Before ending his cooperation with the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows shared thousands of pages of materials with the House committee examining the Capitol assault. This included a series of text messages congressional Republicans sent to Meadows after Election Day 2020.

This week, the bipartisan committee released many of these texts to the public — the point was to emphasize Meadows' importance to the investigation — but the panel did not disclose who sent them.

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, told NBC News yesterday, in reference to the senders, there "won't be any surprises as to who they are."

It wasn't difficult to start imagining some of the names. In fact, as NBC News reported yesterday, one of them voluntarily conceded yesterday that he sent one of the controversial messages — though his acknowledgement came with some caveats.

Rep. Jim Jordan's office confirmed Wednesday that the Ohio Republican was one of the lawmakers whose text messages to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were released this week by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The far-right congressman — who was tapped to serve on the Jan. 6 committee before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected him — raised two points of concern yesterday, both of which he saw as exculpatory.

A threat that reportedly started on TikTok is being spread around the country warning that Friday, Dec. 17, is "American School Shooting Day."

The vague, anonymous threats warn of shootings or bombs at schools nationwide. They've spread to other social media sites, including Instagram and Facebook, and some parents are keeping their kids home just in case.

U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled last week that an effort to interrupt the counting of the electoral votes can be a crime — even if no violence was contemplated.

Friedrich’s ruling came in the case against Ronald Sandlin and Nathaniel DeGrave, two men accused of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In doing so, she refused to throw out charges that they had “corruptly” obstructed an official proceeding before Congress by “entering and remaining in the United States Capitol without authority and committing an act of civil disorder, and engaging in disorderly and disruptive conduct.”

The judge made a critical finding that the counting of the electoral votes in the House is an “official proceeding.” Her logic is airtight: “There is a presiding officer, a process by which objections can be heard, debated, and ruled upon, and a decision — the certification of the results — that must be reached before the session can be adjourned. Indeed, the certificates of electoral results are akin to records or documents that are produced during judicial proceedings, and any objections to these certificates can be analogized to evidentiary objections.”.....

Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal has been voicing this exact argument for some time. “Judge Friedrich’s decision means the prosecutors don’t have to show someone intended violence for it to be a crime,” he explains. “So long as the intent was to influence and disrupt the congressional function of counting the votes, that is sufficient — so long as it was done ‘corruptly.’ ” Katyal notes that the judge cited “a prior ruling by a conservative superstar jurist, Judge Laurence Silberman, [who] defined ‘corruptly’ to be doing something by unlawful means.”

Katyal argues: “So as long as the intent was to disrupt the count, it would suffice to be criminal, which of course makes a lot of sense given the grave stakes here.” What is true of these two defendants, he adds, “goes for others, including anyone in the White House who aided the disruption.” He concludes that “Judge Friedrich’s decision, at bottom, is a how-to manual, demonstrating how government officials, including President Trump, can be criminally indicted."

U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled last week that an effort to interrupt the counting of the electoral votes can be a crime — even if no violence was contemplated.

Friedrich’s ruling came in the case against Ronald Sandlin and Nathaniel DeGrave, two men accused of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In doing so, she refused to throw out charges that they had “corruptly” obstructed an official proceeding before Congress by “entering and remaining in the United States Capitol without authority and committing an act of civil disorder, and engaging in disorderly and disruptive conduct.”

The judge made a critical finding that the counting of the electoral votes in the House is an “official proceeding.” Her logic is airtight: “There is a presiding officer, a process by which objections can be heard, debated, and ruled upon, and a decision — the certification of the results — that must be reached before the session can be adjourned. Indeed, the certificates of electoral results are akin to records or documents that are produced during judicial proceedings, and any objections to these certificates can be analogized to evidentiary objections.”.....

Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal has been voicing this exact argument for some time. “Judge Friedrich’s decision means the prosecutors don’t have to show someone intended violence for it to be a crime,” he explains. “So long as the intent was to influence and disrupt the congressional function of counting the votes, that is sufficient — so long as it was done ‘corruptly.’ ” Katyal notes that the judge cited “a prior ruling by a conservative superstar jurist, Judge Laurence Silberman, [who] defined ‘corruptly’ to be doing something by unlawful means.”

Katyal argues: “So as long as the intent was to disrupt the count, it would suffice to be criminal, which of course makes a lot of sense given the grave stakes here.” What is true of these two defendants, he adds, “goes for others, including anyone in the White House who aided the disruption.” He concludes that “Judge Friedrich’s decision, at bottom, is a how-to manual, demonstrating how government officials, including President Trump, can be criminally indicted."

NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - A federal judge has thrown out a $4.5 billion settlement that would have shielded the Sackler family, which owned OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, from future lawsuits over opioids, upending the company's plan to reorganize in bankruptcy court.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan said in a written ruling on Thursday the bankruptcy court did not have the legal authority to release the family from liability. She noted the ruling was likely to be appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Purdue and lawyers for the Sacklers could not immediately be reached for comment.

The company has been accused of pushing massive amounts of its OxyContin pain drug on patients, while underplaying its potential for addiction and abuse, which it has denied. It filed for bankruptcy in 2019, facing a slew of legal claims over the drug.

The GOP reportedly agreed to fund up to $1.6 million of former President Trump’s legal bills to fight probes into his business practices in New York, according to the Washington Post.

The Post reported that the party’s executive committee overwhelmingly approved the payments during a meeting last summer in Nashville, indicating that the GOP’s vow to fund Trump’s personal legal fees is 10 times higher than previously known.

Last month, the GOP claimed in campaign-finance filings that it paid the former president’s personal attorneys $121,670 in October. According to the Post, the party has issued more payments since then with the RNC paying $578,000 last month to attorneys representing both Trump and his businesses.

The payments are reportedly expected to continue in the next several months, and the executive committee could move to fund more than $1.6 million in Trump’s legal bills.

The pandemic might be lingering, but relief from Loop 610 traffic certainly is not, allowing the segment from Interstate 10 to Interstate 69 through Uptown to regain the top spot as Texas’ most-congested corridor.

With an average delay of 919,437 hours per mile, the West Loop far exceeded its constant competitor for the top spot, Interstate 35 through Austin, which averaged 639,389 hours of delay per mile — a drop that indicates Austin’s worst segment is still enjoying some pandemic relief even if drivers might feel otherwise.

“When you look at some of those commute corridors, you had a whole lot less commuters,” said David Schrank, senior research scientist at Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and a principal author of the annual most-congested list.