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      How the US supreme court could be a key election issue: ‘They’ve grown too powerful’

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      “Look at me, look at me,” said Martha-Ann Alito. “I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you.”It was a bizarre outburst from the wife of a justice on America’s highest court. Secretly recorded by a liberal activist, Martha-Ann Alito complained about a neighbour’s gay pride flag and expressed a desire to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag in protest.This, along with audio clips of Justice Samuel Alito himself and a stream of ethics violations, have deepened public concerns that the supreme court is playing by its own rules. The Democratic representative Jamie Raskin has described a “national clamour over this crisis of legitimacy” at the court.A poll last month for the progressive advocacy organisation Stand Up America suggests that the supreme court will now play a crucial role in voters’ choices in the 2024 election. Nearly three in four voters said the selection and confirmation of justices will be an important consideration for them in voting for both president and senator in November.Reed Galen, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy group, said: “The idea that these guys act as if they are kings ruling from above, to me, should absolutely be an issue. It was always Republicans who said we hate unelected judges legislating from the bench and we hate judicial activism. That’s all this stuff is.”View image in fullscreenPublic trust in the court is at an all-time low amid concerns over bias and corruption. Alito has rejected demands that he recuse himself from a case considering presidential immunity after flags similar to those carried by 6 January 2021 rioters flew over his homes in Virginia and New Jersey. Justice Clarence Thomas has ignored calls to step aside because of the role his wife, Ginni, played in supporting efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020.Ethical standards have been under scrutiny following revelations that some justices failed to report luxury trips, including on private jets, and property deals. Last week Thomas, who has come under criticism for failing to disclose gifts from the businessman and Republican donor Harlan Crow, revised his 2019 form to acknowledge he accepted “food and lodging” at a Bali hotel and at a California club.These controversies have been compounded by historic and hugely divisive decisions. The fall of Roe v Wade, ending the nationwide right to abortion after half a century, was seen by many Democrats as a gamechanger in terms of people making a connection between the court and their everyday lives.There are further signs of the debate moving beyond the Washington bubble. Last week, the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper argued that, since the court’s own ethics code proved toothless, Congress should enact legislation that holds supreme court justices to higher ethical standards. The paper called for the local senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is chair of the Senate judiciary committee, to hold a hearing on the issue.Maggie Jo Buchanan, managing director of the pressure group Demand Justice, said: “It’s important to keep in mind that, even though debate among members of Congress would lead you to believe that court reform is a polarising issue, it really isn’t. For years we have seen broad bipartisan support for basic supreme court reforms such as ethics.“A broad bipartisan consensus exists that they’ve grown too powerful, that they have too much power over laws and regulations. That’s shared among nearly three-fourths of Americans, including 80% of independents, so the demand is there and this isn’t something where it’s Democrats versus Republicans in the sense of real people. The American people want change and want to check the judiciary.”Congressional Democrats have introduced various bills including one to create an independent ethics office and internal investigations counsel within the supreme court. Broader progressive ideas include expanding the number of seats on the court or limiting the justices to 18-year terms rather than lifetime appointments.But such efforts have been repeatedly thwarted by Republicans, who over decades impressed on their base the importance of the court, ultimately leading to a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees.This week Senate Republicans blocked the ​​Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, legislation that would require the court to adopt a binding code of conduct for all justices, establish procedures to investigate complaints of judicial misconduct and adopt rules to disclose gifts, travel and income received by them that are at least as rigorous as congressional disclosure rules.In response, Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, said its “nearly 2 million members are fired up and ready to continue advocating for supreme court reform – in Congress and at the ballot box”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Galen of the Lincoln Project worries that Democrats lack the necessary aggression to capitalise on the issue. “[Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer and Durbin are not change agents. They consider themselves institutionalists and they continue to call themselves that. They’re in a place where they can’t possibly conceive of something like that. Democrats are just afraid of their own shadow.”That principle might apply to the US president himself. The 81-year-old, who served in the Senate for 36 years, is reluctant to call out justices by name or call for sweeping reforms of the court, although he is making its decision to end the constitutional right to abortion a centrepiece of his campaign.Ed Fallone, an associate law professor at Marquette University Law School said: “I don’t know that Joe Biden is the politician to try and benefit from this issue. Biden has always presented himself as an institutionalist and more of a centrist than many segments of the Democratic party.“There’s a real risk here for Biden because, if he does try to get political advantage from the public’s growing concern about the supreme court, it seems to conflict with his message that we should all respect the court system and the judicial system and the Trump prosecutions and the various legal problems of former Trump advisers. It seems difficult to reconcile telling the public to respect the judicial system with also embracing the idea that the very top of the system is flawed and needs reform.”Fallone added: “You will see other Democrats seize on this issue and start to push it, in particular those who are are going to try to energise the left side of the base, maybe not necessarily for this election, but maybe anticipating Biden might lose and starting already to look ahead to the following election.”Other argue that, competing for voter attention with the cost of living, immigration and other issues, the supreme court will ultimately fade into background noise.Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington DC, said: “The middle of the country, the independents and the swing voters do not care about the supreme court, and I don’t think any effort by Democrats or the media bringing up these things about Alito or Thomas is going to register or motivate those people. It motivates partisans. It doesn’t motivate swing voters on either side.”Read more: The supreme court’s decisions this week
      US supreme court strikes down federal ban on ‘bump stock’ devices for guns
      US supreme court unanimously upholds access to abortion pill mifepristone
      US supreme court sides with Starbucks in union case over fired employees More

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      Justice department won’t pursue criminal contempt charge against Merrick Garland – as it happened

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      The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland. This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
      The supreme court has ruled 6-3 in favor of a challenge to a federal ban on gun ‘bump stock’ devices. The vote was 6-3, with liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
      In her dissent against the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks, liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor said: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” She adds that the “majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”
      Joe Biden released a statement in light of the supreme court’s latest decision on bump stocks, saying: “Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”
      Vice president Kamala Harris has released the following statement in response to the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks: “Weapons of war have no place on the streets of a civil society… Unfortunately, today’s supreme court ruling strikes down this important, commonsense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute.”
      Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump.” Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.
      The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces. “The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more,” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.
      March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.” It went on to add: “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave.”
      That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Louisiana’s Republican representative Garret Graves will not be running for re-election, he announced on Friday.In a statement, Graves, who has represented the state’s 6th district since 2015, said:
      “After much input from constituents, consultation with supporters, consensus from family, and guidance from the Almighty, it is clear that running for Congress this year does not make sense. It is evident that a run in any temporary district will cause actual permanent damage to Louisiana’s great representation in Congress.”
      Democrats are seizing on Donald Trump’s ‘horrible city’ remark about Milwaukee for ads. Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings – a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is set to be the party’s presidential nominee this November.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden’s victory over him.Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.For the full story, click here:The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision on bump stocks, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.”It went on to add:
      “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave…
      While this decision is egregious, dangerous, and out of touch, we can’t say we’re surprised. The NRA spent $2 million to help place ideological extremists on the bench that have done nothing but bend over backward to serve the gun lobby. The recent audio recordings of the Justices depict exactly what we already knew – that they are extreme, ultra-conservative, partisan, and rely on their own personal beliefs to make decisions rather than settled constitutional jurisprudence.”
      Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator of Massachusetts, has called on Congress to ban bump stocks following the supreme court decision, which she said “enables mass shooters to inflict carnage”.Kamala Harris, who earlier released a statement criticizing the ruling on bump stocks, said the court was “rolling back” on “important progress” to prevent gun violence in America.Republicans and Democrats alike have targeted Wisconsin as a must-win state in November’s poll.Joe Biden won it by a margin of about 21,000 votes in the 2020 election, although Donald Trump challenged some vote tallies in his drive to prove that the election had been “stolen”.Trump scored a narrow win in the state in the 2016 election, a result that played a crucial role in his victory over Hillary Clinton.Milwaukee is on the western shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago and east of the state capital of Madison, and is a minority white, largely industrial city that votes Democratic, with a long history of racial segregation laws against Black residents. African Americans make up almost 39% of the population, with about 20% Hispanic or Latino.In a tacit admission of the potential self-harm inflicted, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, described the reporting of the comment as “total bullshit”.“He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as,” Cheung posted on X, insisting that Trump had been referring to crime and election issues.Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings, a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican National Convention.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021.Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.Trump and Biden are running neck and neck in the state, according to numerous polls.The remark calling Milwaukee horrible drew immediate condemnation from Democrats. Republicans – recognising the extent of the possible damage – initially denied the comment had been made, before trying to soften the blow by putting it in various contexts.In a graphic sign of the high stakes, the Democratic election machine swiftly commissioned several billboards to be erected in Milwaukee, the local newspaper the Journal Sentinel reported.One featured picture of Trump next to an image of the X post that broke the story. “TRUMP TO HOUSE REPUBLICANS: ‘Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city’.” it read.The other had the incriminating quote next to a picture of the former president against a red background.Ten billboards are planned to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to the convention to maximise the words’ effect.Here’s how the justices voted in the supreme court’s decision to strike down a federal ban on bump stocks:The ruling was 6-3, with the court’s liberal justices dissenting from the conservative majority’s decision.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump”.Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.
      The far-right Supreme Court continues their unprecedented assault on public safety by reversing the commonsense guidance issued in 2018 by the ATF … Sadly it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda.
      He added that he warned the Trump administration at the time that “the only way to permanently close this loophole is through legislation.” Schumer added:
      Senate Democrats are ready to pass legislation to ban bump stocks but we will need votes from Senate Republicans.
      The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces.“The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more, ” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.
      The ATF has gone rogue in assuming lawmaking authority that it does not have with pistol brace rules, homemade firearms, who a gun dealer is, etc, and they must be reined in. More

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      Trump tells Logan Paul he used AI to ‘so beautifully’ rewrite a speech

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      Donald Trump has said he used a speech generated by artificial intelligence (AI) after being impressed by the content.The former US president, whose oratory is noted for its rambling, off-the-cuff style but also for its demagoguery, made the claim in an interview with Logan Paul’s podcast in which he lauded AI as “a superpower” but also warned of its potential dangers.He said the rewritten speech came during a meeting with one of the industry’s “top people”, whom he did not identify.“I had a speech rewritten by AI out there, one of the top people,” Trump said. “He said, ‘Oh, you’re gonna make a speech? Yeah?’ He goes, click, click, click, and like, 15 seconds later, he shows me my speech that’s written that’s great, so beautifully. I said, ‘I’m gonna use this.’ I’ve never seen anything like it.” Trump did not say at what event he had used the AI-generated speech.He predicted that AI’s oratorical gifts could sound the death knell for speech writers, long a part of Washington’s political landscape.“One industry I think that will be gone are these wonderful speechwriters,” he said. I’ve never seen anything like it, and so quickly, a matter of literally minutes, it’s done. It’s a little bit scary.”Asked what he said to his speech writer, Trump jokingly responded, “You’re fired,” a line associated with The Apprentice, the TV reality show that helped propel his political rise.Trump, the Republican presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, also acknowledged that AI had dangers, especially in regard to deepfakes. He warned of an imaginary situation where a faked voice warned a foreign power that a US nuclear attack was being launched, possibly triggering a retaliatory strike.“If you’re the president of the United States, and you announced that 13 missiles have been sent to, let’s not use the name of a country,” he said. “We have just sent 13 nuclear missiles heading to somewhere, and they will hit their targets in 12 minutes and 59 seconds, and you’re that country.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe said he had asked the entrepreneur Elon Musk – referring to him by his first name – if Russia or China would be able to identify that the attack warning was fake and was told that they would have to use a code to check its veracity.“Who the hell’s going to check. You got, like, 12 minutes – let’s check the code,” he said. “So what do they do when they see this? They have maybe a counterattack. It’s so dangerous in that way.” More

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      Pelosi condemns Trump’s Capitol visit: ‘Returning to the scene of the crime’

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      Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, mounted a forceful denunciation of Thursday’s first visit to the US Capitol by Donald Trump since he incited a mob to attack it on January 6 2021, accusing him of returning with “the same mission of dismantling our democracy”.In remarks that triggered a fresh war of words between the pair, Pelosi said the former president’s visit to discuss strategy with congressional Republicans in advance of the election amounted to a symbolic return to the scene of a crime that he deliberately initiated.“Today, the instigator of an insurrection is returning to the scene of the crime,” Pelosi said in a statement. “January 6 was a crime against the Capitol, that saw Nazi and Confederate flags flying under the dome that Lincoln built.”She added: “It was a crime against the constitution and its peaceful transfer of power, in a desperate attempt to cling to power. And it was a crime against members, heroic police officers and staff, that resulted in death, injury and trauma that endure to this day.”Pelosi, whose office was overrun and defiled by invading Trump supporters in the assault, as rioters ran through the halls of Congress calling her name, added: “With his pledges to be a dictator on day one and seek revenge against his political opponents, Donald Trump comes to Capitol Hill today with the same mission of dismantling our democracy. But make no mistake – Trump has already cemented his legacy of shame in our hallowed halls.”Her furious broadside may have provided the fuel for outlandish comments attributed to Trump in his Thursday morning meeting with House Republicans.Jake Sherman, a reporter for the website Punchbowl, posted on X that Trump had digressed to talk about an imagined romantic relationship between Pelosi and himself, which he said had been suggested by one of the former speaker’s daughters, whom he did not identify by name.“Nancy Pelosi’s daughter is a wacko … her daughter told me if things were different Nancy and I would be perfect together. There’s an age difference, though,” Sherman quoted Trump as saying, adding that his words were “close to an exact quote”.The reported comments provoked an angry response from one Pelosi daughter, Christine Pelosi, also on X.“Speaking for all 4 Pelosi daughters – this is a LIE,” she wrote. “His deceitful, deranged obsession with our mother is yet another reason Donald Trump is unwell, unhinged and unfit to step foot anywhere near her – or the White House.”The Hill quoted a spokesman for Pelosi as saying: “That guy has clearly lost his marbles. Not that he had many to begin with.” More

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      ACLU hails supreme court’s mifepristone decision: ‘This fight is far from over’ – as it happened

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      Joe Biden has released the following statement on the supreme court’s decision to uphold mifepristone:
      Today’s decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues. It does not change the fact that the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom. It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.It does mean that mifepristone, or medication abortion, remains available and approved. Women can continue to access this medication – approved by the FDA as safe and effective more than 20 years ago. But let’s be clear: attacks on medication abortion are part of Republican elected officials’ extreme and dangerous agenda to ban abortion nationwide … The stakes could not be higher for women across America.
      It is just past 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The supreme court has rejected a bid to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone. The decision overturned an appeals court ruling that would have restricted mail-order prescriptions of the common abortion drug. The nation’s highest court arrived at the decision unanimously, in turn marking a win for reproductive rights across the country.
      Joe Biden released the following statement on the supreme court’s decision to uphold mifepristone: “Today’s decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues. It does not change the fact that the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom. It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.”
      The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the supreme court’s decision on mifepristone, saying: “The supreme court just unanimously rejected a request by anti-abortion extremists to impose medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in most abortions nationwide.”
      Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill for the first time since the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Trump was invited to address House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club and also meet with Senate Republicans at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters.
      Ahead of Donald Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “Donald Trump comes to Capitol Hill today with the same mission of dismantling our democracy. But make no mistake – Trump has already cemented his legacy of shame in our hallowed halls.”
      That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.When voters are asked to sum up Joe Biden in one word, the most popular response is “old”, according to a survey by polling firm JL Partners.Facing the same question with regard to Biden’s election-challenger Donald Trump, the word “criminal” comes up more than any other.The poll also found that voters expect Trump to perform better in the first presidential debate later this month in Atlanta. Some 70% expect “Biden to mess up his words” and 49% even expect “Biden to forget where he is”.Responding to the findings at a panel discussion in Washington on Thursday, political consultant and pollster Patrick Ruffini said: “This age issue for Biden really ties into voter perceptions of his competence and his ability to get things done.“I think why that has proven to be a such a devastating issue for him, that has really underlied the failure to message around accomplishments, is that when people look at him they don’t see somebody who is going to [have] the ability to do a whole lot to actively change the course of events in a potential second term.”JL Partners, using a representative sample size of 500 people and conducting fieldwork on 10 and 11 June, asked: “Thinking about anyone alive today, who would be your dream President?” In the resulting word cloud, “Donald Trump” loomed largest, followed by “Obama” – a combination of both Barack and Michelle.Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, joined the Biden campaign press call and warned that anti-abortion advocates would likely pursue other means to block access to mifepristone after the supreme court’s decision.“Regardless of today’s ruling, Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to ban medication abortion nationwide,” Timmaraju said.“They want to try and use executive power to jail doctors and patients for sending or receiving abortion medication in the mail, and they could extend that strategy to try to jail those mailing anything intended for producing abortion.”Anti-abortion advocates have already tried to argue that the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-obscenity law, bans the mailing of abortion-related materials, and Trump could use that strategy to threaten reproductive rights across the country, Timmaraju said.“The road ahead is long. The fight to restore rights will be hard,” she told reporters. “But we know President Biden and Vice-President Harris are on our side. So that’s why I’m so proud to be fighting alongside them.”Joe Biden’s campaign officials celebrated the supreme court’s ruling preserving access to the abortion medication mifepristone, but they emphasized that the case was “only one tactic in a broader relentless strategy to strip away access to reproductive freedom”.“If Trump regains power in November, Trump’s allies will be ready to deploy their plans to ban abortion access nationwide without the help of Congress or the court,” Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said on a press call.“President Biden is going to make Donald Trump answer for the state of reproductive rights in this country. There’s so much at stake in 2024, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows it.”As the country marks two years since Roe v Wade was overturned, Rodriguez indicated that Biden would make the issue of abortion access a central focus of the first general election debate, which will take place later this month.“That’s the contrast we will continue to highlight leading into the debate, using the Dobbs anniversary as another core inflection point,” Rodriguez said.Here are some images coming through the newswires from Capitol Hill, where Donald Trump made his first visit since the January 6 riots in 2021:The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said that the Trump meeting was “entirely positive”, Punchbowl News reported.McConnell specified that he and Trump “got a chance to talk”, adding that their meeting was policy focused.The meeting between McConnell and Trump is the first time the two have spoken since December 2020.The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, has issued a statement declaring that Republicans will win the White House, Senate and House of Representatives after he and other party members hosted Donald Trump.Johnson said that Trump brought “an extraordinary amount of energy and excitement and enthusiasm” during the morning meeting.Johnson said: “We believe we are going to win back the White House, and the Senate, and grow the House majority, and when we do that, we will not waste a moment.”The House speaker promised an “aggressive agenda” with the new Congress in January. So far, such an agenda could look like pushing far-right legislation around immigration, gun control and other policies.Hello, US politics readers, it’s been a busy morning in Washington with an important decision from the US supreme court relating to reproductive rights and the first visit to Capitol Hill by Donald Trump since some of his extremist supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.We’ll have much more news for you coming up.Here’s where things stand:
      The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hailed the supreme court’s decision on mifepristone, while warning: “This fight isn’t over. Anti-abortion politicians have already pledged to continue their efforts in this case to deny people access to medication abortion.”
      Joe Biden took a similar stance and said, in part: “Today’s decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues. It does not change the fact that the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom. It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.” He additionally warned of “Republican elected officials’ extreme and dangerous agenda to ban abortion nationwide”.
      The US supreme court has rejected a bid to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, with a unanimous decision from the nine-member bench that, essentially, the plaintiff did not have standing. FDA-approved mifepristone therefore continues to be available.
      Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill for the first time since the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Trump was invited to address House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club and also meet with Senate Republicans at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters.
      A crowd of reporters, protesters and aides gathered outside the Capitol Hill Club. Former House speaker and sitting California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said Trump’s visit was with the “mission of dismantling our democracy”.
      The Democratic National Committee has echoed similar sentiments as other Democratic leaders including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris following the supreme court’s decision on mifepristone.In a statement on Thursday, the DNC said:
      The supreme court’s unanimous ruling that the Maga extremists who sued the FDA in an attempt to ban medication abortion nationwide lacked standing does not change the dire stakes of this election for reproductive freedom.
      It does not change the fact that because of Trump, millions of women in states across the country cannot access the health care they need. It does not change the fact that Trump bragged about overturning Roe and thinks women suffering extreme physical, mental, and emotional harm because they can’t access reproductive health care is a ‘beautiful thing to watch.’
      And it does not change the fact that if elected, Trump and his allies want to effectively ban abortion nationwide with or without the help of Congress and the courts … The only way to stop the Maga movement’s attacks on our freedoms is to turn out the vote in November to win Democratic majorities in Congress and reelect President Biden and Vice President Harris – who will never stop fighting to guarantee women in every state have access to the care they need.
      In a statement on the supreme court’s ruling, Kamala Harris said that it “does not change the fact that millions of American women are today living under cruel abortion bans because of Donald Trump”.The vice-president went on to add:
      Nor does this ruling change the threat to medication abortion. We know the Trump team has a plan to try to end access to medication abortion and carry out a Trump abortion ban in all 50 states, with or without Congress, if they get the chance. We cannot and will not let that happen.
      The contrast is stark: while Trump relentlessly attacks reproductive freedoms, President Biden and I will never stop fighting to protect them. Americans have repeatedly made it clear they want more freedom, not less, and they will make their voices heard at the ballot box once again this November.
      The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the supreme court’s decision on mifepristone, saying:
      The supreme court just unanimously rejected a request by anti-abortion extremists to impose medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in most abortions nationwide.
      This fight isn’t over. Anti-abortion politicians have already pledged to continue their efforts in this case to deny people access to medication abortion.”
      Joe Biden has released the following statement on the supreme court’s decision to uphold mifepristone:
      Today’s decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues. It does not change the fact that the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom. It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.It does mean that mifepristone, or medication abortion, remains available and approved. Women can continue to access this medication – approved by the FDA as safe and effective more than 20 years ago. But let’s be clear: attacks on medication abortion are part of Republican elected officials’ extreme and dangerous agenda to ban abortion nationwide … The stakes could not be higher for women across America.
      Washington’s Democratic representative Pramila Jayapal echoed similar sentiments as other Democrats following the supreme court’s mifepristone decision.In a tweet on X, Jayapal wrote:
      This is a massive victory for abortion access, but there is no question – we must codify access to reproductive care nationwide. More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump to address Republicans at US Capitol in first visit since January 6

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      Donald Trump will go to the US Capitol to rally congressional Republicans today in his first visit since January 6, 2021, when his supporters descended on the building in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in Trump’s favour.The high-profile meeting will set out Trump’s priorities for a second presidency, but is also expected to see him demand that the GOP further intensify efforts to overturn a recent conviction by a New York court on felony charges.Ahead of the meeting, anti-Trump and pro-Palestinian protesters were seen gathering outside the Capitol Hill Club. One sign visible from one protester read: “No one is above the law.” Some protesters implored Republicans entering the meeting to not “drink the Kool-Aid”.Trump, the presumptive GOP 2024 presidential nominee, was found guilty last month of 34 counts of document falsification relating to hush money paid to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, shortly before his 2016 election victory.He has since corralled the Republicans into pushing a narrative line that the conviction is a result of the Department of Justice (DoJ) being weaponised against him by Joe Biden – even though the DoJ has no jurisdiction over the New York state court in which he was tried.Thursday’s visit comes a day after his Republican allies secured a significant victory in a House of Representatives vote to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt of Congress. Garland is being held in contempt for refusing to turn over recordings of an interview Biden gave to a special prosecutor, Robert Hur, appointed to investigate the president’s illegal retention of classified documents.The meeting was billed in advance as forward looking, with Trump supposedly focused on his agenda for a future presidency.This was expected to feature pledges against cuts to social security and Medicare in what is seen as a boon to older voters, as well as a promise to make permanent his multitrillion-dollar tax cuts of 2017, which are due to expire next year.He is also expected to amplify his plans for a crackdown on migrants trying to cross the US southern border and flag up plans for a U-turn away from the Biden administration’s foreign policy priorities, which have included aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, per Politico.But a focus on the legal cases against him is likely to be given equal – or perhaps greater – priority.This could, according to Politico, include urging greater efforts to defund the office of special prosecutor Jack Smith. Smith was notably appointed by the DoJ to investigate Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection and the removal of classified documents from his presidency to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.Congressional Republicans are also preparing, at Trump’s urging, legislation that would move state state cases against him, including the New York conviction, and a separate charge of attempted election interference in Georgia to federal courts.Trump apparently signified his desire for congressional support in an expletive-laden phone call with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, after his 31 May conviction.Johnson, who initially opposed an attempt by the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to defund Smith’s office, has now backtracked and held talks with the House judiciary chairman, Jim Jordan, about how to target it through the congressional appropriations system.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That country certainly sees what’s going on, and they don’t want Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg [the district attorneys in the Georgia and New York cases respectively] and these kinds of folks to be able to continue to use grant dollars for targeting people in a political lawfare type of way,” Jordan, a vocal Trump backer, told Politico.Some GOP members have expressed scepticism about the efforts on behalf of Trump.“We accuse Democrats of weaponising the Justice system. That’s exactly what we’d be doing,” one unnamed congressman, apparently granted anonymity for fear of reprisals from the former president’s Make America Great Again (Maga) allies, told the outlet.In another development underscoring Trump’s vicelike grip on the congressional party, five GOP senators, led by JD Vance of Ohio, reportedly in the running to be the ex-president’s running mate, will announce a plan to subject lower level Biden administration nominees to confirmation votes – a move designed to use up senate floor-time – in protest against the hush money conviction.Such appointments, including federal judges, US attorney and sub-cabinet level appointments, are normally approved without a vote.Thursday’s meeting was to be attended by senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who has not met Trump since December 2020 after criticising him over the January 6 attack but who has endorsed his 2024 candidacy.Three prominent Republican senators known for their hostility to Trump will be absent; Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. 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      ‘Perilous for democracy, good for profits’: is big business ready to love Trump again?

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      Chief executives of some of America’s largest companies will meet privately with Donald Trump later on Thursday, and many CEOs who were once critical of his unprecedented conduct appear increasingly open to the former president’s return to office, a Guardian analysis has found.The private audience with the former president will take place at the quarterly gathering of the Business Roundtable, a powerful Washington lobbying group that advocates for the interests of chief executives of big US firms. Joe Biden was also invited; his chief of staff will attend while the US president is abroad, a Business Roundtable spokesperson said.The meeting comes less than five months before the election and less than four years after CEOs raised the alarm about political polarization and threats to democracy when Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and incited an insurrection at the US Capitol.Back then, the Business Roundtable – whose members include Apple’s Tim Cook, General Motors’ Mary Barra and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon – led a chorus of condemnation from corporate America. “The country deserves better,” the Business Roundtable said in a statement on 6 January 2021, calling on Trump and his administration “to put an end to the chaos and to facilitate the peaceful transition of power”.Today, with Biden and Trump tied in the polls, Trump can expect a far warmer reception from corporate bosses. “The reality is … we as CEOs and we as a Business Roundtable, we’re going to work with whoever is in the White House,” Chuck Robbins, the lobby group’s chair and the CEO of Cisco Systems, told Fortune in March.“The way we think about it is, if we have a Trump administration or if we have a Biden administration, regardless, there are going to be things we can align on in both,” Robbins said.While corporate America’s views appear to have changed, Trump’s have not. The former president still has not accepted the results of the 2020 election, nor has he committed to accepting the 2024 outcome. He maintains that the supporters who he urged to storm the Capitol “were there with love in their heart”.And Trump and his campaign have promised a range of divisive and anti-democratic initiatives if he is re-elected, from mass firings of non-partisan government officials to the weaponization of the US Department of Justice against his perceived enemies.Yet a second Trump term promises benefits for CEOs and their companies in a variety of policy areas, from lucrative tax breaks – Trump’s recent pledges include a “business class big tax cut” – to sweeping rollbacks of Biden-era efforts to promote market competition and strengthen worker power.“It has always been clear that the CEOs of the Fortune 500 are not what is going to preserve democracy, and that the CEOs of the Fortune 500 work for their investors who demand insatiable amounts of profit,” said Lindsay Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive advocacy group.“If they think that President Trump is perilous for democracy but good for profits, I think it has always been clear where they are going to land on this question.”‘A sad time for our country’A few days after the 2020 election, dozens of CEOs gathered on a hastily organized 7am Zoom call to discuss Trump’s refusal to accept that he had lost.The executives met “to share observations and talk about what possible roles they might play in encouraging a smooth transfer of power”, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale School of Management professor who has spent decades counseling chief executives, and who convened the post-election Zoom, later wrote.Attending the call were the heads of some of America’s largest corporations, including Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Blackstone, Comcast and Goldman Sachs.The next day, the Business Roundtable, which counted many of the attending CEOs as members, issued a high-profile statement congratulating Biden and Kamala Harris and urging “elected officials and Americans across the political spectrum to work in good faith to find common ground”.View image in fullscreenA similar pattern played out in the days surrounding the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol: CEOs and their companies quickly distanced themselves from Trump. Many pledged to stop making campaign contributions to Republican politicians who voted against certifying the election results. Executives were portrayed in the media as patriots who put their self-interest aside and their reputations at risk to speak out.“It’s just a sad time for our country,” Robbins, the Cisco boss, told the New York Times. “At a time where we have so many challenges, the partisanship is astounding.”“Our leaders must call for peace and unity now,” tweeted Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, on 6 January. “There is no room for violence in our democracy. May the one who brings peace bring peace to our country.”While the full list of attendees of the 2020 Zoom call has not been published, the Guardian contacted a dozen companies and trade groups whose current or previous CEOs or members were reported to have joined the call or expressed concerns about Trump’s commitment to the democratic process, such as Cisco and Salesforce.The Guardian sought comment from the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, another corporate lobbying group, which on January 6 called for Trump’s cabinet to consider removing him from office using the 25th amendment.One company declined to comment. Of the other firms and trade groups, none responded to inquiries about whether they remained concerned about Trump’s commitment to democracy, or whether they would speak out if Trump were to express an unwillingness to accept the results of the 2024 election if he loses.‘They’ve done the math’Corporate America’s relationship to Trump is complicated. “The narrative that the business community is hedging their bets and that CEOs are ‘softening towards Donald Trump’ is escalating and fast becoming a fact-free echo chamber of unsupported pronouncements,” Yale’s Sonnenfeld argued earlier this year.Few chief executives of large US companies are personally donating to Trump’s campaign, Sonnenfeld noted. “The money trail, or lack thereof, speaks to the frayed ties between Trump and the business world.”In an interview with the Guardian, Sonnenfeld pointed to a number of policy issues on which CEOs disagreed with the former president. Chief executives “are pro-immigration reform. They are not xenophobes. And … they are not protectionist. They believe in a globalized economy,” Sonnenfeld said.“They also believe in social harmony, either out of personal character, patriotic values or enlightened self-interest. They don’t want furious communities tearing apart the social fabric. They don’t want shareholders screaming at them. They don’t want employees sabotaging each other. They depend on social harmony to navigate their businesses.”“Today, there’s no support of any public CEO for Trump, even though … the polls are far more favorable to him than they were in the earlier two elections,” Sonnenfeld said.But experts and advocates noted that on a range of issues – among them, tax cuts, efforts to undermine collective bargaining and worker power, and regulatory rollbacks, especially environmental protections – CEOs have plenty of reasons to expect that a second Trump term could prove lucrative.“We actually don’t need to overanalyze it,” said Michael Linden, a former Biden administration official who is now a fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “At the end of the day, corporations and CEOs have always liked low taxes. They’ve always liked deregulation.“For all of Donald Trump’s heterodoxy on some issues, [on] those things” – taxes and regulations – “he is standard. He is indistinguishable from Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney or George W Bush or pick your standard Republican.”“I think they’ve done the math,” said Timi Iwayemi of the Revolving Door Project, which tracks corporate political influence. “They can say, ‘We’ve already seen Trump. We had Trump 1.0. Yeah, sure, it was bad, but it wasn’t the end of America. America is still here.’”‘The stakes are huge, and they are real’One of Trump’s few legislative achievements as president was a huge tax cut that permanently slashed the corporate tax rate by 40%.A recent report by the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (Itep) found that the law saved some of America’s biggest and most profitable companies $240bn in taxes between 2018 – the first full year it was in effect – and 2021.Walmart, for instance, paid an average effective tax rate of 31% between 2013 and 2016. After Trump signed his tax cuts into law, the company’s average rate fell to 17%, Itep found. The change saved the consumer goods giant $9bn between 2018 and 2021.Salesforce, meanwhile, paid only $175m in federal taxes over the first five years of the Trump tax cuts, according to previous Itep research. Salesforce brought home about $6bn in profit during the same period.“Obviously, the US government is a large customer of Salesforce, and depending on who’s in office, it creates a whole stir with a different part of our employee base,” Salesforce’s Benioff told Bloomberg in January. “So that’s just a reality. But the reality is that, hey, we are the same company regardless of when that election is going to occur and regardless of who that president will be.”Trump has promised to reduce the corporate tax rate even further if he wins a second term. But corporations are gearing up for an even bigger tax fight next year.Cuts to individual income and estate taxes, as well as business “pass-through” rates – changes that overwhelmingly benefited wealthy and white Americans – are set to expire next December.“Whether they just expire, whether they get replaced by something, whether they get extended, is a massive question, and it will be a question that Congress has to deal with and the president has to deal with one way or the other,” said Equitable Growth’s Linden. “And so the stakes are huge, and they are real.”For corporations, these stakes are even higher following their failure earlier this year to secure passage of a congressional tax deal that would have rolled back some of the taxes meant to pay for Trump’s 2017 tax law.Companies and their trade groups lobbied aggressively for these provisions, which could have saved them hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, the Guardian previously reported.“I think they assume under Trump they will not only get an extension of the status quo, which is very beneficial to them, but they will also have another bite at the apple to get even more than they currently have,” said Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative.‘A huge turn-off to business leaders’In other policy areas, a second Trump administration would have more leeway to unilaterally pursue an agenda friendly to big business – and would enter office with a savvier understanding of how to achieve it.“In 2024 Trump will be a much more professional operation,” said the Revolving Door Project’s Iwayemi. “They have a much more clear and deep understanding of the executive branch. And they would have a team that would be fully equipped.”Last year, the rightwing Heritage Foundation published “Project 2025”, a policy-by-policy, agency-by-agency roadmap to “dismantle the administrative state”, as the organization’s president described it.Project 2025 includes a range of policy levers that would roll back efforts to promote economic competition and protect workers. Many of the recommendations align with positions that corporate interests have already taken.View image in fullscreenFor instance, Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission recently approved new requirements for public companies to disclose some of the risks that climate change presents to their businesses.The final SEC rule was weaker than the agency’s original proposal, and even incorporated recommendations from the Business Roundtable and other trade groups not to require companies to track or report on the climate impacts of their supply chains.Nevertheless, immediately after the rule was finalized, Republican state attorneys general and the US Chamber of Commerce, another corporate lobbying group, sued the agency.“Everybody here [at the Business Roundtable] is committed to climate change, to controlling our carbon footprint,” Robbins told CNBC the day after the SEC finalized the climate disclosure rule. “But some of the requirements – first of all, we’re not sure it’s the SEC’s remit to do that. But secondly … it’s just an incredible amount of work that actually increases costs at a time when we’re talking about inflation …”Project 2025 goes even further, suggesting that Congress prohibit the SEC from requiring these types of disclosures in the first place.It also encourages repeal of other reporting rules that became law after the 2008 financial crisis, such as a requirement that public companies disclose the ratio of CEO compensation to median worker pay. The Business Roundtable spent years opposing federal efforts to require companies to disclose this measure of executive compensation.Another agency that has drawn borderline-obsessive corporate ire is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which under Biden has taken a far more aggressive approach to challenging corporate power than any administration – Republican or Democratic – for decades.Earlier this year the FTC finalized a landmark ban on non-compete clauses. The ban, as the FTC chair, Lina Khan, described it, helps make sure workers “have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business or bring a new idea to market”.“Something that I think Americans have been hungry for, for a long time” is for government “in a muscular way [to] protect them not just as consumers but also as workers and small businesses from serious abuse from big corporations”, said Elizabeth Wilkins, a former White House official who recently stepped down as the FTC’s chief of staff.“This is stuff that people want, but … it’s also stuff that big corporations have been getting away with for a long time,” said Wilkins, now a fellow at the anti-monopoly American Economic Liberties Project. “I am sure that they aren’t happy about it.”The day after the FTC finalized the ban on non-competes, the Business Roundtable filed a lawsuit to stop what it called “this unwarranted regulatory overreach”.“The Federal Trade Commission is a huge turn-off to business leaders,” said Yale’s Sonnenfeld.“Corporations recognize that there’s an alphabet soup of government agencies with the power to properly enforce longstanding laws and, when necessary, crack down [on] corporate exploitation,” said Iwayemi.They “recognize that if you pull any acronym out of the pot – take the SEC or the FTC or whichever – they have the potential to sell out public interest. And that is just much more likely under the Trump administration.”‘They are not the central heroes of the economic story’Despite their complaints about the Biden agenda, the fact remains that US corporations have thrived during Biden’s time in office, routinely reporting record profits and awarding sky-high CEO pay.In 2023, the median head of an S&P 500 company took home more than $16m, an increase of nearly 13% from the previous year, according to a recent AP and Equilar analysis. Workers’ wages grew only 4%, the report found.Meanwhile, corporations are salivating over hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax incentives created by Biden-era legislation to tackle climate change and spur domestic investment in infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing.And far from freezing out corporate America – as some progressives had hoped – the Biden White House has aggressively solicited executives’ input. Wilkins described the administration conducting “an enormous amount of outreach to the corporate community”.“They engage, for sure,” Robbins told CNBC in March. “There’s open communication – there always is. So that’s not the issue.”Still, bosses appear increasingly fed up with Biden’s rhetoric.While the Biden administration has “been great for business” and most CEOs are not actively supporting Trump’s re-election bid, that “doesn’t mean that they’re pro-Biden,” Sonnenfeld said.“There are plenty of issues that they have [with Biden] on certain areas. They don’t like being vilified on the tax front, even though maybe some should pay some higher taxes. They smart on setting up a class warfare.”The president “puts workers at the center of the economic universe: unions and labor power and competition and higher taxes on the rich”, said Linden. Corporations “really get offended when people suggest that they are not the central heroes of the economic story. They really don’t like that.”Trump might praise wealthy CEOs, or at least refrain from saying they should pay higher taxes or suffer new consumer protections.View image in fullscreenYet one of the former president’s defining characteristics remains his fanatical pursuit of grudges against perceived enemies and those who he believes have slighted him.This track record suggests that CEOs’ silence today – perhaps a result of Trump’s coin-flip odds of ending up back in the White House – may not guarantee their protection from his vindictiveness tomorrow.That, however, is a gamble that many executives appear willing to make.For CEOs: “There may be limited downside to making nice noises about Trump,” suggested Rosanna Weaver, a consultant for the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. “If Trump is elected you have some credit with him. If Biden is elected, he is unlikely to hold the same kind of vindictive grudge that Trump would.” More

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      Rightwing media decried Trump’s trial. What about Hunter Biden’s?

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      Two weeks, two big trials, two convictions. After Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records at the end of last month, Hunter Biden, son of Joe, was convicted on Tuesday of buying and owning a gun while being a user of crack cocaine.The rightwing media had howled in anguish when a jury ruled that the former US president was guilty of 34 felony charges: commentators claiming that the justice system was rigged, that the conviction was political persecution, and that Joe Biden had wielded undue influence in Trump being prosecuted.Surely then, the Fox Newses and Breitbarts of the world would be similarly outraged by Hunter Biden’s conviction?Nope.“The facts were simple, the law was clear and the evidence of guilt can only be described as overwhelming,” Gregg Jarrett, an analyst and commentator for Fox News, wrote on the channel’s website, in a piece which championed the fairness and rigor of the American legal system.“As it turns out, even a privileged and coddled Biden must abide by the rule of law.”That was a far cry from Jarrett’s take on the judiciary 13 days earlier, when Trump was convicted in Manhattan.“Donald Trump did not lose on Thursday,” Jarrett wrote, incorrectly.“Our once venerated legal system did. And, by extension, all Americans lost something precious. Because the failure of justice is a failure of the people.”In a 1,000-word outpouring of woe, Jarrett repeated Trump’s – now provably false – claims that no crime was committed, adding “the ideals of a fair trial and an impartial jury faded into a figment of our Founders’ imaginations”.“The tragic coda to the Trump trial is that Americans can no longer trust our system of justice,” Jarrett wrote solemnly.Other Fox News personalities similarly revised their opinion of the US legal system.Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host, had been outraged after Trump was found guilty, decrying “smoke and mirrors” and claiming “we have gone over a cliff in America”.“This is a new era in America, and I think it goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system,” Pirro said of Trump’s conviction on 30 May.She was of a different mind on Tuesday.“In the end this jury of ordinary people from Delaware were not intimidated by [the Biden] family, and they recognize that this was a clearcut case and that clearly no one is above the law,” Pirro said.View image in fullscreenSpeaking to rightwing channel Newsmax, Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer and commentator who was part of Trump’s legal team during the then president’s first impeachment trial, did a similar flip-flop.“Trump was convicted of a made-up charge; there’s nothing to the case,” Dershowitz said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I still can’t figure out what the actual conviction is based on. On the other hand, Hunter Biden was convicted of a real crime.”Away from the doublethink, a new narrative was developing: that the Biden guilty verdict was actually evidence of some sort of cover-up.Many on the right wing claimed that the conviction on gun offenses was an attempt to distract from Republicans’ years-long, unproven conspiracy theory of corruption by both Hunter and Joe Biden.Republicans in the House began an investigation into the Biden family in January 2023, with the idea being that Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine. After nearly 18 months of investigation, Republicans have not found any evidence that the president was involved in any wrongdoing.Republicans have accused Biden of weaponizing the justice system against Trump – an allegation the Hunter Biden guilty verdict would seem to contradict. But that didn’t stop conservative commentators from diving into the issue.“Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” Charlie Kirk, the rightwing radio host and founder of Turning Point USA, wrote on X.“The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.”Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist who hosts a video show on X, said in a post: “They went after Hunter on his gun stuff to make you overlook all his Ukraine stuff.”Posobiec did not elaborate on the “Ukraine stuff”. But Breitbart trod a similar line, claiming that Biden’s conviction “allows the left to claim ‘no one is above the law’, while distracting from the much more serious allegations against the first son – and his father”.It has been a whirlwind few days for the rightwing media: from howling at the injustice of the justice system, to celebrating the justice system. Now the claim is that, actually, the justice system might be bad after all: and the Hunter Biden verdict is just a cover-up.Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, perhaps put it best.“The new rightwing line that Joe Biden rigged the trial to put his son in prison,” Gertz wrote, “replaces the old rightwing line that Joe Biden was rigging the trial to keep his son out of prison.” More