From 5h ago
The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked chief justice John Roberts to testify on 2 May about the court’s ethics, following revelations of undisclosed links between a Republican megadonor and conservative justice Clarence Thomas.
In a letter to Roberts, judiciary committee chair Richard Durbin did not mention those reports about Thomas specifically, but noted that since he last addressed the court’s ethics in 2011 “there has been a steady stream of revelations regarding Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally. These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence. The status quo is no longer tenable.”
Durbin said the hearing would focus on “the ethical rules that govern the Justices of the Supreme Court and potential reforms to those rules,” while noting that the “scope of your testimony can be limited to these subjects, and that you would not be expected to answer questions from Senators regarding any other matters.”
The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked supreme court chief justice John Roberts to testify early next month about the panel’s approach to ethics. The request comes after a series of articles published by ProPublica raised questions about conservative justice Clarence Thomas’s ties to Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Roberts has not responded yet, and the judiciary chair Richard Durbin says he’s not looking to compel his testimony with a subpoena.
Here’s what else happened today:
The debt limit battle has officially started. Latest development: one Democratic senator thinks Joe Biden should negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy.
House Republicans pushed through a measure to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports at schools and universities, a bill that will meet its doom in the Senate.
A top Donald Trump adviser was scheduled to be interviewed by the special counsel investigating the former president’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection and possession of classified documents.
Trump’s comments about abortion being left to the states displeased an influential group opposed to the procedure.
Mike Lindell, a noted conspiracy theorist and pillow magnate, appears to be on the hook for $5mn to a software expert who took him up on his challenge to debunk data Lindell claimed proved fraud in the 2020 election.
An Internal Revenue Service official alleges an investigation into the president’s son Hunter Biden has been mishandled, and is seeking whistleblower protection to inform Congress, the Associated Press reports.
The GOP has for months been trying to use the younger Biden’s legal trouble to tar the president. The US attorney in Delaware, who was appointed by Donald Trump and whom Joe Biden’s White House kept in his post after taking office, is reportedly considering charges against Hunter Biden related to lying on a gun purchase background check form and failing to report some business activities to the tax authorities.
According to the AP, the unnamed IRS employee contacted through their attorney the leaders of several congressional committees after sharing their information within the IRS, and with the justice department’s watchdog. Here’s more from their report:
Mark Lytle, the attorney for the IRS whistleblower, wrote to lawmakers Wednesday that his client has information about a “failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition” of a criminal investigation related to the younger Biden’s taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase.
“Despite serious risks of retaliation, my client is offering to provide you with information necessary to exercise your constitutional oversight function and wishes to make the disclosures in a nonpartisan manner to the leadership of the relevant committees on both sides of the political aisle,” Lytle said in a letter, obtained by The Associated Press, that was sent to the chairmen and ranking members of several House and Senate committees.
The letter states that the supervisory special agent previously disclosed the information they are seeking to share with Congress internally with the IRS and a watchdog for the Justice Department. Lytle added that his client is able to contradict sworn testimony to lawmakers “by a senior political appointee.” That appointee is not named.
The special agent also wants to disclose “examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected,” the lawyer added.
Donald Trump’s legal troubles are continuing, with a civil case over an alleged rape heading to trial in New York City. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports on a clash between the judge in the case and a lawyer for the former president:
Donald Trump on Thursday was rebuked by the judge in his looming civil rape trial over a request for jurors to be told that if the former president did not testify, it would be out of concern that his presence would adversely affect New York City.
This week, a lawyer for Trump, Joe Tacopina, first tried to delay the trial then requested the jury instruction.
In a letter to Kaplan on Wednesday, Tacopina said jurors should be told: “While no litigant is required to appear at a civil trial, the absence of the defendant in this matter, by design, avoids the logistical burdens that his presence, as the former president, would cause the courthouse and New York City.
Anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has taken issue with Donald Trump’s stance that he regards abortion as an issue to be decided by the states.
Citing a statement the former president’s campaign made to the Washington Post, the group’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser hit out at Trump, who played an instrumental role in the overturning of Roe v Wade by appointing three conservative justices to the supreme court.
“President Trump’s assertion that the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion solely to the states is a completely inaccurate reading of the Dobbs decision and is a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate to hold,” Dannenfelser said.
“We will oppose any presidential candidate who refuses to embrace at a minimum a 15-week national standard to stop painful late-term abortions while allowing states to enact further protections.”
You can read the rest of the statement here.
Mike Lindell, who is best known outside the world of pillow enthusiasts for spreading baseless tales about the 2020 election, may now have to pay up big time after challenging a software expert to debunk data supposedly proving fraud was behind Donald Trump’s election loss. It’s an unusual story, and the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly tells it well:
Mike Lindell must make good on a promise and pay $5m to a software expert who debunked data the conspiracy theorist touted in advancing Donald Trump’s lie that his 2020 presidential election defeat was the result of voting fraud, an arbitration panel decided.
In its decision, the panel said: “The data Lindell LLC provided, and represented reflected information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data.”
Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was conclusive: by more than 7m votes and a clear margin in the electoral college.
But Lindell, who is recovering from substance use disorder and is chief executive of MyPillow, has spent millions in support of Trump’s lie.
In Florida, Ron DeSantis’s feud with Disney is escalating, all while the governor appears to be moving towards announcing a run for the Republican presidential nomination next year. The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe has the latest from Miami:
The Republican-dominated legislature in Florida has moved quickly to amplify Governor Ron DeSantis’s feud with Disney over LGBTQ+ rights, advancing a proposal to overcome the company’s thwarting of his earlier plan to seize control of the theme park giant.
DeSantis, a likely candidate for the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nomination, was outfoxed by Disney after installing a hand-picked board of directors with oversight of the state’s biggest private employer. At its first meeting, the board discovered a last-minute deal between Disney and outgoing directors had rendered it in effect impotent.
Now, in a move Democrats say is unconstitutional, lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a measure handing the DeSantis loyalists retroactive power to nullify the agreement by amending a land use law relating to special taxing districts.
In Oklahoma, the fallout continues from revelations that local officials fantasized about killing Black people and news reporters. Here’s the latest from the Associated Press:
A county commissioner in far south-east Oklahoma who was identified by a local newspaper as one of several officials caught on tape discussing killing reporters and lynching Black people has resigned from office, the state’s governor confirmed on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Governor Kevin Stitt, Carly Atchison, said their office received a handwritten resignation letter from the McCurtain county commissioner Mark Jennings. In it, Jennings says he is resigning immediately and that he plans to release a formal statement “in the near future regarding the recent events in our county”.
The threatening comments by Jennings and officials with the McCurtain county sheriff’s office were obtained after a 6 March meeting and reported by the McCurtain Gazette-News earlier this week in its weekend edition. They have sparked outrage and protests in the city of Idabel, the county seat.
The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked supreme court chief justice John Roberts to testify early next month about the panel’s approach to ethics. The request comes after a series of articles published by ProPublica raised questions about conservative justice Clarence Thomas’s ties to Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. The judiciary chair Richard Durbin says he has no intention of compelling Roberts’s testimony with a subpoena – thus, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see if the chief justice responds.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The debt limit battle has officially started. Latest development: one Democratic senator thinks Joe Biden should negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy.
House Republicans pushed through a measure to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports at schools and universities, a bill that will meet its doom in the Senate.
A top Donald Trump adviser is scheduled to be interviewed by the special counsel investigating the former president’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection and possession of classified documents.
Once they’re confirmed, supreme court justices don’t appear before Congress often. How did we get to the point where a top Democrat wants the court’s chief justice to appear before his committee? This piece from the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington answers that question:
Earlier this month, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas put out a statement in which he addressed the storm of criticism that has engulfed him following the blockbuster ProPublica report that revealed his failure to disclose lavish gifts of luxury vacations and private-jet travel from a Texan real estate magnate.
Thomas confirmed that the Dallas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy were “among our dearest friends”. Thomas admitted, too, that he and his wife Ginni had “joined them on a number of family trips during the more-than-a-quarter-century we have known them”.
The justice, who is the longest-serving member of the nation’s highest court and arguably its most staunch conservative, insisted he had taken advice that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends” did not have to be reported under federal ethics laws. He emphasized that the friend in question “did not have business before the court”.
CBS News reports that Senate judiciary chair Richard Durbin hopes John Roberts will honor his invitation to testify before his committee, and isn’t considering sending the chief justice a subpoena:
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
