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      DeSantis reduces staff as campaign struggles to meet fundraising goals – report

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      Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has reduced campaign staff as his campaign has struggled to meet fundraising goals.Fewer than 10 staffers were laid off, according to an anonymous staffer, reported Politico. The staffers were involved in event planning and may be picked up by the pro-DeSantis super Pac Never Back Down. Two senior campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, left the campaign this past week to assist a pro-DeSantis nonprofit group.Sources within the campaign reported an internal assessment that the campaign hired too many staffers too early.“They never should have brought so many people on; the burn rate was way too high,” said one Republican source familiar with the campaign’s thought process to NBC News. “People warned the campaign manager but she wanted to hear none of it.”More shake-ups within the campaign are expected in the coming weeks after two months on the presidential campaign, with DeSantis still lagging substantially in second place behind former president Donald Trump.Even in DeSantis’s home state of Florida, Trump still has a 20-point lead over the governor, according to a recent Florida Atlantic University poll.“Early state voters are only softly committed to the candidates they select on a ballot question this far out – including many Trump supporters,” read an internal campaign memo obtained by NBC News as the DeSantis campaign is refocusing resources on early primary states. “Our focus group participants in the early states even say they do not plan on making up their mind until they meet the candidates or watch them debate.”The DeSantis campaign raised $20m since launching his presidential campaign, but over one-third of the donations were received during the first 10 days of his campaign, and financial fundraising data shows his campaign has been reliant on wealthy donors who have already reached their maximum permitted individual contributions. His campaign has spent significantly on a payroll of 90 staffers and fundraising efforts, including over $900,000 on merchandise, $883,000 on digital consulting, $867,000 on media placements and $730,000 on direct mail.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDeSantis faced scrutiny this week following an investigation by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reported several veterans resigned and reported abuse within Florida’s state guard training, likening training to a militia for the civilian disaster relief force. The governor reactivated the state guard in 2022 after it had been dormant since the end of the second world war.In May, DeSantis signed a bill to expand the state guard and make it permanent, expanding the group from 400 to 1,500 members and expanding its budget from $10m to $107.6m. More

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      Republican congresswoman accused of hypocrisy for anti-abortion vote

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      The fallout from the decision by House Republicans to include a divisive anti-abortion measure in Friday’s defense spending vote has snared the South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, who has been accused of hypocrisy for voting for it.On Thursday, Mace, who has frequently been at odds with her party over its abortion stance, launched a profanity-laced tirade apparently against the inclusion of an amendment that would block the reimbursement of travel costs for military members who seek the procedure.“It’s an asshole move, an asshole amendment,” she told aides in an elevator, according to Politico.“We should not be taking this fucking vote, man. Fuck.”She voted for it anyway. Then in an appearance on Friday night on CNN Primetime she struggled to explain herself, attempting to portray herself as consistent on the issue of opposing reimbursements for elective surgeries for those in the military, while claiming that servicewomen would still be able to get an abortion.“Nothing in here would prohibit a woman from traveling out of state to follow state law,” Mace said, reported by the Daily Beast.“So I think that’s, you know, a really important message. Nothing would prohibit her from being able to do that. There are no limits on her travel.”Pressed by the host, Kaitlan Collins, who used Mace’s own words to question why Republicans were being “assholes” to women, and pointing out access to an abortion for a woman stationed in Texas was more difficult than for one in New York, the congresswomen admitted she was uncomfortable.“I did not like the idea of this amendment. These are not issues that I believe we should be voting on right now without some consideration of what we can do to protect women and show that we’re pro-women, which has been my frustration for the better part of the last seven months,” she said.Mace went further in an appearance on Fox News on Friday night, suggesting that her party’s control of the House could be threatened by its position on issues such as abortion that do not align with public sentiment.“The vast majority of Americans aren’t with us,” she said.“Ninety per cent of America is somewhere in the middle, especially on women’s rights, and we have to show that even if we’re pro-life, we care about women, and we’ve yet to do that this year.“Instead of playing these games with whatever woke means, whatever the flavor of the day for woke is that day, we’ve got to be balanced to show that we actually care about women.“We can do both at the same time. And with my colleagues that are forcing some of these votes on these amendments, it makes it very difficult for us to hold on to the majority.”The defense bill, which passed the House 219-210 mostly on party lines, included other controversial amendments covering healthcare costs for transgender service members and diversity initiatives.The bill is seen as dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority, and another example of rightwingers in Republican ranks exerting their influence over the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in an attempt to change a number of the Biden administration’s policy goals.Mace told Fox: “Every single Democrat knows that if there’s an amendment they don’t like, it’s going to get tossed out in the Senate. So this is really just sort of political gamesmanship, political theater.” More

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      Donald Trump’s legal team urges Georgia court to block 2020 election investigation – as it happened

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      From 3h agoLawyers for former US president Donald Trump are asking Georgia’s highest court to prevent the district attorney who has been investigating his actions in the wake of the 2020 election from prosecuting him and to throw out a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry, the Associated Press reports.AP writes:
      Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. She has suggested that she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month.
      Trump’s Georgia legal team on Friday filed similar petitions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court naming Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, as respondents. A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. McBurney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
      Trump’s legal team — Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg — acknowledged that the filings are unusual but necessary given the tight time frame. Willis has indicated she will use the special grand jury report to seek an indictment “within weeks, if not days.” Two new regular grand juries were seated this week, and one is likely to hear the case.
      “Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the filings say. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because Petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”
      Republicans and Democrats in Congress are on a collision course after rightwing lawmakers inserted provisions targeting Pentagon policies on abortion access, transgender care and diversity into a must-pass defense spending bill that cleared the House this morning. Democrats are outraged that the GOP used the measure, which usually attracts bipartisan support, to push culture war goals, but there’s no word yet on what will become of the legislation when it arrives in the Senate, where Joe Biden’s allies rule the roost and are unlikely to support attempts to prevent service members from accessing abortions services or gender-affirming care. Expect to hear lots more about this in the days to come.Here’s what else happened today:
      Tucker Carlson might be unemployed, but that apparently has not changed his views on US support to Ukraine, as he made clear in an exchange with GOP presidential contender and senator Tim Scott.
      Mike Pence tried to explain to a rightwing crowd in Iowa why he did not go along with Donald Trump’s wishes on January 6. It did not go well.
      Speaking of Trump, his lawyers are trying to stop Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani Willis’s investigation of his campaign to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.
      A federal appeals court panel blocked a judge’s ruling that prevented some Biden administration officials from holding talks with social media companies intended to fight misinformation.
      Four House Democrats from swing districts crossed party lines to support the defense funding bill, while four conservative Republicans opposed it, with one saying it was too expensive.
      Former US vice president Mike Pence earlier at the Tucker Carlson-anchored event in Iowa, reiterated his disapproval of Donald Trump’s encouragement on January 6, 2021, of protesters to seek the overturning of the 2020 election results.Having already defended his refusal to block the certification by the US Congress of Joe Biden’s victory, Pence gladly repeated for the highly-pro-Trump crowd his assertions that he’s made before that Trump’s exhortations (and tweets) on January 6 exhorting the crowd to take action to keep him in office were reckless.“Trump’s words that day were reckless…whatever his intentions in that moment, it endangered me, my family and everyone else in the Capitol,” Pence said.He added, as the audience remained eerily quiet: “The law will hold him accountable.”He later added, perhaps in a desperate attempt to win more warmth from the crowd: “And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”The now-stayed federal judge’s ruling restricting how some Biden administration officials may interact with social media companies was evidence of a “weaponization of the court” that benefits pedalers of misinformation, an expert on combating such lies told the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington earlier this month:Restricting the ability of the Biden administration to work with social media companies in countering online conspiracy theories is a “weaponisation of the court system” that could devastate the fight against misinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a leading expert has warned.Nina Jankowicz, a specialist in disinformation campaigns, told the Guardian that an injunction imposed by a federal judge on Tuesday against key federal agencies and officials blocking their communication with tech platforms could unleash false information in critical areas of public life. She said that election denialism and anti-vaccine propaganda could be the beneficiaries.“This is a weaponisation of the court system. It is an intentional and purposeful move to disrupt the work that needs to be done ahead of the 2024 election, and it’s really chilling,” she said.A federal appeals court has stayed a judge’s ruling from earlier this month that put limits on how certain White House officials could interact with social media companies, Reuters reports.The lower court’s ruling in response to a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri complicated efforts by the Biden administration to work with platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to address misinformation around elections and the Covid-19 pandemic.Here’s Reuters reporting from when the lower court’s ruling was first handed down on what it means for the fight against conspiracy theories:
      The ruling said US government agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI could not talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech” under the free speech clause of the first amendment to the US constitution.
      A White House official said the US justice department was reviewing the order and will evaluate its options.
      The order also mentioned by name officials, including the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in its restrictions.
      Judge Terry Doughty, in an order filed with the US district court for the western district of Louisiana, made some exceptions for communications between government officials and the companies, including to warn about risks to national security and about criminal activity.
      The injunction was first reported by the Washington Post.
      Tuesday’s order marks a win for Republicans who had sued the Biden administration, saying it was using the coronavirus health crisis and the threat of misinformation as an excuse to curb views that disagreed with the government.
      US officials have said they were aiming to tamp down misinformation about Covid vaccines to curb preventable deaths.
      Democratic and Republican lawmakers have plenty to say about the defense spending bill that just passed the House, with one GOP congressman saying his party wanted to use the legislation to align the military’s policies with “traditional America”.Here are Tim Burchett’s comments to CNN:Then there’s the ever-puzzling Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina who does not seemed pleased with the bill’s provisions barring the Pentagon from paying for service members to travel for abortions, but voted for it anyway:Donald Trump’s attorneys are attempting to disrupt Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into the campaign to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia days after she impaneled two grand juries specifically tasked with deciding who should face charges in her inquiry. Here’s coverage from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly of that development, from Tuesday:A grand jury selected in Georgia on Tuesday is expected to say whether Donald Trump and associates should face criminal charges over their attempt to overturn the former president’s defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.The district attorney of Fulton county, Fani Willis, has indicated she expects to obtain indictments between the end of July and the middle of August. Trump also faces possible federal charges over his election subversion, culminating in his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Trump already faces trials on 71 criminal charges: 34 in New York over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels and 37 in Florida, from federal prosecutors and regarding his retention of classified documents after leaving office.Lawyers for former US president Donald Trump are asking Georgia’s highest court to prevent the district attorney who has been investigating his actions in the wake of the 2020 election from prosecuting him and to throw out a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry, the Associated Press reports.AP writes:
      Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. She has suggested that she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month.
      Trump’s Georgia legal team on Friday filed similar petitions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court naming Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, as respondents. A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. McBurney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
      Trump’s legal team — Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg — acknowledged that the filings are unusual but necessary given the tight time frame. Willis has indicated she will use the special grand jury report to seek an indictment “within weeks, if not days.” Two new regular grand juries were seated this week, and one is likely to hear the case.
      “Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the filings say. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because Petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”
      The sound of silence. Or, to be fair, the whisper of sporadic applause. That’s what just greeted Mike Pence when he again defended his refusal on January 6, 2021, to refuse to block the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.The presidential candidate did not impress the right-wing crowd at Tucker Carlson’s event when he said: “I did my duty” and upheld the US constitution, after thousands of extreme Trump supporters had invaded the US Capitol in a deadly insurrection as they tried to overturn Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.A few hands clap. This is hardly surprising, but very interesting to hear live.“It’s important that we hold those accountable that perpetrated acts of violence in our nation’s Capitol,” he said, to almost total silence in the hall. He quickly added that there needed to be more vigor in prosecuting people who ended up rioting during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. That drew cheers.Carlson asked Pence: “Do you think the last election was fair?”In short, Pence indicated he did. He noted that there were some irregularities and that changes made by states to voting procedures as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic undermined public confidence in the system. But he noted that there were recounts and lawsuits and in the end, in terms of the votes “states certified and courts upheld and ultimately we were able to establish that” nothing “would change the outcome of the election in any way,” adding: “I knew I had to do my duty that day” when he endorsed the certification of Biden’s victory, in the early hours of January 7, 2021.Former US vice president Mike Pence has taken the stage at the event in Iowa hosted by Tucker Carlson, as he eyes a comeback after being fired from Fox News, a forum together with Blaze Media feature Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson.Pence begins by slamming Biden economic policy, Biden policies at the US-Mexico border and celebrating the Iowa legislature passing a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when many people don’t even know they’re pregnant.Pence noted the bill will be signed into law later today by Iowa governor Kim Reynolds.Now Pence is talking about the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. More in a moment.Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a lively morning and there is more action to come, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.Here’s where things stand:
      Tucker Carlson has been one of the most prominent public skeptics of America’s support for Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and he’s carrying on in this bent at the event he’s hosting today. “Why not force a peace?” he asked GOP presidential candidate Tim Scott today.
      The House approved the annual defense bill that rightwing Republicans packed with culture war amendments, including provisions blocking the Pentagon’s policies on abortion, gender-affirming care and diversity.
      The White House today announced it had forgiven $39bn in student loan debt held by 804,000 borrowers after making fixes to a program intended to provide relief for certain people who had been paying for 20 years or more.
      House Democrats accused GOP of ‘extreme and reckless legislative joyride’ in defense bill. In a joint statement, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar encouraged their members to vote against the NDAA, saying “extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack” legislation that is typically passed with bipartisan support.
      After House conservatives packed it with culture war amendments, this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by a party line vote – with a few exceptions.Democrats generally opposed the legislation, while Republicans approved it, except for the following crossover votes, as compiled by CNN:The four Democrats who voted for it all hail from swing districts, while the four Republicans who opposed it are generally seen as belonging to the party’s right wing.Among the Republican opponents was Colorado’s Ken Buck, who in a statement cited the legislation’s price tag as the reason he voted against it: More

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      Republican senator finally ends crusade to defend white nationalists

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      Politicians typically enter office with a variety of interests, goals and focuses.A wave of progressive Democrats were elected in 2018 with the stated goal of bringing universal healthcare to the US. Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to lead the country out of the Great Depression with the New Deal. Donald Trump wanted to build a wall, “drain the swamp”, and force people to say “Merry Christmas”.Tommy Tuberville, the Republican senator from Alabama, has taken a different tack.In a series of interviews and statements in recent months, he has invested his political capital in an attempt to defend white nationalism, and white nationalists, in what one anti-racist group called a “deeply disturbing” crusade – one that only appeared to come to an end this week, after condemnation from his Republican colleagues.Tuberville’s dalliance with white nationalism – understood by most in the US and elsewhere as a racist ideology – began in May, when he used a local radio interview to criticize the government’s efforts to “get out the white extremists, the white nationalists” from the military.Asked in that interview if white nationalists should be allowed in the military, Tuberville, an avid supporter of Trump, said, “Well, they call them that. I call them Americans,” before going into a rambling aside about the January 6 insurrection.“Right after that, we, our military and Secretary Austin, put out an order to stand down and all military across the country, saying we’re going to run out the white nationalists, people that don’t believe how we believe,” Tuberville continued. “And that’s not how we do it in this country.”Invited to clarify his remarks a couple of days later, Tuberville did anything but. He said the military “cannot have racists”, but, when asked if white nationalists should serve in the military, said:“You think a white nationalist is a Nazi? I don’t look at it like that,” the senator said.“I look at a white nationalist as a Trump Republican. That’s what we’re called all the time. A Maga person.”As Tuberville’s comments gained more attention, few have seemed to agree with his sanitized definition.“White nationalism is undoubtedly, nakedly racist,” Dr Cassie Miller, lead senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the Guardian.“To suggest anything otherwise would seem to be an attempt to make white nationalism an acceptable political position. That a senator would try to carry water for a violent, racist political movement is deeply disturbing.”Tuberville, 68, was elected to the Senate in 2020, after spending most of his career as a college football coach. (His website still refers to Tuberville as “coach”, and his official Senate portrait shows him tossing a football in the air.)If a defense of white nationalism seems a strange hill for a new senator to die on, his other main interest also fits in with a far-right cause: abortion. Tuberville, who sits on the Senate armed services committee, has single-handedly held up hundreds of military appointments as part of his opposition to abortion being provided in the armed forces.His continued opposition has left the Marine Corps without a confirmed leader for the first time in 150 years, and on Thursday Joe Biden accused Tuberville of “jeopardising US security”.While the Marine Corps was wondering who was going to be in charge, Tuberville instead kept plugging away about white nationalism at the beginning of the week, in an interview with CNN.After Tuberville suggested that a white nationalist was “just a cover word for the Democrats now where they can use it to try to make people mad across the country”, the CNN host Kaitlan Collins stated that the definition of a white nationalist is someone “who believes that the white race is superior to other races”.“Well, that’s some people’s opinion,” Tuberville said.“My opinion of a white nationalist – if somebody wants to call them a white nationalist – to me, it is an American,” Tuberville reiterated. “Now, if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do. Because I am 110% against racism.”Rolling Stone seemed to capture the saga best. “Tommy Tuberville Is Either Extremely Dumb or Extremely Racist,” read the magazine’s headline (the article clarified that Tuberville could also be both), and even members of Tuberville’s own party condemned him on Tuesday.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader called white nationalism “unacceptable”, while John Thune, the Republican Senate whip, said: “I mean, I would just say that there is no place for white nationalism in our party, and I think that is kind of full stop.”On the Senate floor, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, was more robust.“For the senator from Alabama to obscure the racist nature of white nationalism is indeed very, very dangerous,” Schumer said. “His words have power and carry weight with the fringe of his constituency, just the fringe, but if that fringe listens to him excuse and defend white nationalism, he is fanning the flames of bigotry and intolerance.”Tuberville’s website lists six different office locations, in Washington and across Alabama.No one answered the phone at any of the offices on Tuesday morning, as it seemed Tuberville was in the middle of a period of reflection: that afternoon the senator seemed to back away from white nationalism.Asked by CBS, on Capitol Hill, to define a white nationalist, Tuberville said: “A white nationalist is somebody that thinks that they should be the only ones in this country.”The CBS reporter followed up: “Racist, all the time?”“Right, right: racist, that’s what I’m saying,” Tuberville said.All it had taken was two months, a series of botched interviews, a slew of negative headlines and a rollicking from his party leaders, for Tuberville to get on board with the most of the rest of the US. More

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      Republicans attack FTC chair and big tech critic Lina Khan at House hearing

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      Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, faced a grueling four hours of questioning during a House judiciary committee oversight hearing on Thursday.Republicans criticized Khan – an outspoken critic of big tech – for “mismanagement” and for “politicizing” legal action against large companies such as Twitter and Google as head of the powerful antitrust agency.In his opening statement, committee chair Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said Khan has given herself and the FTC “unchecked power” by taking aggressive steps to regulate practices at big tech companies such as Twitter, Meta and Google.He said Khan carried out “targeted harassment against Twitter” by asking for all communications related to Elon Musk, including conversations with journalists, following Musk’s acquisition because she does not share his political views.Khan, a former journalist, said the company has “a history of lax security and privacy policies” that did not begin with Musk.Other Democrats agreed. “Protecting user privacy is not political,” said congressman Jerry Nadler, a Democrat of New York, in response to Jordan’s remarks.Republicans also condemned Khan for allegedly wasting government money by pursuing more legal action to prevent mergers than her predecessors – but losing. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled against the FTC’s bid to delay Microsoft from acquiring video game company Activision Blizzard, saying the agency failed to prove it would decrease competition and harm consumers. The FTC is appealing against that ruling.“She has pushed investigations to burden parties with vague and costly demands without any substantive follow-through, or, frankly, logic, for the requests themselves,” said Jordan.Another Republican member, Darrell Issa, of California, called Khan a “bully” for trying to prevent mergers.“I believe you’ve taken the idea that companies should have to be less competitive in order to merge, [and] that every merger has to be somehow bad for the company and good for the consumer – a standard that cannot be met,” Issa said.Khan earlier came under scrutiny from Republicans participating in an FTC case reviewing Meta’s bid to acquire a virtual reality company despite a recommendation from an ethics official to recuse herself. She defended her decision to remain on the case Thursday, saying she consulted with the ethics official. Khan testified she had “not a penny” in the company’s financial stock and thus did not violate ethics laws.But enforcing antitrust laws for big tech companies such as Twitter has traditionally been a bipartisan issue.“It’s a little strange that you have this real antipathy among the Republicans of Lina Khan, who in many ways is doing exactly what the Republicans say needs to be done, which is bringing a lot more antitrust scrutiny of big tech,” said Daniel Crane, a professor on antitrust law and enforcement at the University of Michigan Law School.“There’s a broad consensus that we need to do more, but that’s kind of where the agreement ends,” he said.Republicans distrust big tech companies over issues of censorship, political bias and cultural influence, whereas Democrats come from a traditional scrutiny of corporations and concentration of economic power, said Crane.“I don’t fundamentally think she’s doing something other than what she was put in office to do,” he said.Congress has not yet passed a major antitrust statute that would be favorable to the FTC in these court battles and does not seem to be pursuing one any time soon, said Crane. “They’re just going to lose a lot of cases, and that’s foreseen.”The FTC’s list of battles with big tech companies is growing.Hours earlier on Thursday, Twitter – which now legally goes by X Corp – asked a federal court to terminate a 2011 settlement with the FTC that placed restrictions on its user data and privacy practices. Khan noted Twitter voluntarily entered into that agreement.Also on Thursday, the Washington Post reported the FTC opened an investigation in OpenAI on whether its chatbot, ChatGPT, is harmful to consumers. A spokesperson for the FTC would not comment on the OpenAI investigation but Khan said during the hearing that “it has been publicly reported”.In 2017, Khan, now 34, gained fame for an academic article she wrote as a law student at Yale that used Amazon’s business practices to explain gaps in US antitrust policy. Biden announced he intended to nominate the antitrust researcher to head the FTC in March 2021. She was sworn in that June.“Chair Khan has delivered results for families, consumers, workers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs,” White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said in a statement. More

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      Donald Trump: Arizona attorney general investigating attempts to overturn 2020 vote, reports say – as it happened

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      From 3h agoArizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes is moving forward with an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the crucial swing state, the Washington Post reports.Mayes’s inquiry is the second known attempt by a state to hold the former president accountable for the effort to disrupt Biden’s win. Fani Willis, a Democratic prosecutor in Fulton county, Georgia, is reportedly close to obtaining indictments in her investigation of Trump’s campaign to overturn Biden’s win in that state. Separately, justice department special counsel Jack Smith is still investigating the former president over the January 6 insurrection, and the broader campaign to prevent Biden from entering the White House.Here’s more from the Post’s report:
      Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
      It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
      Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, said the investigation is in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued and which state statutes the team thinks might have been broken.
      “This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” he said. “This has to be ironclad shut.”
      The Secret Service announced it closed the investigation into the cocaine discovered at the White House earlier this month without naming any suspects, but Republicans seem to want to keep the matter alive. Several lawmakers, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy, expressed skepticism at the agency’s conclusion, part of a pattern of attacks on federal law enforcement by the GOP’s right wing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin outlined plans to continue pressing the supreme court to tighten its ethics, after a series of reports found questionable ties between the justices and parties with interests in its decisions.Here’s what else happened today:
      Arizona’s attorney general is moving forward with an investigation of Donald Trump and his attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in the state three years ago, the Washington Post reported.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis remains far below Trump in support among Republicans, but NBC News obtained a memo outlining his campaign’s strategy for success in the presidential primaries.
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, accused Democrats of seeking to retaliate against conservative supreme court justices.
      Durbin left open the possibility of his committee investigating liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor after a report emerged of her staff asking institutions to buy her book.
      Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among lawmakers who raised their eyebrows at the Secret Service’s decision to close the investigation into the White House cocaine.
      A spat has broken out between Republican former president Mike Pence and a prominent progressive Democrat over Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s plans to address Congress next week during his visit to Washington DC.Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, announced she would not attend Herzog’s speech, citing a 2019 episode in which Israel said fellow progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian origin, could visit family in the West Bank, but only if she avoided promoting the boycott campaign against the country:This afternoon, Pence, who is seeking the GOP’s nomination for president, took direct aim at Omar, one of only three Muslims currently serving in Congress and the only Somali-American:Back at the Capitol, Republicans continue to complain about the Secret Service’s conclusion that it can’t identify who left cocaine at the White House.Here’s Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett’s take, as captured by CNN:Ron DeSantis may be considered frontrunner Donald Trump’s biggest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, but polls have consistently shown that it’s not a particularly close race.Take this one from Morning Consult released on Tuesday. It shows Trump with 56% support among potential GOP primary voters, and DeSantis in second with a measly 17%. If there’s any news there, it’s that entrepreneur and first-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is in third place with 8%, ahead of more experienced Republicans like former vice-president Mike Pence and senator Tim Scott.NBC News has obtained a confidential memo from the DeSantis campaign laying out their strategy in the GOP’s primary process. The Florida governor plans to aim for success in the first states that vote, particularly New Hampshire, and focus less on “Super Tuesday”, when 14 states will hold primaries on 5 March.Here’s more from their story:
      Ron DeSantis is trying to reassure donors and activists that his campaign only looks stalled.
      A confidential campaign memo obtained by NBC News lays out what the Florida governor’s presidential campaign sees as its path forward: focusing on the early states, refusing to give up on New Hampshire, not yet investing in “Super Tuesday” battlegrounds, zeroing in on DeSantis’ biography and sowing doubts about his competitors — particularly Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
      “While Super Tuesday is critically important, we will not dedicate resources to Super Tuesday that slow our momentum in New Hampshire,” the memo states. “We expect to revisit this investment in the Fall.”
      The document, dated July 6, is labeled a “confidential friends and family update” and makes clear that it’s “not for distribution.” Its details about the campaign’s strategy are far more in-depth than what has been shared publicly.
      As DeSantis’ ability to surpass Donald Trump as leader of the Republican Party is now an open question among the GOP faithful, the memo is an effort by the governor’s top aides to reach out to donors to provide more clarity on their path forward.
      Across the DeSantis political universe there is a heightened awareness of the importance of the early states and the reality that DeSantis will burn out without strong performances there. It means that even as the group has a plan in place now, the strategy is subject to change.
      “From my understanding, if we don’t see a bump in the polls, we are basically going to shut down the idea of a national operation,” a DeSantis-aligned operative told NBC News.
      Donald Trump’s top opponent for the Republican presidential nomination is governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, which used to be considered a swing state, but lately has trended towards the GOP. The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon report that the DeSantis administration is carrying out a crackdown against groups that are trying to encourage people to vote:Florida Republicans have hit dozens of voter registration groups with thousands of dollars of fines, the latest salvo in an alarming crackdown on voting in the state led by Governor Ron DeSantis.At least 26 groups have cumulatively racked up more than $100,000 in fines since September of last year, according to a list that was provided by Florida officials to the Guardian. The groups include both for-profit and nonprofit organizations as well as political parties, including the statewide Republican and Democratic parties of Florida.The fines, which range from $50 to tens of thousands of dollars, were levied by the state’s office of election crimes and security, a first-of-its-kind agency created at the behest of DeSantis in 2022 to investigate voter fraud. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and the office has already come under scrutiny for bringing criminal charges against people who appeared to be confused about their voting eligibility.Donald Trump’s legal trouble is both criminal, and civil. As the Associated Press reports, the former president yesterday suffered a setback in his attempt to defend himself against a potent defamation lawsuit:Donald Trump lashed out on social media against the US justice department on Wednesday after it stopped supporting his claim that the presidency shields him from liability against a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he sexually attacked her in the mid-1990s.The former president said in a post on his social media platform that the department’s reversal a day earlier in the lawsuit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll was part of the “political Witch Hunt” he faces while campaigning for the presidency as a Republican.The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Arizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes is moving forward with an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the crucial swing state, the Washington Post reports.Mayes’s inquiry is the second known attempt by a state to hold the former president accountable for the effort to disrupt Biden’s win. Fani Willis, a Democratic prosecutor in Fulton county, Georgia, is reportedly close to obtaining indictments in her investigation of Trump’s campaign to overturn Biden’s win in that state. Separately, justice department special counsel Jack Smith is still investigating the former president over the January 6 insurrection, and the broader campaign to prevent Biden from entering the White House.Here’s more from the Post’s report:
      Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
      It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
      Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, said the investigation is in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued and which state statutes the team thinks might have been broken.
      “This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” he said. “This has to be ironclad shut.”
      Joe Biden will meet the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, at the White House next week, his spokeswoman has confirmed.Herzog will be in Washington on 18 and 19 July and will deliver a joint address to Congress.The Israeli president’s US visit comes amid protests in Israel at a government push to advance legislation that would weaken the supreme court’s independence.Israel’s parliament recently voted for a bill that would scrap a “reasonableness” standard that allows the supreme court to overrule government decisions.Biden and Herzog are due to discuss deepening Israel’s regional integration, a more peaceful Middle East and Russia’s relationship with Iran.The White House statement on the visit said:
      President Biden will stress the importance of our shared democratic values, and discuss ways to advance equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”
      The Secret Service announced it had closed its investigation of the cocaine discovered at the White House earlier this month without naming any suspects, but Republicans seem to want to keep the matter alive. Several lawmakers, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy, expressed skepticism at the agency’s conclusion, part of a pattern of attacks on federal law enforcement by the GOP’s right wing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin outlined plans to continue pressing the supreme court to tighten its ethics, after a series of reports found questionable ties between the justices and parties with interests in its decisions.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, accused Democrats of seeking to retaliate against conservative justices.
      Durbin left open the possibility of his committee investigating liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor after a report emerged of her staff asking institutions to buy her book.
      Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among lawmakers who raised their eyebrows at the Secret Service’s decision to close the investigation into the White House cocaine.
      In the latest indication that this is not the last we have heard about the White House cocaine saga, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is calling on the Secret Service to continue searching for whomever left the powder at the executive mansion, Fox News reports:Here’s more from the Guardian’s Jenna Amatulli on the cocaine found at the White House, and apparent failure of the Secret Service to discover who brought it there:The investigation into the bag of cocaine found at the White House has concluded, with no suspects identified.In a statement from the Secret Service, the organization emphasized that it implemented safety closures after discovering the cocaine and that it then “field tested and preliminarily determined” the drug “to not be a hazardous compound”.They said the US Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center later analyzed the cocaine for any biothreats and those tests came back negative.On how the item came to be inside the White House, the Secret Service said it conducted a “methodical review of security systems and protocols” that spanned “several days prior to the discovery of the substance”. They “developed an index of several hundred individuals who may have accessed the area where the substance was found” before ultimately concluding there was “insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons”. More

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      US Republicans oppose climate funding as millions suffer in extreme weather

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      Swaths of the US are baking under record-breaking heat, yet some lawmakers are still attempting to block any spending to fight the climate crisis, advocates say.Nearly 90 million Americans are facing heat alerts this week, including in Las Vegas, Nevada, which may break its all-time hottest temperature record; Phoenix, Arizona, which will probably break its streak of consecutive days of temperatures over 110F; and parts of Florida, where a marine heatwave has pushed up water temperatures off the coast to levels normally found in hot tubs.Stifling heat is also blanketing parts of Texas, which for weeks earlier this summer sweltered under a record-shattering heat dome which one analysis found was made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Despite this, the state’s Republican senator Ted Cruz is rallying his fellow GOP members of the Senate commerce committee to circulate a memo attacking climate measures in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget, Fox News reported on Wednesday.The memo specifically calls on Republican members of the Senate appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee to reject spending provisions focused on climate resilience and environmental justice efforts for scientific agencies. In one example, the memo objects to a Nasa request to fund its Sustainable Flight National Partnership, which seeks to help zero out planet-warming pollution from aviation.“If the goal is to make imperceptible changes in CO2 emissions as part of the administration’s zealous effort to micromanage global temperatures, then Nasa should abandon such wasted mental energy. Nasa should not become a plaything for anti-fossil fuel environmentalists,” the memo says.It should come as no surprise that Cruz, who has accepted massive donations from oil and gas companies, is defending the fossil fuel industry’s interests, said Allie Rosenbluth, US program co-manager at the environmental advocacy and research non-profit Oil Change International.“What is really devastating for communities who are experiencing extreme heat, wildfires, flooding and drought across the US is that because of these bought-out politicians, they are not getting the support that they need to be resilient in the face of climate impacts at the federal level,” she said.House Republicans are fighting climate spending, too. To avoid a government shutdown, lawmakers must pass a slew of spending bills before current funding expires on 30 September. But Republican members of the GOP-controlled House appropriations committee are slipping in anti-climate provisions, which aim to block renewable energy funding and imperil federal efforts to tackle the climate crisis, into their spending bill drafts.Last week, the Clean Budget Coalition – a group of non-profits such as the League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense Fund and Public Citizen – identified at least 17 of these “climate poison pills” in appropriation bill drafts. Among them are amendments that would prevent the federal government from purchasing electric vehicles or building EV charging stations; block funding for the Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries meet their climate goals under the Paris agreement; and prohibit funding for a Department of Energy initiative aiming to send 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to flow to disadvantaged communities.Elizabeth Gore, senior vice-president for political affairs at Environmental Defense Fund, said these proposals will impede lawmakers’ chance to reach a budget deal before their fall deadline.“This is not a starting point for any reasonable negotiations,” she said in a release.Early last month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling. David Shadburn, senior government affairs advocate at the League of Conservation Voters, said that from his perspective, that agreement didn’t include nearly enough government funding, but now, Republicans are trying to cut funding even more.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We wanted to see more spending. We thought the deal was insufficient,” he said. “But a deal is a deal and yet what Republicans immediately did was go back on it.”All Republican representatives can submit proposals to the House appropriations committee and no member is required to sign off on specific proposals. So it’s not clear who is responsible for each “poison pill”. But Shadburn noted that not a single Republican member of the House voted for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included the most climate spending of any bill in US history and that Republican representatives have also repeatedly attempted to overturn the bill’s climate provisions.“The entire House Republican conference is on the record here … [including] those representing places that are seeing extreme weather,” he said.House Republicans also recently proposed an array of amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act aiming to limit the Pentagon’s deployment of electric vehicles, Shadburn said.One of them, which would force the defense department to terminate contracts for electric non-combat vehicles, came from Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, whose state is preparing for triple-digit heat this week. Another, which would authorize soldiers and civilians at the US army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona to use fossil fuel-powered vehicles, came from Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona, where heat last Friday was comparable to “some of the worst heatwaves this area has ever seen”, according to the National Weather Service.“In addition to the extreme heat in the south-west and elsewhere, there’s massive flooding in Vermont and New York … yet the House this week is spending their time debating just how many climate attacks they should include in the defense authorization,” said Shadburn. “It just shows how unserious they are about doing anything significant to tackle the climate crisis.” More

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      Wray calls conspiracy theories of FBI involvement in January 6 ‘ludicrous’ – as it happened

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      From 5h agoIn his testimony to the House judiciary committee, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, decried conspiracy theories promoted by rightwing figures such as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson as well as some Republican lawmakers that the bureau’s agents were involved in the January 6 insurrection.Wray’s comments came in an exchange with Democratic congressman Steve Cohen, who asked Wray whether Ray Epps, a man Carlson and others have claimed was a government agent and provoked the storming of the US Capitol, worked for the FBI.“No,” Wray replied. “I will say this notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hardworking, dedicated men and women.”Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Epps was considering suing Fox News for Carlson’s comments about him. The conservative network earlier this year agreed to pay $787.5m to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by voting equipment manufacturer Dominion over misinformation Fox personalities spread about its business’s involvement in the 2020 election.FBI director Christopher Wray wrapped up a lengthy day of testimony before the House judiciary committee, which was as riven by partisanship as ever. Democrats defended the Donald Trump-appointed FBI chief, while Republicans tried to get him to admit misconduct or weigh in on various conspiracy theories. In the course of the six-hour hearing, Wray denied any involvement by the bureau in the January 6 attack, jousted with two rightwing lawmakers over allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his family, and a memo warning about “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology”, and at one point tried to remind a GOP lawmaker of his own ties to the party.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Ray Epps, who was repeatedly accused by Tucker Carlson of being a federal agent and instigating the January 6 attack, sued the former Fox News host and the network. In his testimony, Wray denied that Epps worked for the bureau.
      A top aide to conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas took money from several lawyers with business before the court, apparently in connection to a Christmas party, a Guardian investigation has found.
      Inflation continued to cool in the United States last month, good news both for Biden and the Federal Reserve’s quest to halt the price increases without driving the economy into a recession.
      House speaker Kevin McCarthy made it clear he was onboard with his fellow Republicans’ efforts to hold the FBI and justice department to account.
      House Republicans may release more January 6 surveillance footage in the weeks to come.
      Politico reports that House Republicans plan to turn over security camera footage recorded on January 6 to media outlets sometime before Congress takes its annual recess in August:Earlier this year, GOP House speaker Kevin McCarthy handed over some of the footage to Tucker Carlson, then a primetime Fox News host who had repeatedly downplayed the severity of the insurrection. McCarthy later vowed to allow other media outlets to see the footage:Christopher Wray was appointed FBI leader in the wake of one of the biggest upheavals of the early part of Donald Trump’s presidency: his firing of then-director James Comey.Wray seemed like a solid GOP-aligned choice to take the reins of the bureau. He was a former assistant attorney general under Republican president George W Bush, and at the time of his nomination in 2017 was working for a law firm that advised Trump’s family trust and donated to Republican candidates.Six years later, Wray couldn’t help but seem a little aghast in his hearing before the judiciary committee at being accused by Republican lawmakers – many of whom were endorsees of Trump, the president who gave him his job – of being biased against the right.He let his dismay show, albeit briefly, in the clip below:The FBI is making extra efforts to ensure director Christopher Wray’s answers in the ongoing House judiciary committee hearing are not lost in the partisan fray.Its official Twitter account is sending out snippets of his responses to some of the questions. Here is what he had to say about allegations that the FBI was investigating parents at school board meetings:And here is Wray’s response to calls from some Republicans to reduce the bureau’s funding:Ray Epps, an Arizona man who twice voted for Donald Trump, has sued the conservative Fox News network over statements made by host Tucker Carlson on his now-canceled show accusing him of playing a role in the January 6 insurrection, the New York Times report.The suit, in which Carlson is also named, is the latest legal trouble facing Fox, whose personalities acted as major conduits for conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and the attack on the Capitol. Earlier this year, it agreed to pay voting equipment firm Dominion $787.5m to settle a suit over statements made about its business by Fox’s hosts and anchors.In his ongoing testimony before the House judiciary committee, FBI director Christopher Wray was asked about Epps, and denied that he was working for the bureau.Here’s more on the lawsuit, from the Times:
      Ray Epps, the man at the center of a widespread conspiracy theory about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Fox News and its former host Tucker Carlson of defamation for promoting a “fantastical story” that Mr. Epps was an undercover government agent who instigated the violence at the Capitol as a way to disparage then-President Trump and his supporters.
      The complaint was filed in Superior Court in Delaware, where Fox recently agreed to a $787.5 million settlement in a separate defamation case brought against the network by Dominion Voting Systems to combat claims that the company had helped to rig the 2020 election against Mr. Trump.
      “Just as Fox had focused on voting machine companies when falsely claiming a rigged election, Fox knew it needed a scapegoat for January 6th,” the complaint says. “It settled on Ray Epps and began promoting the lie that Epps was a federal agent who incited the attack on the Capitol.”
      Fox News did not immediately respond when asked for comment. But the network moved quickly to have the venue changed to Federal District Court in Wilmington, Del.
      Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is now running to be the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, has come out in support of Christopher Wray, saying he had “done a very good job”.Speaking to Fox News, Christie criticised attacks on the FBI director during the judiciary committee hearing and dismissed them as “theater and people trying to raise money for campaigns”.You can watch his remarks here:All-expenses-paid trips, book promotions and property selling.Some of the US supreme court’s conservative judges are mired in ethical controversies that have prompted members of Congress to call for not only testimony from Chief Justice John Roberts, but also for formal accountability, for what they say is democracy’s sake.Senate Democrats this week have called for a vote on a bill to establish a code of conduct for the supreme court justices similar to those that other government agencies must follow. The bill, unlikely to pass in a divided Congress, would demand the court create a code within 180 days and establish rules on recusals related to potential conflicts of interest and disclosure of gifts and travel.The ethical concerns involving court justices have continued to mount. Most recently, the Guardian reported that lawyers who have conducted business before the US supreme court have paid an aide to Clarence Thomas money via Venmo.Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.FBI director Christopher Wray’s testimony before the House judiciary committee is ongoing. It’s been a generally partisan hearing, with Democrats defending the Donald Trump-appointed FBI chief, and Republicans trying to get him to admit misconduct or weigh in on various conspiracy theories. So far, Wray has denied any involvement by the bureau in the January 6 attack, and had heated back and forths with two rightwing lawmakers over allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his family, and a memo warning about “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology”. It’s not over yet, so we’ll let you know what more may come out of the encounter.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      A top aide to conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas took money from several lawyers with business before the court, apparently in connection to a Christmas party, a Guardian investigation has found.
      Inflation continued to cool in the United States last month, good news both for Biden and the Federal Reserve’s quest to halt the price increases without driving the economy into a recession.
      House speaker Kevin McCarthy made it clear he was onboard with his fellow Republicans’ efforts to hold the FBI and justice department to account.
      Donald Trump’s legal entanglements were raised once again in the House judiciary committee hearing, this time by Democratic congresswoman Madeleine Dean.She wanted to know if the FBI director, Christopher Wray, thought it was a good idea to store classified documents in a bathroom or ballroom – which is where federal investigators determined Trump kept secret material at his Mar-a-Lago resort (as pictured above).“I want to use and examine the case of the Mar-a-Lago documents because it’s been used by the former president as a pitying moment, as though he has somehow been victimized,” Dean said. “Director Wray, a ballroom, a bathroom, a bedroom, are those appropriate places to store classified, confidential information?”Wray replied: “I don’t want to be commenting on the pending case, but I will say that there are specific rules about where to store classified information and that those need to be stored in a SCIF, a secure compartmentalized information facility, and in my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are not SCIFs.”See the exchange here:Let’s step away from the House judiciary committee hearing with FBI director Christopher Wray for a moment to focus on another corner of the America justice system: the supreme court. The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner has uncovered new details about the relationship between conservative justice Clarence Thomas and lawyers with interests before the court:Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.Republicans have been particularly interested in getting answers from Christopher Wray about a memo from the FBI’s field office in Richmond, Virginia warning about “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology”.That’s an antisemitic set of ideas adhered to only by a minority of American Catholics, the Southern Poverty Law Center says, but the GOP has decried the memo as an overreach by the bureau that amounts to religious oppression.The judiciary committee’s chair, Jim Jordan, had a heated exchange with Wray about the memo, which you can watch below:After taking control of the House earlier this year, Republicans convened a subcommittee tasked with uncovering the “weaponization of the federal government”. Chaired by Jim Jordan, an acolyte of Donald Trump and promoter of many of his conspiracy theories, the committee has so far this year held hearings examining whether the Biden administration has stifled free speech and taking testimony from FBI whistleblowers, among other subjects.Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee asked the FBI director, Christopher Wray, about the allegation at the heart of the subcommittee.“Republican members of this committee have spent much time of this Congress claiming that various aspects of the US government have been weaponized against the American people. Director Ray, are you or your staff or auxiliaries weaponizing the FBI against the American people?” Lee asked.“Absolutely not,” he replied. More