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      Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lie

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      Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lie Analysis: His British friend tried to help but the former president did not want to forget his voter fraud obsession and focus on the future. CPAC loved it but Republicans hoping to take Congress know they are courting disasterThe sagest advice given to Donald Trump all week came from a man who is neither a Republican nor an American.Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidRead moreNigel Farage, the British politician, broadcaster and demagogue whose Brexit campaign coincided with Trump’s rise to power, warned his old pal against endlessly fixating on the 2020 election.“This message of a stolen election, if you think about it, is actually a negative backward looking message,” Farage told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida.“There is a better, more positive message the Republican party needs to embrace and it’s this: ‘We are going state by state, vote by vote to make sure that America has the best, the cleanest, the fairest election system anywhere in the western world.’”Urging an end to the “big lie” obsession is heresy at places like CPAC, the Woodstock of the red meat right. Perhaps no pro-Trump Republican would dare breathe it to the former president, lest he slap them with a demeaning nickname, endorse a primary opponent or blackball them from his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.But Farage, as foreigner and fellow traveller, may have felt liberated to speak an inconvenient truth: that endlessly re-litigating the last election with false claims of voter fraud could prove a serious liability for Republicans in November’s midterms.The former UK Independence party and Brexit party leader went on: “That negative anger must be turned into a positive. You’ve got to offer the voters of this country a shining city on the hill. You’ve got to give them a vision. People want dreams, people want hopes, and the deliverers of that message are you guys.”The audience sounded receptive enough. And while some CPAC speakers did promulgate “the big lie” – Ohio Senate hopeful Josh Mandel declared, “I want to say it very clearly and very directly: I believe this election was stolen from Donald J Trump” – they generally gave greater emphasis to winning Congress in 2022 and, of course, Trump returning to the White House in 2024.Jim Jordan, an Ohio congressman and close Trump ally, declared: “I believe President Trump is going to run again … I think if he runs, he’s going to win.”But the annual CPAC straw poll testing who should get the Republican nomination raised more questions than answers. Of course Trump won with more votes than everyone else combined. But his 59% was not quite the overwhelming show of force he might have hoped for in what is usually the capital of Trumpistan.There is now a clear alternative. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, finished second on 28%, well clear of Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, on 2%.In a separate poll where Trump was removed from the equation, DeSantis won by a landslide 61%.On the other hand, Florida is DeSantis’s home state, so he might expect to punch above his weight here. The governor gave a well received speech on Thursday that notably failed to mention Trump. But the audience for Trump’s address on Saturday was appreciably bigger and brimming with “Trump 2024” badges and caps.Even those sporting DeSantis regalia were not quite ready to back him. David Duffy, 57, a retired insurance worker sporting a giant “DeSantisLand” flag, said: “We want to keep President Trump as our president. We believe he still is our president and, with DeSantis being 42 years old, we want to give him a little bit more time.”Asked for her 2024 preference, Marnie Allen, wearing a “DeSantisLand” cap, said: “Trump, only because I owe him. I think we all owe him to make up for the disasters and because he’s going to go in with a vengeance this time and take care of our fourth level of government: career bureaucrats. He will go in this time and he will take a machete to them.”The 51-year-old from Orlando, who works in higher education, felt compelled to add: “Not a real machete, of course, but a figurative machete.”Unless something dramatic happens – a criminal indictment in New York, say – the nomination remains Trump’s to lose. On Saturday he dropped his strongest hint yet that he does intend to pursue it.The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracyRead moreHe clearly did not get Farage’s memo. Trump told the audience: “The Rinos [Republicans In Name Only] and certain weak Republican politicians want to ignore election integrity also but we cannot ignore it. We have to fix it. Make no mistake, they [Democrats] will try to do it again in ’22 and ’24, and we cannot let them do that.“And the way we [let them do that] is to come to a very powerful conclusion as to what happened in 2020. We stand down to stop talking about it, we stop making Americans aware of the cheating and corruption that went on. That’s really saying, ‘It’s OK, you can do it again.’ We can’t let that happen.”The slapping sound you heard was a hundred Republican midterm candidates planting their hands on their foreheads. Trump is coming to a district near you, with a big lie to tell. It remains Democrats’ best hope of a midterm miracle.TopicsDonald TrumpCPACUS politicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024Ron DeSantisanalysisReuse this content More

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      Romney: Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘moron’ for speaking at white nationalist event

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      Romney: Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘moron’ for speaking at white nationalist eventPaul Gosar also spoke at far-right conference, as calls for the censure of the two Republicans ring out again

      Trump hints at 2024 presidential bid in CPAC speech
      Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, members of Congress who spoke at a white nationalist event in Florida this week, are “morons” with no place in the Republican party, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.Calls to expel Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene after speech at white nationalist event Read more“I’m reminded of that old line from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie,” the Utah senator and 2012 presidential nominee told CNN’s State of the Union.“One character says, ‘Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.’ I have to think anybody that would sit down with white nationalists and speak at their conference was certainly missing a few IQ points.”Greene, from Georgia, and Gosar, from Arizona, spoke at the America First Political Action Conference, or AFPAC, organised by the far-right activist Nick Fuentes. Greene defended her attendance, saying she did not know Fuentes or endorse his views.Calls for the censure of the two Republicans, familiar from previous instances of extreme behaviour, rang out again on Saturday.Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “In any other world, Greene speaking at a white supremacist conference where attendees have defended Vladimir Putin and praised Adolf Hitler would warrant expulsion from the caucus, to say nothing of her advocacy for violence and consistent antisemitism is disgusting.“Quite simply, the longer [House Republican leader] Kevin McCarthy gives Marjorie Taylor Greene an unfettered platform and promises to elevate her, the more complicit he is.”The Republican party chair, Ronna McDaniel, said: “White supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican party.”But McDaniel and McCarthy lead a party in which the far right is strong, former president Donald Trump its figurehead.McDaniel is Romney’s niece, though she reportedly stopped using his name at Trump’s request. On CNN, Romney mentioned McDaniel’s statement about Greene and Gosar as well as strong words from Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican congresswoman and Trump critic.“Talking about how repugnant these white nationalists are,” Romney said, “look, there’s no place in either political party for this white nationalism or racism. it’s simply wrong.“Speaking of evil, it’s evil as well. And, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, I don’t know them.”Cheney is a stringent conservative but remains at odds with her party. She was not invited to CPAC, the larger conservative event in Florida at which Trump and Greene appeared.In video posted online, Vaughn Hillyard, a reporter for NBC, asked CPAC organiser Matt Schlapp why Greene had been invited despite her long record of extremist behaviour and her participation in the white nationalist event.The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracyRead more“I think it’s great that Marjorie Taylor Greene was on this stage because she was elected by her constituents to have a vote in Congress,” Schlapp said.“[House speaker] Nancy Pelosi decided to strip her of her rights as a congressperson to serve on these committees and Twitter has decided to shut her down.”Hillyard said: “But you’re inviting legitimacy to that white nationalist movement that was just down the road when a member of Congress from the Republican party appears at that event and you bring her here.”Schlapp said: “I’m providing legitimacy to you and your network by being allowed to be in this room. It’s called the first amendment and you are a member of the press and you have a right to be in this room. If I had said you couldn’t come into this room, how would that make America better?”Hillyard asked: “Did you extend an invite to Liz Cheney?”Schlapp said: “No.”TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS politicsMitt RomneynewsReuse this content More

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      Belief in QAnon has strengthened in US since Trump was voted out, study finds

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      Belief in QAnon has strengthened in US since Trump was voted out, study findsSurveys by the Public Religion Research Institute reveal QAnon believers increased to 17% in September from 14% in March The QAnon conspiracy myth movement continues to thrive in the US and has even strengthened more than a year after Donald Trump left the White House, according to the largest ever study of its followers.Some 22% of Americans believe that a “storm” is coming, 18% think violence might be necessary to save the country and 16% hold that the government, media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshipping pedophiles, according to four surveys carried out last year by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) think tank.‘We have a project’: QAnon followers eye swing state election official racesRead moreEach of these baseless and bizarre views is a core tenet of QAnon, an antisemitic internet conspiracy theory which held that Trump was waging a secret battle against a cabal of pedophiles and its “deep state” collaborators – a “storm” that would sweep them out of power.Yet despite his election defeat by Joe Biden, major social media platforms banning QAnon activity and the disappearance of its leader, “Q”, the movement has not gone away. If anything, it has strengthened.“The share of QAnon believers has increased slightly through 2021,” the report by the PRRI states. “In March, 14% of Americans were QAnon believers, compared to 16% in July, 17% in September, and 17% in October.“The share of QAnon doubters has remained relatively steady (46% in March, 49% in July, 48% in September, and 49% in October), while the share of QAnon rejecters has decreased slightly from 40% in March to 35% in July, 35% in September, and 34% in October.”These findings are based on 19,399 respondents from four surveys designed and conducted by the PRRI during 2021, using random samples of adults in all 50 states.Natalie Jackson, research lead, said: “People who are susceptible to believing in these conspiracy theories are found in every demographic. It’s not just restricted to Republicans or the uneducated or those who are in a specific age group. It’s distributed throughout.“Of course, there are some groups that are more prevalent than others, like there are many more Republicans than Democrats, but we do find that people in every demographic find these wild conspiracies believable.”Among the discernible patterns, about one in five QAnon believers identify as white evangelical Protestants, and QAnon believers are significantly less likely than all Americans to have college degrees.Media consumption is the strongest independent predictor of being a QAnon believer. Americans who most trust rightwing news outlets such as the One America News Network and Newsmax are nearly five times more likely than those who most trust mainstream news to be QAnon believers. Those who most trust Fox News are about twice as likely as those who trust mainstream news to be QAnon believers.They generally have positive views of the Republican party and negative views of Democrats, with 68% agreeing in the October survey that “the Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists”.Some 26% of QAnon believers have a favorable view of Biden while 69% have unfavorable views of him. About 63% have a favorable opinion of Trump but 31% have an unfavorable view of the former president who once claimed that QAnon followers “love our country” and “like me very much”.Seven in 10 QAnon believers agree with the false statement that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, including just under half who completely agree. These individuals are also most likely to blame leftwing groups such as antifa for the US Capitol insurrection on 6 January 2021 (there is no organized antifa organization).What is antifa and why is Donald Trump targeting it?Read moreJackson said: “These are people who believe that their culture is under attack, their way of life is under attack, so a lot of them do align with the Trump philosophies. According to those theories, Trump was supposed to be their leader.“One of the things that’s somewhat impressive is even with Trump out of power, and the fact that January 6 was not ‘the storm’ that they thought it might be, these beliefs have persisted.”Around eight in 10 QAnon believers agree with the statement that America is in danger of losing its culture and identity. More than seven in 10 say the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life, or that the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence.And 32% of QAnon believers agree with the statement that “the idea of America where most people are not white bothers me”.In late 2021, about one in 10 Americans (9%) agreed it might be necessary to commit an act of violence to save the country. QAnon believers (17%) and QAnon doubters (11%) were more likely than QAnon rejecters (4%) to share this view.TopicsQAnonDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      Far-right Oath Keepers leader to stay in jail until Capitol attack trial, judge rules

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      Far-right Oath Keepers leader to stay in jail until Capitol attack trial, judge rulesStewart Rhodes ‘presents a clear and convincing danger’ after spending thousands on weapons before riot, judge says The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, will remain in jail until his seditious-conspiracy trial for allegedly helping plot the assault on the US Capitol, a US judge said, calling him a “clear and convincing danger”.The US district judge Amit Mehta said during a Friday court hearing that Rhodes spent thousands of dollars on weapons and other equipment ahead of the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters and also made “substantial purchases” of weapons afterwards.“He presents a clear and convincing danger, in my view,” Mehta said.Rhodes’s lawyers had proposed he be released into the custody of relatives in California, where he would stay in a separate residence on their property without access to the internet.Mehta said he was not satisfied with that arrangement, stating that Rhodes “has been extremely sophisticated with his ability to communicate”.Criminal defendants are often released pending trial, since they are presumed innocent until convicted, but can be held if they are deemed dangerous or likely to flee the country.How the arrest of a far-right militia leader signals a new chapter in the January 6 inquiryRead moreRhodes, 56, is the most high-profile defendant of the more than 725 people charged with playing a role in the attack. His lawyer said there was no evidence that Rhodes conspired to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election.He is one of 11 members or associates of the Oath Keepers facing a seditious conspiracy charge.Rhodes is accused of spearheading a conspiracy to block the certification of the presidential election by recruiting others and even stationing armed “quick reaction force” units outside of Washington to be ready to stop the peaceful transfer of power.A US magistrate judge in Texas last month ruled Rhodes should be detained, after hearing testimony from an FBI agent as well as Rhodes’ ex-wife, who expressed concerns for her safety. Rhodes appealed that decision to Mehta. TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      Nearly one in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military

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      Nearly one in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US militaryLeaked documents show that about 18 out of 87 applicants, or 21%, to Patriot Front were currently or formerly affiliated with military Nearly one in five applicants to the white supremacist group Patriot Front claimed to hold current or former ties to the US military, according to leaked documents published and reviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and alternative media collective Unicorn Riot.Some 18 out of the 87 applicants, or 21%, said they were currently or previously affiliated with the military. One applicant, who claimed to be a former Marine, also said he currently worked for the Department of Homeland Security, according to the SPLC’s Hatewatch, a blog that tracks and exposes activities of American rightwing extremists.A white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group, Patriot Front emerged as a rebrand of the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.According to the SPLC, the Patriot Front “represents one of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the country” and is led by Thomas Rousseau, a 23-year old man based in Dallas, Texas. “A nation within a nation is our goal. Our people face complete annihilation as our culture and heritage are attacked from all sides,” Rousseau once said.In January, Unicorn Riot published over 400 gigabytes of data that included “ostensibly private, unedited videos and direct messages [that] reveal a campaign to organize acts of hatred while indoctrinating teenagers into national socialism (Nazism),” the journalist collective said.Group members and applicants expressed an open admiration for Nazi ideologies, with the latter expressing various motivations for joining the group.One applicant, who said he lived in San Diego, claimed to be a current DHS employee and told Patriot Front he was inspired to join after he “found out about the Jews while in the marines”.Another applicant used derogatory language about LGBTQ+ people and said he “first saw” them during his time in the military.Someone else from Salt Lake City said he “shifted focus and questioned things” after his second deployment and went from being a Republican to joining the far right.Applicants also touted their various skill sets, including “great land-navigation, great physical fitness, able to clear rooms” and “basic medical training”. Others said they had been “trained in firearms”. One claimed to train people in “marine corps martial arts” and said he was the leader of the Kansas Active Club, an affiliate of the Rise Above Movement, a Southern California-based SPLC-designated hate group.‘We are desperate for new people’: inside a hate group’s leaked online chatsRead moreIn addition to alleged military affiliations, the leak also revealed that the group targets minors. According to Unicorn Riot, Patriot Front recruits “members through the internet who are still legally minors, indoctrinating them with white supremacist ideology and even encouraging them to lie to their parents so the group can transport them across state lines for fascist events”.Patriot Front’s official policies require members to be at least 17 and a half years old, but it “goes by a case by case basis” with certain members being below that age.In the past year, there has been growing concern surrounding the far-right radicalization of current and former military members. More than 80 defendants charged for their affiliation with the deadly January 6 riots have been found to have ties to the military, with most being veterans.Last March, the Pentagon released a report that cited domestic extremist groups posing an increasing threat to the military by attempting to recruit service members and in certain situations join the military to gain combat experience.“Military members are highly prized by these groups as they bring legitimacy to their causes and enhance their ability to carry out attacks,” the report said. “In addition to potential violence, white supremacy and white nationalism pose a threat to the good order and discipline within the military,” it added.In October, a House panel convened to discuss ways to address veterans being increasingly targeted for recruitment by extremist groups.“They provide them with a tribe, a simplistic view of the world and its problems, actionable solutions and a sense of purpose, and then they feed these vulnerable individuals a concoction of lies and an unrelenting narrative of political and social grievance,” retired Marine Lt Col Joe Plenzler said at the panel.A study last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that in 2020, 6.4% of all domestic terror attacks and plots were committed by active-duty or reserve personnel, up from 1.5% in 2019 and none in 2018.TopicsThe far rightRaceAntisemitismUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      California county recalls top official, giving militia-aligned group a path to government

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      California county recalls top official, giving militia-aligned group a path to governmentSupervisor Leonard Moty has been ousted after two years of threats and increasing hostility over pandemic health restrictions Voters in far northern California have solidified the ouster of a Republican county official, giving control of the Shasta county board of supervisors to a group supported by local militia members.Leonard Moty, a retired police chief and Republican with decades of public service, lost his seat in a recall election in one of California’s most conservative counties. The Tuesday recall came as tensions reached a high in the county after two years of threats and increasing hostility toward moderate Republican officials over pandemic health restrictions.California county on track to be run by militia-aligned groupRead more“I really thought my community would step up to the plate and they didn’t and that’s very discouraging,” Moty said in an interview with the Guardian earlier this week, warning the recall would shift the area to the “alt-right”.Updated polling numbers released on Friday showed about 56% of 8,752 voters supported recalling Moty. Cathy Darling Allen, the county registrar of voters, said there were about 121 ballots left to count. The results won’t be finalized until next month, but the two candidates in the lead to replace Moty attended a celebration on Tuesday with members of an area militia group, the Sacramento Bee reported.The recall is a win for the county’s ultra-conservative movement in their efforts to gain a foothold in local government in this rural part of northern California and fight back against moderate Republicans they felt didn’t do enough to resist state health rules during the pandemic.Though Shasta county was among the least restrictive in California amid Covid, residents unhappy about state rules and mask requirements have showed up to meetings in large numbers since 2020. Moty and others were subjected to what law enforcement has deemed “credible threats” and personal attacks in meetings – one person told him that bullets are expensive, but “ropes are reusable”.Experts have warned the pandemic and eroding trust in US institutions has fueled extremism in local politics and hostility against officials. In Shasta county, the successful recall campaign will likely set up more conflict between the local government and the state government, said Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California, Davis.Carlos Zapata, a local militia member who helped organize the recall efforts, in 2020 told the board there could be blood in the streets if the supervisors didn’t reject state health rules such as mask requirements.“This is a warning for what’s coming. It’s not going to be peaceful much longer. It’s going to be real … I’ve been in combat and I never wanted to go back again, but I’m telling you what – I will to stay in this country. If it has to be against our own citizens, it will happen. And there’s a million people like me, and you won’t stop us,” he said.TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsThe far rightCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans to field more than 100 far-right candidates this year

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      Republicans to field more than 100 far-right candidates this yearAnti-Defamation League list includes at least a dozen with links to white supremacists, anti-government extremists and Proud Boys More than 100 far-right candidates are running for political office across the country as Republicans this year according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a non-profit that monitors hate groups.Aside from those expressing extremist rhetoric and far-right views, the ADL has found at least a dozen of the candidates had explicit connections to ‘“white supremacists, anti-government extremists and members of the far-right Proud Boys”. It includes primary challengers running to the right of some sitting Republicans.‘The most dangerous man in Congress’: how Paul Gosar became a darling of the far rightRead moreIn Arkansas’s third district Neil Kumar, who the ADL found has written for white supremacist publications, is challenging the incumbent congressman, Steve Womack, who broke with Republicans in voting in favor of creating the January 6 commission to investigate the Capitol attack. The openly racist views of Kumar prompted the Arkansas state Republican party to take the unusual step of declaring him a “non-recommended candidate” in the upcoming primary.The wave of far-right candidates includes sitting legislators like the Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers, who has admitted to being a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia with 11 members currently under federal indictment for seditious conspiracy.Other militia groups have candidates running or already in local office. The Washington Three Percent militia claims members in dozens of elected offices throughout the Pacific north-west, the Washington Post found, “including a mayor, a county commissioner and at least five school board seats”.In Idaho the far-right anti-government activist Ammon Bundy – who led an armed standoff against federal agents at Malheur wildlife refuge in 2014 – is running for the governor’s office. Bundy’s group, the People’s Rights network, has now increased its national membership to 33,000 members and has at least 398 activists in 39 states, according to a report by Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.Many far-right candidates have no direct links to violent extremist groups, but do support a range of far-right views. The ADL tracked at least 45 candidates running for office this year that have “lent credence in some way” to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. Many more hold on to Donald Trump’s “big lie” – the false belief that the 2020 election was stolen.Nationwide there are 207 current elected officials who aided former president Trump in efforts to overturn the 2020, according to data compiled by the Insurrection Index, a project of the voting rights group Public Wise. The index includes senators like Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, who voted against certifying the 2020 election and spread misinformation including suggesting that the January 6 attack was carried out by “fake Trump voters”.While many candidates are seeking local or national legislative seats, some are purposely running for bureaucratic offices whose chief responsibility is to certify elections. Thirty are standing in contests for attorney general, according to tracking by the States United Democracy Center, a non-partisan group that monitors election races nationwide.Fringe political candidates are a part of every US election cycle, but while these 2022 candidates hold far-right views they are also part of a wave within the Republican party that is no longer fringe but increasingly represents a powerful – even dominant – wing in the party.“The real danger is not just the wave of extreme candidates, it’s their embrace, their mainstreaming by the Republican party,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University and the co-author of How Democracies Die. “The United States has always had nutty, extremist, authoritarian politicians around the fringe. What is new and really dangerous for democracy is that they’re increasingly running as Republican candidates.”Levitsky added: “At first you had a flirtation and tolerance with a handful of extremists at the fringes. We’re now seeing an army of extremists embraced by the former president. They’re marching in and taking over the Republican party at the state and local level.”In Oregon, Daniel Tooze, a prominent associate of the Proud Boys who has participated in street brawls with anti-fascists in Portland, is running for Oregon’s state legislature in the 40th district. Tooze ran for the same seat in 2020, failing to secure the Republican nomination in the primary, but he received 40% of the Republican vote in the primary. This year Tooze is the only Republican who has filed to run again.“When mainstream parties take onboard figures who deny the legitimacy of elections, refuse to accept electoral defeat, condone or even engage in political violence, you are putting democracy at risk,” said Levitsky.Tooze declined to be interviewed for this article but stated in correspondence: “I’m just a regular guy.”A review of Tooze’s campaign website and filing statement show no mention of affiliation with the Proud Boys. Tooze campaign messaging uses the language of mainstream Republican talking points. The Guardian has previously reported on far-right groups shifting their focus to local communities. Since the Capitol attack members of groups such as the Proud Boys have shown up to local venues including school board meetings to stand alongside mainstream conservatives, especially around issues such as Covid-19 restrictions.This month Tooze tweeted a video of Thomas Renz, a far-right anti-vaccine influencer, speaking at a panel convened by Senator Johnson that promoted misleading information about Covid-19 and vaccines. The video of Renz went viral in alt-tech platforms but also within mainstream social media. Tooze wrote of the video: “It’s time to hold the government accountable for what they’ve done to the people.”TopicsThe far rightRepublicansUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

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      Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?

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      Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?Justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas, sits on the board of conservative group that backs lawsuit seeking to end affirmative action, raising concerns it could present potential conflict of interest Clarence Thomas, the hardline conservative supreme court justice, is facing calls for his recusal in the case over race-based affirmative action in college admissions that the court agreed to hear this week.US supreme court will hear challenge to affirmative action in college admissionRead moreThe case, which is being brought against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, is the latest potential conflict of interest involving Thomas and his wife Virginia Thomas. Ginni, as she is known, is a prominent rightwing activist who speaks out on a raft of issues that frequently come before the nation’s highest court.A one-person conservative powerhouse, she set up her own lobbying company Liberty Consulting in 2010. By her own description, she has “battled for conservative principles in Washington” for over 35 years.The challenge to the two universities’ race-conscious admissions policies is being brought by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). Its leader Edward Blum has been a relentless opponent of affirmative action and voting rights laws.His argument that race-based affirmative action is a quota system that discriminates against Asian students is framed with the supreme court’s newly emboldened rightwing majority in mind. A central player in that new six-justice conservative supermajority is Clarence Thomas, who is the longest-serving of the justices and at 73 will be the oldest once Stephen Breyer retires.Justice Thomas’s influence has soared in recent months with the rightward shift of the court following Donald Trump’s three nominations, to the extent that some pundits now dub him the unofficial chief justice of the court.SFFA’s lawsuit seeking to strike down affirmative action has received the enthusiastic backing of the conservative National Association of Scholars. It filed an amicus brief in support of the suit, accusing Harvard admissions officials of being prejudiced against Asian students and stereotyping them as “uninteresting, uncreative and one-dimensional”.Ginni Thomas sits on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars. Observers are concerned that her position with a group that has intervened in the affirmative action case could present appearances of conflict of interest.Noah Bookbinder, president of the government ethics watchdog Crew, told the Guardian that while supreme court regulations may not legally require Thomas to recuse himself, there were serious questions to answer.“Ginni Thomas is an advisory board member of an organization that has taken a very specific position on a case in front of her husband. That will make it hard for the public to be confident that he’s going to be totally unbiased.”Bookbinder said that in the circumstances “the better course of action would be for him to recuse or for her to cease her involvement in that organization.”The potential appearance of a conflict of interest over the Harvard case was noted in a recent investigation by the New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer that takes a deep dive into the overlapping interests of the couple. The article chronicles in devastating detail the many instances where Ginni’s political activism appears to present problems for the image and integrity of the court.“Ginni Thomas has held so many leadership or advisory positions at conservative pressure groups that it’s hard to keep track of them,” Mayer concluded. “Many, if not all, of these groups have been involved in cases that have come before her husband.”In the most troubling recent instance, Ginni Thomas lent her voice to Trump’s big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. She was vocal on the subject in the buildup to the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 last year that led to the deaths of five people and left more than 100 police officers injured.On the morning of the January 6 itself, Mark Joseph Stern of Slate reported, Thomas posted on her Facebook page words of encouragement for the “Stop the Steal” marchers in Washington. “LOVE MAGA people!!!!”, she said., “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING!”Soon after the insurrection, Thomas was forced to apologise to her husband’s former supreme court law clerks for comments she made privately to them that appeared to lament Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. The remarks were sent to a private email list called “Thomas Clerk World”.In the emails, disclosed by the Washington Post, she wrote: “Many of us are hurting, after leaving it all on the field, to preserve the best of this country. I feel I have failed my parents who did their best and taught me to work to preserve liberties.”An even more direct intervention in the politics surrounding Trump and the big lie was made last December when Thomas joined 62 other influential conservatives in signing an open letter to the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy. It urged him to expel the Congress members Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican party.Their sin, the letter writers opined, was to serve on the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. They described the committee as an “overtly partisan political persecution that brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law [and] legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong”.Since the Capitol insurrection, the Department of Justice has arrested more than 725 defendants in relation to the storming of the building. Federal prosecutors have charged 225 with assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers, including over 75 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily harm to an officer.Last week the supreme court rejected attempts by Trump to block the January 6 committee from acquiring his White House records from the time of the attack. There was only one dissent from the bench to that 8-to-1 decision: it came from Clarence Thomas.“Ginni Thomas’s activities are unprecedented in supreme court history in terms of a spouse engaging in issues that are constantly before the court,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a non-partisan group which advocates supreme court reform. “The appearance of impropriety is in itself impropriety – all the supreme court has is the trust of the public, and once you chip away at that you are in trouble.”Roth added that Thomas’s comments in the days before January 6 were clearly problematic given her husband’s vote on the Trump documents. “It’s possible that the January 6 committee has emails between Ginni Thomas and administration officials from that day or the days leading up to it given how vocal she was. That’s definitely a place where Justice Thomas should have recused himself.”Should the rightwing majority around Thomas use its newfound muscle to ban affirmative action, as is widely predicted, it would mark the negation of more than 30 years of settled constitutional law on the matter. What lies ahead bears strong resemblance to Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that made abortion legal which the court is probably poised to weaken or even overturn outright.Mayer points out in the New Yorker that an amicus brief was filed in the supreme court case challenging Roe by Robert George who also sits on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars alongside Ginni Thomas.Roth told the Guardian that a simpler solution to the full recusal of Clarence Thomas from the affirmative action case might exist. That would be to remove the National Association of Scholars’ amicus brief.“There is an easy way to deal with this perceived conflict of interest – strike the amicus brief,” he said.It is established practice in all federal appeals courts, though not in the supreme court, that amicus briefs brought by anybody with a connection to a judge hearing a case are routinely thrown out.The president of the National Association of Scholars, Peter Wood, told the Guardian that he knew of no conflict of interest relating to Thomas’s position on the advisory board. “Ms Thomas’s role is to provide advice to NAS in response to questions I put to her about NAS policy and initiatives. I have never discussed with her any NAS matter that was likely to come before the supreme court,” he said.TopicsUS supreme courtUS politicsLaw (US)The far rightRacefeaturesReuse this content More