October was an incredibly busy month, as you will soon read. Here are the highlights:
* Update on Baby Doe Case: Over the last several months, the Trump administration has recognized the importance of reversing the Biden administration’s pathetic support of the Taliban regime’s position on getting its hands on Baby Doe. Thankfully, President Trump understands this case is not simply about saving a baby left for dead on the Afghan battlefield, but rather about reversing the Biden administration’s coddling of the jihadist Taliban regime.
By way of reminder, in February of this year, the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the “Baby Doe” case. During the disastrous last days of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, a foreign jihadist couple fought Army Rangers in a deadly battle that left the couple’s new-born baby badly wounded and orphaned on the battlefield. This little girl, named in lawsuits and media variously as Baby Doe, Baby L, and Sparrow, was adopted by Major Joshua and Stephanie Mast, a young Marine couple, and brought to the U.S. for medical care and to be introduced to her new loving family.
For years now, the Gitmo Bar, lawyers from major international law firms who love to represent jihadists and other enemies of the U.S. to prove their progressive bona fides, have been litigating in Virginia state courts and in federal court on behalf of an Afghan couple, who have absolutely no family or other ties to this now happy five-year old child, to undo the adoption and rip her from her loving family.
You can read about this case here.
AFLC represents Richard Mast, the brother of Joshua. Richard has also been dragged into this litigation by the Gitmo lawyers for the assistance he provided his brother with the adoption.
Until President Trump was re-elected, the Biden administration was fighting tooth-and-nail alongside the Gitmo Bar and the Taliban effectively to hand over the child to the Taliban. This all changed the morning the Virginia Supreme Court held oral argument on this little American girl’s future: female slavery under the Taliban or liberty and love with an American Marine’s family.
President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi heroically had the Justice Department prevent Biden Justice Department holdovers from arguing in favor of the Taliban. Days later, the Trump Justice Department formally withdrew its support for the Afghan couple and the Taliban. Now, the little girl’s fate is in the hands of the Virginia Supreme Court without the unfair and malicious tipping of the scales of justice by the Biden administration.
This month, the Trump administration uncovered the effort by Biden administration personnel to “classify” documents relating to the Afghan couples’ possible connections to the Taliban so as to seal them from public viewing. These documents are now in the public domain.
Also this month, we filed briefing on the Afghan couples’ efforts to claim that our client’s attorney-client communications should be made available to them. This is their desperate attempt to come up with something they might use in the Viriginia Supreme Court to further attack the adoption.
Finally, after full briefing, our co-counsel argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reverse the lower district court’s refusal to vacate a gag order preventing AFLC and our clients from discussing the “Baby Doe” case in ways that might identify the Taliban-affiliated couple attempting to get custody of Baby Doe.
* We had many filings in our Hess v. Oakland County case this month. Here, we are defending Andrew Hess against the politicized prosecution launched against him by Karen McDonald, the left-wing prosecutor for Oakland County, Michigan, who is running to be the Democratic nominee for Michigan Attorney General.
McDonald is pursuing a 20-year felony charge against Hess for making an off-hand political comment in a near-empty lobby outside of the presence of any election official during a contentious election recount held in the county in December 2023.
We filed this federal lawsuit to halt this unlawful prosecution.
On October 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied our motion for an injunction pending appeal.
We promptly filed an application for a writ of injunction in the U.S. Supreme Court on October 3. The application was directed to Justice Brett Kavanaugh as he is the justice assigned to handle such matters out of the Sixth Circuit.
Justice Kavanaugh denied the application on October 20 without explanation.
On October 23, we promptly filed our opening brief in the Sixth Circuit. This is our full-throated brief in our appeal of the district court’s denial of our motion for a preliminary injunction.
On October 24, the district court granted in part and denied in part the County’s motion to dismiss certain claims. Consequently, the civil case against McDonald and others will proceed.
On October 31, we filed a motion for reconsideration, explaining how the court erred by dismissing the County and granting qualified immunity to the defendants on our First Amendment retaliation claim.
On October 25, we filed a motion to expedite the appeal.
At the end of the day, this is a fight to protect free speech and to stop the abuse of government power to target political opponents.
* On October 4, we filed our opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in our lawsuit against the Michigan Attorney General and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights for their reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” designation to target conservative groups, including AFLC.
You can read more about this important case here.
* On October 7, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel Robert Muise was presented with the St. Thomas More Award from the Catholic Diocese of Lansing, Michigan. You can read more about this here.
* On October 15, the parties submitted a joint discovery plan to the court in our lawsuit against Genoa Township, Michigan, which we filed on behalf of Catholic Healthcare International, Inc. (CHI) and its president.
At issue is the Township’s denial of CHI’s request to develop a prayer campus and construct a modest adoration chapel on its wooded 40-acre property in the Township.
The lawsuit alleges a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that prohibits religious discrimination when making land use decisions.
The court recently denied our motion for partial summary judgment, concluding that additional facts were needed. The court also granted the Township’s motion for discovery.
However, the court never held a scheduling conference nor issued a scheduling order setting forth the scope and duration of discovery as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Currently, we have pending with the court a motion for reconsideration, setting forth arguments demonstrating that the court was wrong when it denied our motion for partial summary judgment.
In that motion, we also asked the court, in the alternative, to certify the question to the Sixth Circuit as to what constitutes a substantial burden under RLUIPA (the Sixth Circuit had previously granted CHI a preliminary injunction, finding that CHI had established a substantial burden, but the district court disregarded this decision in its ruling).
We also have pending with the court a motion for a protective order as the Township has demonstrated that it intends to use discovery to delay the final resolution of this case and to impose as many burdens and costs on CHI as possible.
You can read more about this case here.
* On October 20, we filed a supplemental brief in our lawsuit filed against the City of Moscow, Idaho on behalf of Nate Wilson and two of his sons, who were prosecuted by the City for engaging in speech critical of the City’s COVID-19 policies.
The supplemental brief addressed the impact of a state court dismissal on the arguments that the City is advancing in support of its motion to dismiss.
You can read more about that case here.
* On October 23, Robert Muise was the keynote speaker for a dinner event hosted by Right to Life, North Oakland, Michigan.
* On October 28, we filed our notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit of the district court’s ruling dismissing our lawsuit challenging Michigan’s Proposal 3.
The district court dismissed the case on standing grounds. The court did not rule on the merits of any of the substantive claims.
We are appealing on behalf of Michigan Right to Life and several parents, focusing our appeal on standing to assert the parental rights claim.
You can read more about this case here.
* On October 29, we filed an application for leave to appeal the ruling of the Kent County Circuit Court denying our motion to dismiss the patently frivolous lawsuit filed by 3 Biden electors against the 16 so-called “fake” Trump electors in the 2020 general election.
We are representing 4 of the Trump electors in this lawsuit.
The case is docketed now in the Michigan Court of Appeals. Several other electors have also filed similar applications.
* Our lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department advances.
We filed this putative class action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of a substantial LA property owner and manager.
The lawsuit alleges that the City’s shuffling of the homeless onto or near private property effectively destroys the value of the property and amounts to a violation of the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, a de facto condemnation under the California Constitution, and creates public nuisances.
On October 30, we filed a motion to amend the complaint to include the actual property-owning entities to replace Adom Ratner-Stauber, who served as the property manager. This move avoids motions by the City of Los Angeles and LAPD seeking to delay the litigation.
We have many other important cases at various stages of litigation. You can read more about our work on our website.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support. We couldn’t do what we do without them!