Judge Sides With Blogger Who Called Kash Patel a ‘Russian Asset’
Plus, Diddy’s release moves up again, Blanche nomination stalls, Epstein-linked school exposes decades of abuse, and Murdaugh demands independent DNA testing: FPD DRIVE-BY
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WASHINGTON: Judge Tosses Kash Patel’s Lawsuit Over ‘Kremlin Asset’ Claims
The FBI director had a $250,000 judgment. Then the defendant showed up and pulled the floor out from beneath it.
A federal judge has thrown out FBI Director Kash Patel’s defamation lawsuit against California blogger Jim Stewartson, wiping away a $250,000 default judgment Patel and his foundation previously secured after Stewartson failed to appear in court.
Patel sued in Nevada in 2023 over posts accusing him of planning the January 6 attack, attempting to overthrow the government, committing sedition, paying witnesses to lie to Congress, and acting as a “Kremlin asset.” Patel called the allegations malicious lies designed to drive subscriptions to Stewartson’s podcast and Substack.
The case initially ended without a fight. Stewartson did not respond, and Nevada’s chief federal trial judge Andrew Gordon awarded Patel $200,000 and his foundation another $50,000. Stewartson later said he had never been properly served and only learned about the judgment from a news report.
Gordon agreed that Nevada had no personal jurisdiction over the California blogger. Tagging Patel online, the judge ruled, did not mean Stewartson had specifically targeted Nevada. The posts were aimed at national politics, not a Nevada audience. The dismissal does not decide whether Stewartson’s accusations were true. It decides Patel brought the case through the wrong courthouse door.
Hot Take
Patel walked in carrying a quarter-million-dollar judgment and walked out holding a map to the wrong state. The insults survived because jurisdiction killed the case before truth ever reached the witness stand.
LOS ANGELES: Diddy’s Prison Release Date Moves Up Again
The calendar has shifted once more, this time putting January 2028 on the prison gate.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is now expected to leave federal prison on January 24, 2028, one month earlier than his previously listed release date. Court and prison records did not provide a specific reason for the change.
Combs, 56, is serving a 50-month sentence after being convicted in 2025 on two prostitution-related transportation offenses. He remains incarcerated while appealing both his conviction and the sentence imposed against him.
The projected date can still change depending on good-time credit, disciplinary issues, programming, and other federal calculations. For Combs, the prison clock keeps moving. The civil lawsuits and allegations waiting outside have not moved an inch.
Hot Take
The release date keeps slipping closer like a shadow under the cell door. Freedom may arrive early, but the case files will already be waiting in the parking lot.
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WASHINGTON: Trump Threatens to Pull Todd Blanche Nomination as GOP Blockade Holds
The man running the Justice Department may stay in power without ever winning the Senate vote.
President Donald Trump says he may temporarily withdraw Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general rather than accept demands from Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, who have vowed to block Blanche in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The dispute centers on a controversial settlement between the Justice Department and IRS resolving Trump’s lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns. The agreement created a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and included language critics say could shield Trump, his family, and his businesses from future audits or broader legal scrutiny.
Cornyn and Tillis want the fund permanently abolished and written assurances that any tax protections apply only to past audits and only to the IRS. Blanche says the fund is dead, but the senators want that promise put on paper. Trump has suggested he could wait until both senators leave office in January and then renominate Blanche.
Blanche can continue leading the Justice Department in an acting capacity while the fight drags on. That creates the strangest possible outcome, creating a deeply powerful attorney general who remains politically protected precisely because the confirmation process never finishes.
Hot Take
The nomination is stuck in committee, but Blanche still has the keys. In Washington, sometimes the locked door is not an obstacle. It is the office.
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MICHIGAN: Epstein School Investigation Uncovers Decades of Abuse Allegations
A review of one notorious donor exposed something much larger buried inside the institution.
An investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with the Interlochen Center for the Arts has uncovered more than 70 allegations of sexually inappropriate physical contact involving 47 staff members and affiliates between 1950 and 2010.
The Michigan boarding school and summer arts camp launched the investigation over concerns surrounding Epstein, who donated approximately $400,000 between 1990 and 2003. Two former students alleged Epstein abused them after flying them to New York, where he requested massages and subjected them to sexual contact. One accuser said Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell paid her tuition until she rejected their advances.
The 97-page report went far beyond Epstein. Former students described grooming, drugs, alcohol, adults using staff privileges to remove students from residences, and administrators failing to properly confront suspected predators. One accused employee was reportedly warned only to “try not to get involved with any students.”
Interlochen says none of the accused currently works at the school, more than a third are dead, and names have been forwarded to law enforcement. The institution says it is now fundamentally different. Survivors are left with the older truth: for decades, adults held the power, children carried the secrets, and warnings disappeared into the walls.
Hot Take
They went looking for Epstein and found an entire hallway of locked rooms. One predator was the headline. The institution was the crime scene.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Murdaugh Defense Demands Independent Testing of Unknown Male DNA
His lawyers say state testing could destroy the only sample capable of naming another man.
Alex Murdaugh’s defense team is asking a judge to stop South Carolina investigators from conducting additional DNA tests on biological material found beneath Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails and instead send the samples to an independent genetic genealogy laboratory.
Earlier testing identified Maggie’s DNA along with a partial profile from an unknown, unrelated male. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division wants to conduct further traditional STR analysis, which compares DNA against known law enforcement databases. Murdaugh’s attorneys want Othram to perform broader SNP testing that could potentially identify relatives and build a family tree around the unknown contributor.
The defense argues the remaining material is fragile and that another round of state testing could consume or destroy the sample before advanced analysis is attempted. The filing also accuses SLED of bad faith, pointing to disputes over testing performed on the shirt Murdaugh wore on the night Maggie and Paul were killed.
Murdaugh’s retrial is scheduled for April 5, 2027, after his original murder convictions were overturned because of jury interference by former court clerk Becky Hill. A hearing on the DNA dispute is scheduled for August 14. For the defense, the unknown male is now more than a laboratory result. He is a possible doorway into reasonable doubt.
Hot Take
Unknown DNA is the kind of loose thread a defense lawyer dreams about. Pull it carefully and the sweater might unravel. Test it badly and the thread disappears forever.
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