The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Paramus NJ, Federal investigators have finally descended on two state-run veterans homes this week as part of the U.S. government’s investigation into deficiencies in care at the nursing homes that had one of the highest COVID death tolls in the nation.
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TRENTON NJ, The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint today against the State of New Jersey, Governor Philip Murphy, and state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal challenging two aspects of New Jersey Attorney General Law Enforcement Directive 2018-6.
June 10 ,2018
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Washington DC, The U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday that the part of Obamacare requiring individuals to have health insurance aka the individual mandate is unconstitutional. This should be interesting to New Jersey voters with the recent signing by Governor Phil Murphy of a rule requiring the enforcement of the individual mandates and thereby fining individuals without insurance .
In a brief filed in a federal court in Texas, the department said a tax law signed last year by President Donald Trump that eliminated penalties for not having health insurance rendered the so-called individual mandate under Obamacare unconstitutional.
The Justice Department said that also nullifies two other major provisions of Obamacare linked to the individual mandate, including one barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, said he had determined the individual mandate will be unconstitutional when the tax law becomes effective in 2019.
February 13,2018
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Allendale NJ, according to Judicial Watch , “the more we learn about the FBI under Allendale native James Comey’s supervision the more we have reason to question the activities of the fired FBI Director. Because he has left a trail of suspicious activities in is wake, Comey now stands out as key figure in the Deep State’s illicit attempts to target President Trump.”
And it looks like the Deep State is protecting Comey still. We were forced to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for FBI records about former Director Comey’s book, which he signed to write in August 2017 and is set for publication in April 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice, (No. 1:18-cv-00220)).
Our suit also seeks records of communications between Comey and the FBI prior to and regarding Comey’s controversial June 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Judicial Watch filed on January 31 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond to our August 14, 2017, FOIA request for:
All records of communications between the FBI and Comey prior to and regarding Comey’s testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017.
All records of communications between the FBI and Comey relating to an upcoming book to be authored by Comey and published.
All records, including but not limited to forms completed by Comey, relating to the requirement for prepublication review by the FBI of any book to be authored by Comey with the intent to be published or otherwise publicly available.
Comey reportedly received an advance in excess of $2 million for his book, Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, reportedly set for publication on April 17th. Former FBI agents and officials intending to write books concerning their tenure are customarily required to submit the entire transcript for pre-publication review.
A month after President Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, Comey provided highly controversial testimony before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the circumstances that led to his dismissal, the ongoing investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit email server. During that testimony, Comey admitted he leaked information about his conversations with President Donald Trump in order to get a special prosecutor appointed. (In November, we filed a separate FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department for its records about Comey’s testimony.)
Comey seems to have protected status for any misconduct, and we want to know if he had a special deal for his book from his friends in the FBI. The Deep State is in cover-up mode. The FBI, DOJ, and the Special Counsel are stonewalling our requests for Comey documents.
We have several other lawsuits pending for Comey-related records:
Two lawsuits (hereand here) seek specifically the “Comey memos” ((Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice(No. 1:17-cv-01189)) and (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S. Department Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01830));
Onelawsuit seeks metadata of the “Comey memos” and related records-management information ((Judicial Watch, Inc., v. U.S. Department of Justice(No. 17-cv-01520));
And anotherlawsuit seeks non-disclosure agreements pertaining to the handling, storage, protection, dissemination, and/or return of classified information signed by Comey ((Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01624)).
On January 11, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg the FBI to turn over the “Comey memos” for in camera review by the court. In doing so, the court rejected arguments by the Sessions Justice Department to dismiss the lawsuits seeking the Comey information.
Unfortunately, on February 2, Boasberg ruled that the “Comey memos” would not be made public. Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation almost immediately appealed the ruling. We don’t intend to let up in our pursuit of the truth about the egregious conduct of the FBI’s former director.
file photo by Boyd Loving
January 20,2018
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Newark NJ, the U.S. Department of Justice says that it intends to retry Sen. Robert Menendez’s bribery case, which previously ended with a hung jury.
In a letter the DOJ wrote to the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, “The United States files this notice of intent to retry the defendants [Menendez and Dr. Salomon Melgen] and requests that the court set the case for retrial at the earliest possible date.”
Both Menendez and Melgen, a longtime friend of the senator, were on trial last year after being accused of running a bribery scheme between 2006 and 2013 in which Menendez allegedly lobbied government officials on Melgen’s behalf in exchange for luxury vacations and flights on Melgen’s private plane.
Menendez also was charged with making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.
At that time jurors were unable to come to a unanimous verdict after about a week of deliberations.The judge then declared a mistrial.
Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
