Former House speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded not guilty today in federal court in Chicago.

After days of silence, J. Dennis Hastert, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he illegally structured bank withdrawals and lied to the authorities about millions of dollars he had promised to pay someone for misconduct that occurred decades ago

...Two people briefed on the evidence uncovered in an F.B.I. investigation have said that Mr. Hastert, who once taught and coached wrestling in suburban Yorkville, Ill., was paying a former student not to say publicly that Mr. Hastert had sexually abused him decades ago.

Hastert was released on bond.

Three jurors were dismissed today from the Aurora Theater shooting trial of James Holmes. One juror (juror 872) had told other jurors about media accounts of a mistrial request that had been denied. On another occasion she told them about information she received from her husband that one of the lawyers in the case (who was chief prosecutor George Brauchler) got in trouble with the court for tweeting about the case from the courtroom. Her husband told her that @GeorgeBrauchler had tweeted about the trial from the courtroom and he called him an "idiot." On one occasion, she had her husband on speakerphone in the presence of up to four other jurors.

The judge said, "This isn't' a one word type of thing. These were multiple comments."

There are four women jurors who hang out together on breaks on the patio where they can smoke cigarettes. The fifth juror sometimes went out to the patio. [More...]

Oscar Pistorius will be released from prison on August 21. He will have served 10 months of his 5 year sentence.

South African sentencing guidelines that say non-dangerous prisoners should spend only one-sixth of a custodial sentence behind bars.

He will serve the remainder of his sentence on home detention. He also faces the state's appeal of the dismissal of the murder count against him in November.

He has been serving his sentence in the hospital wing of the prison.

TalkLeft was down last night and today until just now. All should be fine now. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Robel Phillipos was sentenced to three years in prison today for his false statements to the FBI after the Boston Marathon bombings. He was ordered to pay a $25,000. fine and spend 1 to 3 years on supervised release after release from prison. He was also ordered to take random drug tests and undergo drug treatment. The judge said, "There’s a price to be paid for the failure of responsibility. There’s a price to be paid to the community."

The Judge granted him a voluntary surrender and did not order him into custody today.

The government had requested Phillipos serve 63 months in prison. My live blog of the hearing (taken from numerous accounts of reporters in the courtroom posted on Twitter -- Hashtag #Phillipos -- as well as my thoughts on why this is too harsh a sentence are below. [More...]

The federal judge presiding over the cases of three friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnav sentenced Azamat Tazhayakov to 42 months (3 1/2 years) in prison today. He has already served 26 months. With good time (54 days a month after the first year) he should be done in a year or less, at which time he will be deported to Kazakhstan.

The Government had asked for four years. His lawyers asked for time served (26 months.) His guidelines, due to the terror enhancement, were 360 to life. As with Dias, the judge disregarded the enhancement since their obstruction did not involve terrorist acts. [More...]

Just another reason not to restrict ISIS accounts on Twitter - a careless ISIS member posted a picture of himself standing outside an IS headquarters on an open forum. The U.S. was able to identify it and bombed it.

Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, described Monday how airmen at Hurlburt Field, Florida, with the 361st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group, recognized a comment on social media and turned that into an airstrike that resulted in three Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) missiles destroying am Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) headquarters building. “It was a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours,” Carlisle said. #8220; Incredible work when you think about.”

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The Baltimore prosecutor in the Freddie Gray case wants to withhold the autopsy report.

Feel free to discuss all aspects of the Freddie Gray case here, but keep in mind, race-baiting and racially charged comments will be deleted.

Here's a new open thread. All topics welcome except Freddie Gray. (He'll get his own new thread soon.)

DEA wiretaps have tripled over the last nine years. Of particular concern: It is increasingly bypassing the Title III requirements by applying for wiretaps in state courts.

USA Today reports (no link due to autoplay video)

The DEA conducted 11,681 electronic intercepts in the fiscal year that ended in September. Ten years earlier, the drug agency conducted 3,394.

The statistics are here.

The House of Representatives yesterday approved the fiscal year 2016 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill (H.R. 2578) on a vote of 242-183. The bill contains $51.4 billion in total discretionary funding,

Here is DOJ's submitted request. The bill as introduced is here.

There were 87 amendments to the bill. These are the ones that passed. [More...]

Despite a ruling by a federal judge in Virginia several months ago holding that Kim Dotcom cannot defend against the forfeiture of his assets because of the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, a New Zealand Court this week has granted DotCom's request for an Order prohibiting the Crown in New Zealand from proceeding to register the subsequent U.S. default forfeiture judgments against the assets in NZ. The opinion is here.

It's all pretty complicated, but in a nutshell: [More...]