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(WASHINGTON) — In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” for minors as a likely violation of counselors’ free speech rights under the First Amendment.

LGBTQ groups, who have hailed conversion therapy bans as critical to the mental health of minors figuring out their identities during adolescence, say the decision will mean more kids are “traumatized” going forward. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch, in the court’s opinion, said the law — enacted in 2019 to protect minors from efforts by mental health providers to change their sexual orientation or gender identity — “censors speech based on viewpoint” and must be subjected to the highest form of legal scrutiny, which a lower court had not applied.    

“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same,” Gorsuch wrote.

“But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” he continued. “It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth. However well-intentioned, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.” 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter. 

“Our precedents do not compel this conclusion,” Jackson wrote. “Speech uttered for purposes of providing medical treatment may be restricted incidentally when the state reasonably regulates the speaker’s provision of medical treatments to patients.” 

A Christian licensed therapist from Colorado Springs, Kaley Chiles, brought the legal challenge, alleging the law violates her free speech rights and prevents her from openly talking with clients about their desire to rid themselves of same-sex attractions or better align with their biological sex.

“Colorado law does not just regulate the content of Ms. Chiles’ speech. It goes a step further,” Gorsuch wrote, “prescribing what views she may and may not express.” 

The decision sends the case back to a lower court for further review of the law.

Colorado will likely no longer be able to forbid state licensed providers from attempting to change a patient’s orientation through talk therapy.

“States cannot silence voluntary conversations that help young people seeking to grow comfortable with their bodies,” said Jim Campell, the attorney for Chiles who argued the case before the court. “The decision today is a significant win for free speech, common sense, and families desperate to help their children.”

Conversion therapy has been widely discredited by major American mental health and medical organizations for decades. Half the states in the U.S. have outlawed the practice as ineffective and harmful to minors, often on a bipartisan basis. Those laws are now in question. 

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said that more kids will “suffer” as a result of this decision.

“Today’s reckless decision means more American kids will suffer. The Court has weaponized free-speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health and wellbeing of children,” Robinson said in a statement.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who has defended the state’s conversion therapy ban in court, called Tuesday’s ruling a “setback for Colorado’s efforts to protect children and families from harmful and discredited mental health practices.” 

“For generations, states have set and enforced standards to ensure that licensed professionals provide safe and appropriate care,” Weiser said in a statement. “We strongly disagree with the court’s reasoning and are carefully reviewing the decision to assess its full impact on Colorado law and on our responsibility to protect consumers and patients.”

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(WASHINGTON) — House Oversight Chairman James Comer has set a noon deadline Tuesday for Bill and Hillary Clinton to agree to the GOP’s specific terms for depositions that the Clintons signaled Monday night they generally would comply with, warning that if they do not then Republicans will reconvene to move contempt resolutions toward a full House vote.

“The Oversight Committee is seeking clarification the Clintons accepted the standard deposition terms that they were subpoenaed for: transcribed, filmed depositions in February with no time limit pursuant to the committee’s investigation. The depositions are pursuant to the Committee’s investigative purpose as laid out across its letters and contempt reports,” a person familiar with the matter told ABC News.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, in a news conference Tuesday alongside House GOP leadership, said Comer was “in the middle of a negotiation with the Clintons.”

“They have until noon today to fully comply, otherwise we will move contempt tomorrow against the Clintons,” Scalise reiterated.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed on Monday evening to sit for closed-door depositions in the committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

“They negotiated in good faith. You did not,” Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña posted on X. “They told you under oath what they know, but you don’t care. But the former President and former Secretary of State will be there. They look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone.”

Last month, the House Oversight Committee voted to advance two bipartisan resolutions holding the Clintons in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with its subpoenas relating to convicted sex offender Epstein.

For months, the Clintons had insisted that the subpoenas were without legal merit. Comer, a Republican, has pushed back, saying the Clintons are not above the law and must comply with a subpoena.

Besides defying the subpoenas to testify before the House committee, neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both deny having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by the former president or his wife in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein. 

In a letter dated Jan. 31, the Clintons’ legal teams wrote the committee to lay out the parameters of a prospective interview — alongside a request for the committee to withdraw its subpoena and contempt resolution — proposing a four-hour transcribed interview in lieu of a deposition conducted under oath.

The letter states the interview should occur in New York City — open to all committee members — while the scope of questions would be “confined to matters related to the investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein.” The president also asked to designate his own transcriber, alongside a court reporter employed by the House.

“This framework is consistent with your priorities as communicated by Committee staff and as identified during the business meeting on January 21st,” the letter, signed by Clinton attorneys Katherine Turner and Ashley Callen, stated. “Pursuant to your request for this comprehensive written proposal, we ask that you respond in kind should there remain any specific area of disagreement to continue this good-faith effort to avoid legal proceedings that will prevent our clients from providing testimony in addition to the sworn statements they already submitted.”

Comer wrote back Monday, citing “serious concerns with the offer,” beginning with the proposed scope restriction — predicting President Clinton “would refuse to answer questions” related to his personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Comer also balked at the proposed four-hour time limit for the interview, and the president’s bid to break blocks of questioning into 30-minute periods — rather than 60-minute periods — that alternate between Republicans and Democrats.

“A hard time-limit provides a witness with the incentive to attempt to run out the clock by giving unnecessarily long answers and meandering off-topic. This is a particular concern where a witness, such as President Clinton, has an established record of being a loquacious individual,” Comer said.

“Limiting President Clinton’s testimony to four hours is insufficient time for the Committee to gain a full understanding of President Clinton’s personal relationship with them, his knowledge of their sex-trafficking ring, and his experience with their efforts to curry favor and exercise influence to protect themselves,” he added of President Clinton’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell.

Finally, Comer took umbrage with the proposition for a transcribed interview, not a sworn deposition.

“A transcribed interview is voluntary, meaning that the subject may refuse to answer questions absent any assertion of privilege or constitutional right,” Comer noted. “The conditions requested thus would enable President Clinton to refuse to answer whatever questions he wanted for whatever reasons he wanted and leave as the Committee’s only recourse to again subpoena President Clinton’s testimony, effectively restarting this entire process from the beginning.”

As for Hillary Clinton, the lawyers’ letter echoes her sworn declaration, stating she “never held an office with responsibility for, or involvement with, DOJ’s handling of these investigations or prosecutions,” adding “the same is true as a private citizen after leaving office in 2013.”

The lawyers also requested that Comer withdraw the subpoena and resolution of contempt “so that we may continue to work in good faith toward an agreement that meets the Committee’s needs while accounting for the limited information Secretary Clinton can provide.”

In response, Comer emphasized “the necessity” of Hillary Clinton’s in-person testimony juxtaposed against the “unacceptability of simple sworn declarations.”

Comer concluded that the Clintons’ “desire for special treatment is both frustrating and an affront to the American people’s desire for transparency.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department released more images of alleged White House correspondents’ dinner attack suspect Cole Allen just moments before the attack, and also laid out his alleged pre-attack plans in a new court filing on Wednesday.

Investigators said that Allen was observed by agents at the security checkpoint in the Washington Hilton “fire the shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom.”

The court filing also gives the clearest description yet of what happened in the seconds during Allen’s alleged charging of the room.

“The USSS officer and others at the checkpoint heard the gunshot,” according to the court filing. “The USSS officer drew his service weapon and fired five times at the defendant. The defendant fell to the ground, was restrained by law enforcement, and was placed under arrest.”

Allen also allegedly wrote his assessments of the hotel’s security when he arrived at the Hilton.

“He wrote that he ‘walk[ed] in with multiple weapons and not a single person there [at the hotel] considers the possibility that I could be a threat,'” the court filing said.

According to the court filing, the defendant went on to complain that, “if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce2 in here and no one would have noticed s—.”

Authorities also outlined in further detail Allen’s alleged pre-attack plans, saying that it was something that was planned out before he arrived in Washington.

He allegedly searched for the White House correspondents’ dinner and events leading up to it. He booked his room for the Washington Hilton in early April, authorities said.

“The defendant also kept a running note on his phone of his observations and thoughts during his cross-country train journey,” according to the filing.

During the day of the dinner, Allen allegedly left his room multiple times and at points accessed a webpage that tracks the president’s schedule, the filing said.

Before he left his hotel room to allegedly carry out the attack, Allen took a photo of himself strapped up with his arsenal. The photo, included in the court filing, shows him with a black shirt, red tie and knives and weapons attached to his person and in his bag.

He then allegedly visited the presidential schedule tracking page minutes before the attack, and attempted to watch the president’s arrival at the dinner. He also sent his email outlining his plans, and then allegedly carried out his attack, according to the filing.

Authorities also say in the filing, that when they searched his room at the Hilton, they found two additional knives, a magazine with 10 rounds of ammunition, two boxes each containing 10 rounds of shotgun ammunition, a half-facepiece respirator, a roll of duct tape and two rolls of grip tape.

In Allen’s bedroom in Torrence, California, law enforcement recovered two long gun bags, a Mossberg buttstock, a pistol holster, a training pistol, and shotgun ammunition, along with several electronic devices, the filing said.

Allen is scheduled to be in court Thursday.

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