White House: Jackson confirmation ‘a tremendously historic day’
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Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to US supreme court
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NY attorney general seeks contempt ruling on Trump
1.17pm EDT
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How the supreme court confirmation vote will work
12.33pm EDT
12:33
Senate clears Jackson confirmation for final vote
11.31am EDT
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House speaker Nancy Pelosi tests positive for Covid-19
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2.01pm EDT
14:01
Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to US supreme court
The US Senate has voted to confirm Joe Biden’s pick Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to a seat on the US supreme court.
The historic vote makes her the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.
Full story here:
Updated at 2.06pm EDT
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Closing summary
We’re closing down the blog now after a day dominated by the historic confirmation by the US Senate of the first Black judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to a seat on the US supreme court.
Please join us again tomorrow, when Joe Biden will talk about Jackson’s confirmation from the White House, and for what will surely be another busy day in US politics.
Remember you can continue to follow developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our live blog here.
Here’s where else our day went:
The New York attorney general Letitia James filed for a contempt order against Donald Trump for his refusal to cooperate with her inquiry into his business dealings.
The House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she had tested positive for Covid-19.
The justice department blocked the House 6 January inquiry from accessing 15 boxes of Trump’s White House records, according to reports.
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One other issue to emerge from this afternoon’s White House press briefing: the Biden administration dismissed as “a publicity stunt” a declaration by the Texas governor Greg Abbott that he was going to bus undocumented migrants to Washington DC.
Abbott floated the plan as his response to the upcoming termination of Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy blocking migrants at the US southern border because of Covid-19. Critics of the administration, and the homeland security department, predict a surge of migrants when the program ends next month.
“I’m not aware of any authority the governor would be doing that under,” Psaki said.
“I think it’s pretty clear this is a publicity stunt, his own office admits that a migrant would need to voluntarily be transported and he can’t compel them to because enforcement of our country’s immigration government lies with the federal government, not a state.”
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Inevitably, questions in the White House briefing room turned to Covid-19 and the announcement earlier today that the House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was twice in Joe Biden’s close company without a mask in recent days, had tested positive.
Psaki said the administration was not concerned for the 79-year-old president’s age because, under centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) guidelines, the two are not considered “close contacts.”
“It’s not arbitrary. It’s not something made up by the White House,” Psaki said of the guidelines. “They define it as being within six feet for a cumulative total of 15 minutes over a 24 hour period that they were not.
“In terms of additional testing or anything along those lines, those assessments would be made by the president’s doctor. He was tested last evening and tested negative.
“We have incredibly stringent protocols at the White House that we keep in place to keep the president, to keep everybody safe. Those go over and above CDC guidelines, and that includes ensuring that anyone who is going to be around the president is tested.”
3.39pm EDT
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Over at the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki has been answering questions about US arms shipments to Ukraine, given military leaders’ assessments that the war against Russia could take years.
“There are transfers of systems nearly every single day,” Psaki said, hours after the Ukraine defense minister Dymtro Zulebi told journalists in Brussels that there were only three items on his country’s wish list for the US and its allies: “Weapons, weapons and weapons.”
