Trump rewards GOP ally Rep. Jim Jordan with Medal of Freedom Supreme Court won’t hear Pa. abortion clinic free speech case
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Monday awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the outgoing president’s fiercest GOP allies.
The nation’s highest civilian honor was presented to Jordan in a private ceremony at the White House.
Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, was one of eight House lawmakers who were part of Trump’s defense team in his Senate impeachment trial last year.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, established by President John F. Kennedy, is meant to recognize those who have made an “especially meritorious contribution” to national security, world peace or “cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is declining to get involved in a case about free speech outside a Pittsburgh abortion clinic.
The high court turned away the case Monday. The court’s decision not to hear the case leaves in place a 2019 appeals court decision that upheld a Pittsburgh ordinance creating a 15-foot “buffer zone” where protests are barred around entrances to health care facilities. The decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed “sidewalk counseling” within that zone.
The appeals court said the city can restrict congregating, picketing, patrolling and demonstrating in the immediate vicinity of clinics, but the zone restrictions do not apply to “calm and peaceful” one-on-one conversations by anti-abortion activists seeking to speak with women entering a clinic.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he agreed because it “involves unclear, preliminary questions about the proper interpretation of state law.”
US announces new sanctions over 2020 election interference
WASHINGTON – The Trump admini
stration on Monday sanctioned more than a half-dozen associates of a Ukrainian lawmaker blamed by U.S. officials for interfering in the 2020 presidential election by releasing edited audio recordings of President-elect Joe Biden.
The Treasury Department action follows September sanctions against Andrii Derkach, whom U.S. officials have characterized as an “active Russian agent” and have said was part of a broader Russian effort to disparage Biden before the election by promoting false claims about his ties to Ukraine.
That effort included meetings between Derkach and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.