Senate calls on supreme court chief justice to investigate Clarence Thomas’s ‘gift’ trips – live

Senate calls for investigation of Clarence Thomas

More details are emerging about the Senate judiciary committee’s calls to investigate supreme court justice Clarence Thomas over potential violations of donor disclosure rules.

Democratic senators on Monday urged US chief justice John Roberts to investigate luxury trips Thomas took that were paid for by a Republican donor – conduct they deemed inconsistent with ethical standards for “any person in a position of public trust”.

The full letter is here:

Chairman Richard Durbin and the panel’s 10 other Democratic members wrote in a letter to Roberts that the committee will hold a hearing in the coming days focusing on “the need to restore confidence in the supreme court’s ethical standards”.

“And if the court does not resolve this issue on its own, the committee will consider legislation to resolve it”, they wrote. “But you do not need to wait for Congress to act to undertake your own investigation into the reported conduct and to ensure that it cannot happen again. We urge you to do so.”

The ProPublica report revealed Thomas accepted a number of trips and gifts from Republican businessman Harlan Crow over decades, though Crow claims he had “never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue”.

In their letter, senators told Roberts that “you have a role to play as well, both in investigating how such conduct could take place at the court under your watch, and in ensuring that such conduct does not happen again”.

“The report describes conduct by a sitting justice that he did not disclose to the public and that is plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust,” the senators wrote.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants Clarence Thomas impeached

Democratic US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday she wants Clarence Thomas impeached over his trips with a Republican mega-donor.

“It is the House’s responsibility to pursue that investigation in the form of impeachment,” she told CNN in an interview.

Her comments to CNN echo statements made last week after ProPublica revealed Thomas may have violated financial disclosure rules over his relationship with property billionaire Harlan Crow.

The report showed Thomas accepted expensive trips from Crow over decades despite federal law requiring the disclosure of most gifts.

Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged it was unlikely the Republican majority in the House of Representatives would want to take action against the conservative justice.

Thomas has defended the trips, saying in a statement on Friday that he had been advised he was not required to report that type of “personal hospitality”, and that he would now follow new rules brought in by the judicial conference responsible for financial disclosure requirements for the entire federal judiciary.

Crow told ProPublica he had “never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue”.

Hello, Kari Paul here on the west coast taking over the blog for a bit. Stay tuned for more updates.

The Senate judiciary committee will hold a hearing on conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s travel with Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, and has demanded chief justice John Roberts investigate his activities, Reuters reports.

It was not immediately clear when the hearing would take place. On Thursday, ProPublica reported that Thomas had for years accepted flights on private jets and stays in exclusive resorts from Crow, who is linked to a number of conservative causes.

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has a message for the House Republicans who plan to hold a committee hearing in New York City next week to address the issue of crime: go somewhere else.

In particular, he questions why Jim Jordan, chair of the judiciary committee that’s holding the hearing, doesn’t convene lawmakers in one of the Ohio cities near his district where the murder rate is higher:

This all has to do with Donald Trump, whom Bragg has indicted for allegedly falsifying business records. Republicans such as Jordan have hit back at the prosecutor, saying he should be more concerned with crime in his own district.

At her briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Texas federal judge’s ruling suspending mifepristone was part of the Republican campaign to outlaw abortion nationwide, the Hill reports:

However, she said the Biden administrations wouldn’t follow the advice of some Democrats, such as progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to ignore the ruling, according to Semafor:

More than 250 pharmaceutical industry leaders have released an open letter decrying the Texas federal judge’s ruling suspending authorization of abortion medication mifepristone:

The decision ignores decades of scientific evidence and legal precedent. Judge Kacsmaryk’s act of judicial interference has set a precedent for diminishing FDA’s authority over drug approvals, and in so doing, creates uncertainty for the entire biopharma industry. As an industry we count on the FDA’s autonomy and authority to bring new medicines to patients under a reliable regulatory process for drug evaluation and approval. Adding regulatory uncertainty to the already inherently risky work of discovering and developing new medicines will likely have the effect of reducing incentives for investment, endangering the innovation that characterizes our industry.”

Among the signatories on the letter is Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, as well as officials from major drugmakers like Merck and Biogen.

You can read the letter here.

The Biden administration has filed an appeal against a federal judge’s ruling last week that suspended the approval of one of the drugs used in medication abortion, NBC News reports.

In its appeal, the justice department said the ruling by Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative judge appointed by Donald Trump and seated in Amarillo, Texas, “upended decades of reliance by blocking FDA’s approval of mifepristone and depriving patients of access to this safe and effective treatment, based on the court’s own misguided assessment of the drug’s safety.”

The department called the ruling, which is to go into effect Friday and could mean mifepristone is taken off pharmacy shelves nationwide, “extraordinary and unprecedented.” If the fifth circuit court of appeals does not grant the stay, the justice department may decide to appeal to the supreme court, NBC reports.

Joe Biden has released a statement of condolence following the mass shooting that left five people dead in Louisville, Kentucky, while attacking Republicans for passing what he called “dangerous bills” that make gun violence worse.

“How many more Americans must die before Republicans in Congress will act to protect our communities? It’s long past time that we require safe storage of firearms. Require background checks for all gun sales. Eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. We can and must do these things now,” Biden said.

Here’s his statement in full:

Once again, our nation is in mourning after a senseless act of gun violence. Jill and I are praying for those killed and injured in the tragic shooting in Louisville, and for the survivors who will carry grief and trauma for the rest of their lives. We are grateful to the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department officers who quickly and courageously stepped into the line of fire to save others.How many more Americans must die before Republicans in Congress will act to protect our communities? It’s long past time that we require safe storage of firearms. Require background checks for all gun sales. Eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. We can and must do these things now. A strong majority of Americans want lawmakers to act on commonsense gun safety reforms. Instead, from Florida to North Carolina to the U.S. House of Representatives, we’ve watched Republican officials double down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship, and communities less safe. It’s unconscionable, it’s reckless, and too many Americans are paying with their lives.

The Connecticut US senator Richard Blumenthal said Sunday that he had surgery aimed at repairing a broken leg that he suffered at a parade celebrating a national championship won by his state’s flagship university.

Blumenthal, a 77-year-old Democrat, told the local News 12 station that someone fell on him after tripping while they were at Saturday’s parade honoring the University of Connecticut’s men’s basketball team, which won its first-ever national championship on 3 April.

He then said Sunday on Twitter that he had surgery to help heal a break to one of his upper femurs, calling the procedure “completely successful” and saying his medical caretakers had been “magnificent”. Blumenthal also said he had already started his physical therapy and planned to be back at work in the nation’s capital in the middle of April, when Congress is set to resume its legislative session after a break.

Connecticut’s other Democratic senator, Chris Murphy, said Blumenthal managed to finish the parade before going to the hospital after fracturing his leg. “He … dusted himself off and FINISHED THE PARADE,” Murphy wrote on Twitter. “Most Dick Blumenthal thing ever.”

Blumental is in his third term in the US Senate after first being elected to the chamber in 2010.

He wrote on Twitter that he was “grateful to everyone who has called, texted or tweeted … well wishes” since news of his leg fracture spread across social media, adding: “It means so much to me and my family – thank you.”

Donald Trump is the only former American president ever to be indicted, but the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that he now thinks the charges could be useful in his quest to return to the White House:

Donald Trump appeared angry and shaken during his arraignment in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, but he had brushed off the moment by the weekend, contending that the indictment and other legal troubles would carry him to the 2024 Republican nomination, people close to him said.

With his status as a criminal defendant subjecting him to the strictures of the judicial process, the former president is playing an increasingly high-stakes game to inextricably tie his legal strategy to his political gameplan as he seeks to recapture the Oval Office next year.

Trump’s wager is that using his legal troubles as a campaign issue will harden support from his base and Republican elected officials, and that support could undercut or falsely delegitimize prosecutions in Georgia or by the US justice department in other criminal investigations.

America’s gun violence epidemic continues, with five people killed in a mass shooting at a bank building in Louisville, Kentucky this morning. Meanwhile, Tennessee Republicans have managed to oust from the state House of Representatives two Black Democratic lawmakers who staged a noisy protest in favor of gun control after a mass shooting in Nashville – but local officials may reappoint them back to their seats, with one being voted on as soon as today.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• Joe Biden will run for re-election, but plans to make a formal announcement in the future, he said in a surprising, offhand remark at the annual White House Easter egg roll.

• Donald Trump is suing to stop his former vice-president Mike Pence from talking to a grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection.

• Nancy Mace, a Republican lawmaker in the US House of Representatives, says the Biden administration should ignore a conservative federal judge’s ruling suspending the certification of one of the drugs used in medication abortion.

Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear said he lost two friends in the shooting in downtown Louisville today.

Beshear and lieutenant governor Jacqueline Coleman are the only Democrats elected statewide in the otherwise overwhelmingly red state. Last month, Beshear took no action on a Republican-backed bill that would make Kentucky a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” where police are banned from enforcing federal gun legislation, allowing it to become law, according to WTVQ.

Here are his comments, courtesy of the Washington Post:

The ranks of disaffected Trump administration officials are deep, and include people who were once in positions of great power. Among them is William Barr, his former attorney general. Over the weekend, Barr predicted that the former president would be in deep trouble over the January 6 insurrection and the classified documents scandal, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Donald Trump “has a penchant for engaging in reckless and self-destructive behavior” and is facing a serious threat of a federal indictment over his handling of classified documents and his supporters’ deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol, his former attorney general William Barr said on Sunday.

“He’s dug himself a hole on the documents, and also on the January 6 stuff,” Barr said of the former president during an interview on ABC’s This Week. “That was reckless behavior that was destined to end up being investigated. So it doesn’t surprise me that he has all these legal problems.”

A US justice department special counsel, Jack Smith, is investigating whether Trump obstructed an inquiry into his handling of classified documents at the Mar-a-Lago estate.