervisor, to WILX on Wednesday.

Fletcher’s lawyer, Mike Nichols, told the station his client is still weighing his options.

“The biggest question I think for Ken Fletcher is, is this the right thing for not just me but for the community,” Nichols said. “Am I still the best person for the job?”

Attempts to reach Fletcher for comment on Wednesday by Law&Crime were unsuccessful.

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GOP House candidate in Indiana arrested on eve of election

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 10:11:39 +0000

Inset: Jim Schenke (Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Jim Schenke campaigning in Indiana (Jim Schenke/Facebook).

A Republican running for an Indiana House of Representatives seat was arrested early Monday morning on the eve of Election Day for commenting on a Facebook post made by someone who has a protective order against him, according to police.

GOP candidate Jim Schenke, who is running to unseat District 26 House Rep. Chris Campbell, was booked on a preliminary invasion of privacy charge at 6:10 a.m. Monday, according to the Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office. Records show he was released after paying a cash bond of $250.

The arrest marks Schenke’s second brush with the law since September, when he was charged with “operating a motor vehicle without financial responsibility” for a motor home crash he allegedly caused — sending his campaign RV into a light post — while the vehicle was uninsured, per local reports and court records. That case was dropped on Oct. 22.

Schenke’s arrest on Monday also marks the second time that the 54-year-old has been accused of violating a no-contact order in Indiana, with him being arrested in 2016 and later convicted, according to the Lafayette Journal & Courier. That conviction, however, wound up being reversed by the Indiana Court of Appeals in 2019 and then sealed from public record in August 2023 as part of an expungement order, the Courier reports.

Schenke has at least two protection orders currently against him from a local Indiana attorney and their staff, per the Courier, and one that he reportedly placed on a West Lafayette man who lives in Schenke’s neighborhood.

Tippecanoe Chief Deputy Terry Ruley told Law&Crime on Monday that the order Schenke violated was against an individual who also has one against him as well, though he couldn’t confirm which person it was specifically.

“It’s a weird situation,” Ruley said. “They each have one against each other.”

According to Ruley, the sheriff’s office received a complaint on Sunday, Nov. 3, at approximately 8:35 p.m. from the alleged victim, who stated that Schenke was violating his order of protection against him by commenting on his Facebook page.

“Our officers looked into it, did a bit of an investigation, and determined there was probable cause to believe there was a violation under an Indiana state statute called invasion of privacy, and that would be a person violating an order of protection,” Ruley said.

While he didn’t know what Schenke wrote on Facebook, Ruley did confirm that it wasn’t a threat or an offensive statement, just a violation of the order’s no-contact clause.

“The victim did not respond back to him, or he’d be in violation too and would go to jail,” the deputy chief noted. “It’s a class A misdemeanor.”

Indiana’s District 26, which includes parts of Benton County and West Lafayette, has seen Campbell — a Democrat — as its incumbent since 2018.

Court records show that Schenke, on top of everything else he’s been dealing with, also has a civil case pending against him that was filed in July by the Tippecanoe County Election Board over his use of political ad disclaimers. He is accused of not disclosing the financing behind his motor home properly, with it being decked out with large campaign ads and just three small handwritten disclaimers that are hard to read.

Schenke has argued that state law requires disclaimers to be written out in at least 7-point type, and his motor home ones are larger than that, he says.

Attempts by Law&Crime to reach him and Campbell for comment were unsuccessful.

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Trump comments about ‘shooting’ at Liz Cheney spark AG probe

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 04:36:07 +0000

Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson at a benefit event in Glendale, Arizona, on Thursday night, Oct. 31 (AZcentral/The Arizona Republic/YouTube).

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is probing comments made by Donald Trump at an event in the battleground state, where he reportedly told attendees that former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney wouldn’t be much of a “war hawk” if she had “nine barrels shooting at her.”

“The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is looking into whether Donald Trump’s comments about Liz Cheney violated Arizona law,” Richie Taylor, the AG’s communications director, confirmed in an email to Law&Crime on Friday.

Reports of the probe circulated throughout the day after Trump’s appearance at the arena benefit event in Glendale, Ariz., alongside former Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said at the event while speaking with Carlson about Cheney’s foreign policy, AZFamily reported. “Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

Trump on Liz Cheney: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.” pic.twitter.com/Mtx1fbLtwE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2024

Responding in an X post on Friday, Cheney — a longtime Trump opponent — compared the former president’s comments to that of a “dictator,” saying: “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

While Taylor told Law&Crime that the AG’s office would have “no additional comments to make at this time” regarding the Trump probe, Mayes was able to provide a little more insight during an interview with KPNX, the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, on Friday.

“I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analyzing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona’s laws,” the AG said. “I’m not prepared now to say whether it was or it wasn’t, but it is not helpful as we prepare for our election and as we try to make sure that we keep the peace at our polling places and in our state.”

Under Arizona law, intimidating statements or threats can be considered a Class 1 misdemeanor or Class 6 felony in certain cases. The charges can carry possible sentences of up to two years in prison.

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State House candidate put his hands on neck of boy: Cops

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 21:32:05 +0000

Brian Ormes (Mug shot from the Kenton County Jail; Walmart screenshot from WCPO/YouTube)

A Republican candidate for a Kentucky state representative seat has been arrested after he was allegedly caught on a Walmart surveillance camera putting his hands on the neck of a 17-year-old boy who nearly hit his son with a ball in a store aisle.

Brian Ormes, 53, faces charges of first-degree strangulation, menacing and assault in the fourth degree, online jail records show.

The Monday night incident allegedly started after the teen played with a ball in a store aisle that nearly hit Ormes’ son. Surveillance footage allegedly caught Ormes following the teen, getting in his face, chest to chest, before pushing him against a shelf and placing his hands on his neck, reported the Lexington Herald-Leader, citing a police report.

The paper said police wrote the teen had “clear and visible red marks and a scratch on the back of his neck.”

Ormes allegedly admitted to putting hands on the teen, saying he was upset about the ball almost hitting his son, Cincinnati ABC affiliate WCPO reported.

Ormes was booked into the Kenton County Detention Center and released on $2,500 bond, records show. He was ordered not to contact the alleged victim and stay out of all Walmarts, the Herald-Leader reported.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Ormes had not responded to a phone call or Facebook message request for comment.

Ormes is running for an open seat in Kentucky District 67 in Campbell County in northern Kentucky.

His challenger, fellow Republican Terry Hatton, said he should drop out of the race.

“First off, my heart, thoughts, and prayers go out to the victim and their family,” he posted on Facebook. “I stand by my statement, Brian Ormes NEEDS to drop out of this race, as house district 67 deserves someone who will not put the youths safety at risk in our community. After his actions last night, it is obvious that he has some personal issues that MUST be addressed, before he is able to serve the public.”

Campbell County Republican chairman Dave Slater said in a statement to WCPO that the party firmly supports Ormes’ and “every American citizen’s Constitutional right to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.”

WCPO reported Campbell County Democratic Party Chair Melissa Whalen called the incident “sad.”

“I don’t know how we devolved to this point,” she said. “Obviously, none of us are perfect, but there’s a bottom line you should be able to cross.”

Ormes is an electrician by trade, according to his Facebook page. His former company, Boss Construction, was dissolved for damaging a retaining wall gas pipeline in 2020, according to the Kentucky Public Service Commission.

Ormes is set to appear in court on April 16, online court records show.

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