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      Ginni Thomas still believes Trump’s false claim the 2020 election was stolen

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      Ginni Thomas still believes Trump’s false claim the 2020 election was stolenWife of US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas holds tight to stolen election conspiracy in interview with January 6 committee Ginni Thomas, the hard-right conservative whose activities have raised conflict of interest concerns involving her husband, the US supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, has told the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that she still believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the committee, told reporters following the almost five-hour private interview with Thomas that she held fast to her claim that massive fraud in the 2020 election had put Joe Biden in the White House. When asked by reporters if Thomas still believed that to be true, Thompson replied: “Yes.”The stolen election conspiracy theory – widely propagated by Trump – has never been substantiated with evidence and has been thoroughly debunked over the past two years.In an opening statement to the committee, obtained by the New York Times, Thomas also insisted that she and her husband, the longest-serving member of America’s highest court, abided by an “ironclad rule” never to discuss cases coming before him.“It is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence – the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she said.But her dogged attachment to Trump’s lie that he was the true winner in 2020, repeated in front of the January 6 committee on Thursday, is certain to further heighten alarm about the impact of Thomas’s unrestrained hard-right activism on the credibility of the supreme court. Clarence Thomas has consistently refused to recuse himself from cases arising from the insurrection at the US Capitol despite his wife’s avid support for attempts to subvert the election result.Clarence Thomas was the sole justice among the nine members of the panel to oppose an order in January forcing hundreds of White House documents to be disclosed to the January 6 committee. Among those documents were texts sent by Ginni Thomas to Mark Meadows, then White House chief of staff, in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election urging him to do all he could to overturn Biden’s victory.Ginni Thomas has also been exposed as having pressurized lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin, demanding that they block certification of Biden’s win in those states in an effort to swing the outcome to Trump.After the encounter with the committee, her lawyer said she had happily communicated with them “to clear up the misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 elections”. He characterized her efforts after the election as “minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated”.TopicsClarence ThomasUS supreme courtDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Senate passes short-term deal to avoid government shutdown – as it happened

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      The Senate has approved a measure to keep the government funded through December 16, averting a shutdown that would have begun Saturday:Passed, 72-25: Passage of Cal. #389, H.R.6833, the legislative vehicle for the Continuing Resolution, as amended. (60-vote affirmative threshold)— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) September 29, 2022
      The bill now goes to the House for approval. Top Republicans have encouraged their lawmakers to vote against it, but Democrats control the chamber, making its passage likely. Beyond just funding the government, the bill contains about $12 billion in new aid for Ukraine, as well as relief money for disasters in Kentucky, New Mexico, Puerto Rico and other states.The Senate passed a short-term spending bill to keep the government open till mid-December and avert a shutdown, potentially giving lawmakers space to spend the next few weeks campaigning ahead of the 8 November midterms. Meanwhile, Ginni Thomas, wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a promoter of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election, testified before the January 6 committee.Here’s what else happened today:
      Six Republican-governed states are suing the Biden administration over its student debt relief plan.
      Some Republicans fear a potentially damaging standoff over the US debt limit if Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker of the House in a GOP-led chamber next year.
      President Joe Biden spoke with Florida’s governor and potential 2024 opponent Ron DeSantis as the state reels from Hurricane Ian.
      Washington’s rivalry with Iran is long running and well known, but independent security researchers and Reuters today found concerning trends in how the CIA handles informants in the country, Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports:The CIA used hundreds of websites for covert communications that were severely flawed and could have been identified by even an “amateur sleuth”, according to security researchers.The flaws reportedly led to the death of more than two dozen US sources in China in 2011 and 2012 and also reportedly led Iran to execute or imprison other CIA assets.The new research was conducted by security experts at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which started investigating the matter after it received a tip from reporter Joel Schectmann at Reuters.The group said it was not publishing a full detailed technical report of its findings to avoid putting CIA assets or employees at risk. But its limited findings raise serious doubts about the intelligence agency’s handling of safety measures.Covert CIA websites could have been found by an ‘amateur’, research findsRead moreAn attorney for Ginni Thomas has released a statement detailing her testimony to the January 6 committee today.The statement, obtained by the New York Times, acknowledges that she continues to have questions about the 2020 election but downplays her involvement in attempts to overturn the result:Ginni Thomas has finished being interviewed by the J6 committee, per her lawyer Mark Paoletta: pic.twitter.com/1lKGfVKoYa— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 29, 2022
      It appears Ginni Thomas’s testimony today to the January 6 committee is already bearing fruit.Politico reports that the congressional panel’s chair Bennie Thompson said the promoter of 2020 election conspiracy theories and wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas was of some help to the investigation:1/6 committee chair Bennie Thompson tells reporters Ginni Thomas is answering “some questions” and reiterated her belief to the committee the 2020 election was stolen— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) September 29, 2022
      They might be able to use some of her testimony in the hearing (when it’s rescheduled) “if theres something of merit”— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) September 29, 2022
      The January 6 committee was supposed to hold its first public hearing in more than two months on Wednesday, but postponed it due to Hurricane Ian’s arrival in Florida. They have not yet rescheduled the session.The Senate has approved a measure to keep the government funded through December 16, averting a shutdown that would have begun Saturday:Passed, 72-25: Passage of Cal. #389, H.R.6833, the legislative vehicle for the Continuing Resolution, as amended. (60-vote affirmative threshold)— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) September 29, 2022
      The bill now goes to the House for approval. Top Republicans have encouraged their lawmakers to vote against it, but Democrats control the chamber, making its passage likely. Beyond just funding the government, the bill contains about $12 billion in new aid for Ukraine, as well as relief money for disasters in Kentucky, New Mexico, Puerto Rico and other states.The Senate appears poised to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government open and avert a shutdown, potentially giving lawmakers space to spend the next few weeks campaigning ahead of the 8 November midterms. Meanwhile, Ginni Thomas, wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a promoter of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election, testified before the January 6 committee.Here’s what else happened today:
      Six Republican-governed states are suing the Biden administration over its student debt relief plan.
      Some Republicans fear a potentially damaging standoff over the US debt limit if Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker of the House in a GOP-led chamber next year.
      President Joe Biden spoke with Florida’s governor and potential 2024 opponent Ron DeSantis as the state reels from Hurricane Ian.
      An American citizen was killed in Iraqi Kurdistan, which Iran has targeted with drone and missile attacks as its government struggles with nationwide protests, Reuters reports.Iran’s Kurdish minority has been particularly involved in the protests, which were sparked by the death of a woman from the ethnic group in the custody of its morality police. Yesterday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan condemned Iran’s attacks on its neighbor, saying: “Iran cannot deflect blame from its internal problems and the legitimate grievances of its population with attacks across its borders.”Iran launches airstrike against Kurdish group in northern Iraq Read moreAn unusual pairing of senators has introduced legislation to further raise Taiwan’s standing within global organizations, as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to counter China’s attempts to isolate the island it views as a breakaway province.Axios reports that the Senate proposal from conservative Republican Ted Cruz of Texas and liberal Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon would push for Taiwan to be included in the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao). It would also tell the White House to seek a vote admitting Taiwan to the body at its next meeting.China has kept Taiwan out of Icao assemblies since 2013, but earlier this week, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg called for its return. Taiwan is home to Asia’s fifth-largest airport, and Axios reports concerns about its exclusion from the Icao were raised in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic as travel was snarled globally by border closures and flight restrictions.The fallout from the water crisis in Mississippi’s capital continues, with a complaint accusing the state of divesting from the city in favor of its suburbs, Edwin Rios reports:The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has filed a federal complaint accusing Mississippi officials of violating civil rights law by repeatedly diverting federal funds meant for ensuring safe drinking water away from the state’s predominantly Black capital, Jackson, to smaller, white communities.The suit says such actions amounted to racial discrimination and a devastating loss of access to drinking water for more than a month for residents in Jackson, where more than 80% of residents are Black and a quarter are in poverty.“The result is persistently unsafe and unreliable drinking water and massive gaps in the access to safe drinking water that are intolerable in any modern society,” Jackson residents allege.“Nearly all of the residents of Jackson have watched brackish, dirty, impure, and undrinkable water trickle from their taps. At times, some have had no water at all.”The complaint, filed to the Environmental Protection Agency, amplifies pressure on officials in Mississippi and Jackson to address longstanding water infrastructure woes that recently forced Jackson to shut down its water supply in late August and maintain a boil water notice for weeks.NAACP files racial discrimination complaint over Jackson water crisisRead moreSix Republican states are suing the Biden administration over its plan to forgive student loan debt for millions of Americans.The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Missouri by that state, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina and Arkansas. Iowa has a Democratic attorney general – the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed on the state’s behalfLeslie Rutledge, the Arkansas attorney general leading the case, told the Associated Press: “It’s patently unfair to saddle hard-working Americans with the loan debt of those who chose to go to college. The Department of Education is required, under the law, to collect the balance due on loans. And President Biden does not have the authority to override that.”In the suit, the states say Biden has declared the Covid-19 pandemic over – but is still using the ongoing health emergency to justify the wide-scale debt relief.The forgiveness plan is not universally popular among those with student debt but the Biden administration and Democrats have touted it, in the quickening run-in to the midterm elections. Further reading, part I:The lesson from Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness? Go big or go home | Hamilton NolanRead moreElsewhere this week, the Congressional Budget Office said the program will cost about $400bn over three decades. The White House pointed out that the CBO estimate of how much the plan will cost in its first year, $21bn, is lower than initially forecast.The education department is due to unveil the application for forgiveness in October.Further reading, part II:Rightwingers threaten legal action on Biden’s student loan debt reliefRead moreFor Senate scheduling fans out there, and we know there are many, the government funding vote seems imminent …Sounds like a potential 145 pm Senate vote on government funding ✈️— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 29, 2022
      While Congress may be the site of financial brinksmanship in 2023, there appears to be no appetite for it now. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, has indicated in a floor speech that the votes are there to pass a short-term funding bill to keep the government open through December 16.The legislation heads off a shutdown that would have started on Saturday, but must still be approved by the House, where the Democrats also have a majority.“With a little more good faith negotiation between Democrats and Republicans, I am hopeful that today is the day we’ll finish passing a continuing resolution to fund the government until mid-December. Government funding is set to run out Friday at midnight, roughly 40 hours from now, and there is no reason at all for us to get anywhere near that deadline,” Schumer said. “In short, there is every reason in the world for both sides to get to ‘yes’ on finalizing a CR before the end of today. Democrats will continue working with our Republican colleagues in good faith to find a path to the finish line.”The latest agreement was reached when Democratic senator Joe Manchin agreed to withdraw a controversial proposal to change the permitting process for energy projects, which did not look like it had the support to pass as part of the wider spending measure. But it’s not always this easy. The government has shut down repeatedly in recent decades when Congress was so consumed with squabbles and demands that it couldn’t agree on a way to keep it open before funding ran out. And this latest agreement means lawmakers can spend more time back in their districts, stumping for re-election ahead of the 8 November midterms.Senate advances funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrappedRead moreIf Kevin McCarthy does become the next House speaker, Axios reports that Americans could expect a congressional standoff in the latter part of next year with uniquely high stakes for the country.At issue would be the debt limit, which governs how much borrowing the United States can do to fund its budget and is on track to need to be raised by the fall of 2023. Failure to do so could result in Washington defaulting on its debt – an unheard of economic calamity that could have repercussions for financial systems worldwide.The two parties have haggled over the debt limit in the past and came close to default in 2011, when a newly ascendant Republican majority in the House used it as a cudgel against Democrat Barack Obama’s administration. According to Axios, the concern is that McCarthy would be willing to entertain such brinksmanship if he takes over the House, a tactic top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell is far less interested in. The subtext to this is that some Republicans don’t trust McCarthy to negotiate responsibly when it comes to the debt limit, Axios reports, with one source contrasting him with John Boehner, the Republican House speaker in 2011. “‘Speaker [John] Boehner and a hypothetical Speaker McCarthy are different animals,’ a former House Republican who served during the 2011 crisis told Axios. ‘Boehner was convinced of the necessity [of raising the debt limit] and was willing to twist arms. I just don’t know about a Speaker McCarthy.’” More

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      in Elections

      US supreme court’s approval rating falls to historical low ahead of new term – live

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      When its most recent term concluded in June, the supreme court’s conservative majority had flexed its muscles in a big way.They overturned a nearly half-century old precedent to allow states to ban abortion nationwide, expanded the ability to carry a concealed weapon, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plants and expanded prayer in public schools. Thus, much of the drop in the court’s public trust Gallup found in a poll released today comes from Democrats, for which confidence halved in the past year. Overall, only 47% of respondents have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the court, which isn’t bad compared to, say, Congress, but nonetheless represents a 20-percentage-point drop from two years ago and a sharp decline from its usual two-thirds level in Gallup’s surveys.But it’s not just the public itself that has issues with how the court is behaving. The justices, or at least one justice, appear to think it’s gone too far. The White House-appointed jurors usually go to great lengths to appear impartial and stay out of Washington’s daily fray, but something appears to be going on behind the scenes. “If, over time, the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that is a dangerous thing for democracy,” warned Elena Kagan in a July speech, one of the justices comprising the court’s three-member liberal minority. More unusual was the fact that Samuel Alito, the conservative who wrote the opinion overturning abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, appeared to respond to her comments with a remark delivered not in a speech – the typical venue when justices feel like opening up on a topic – but directly to the Wall Street Journal, as many other players in Washington often do.“It goes without saying that everyone is free to express disagreement with our decisions and to criticize our reasoning as they see fit. But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line,” Alito said.“While it is not a crime to lie to Fox News viewers or on social media, there are consequences to lying to a court.” That’s a line from a New York Times piece published today analyzing the decision by Donald Trump’s lawyers to seek the appointment of a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case – and concluding the strategy hasn’t quite paid off the way the ex-president may have hoped.First of all, a reminder of what a special master is: it’s a neutral party that a federal judge assigned to the lawsuit that followed the FBI’s seizure of documents from Trump’s Florida resort. Senior federal judge Raymond J. Dearie was appointed to sift through the documents for those covered by attorney-client and executive privilege. While the ruling temporarily halted the justice department’s investigation into whether Trump unlawfully retained government secrets, an appeals court reversed part of the lower court’s decision earlier this month, allowing the government to continue reviewing the seized documents.Nonetheless, the special master will continue his work, but the article notes that it will be expensive for Trump, who will have to foot the cost for a firm to scan all the documents, the judge to hire an assistant that bills at $500 an hour, plus all the legal fees the former president will incur.Then there’s Dearie’s demands for how the review will be conducted, which the Times reports don’t seem to favor Trump:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}And far from indulging Mr. Trump, as his lawyers likely hoped in suggesting his appointment, Judge Dearie appears to be organizing the document review in ways that threaten to swiftly puncture the former president’s defenses.
      For example, the judge has ordered Mr. Trump to submit by Friday a declaration or affidavit verifying the inventory or listing any items on it “that plaintiff asserts were not seized” in the search.
      But if Mr. Trump acknowledges that the F.B.I. took any documents marked as classified from his personal office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, as the inventory says, that would become evidence that could be used against him if he were later charged with defying a subpoena.
      Requiring Mr. Trump’s lawyers to verify or object to the inventory also effectively means making them either affirm in court or disavow a claim Mr. Trump has made in public: his accusation that the F.B.I. planted fake evidence. While it is not a crime to lie to Fox News viewers or on social media, there are consequences to lying to a court.There’s even a Britain angle to the Trump book, Martin Pengelly reports. Meanwhile, the country’s mini-economic crisis continues:In his first White House meeting with a major foreign leader, Donald Trump asked Theresa May: “Why isn’t Boris Johnson the prime minister? Didn’t he want the job?”At the time, the notoriously ambitious Johnson was foreign secretary. He became prime minister two years later, in 2019, after May was forced to resign.May’s response to the undiplomatic question is not recorded in Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, a new book by the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Trump asked May at debut meeting why Boris Johnson was not PM, book saysRead moreThe Guardian’s Martin Pengelly obtained a copy of “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” ahead of its release next week. As you might expect, it contained no shortage of troubling anecdotes about what was going on in the White House during his presidency:In a meeting supposedly about campaign strategy in the 2020 election, Donald Trump implied his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, might be brutally attacked, even raped, should he ever go camping.“Ivanka wants to rent one of those big RVs,” Trump told bemused aides, according to a new book by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, before gesturing to his daughter’s husband.“This skinny guy wants to do it. Can you imagine Jared and his skinny ass camping? It’d be like something out of Deliverance.”According to Haberman, Trump then “made noises mimicking the banjo theme song from the 1972 movie about four men vacationing in rural Georgia who are attacked, pursued and in one case brutally raped by a local resident”.The bizarre scene is just one of many in Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Kushner camping tale one of many bizarre scenes in latest Trump bookRead morePresident Joe Biden has spoken with Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has been critical of the White House and is thought to be mulling a bid for president in 2024, but whose state is now being battered by Hurricane Ian.The pair committed to working together to help the state recover from the storm, according to a readout of the call provided by the White House:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The President spoke this morning with Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida to discuss the steps the Biden-Harris Administration is taking to support Florida in response to Hurricane Ian, including the issuance of a Disaster Declaration this morning. The President told the Governor he is sending his FEMA Administrator to Florida tomorrow to check in on response efforts and see where additional support is needed. The President and Governor committed to continued close coordination.The Guardian has a separate live blog following the latest news on Hurricane Ian:Hurricane Ian: DeSantis says ‘we’ve never seen a flood like this’ as Biden declares disaster – liveRead moreThe Washington Post has a preview of the upcoming supreme court term that indicates new ways the conservative majority could change American law.Here are a few of the issues raised in cases the court will consider, and potentially render consequential decisions on:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Justices have agreed to revisit whether universities can use race in a limited way when making admission decisions, a practice the court has endorsed since 1978. Two major cases involve voting rights. The court again will consider whether laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation must give way to business owners who do not want to provide wedding services to same-sex couples. And after limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority in air pollution cases last term, the court will hear a challenge regarding the Clean Water Act.The court’s liberal minority, in particular justice Sonia Sotomayor, last term wrote lengthy dissents to some of the court’s most controversial decisions, which were viewed as ways of signaling just how split the panel was internally. In the Post’s piece, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at the Georgetown Law Center Irv Gornstein warned that a continued trend of divisive decisions that broke along the court’s ideological lines could further widen the ideological divisions between justices. “I do think there is a potential for ill will carrying over into this term and into future terms,” he said. What the liberal justices’ scorching dissent reveals about the US supreme courtRead moreA CNN reporter managed to find Ginni Thomas somewhere in Washington, presumably near where the January 6 committee does its business, and reports that she spoke to the lawmakers in person:NEW: Ginni Thomas met with Jan 6 committee IN PERSON. She did not answer my questions pic.twitter.com/5z6pypr0S9— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) September 29, 2022
      The January 6 committee will today take testimony from Ginni Thomas, wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and herself a promoter of baseless claims that fraud decided the outcome of the 2020 election, Politico reports.NEWS: Ginni Thomas is testifying virtually to Jan. 6 committee *today,* two sources tell me and @nicholaswu12— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 29, 2022
      Reports in recent months have found Ginni Thomas lobbied Republican legislators around the country to take steps that could have delayed or prevented Joe Biden from entering the White House, as well as communicated with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff during Donald Trump’s last days in office. While she has said she doesn’t discuss her work with her husband, Clarence Thomas was the lone dissent earlier this year in a supreme court decision that turned down a petition from Trump and allowed access to records concerning the January 6 attack from his time in the White House.Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election Read moreWhen its most recent term concluded in June, the supreme court’s conservative majority had flexed its muscles in a big way.They overturned a nearly half-century old precedent to allow states to ban abortion nationwide, expanded the ability to carry a concealed weapon, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plants and expanded prayer in public schools. Thus, much of the drop in the court’s public trust Gallup found in a poll released today comes from Democrats, for which confidence halved in the past year. Overall, only 47% of respondents have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the court, which isn’t bad compared to, say, Congress, but nonetheless represents a 20-percentage-point drop from two years ago and a sharp decline from its usual two-thirds level in Gallup’s surveys.But it’s not just the public itself that has issues with how the court is behaving. The justices, or at least one justice, appear to think it’s gone too far. The White House-appointed jurors usually go to great lengths to appear impartial and stay out of Washington’s daily fray, but something appears to be going on behind the scenes. “If, over time, the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that is a dangerous thing for democracy,” warned Elena Kagan in a July speech, one of the justices comprising the court’s three-member liberal minority. More unusual was the fact that Samuel Alito, the conservative who wrote the opinion overturning abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, appeared to respond to her comments with a remark delivered not in a speech – the typical venue when justices feel like opening up on a topic – but directly to the Wall Street Journal, as many other players in Washington often do.“It goes without saying that everyone is free to express disagreement with our decisions and to criticize our reasoning as they see fit. But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line,” Alito said.Good morning, US politics readers. The supreme court’s descent into being just another politicized government branch – at least to the public – continued apace, with a new poll showing its approval falling in the wake of a term that saw a series of sharply conservative decisions, including the end to nationwide abortion rights. As if those decisions weren’t enough, liberal justice Elena Kagan twice recently warned of the perils of the court losing its impartiality – prompting an unusual public response from Samuel Alito, the conservative justice who wrote the decision ending Roe v Wade. The court’s new term begins on Monday.Here’s what else is happening today:
      President Joe Biden has declared an official disaster in Florida after Hurricane Ian trapped residents in their homes and knocked out power to millions. He will visit the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at noon eastern time to assess the response.
      Top House Republicans have a 10am eastern time press conference scheduled to “discuss firing Nancy Pelosi” as the party looks set to reclaim the majority in the chamber.
      The chair of the January 6 committee said it will this week hear testimony from Ginni Thomas, a 2020 election denier and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. More

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      in US Politics

      The January 6 committee has its sights on Ginni Thomas. She should be worried | Kimberly Wehle

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      The January 6 committee has its sights on Ginni Thomas. She should be worriedKimberly WehleThe spouse of a sitting supreme court justice allegedly tried to overturn the 2020 election. It’s hard to say which looks worse – the conflicts of interest, or the possibility that she aided a would-be insurrection After months of wrangling, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to sit for an interview with the January 6 committee – thus avoiding a subpoena, at least for now.This development could open a vital inquiry into Thomas’s alleged role in seeking to thwart a peaceful transition of presidential power to Joe Biden. Just as importantly, this news renews attention on the question of whether Ginni Thomas’s radical rightwing activism influenced her husband, who weighed in on numerous 2020 election-related cases despite his conflicts of interest.Time for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from election cases – his wife’s texts prove itRead moreSo far, congressional Democrats have sat on their hands on this issue, presumably in deference to the supreme court. But with the rightwing court taking an axe to constitutional precedent and public opinion, an investigation into the Thomases might be the only way to course-correct what’s happening to the US constitution.We know that Ginni Thomas texted Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, between November 2020 and January 2021 urging measures to undermine Biden’s win and keep Trump in power. After Congress certified the election for Biden, she criticized former vice-president Mike Pence in a message to Meadows for refusing to disrupt the counting of electoral college votes, writing, “We are living through what feels like the end of America.”The messages contain sly references to a “best friend”, which Ginni and Clarence Thomas have been known to call each other. In a viral Facebook post on 6 January 2020, now removed, she wrote, “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” Thomas attended the Capitol rally that day, though she has said she left before Trump’s speech at noon.We also now know that Thomas emailed Arizona lawmakers in November and December of 2020, pushing them to devise a slate of presidential electors in defiance of Arizona voters’ choice for Biden. In an email in November, she urged Arizona legislators to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure”, claiming (wrongly) that the choice of electors was “yours and yours alone”.On 13 December, the day before the electors cast their votes for Biden, she circulated a second email stating: “Before you choose your state’s electors … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” and linking to a video of a man asking lawmakers not to “give in to cowardice”. On 14 December , a group of fake Trump electors met in Arizona to sign a document falsely declaring themselves the “duly elected and qualified electors” for the state.Thomas allegedly waged a similar pressure campaign in Wisconsin. “Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure,” she emailed two Republican lawmakers on 9 November, shortly after news outlets called the election for Biden. “Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.”Earlier this year, the New Yorker detailed Ginni Thomas’s deep connections to multiple rightwing groups that seek to influence the supreme court. Thomas, herself a lawyer who runs a small lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, is on record as declaring America to be in danger due to a “deep state” and a “fascist left” peopled by “transexual fascists”. She posted about Trump’s loss on a private listserv, Thomas Clerk World, which includes approximately 120 former Clarence Thomas clerks. Artemus Ward, a political scientist at Northern Illinois University, has called the group “an elite rightwing commando movement”.Thomas is also a director of CNP Action, a dark-money group that the New Yorker described as “connect[ing] wealthy donors with some of the most radical rightwing figures in America”, and on the advisory board of Turning Point USA, a conservative non-profit that sent busloads of protesters to the Capitol on January 6. And in 2019, she announced her partnership in Crowdsourcers, along with James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, an outfit known for producing embarrassing videos of progressives.In 2020, Project Veritas petitioned the US supreme court to halt Massachusetts from enforcing a state law banning the secret taping of public officials. Another Crowdsourcers partner was Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who played a central role helping Trump in his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and now faces ethics charges. Mitchell was on the 2 January 2021 phone call in which Trump cajoled the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” 11,780 votes to swing the state to Trump. That effort is being criminally investigated by a grand jury in Georgia.According to the New York Times, the January 6 committee is most interested in asking Thomas about her communications with John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who infamously penned a six-step scheme for Pence to block or delay the counting of electoral college votes. According to the committee’s leaders, Eastman also “worked to develop alternative slates of electors to stop the electoral count”.In a March opinion in Eastman v Thompson, a federal judge in California rejected Eastman’s attempt to keep his emails from the committee, identifying Eastman as probably having collaborated with Trump in multiple federal crimes, writing: “Based on the evidence … it is more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”The Thomases’ conflicts of interest have prompted calls for a supreme court code of conduct, which would require justices to recuse themselves from cases that might otherwise give rise to even an appearance of partiality. But it is not at all clear that Ginni Thomas is beyond the sights of criminal liability, either.Of course, that sort of action would have to come through the justice department. Congress’s power is confined to making legislative changes. But the attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been resolute in his public commitment to enforce relevant federal laws, reiterating recently that “Rule of Law means that the law treats each of us alike: there is not one rule for friends, another for foes; one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless.” Ginni Thomas should be concerned.For his part, Clarence Thomas was the only dissenting vote in a January 2021 ruling on an emergency application from Trump asking the supreme court to block the release of White House records to the January 6 Committee regarding the attack on the Capitol – records that in theory could have included messages between his wife and Meadows. He gave no reasons for his dissent.Thomas also dissented, along with Justice Samuel Alito, from the court’s refusal to entertain a lawsuit by Texas asking that it toss out the election results in four other states – a legal “claim” that, to date, does not even exist as a matter of federal law.Perhaps most disturbing is the court’s agreement to hear Moore v Harper this term, a case that strikes at the heart of the January 6 committee’s work. It raises a novel constitutional argument which Trump lost repeatedly in 2020: that the constitution lodges power over elections exclusively in state legislatures. If the court rules that legislatures have full power and control, it could cement unfairness in the electoral system as a matter of constitutional law, as many states are already gerrymandered to lock in power for one political party, mostly Republican.Although Congress could legislatively add seats to the supreme court or impeach a justice, with evidence, to stave off further encroachments on individual rights and federal authority by this court, both measures would require a level of bipartisan support that is difficult to imagine.Yet it’s impossible to predict where the further unraveling of the Ginni Thomas conflicts might lead – and whether those facts could produce another unprecedented fissure in our system of government. For now, Congress must, at the very least, peer behind the Thomases’ curtain.
      Kimberly Wehle is a law professor at American University and a legal analyst for ABC News. Her latest book is How to Think Like a Lawyer and Why
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS supreme courtClarence ThomasLaw (US)commentReuse this content More

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      US courts must stop shielding government surveillance programs from accountability | Patrick Toomey and Alex Abdo

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      US courts must stop shielding government surveillance programs from accountabilityPatrick Toomey and Alex AbdoThe NSA’s surveillance of Americans’ internet use raises serious constitutional concerns, but the government claims a lawsuit against the program would compromise ‘state secrets’ Imagine the government has searched your home without a warrant or probable cause, rifling through your files, your bedroom dresser, your diary. You sue, arguing that the public record shows it violated your fourth amendment rights. The government claims that it has a defense, but that its defense is secret. The court dismisses the case.In-person teaching has resumed in the US – but electronic snooping hasn’t stopped | Arwa MahdawiRead moreThat’s precisely what the federal government has increasingly said it can do in cases related to national security – under the so-called “state secret privilege”. It can violate constitutional rights, and then defeat any effort at accountability by claiming that its defense is secret – without even showing its evidence to a court behind closed doors. The latest installment in this troubling trend involves the National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans’ international internet communications.Under a post-9/11 surveillance program known as “Upstream”, the NSA is systematically searching Americans’ internet communications as they enter and leave the United States. The agency sifts through these streams of data looking for “identifiers” associated with its many thousands of foreign targets – identifiers like email addresses and phone numbers. The NSA does all of this without warrants, without any individual judicial approval, and without showing that any of the people it is surveilling – including countless Americans – have done anything wrong. This surveillance raises serious constitutional concerns, but no court has ever considered a legal challenge to it because the government has claimed that allowing a suit against Upstream surveillance to go forward would implicate “state secrets”. Late last month, we filed a petition asking the US supreme court to make clear that the executive branch cannot invoke state secrets to dismiss cases challenging unlawful government conduct. The petition, which we filed on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit that operates Wikipedia), explains that Upstream surveillance violates the privacy rights of Wikipedia users and Wikimedia itself. But the issue we’re asking the supreme court to decide has far broader implications for efforts to hold the government accountable for the most serious abuses. Historically, the state secrets privilege was not a basis for dismissing cases. When the privilege developed in the early English and American courts, it allowed the government to withhold specific pieces of sensitive evidence. As with other privileges – like the attorney–client or priest–penitent privileges – the sensitive information was excluded, and the case would go forward without it. Sometimes the plaintiff would prevail using other available evidence, and sometimes they would lose. But they would have the chance to make their case in court. In recent years, however, the government has invoked the state secrets privilege not as a shield but as a sword, to seek dismissal of cases even where the plaintiff can make its case using public evidence – as Wikimedia is willing to do. In 2007, for example, an appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Khaled El-Masri claiming that, in a case of mistaken identity, he had been kidnapped and tortured by the CIA. The court acknowledged the public evidence of El-Masri’s mistreatment but held that state secrets were too central to the case to allow it to go forward.And in 2010, a different appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed by five individuals who claimed that one of Boeing’s subsidiary companies had flown the planes carrying them to the black sites where they were tortured by the CIA. This use of the state secrets privilege – to dismiss cases – departs from the supreme court’s narrow framing of the privilege. The court decided its seminal state secrets case, United States v Reynolds, in 1953, after three civilians died in the crash of a military plane. Their families sued and requested the flight accident report. In response, the government asserted the state secrets privilege, arguing that the report described secret military equipment.The court acquiesced, but it emphasized that the plaintiffs could try to prove their case using other evidence. While the supreme court has accepted dismissal in a small set of cases involving secret espionage contracts, it has never blessed this approach for other cases, let alone ones involving allegations of serious constitutional violations. In Wikimedia’s current lawsuit, the government has taken the maximalist approach. It has asked the courts to dismiss the case on state secrets grounds even though the government itself has released dozens of official reports, court opinions and other documents about Upstream surveillance.Notwithstanding this public record, the lower courts threw out the case – without ever deciding whether this sweeping surveillance is constitutional. The petition we filed gives the supreme court an important opportunity to rein in these over-broad invocations of secrecy. The court should instruct lower courts not to dismiss cases when the government invokes the state secrets privilege, but rather to use the array of tools that courts have long used to adjudicate cases involving sensitive information – for example, relying on security-cleared counsel, as courts routinely do in criminal cases, or examining secret evidence behind closed doors to assess its impact on a case. Unless the supreme court steps in, the state secrets privilege will continue to be a “get out of jail free” card for the government – enabling it to violate the constitution with impunity by invoking secrecy.
      Patrick Toomey is deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project
      Alex Abdo is founding litigation director for the Knight First Amendment Institute
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      John Roberts defends supreme court as Kamala Harris lashes out at Roe ruling

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      John Roberts defends supreme court as Kamala Harris lashes out at Roe rulingChief justice warns against linking contentious decisions with court legitimacy as vice-president attacks ‘activist court’ US supreme court chief justice John Roberts has defended his conservative-leaning bench from attacks over its decision in June to overturn federal abortion rights, as US vice-president Kamala Harris launched a fierce attack on what she called today’s “activist court”.Roberts, in his first public appearance since the bombshell ruling to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, warned against linking contentious decisions with court legitimacy, saying at an event on Friday night: “The court has always decided controversial cases and decisions have always been subject to intense criticism, and that is entirely appropriate.”But in her first sit-down interview with a TV network since becoming vice-president, Harris told NBC News that she now believes the supreme court is an “activist court” after the institution took away nationwide abortion rights.“We had an established right for almost half a century, which is the right of women to make decisions about their own body as an extension of…the privacy rights to which all people are entitled,” Harris said during the interview with Chuck Todd for Meet the Press, aired in full on Sunday after being trailed on Friday.“And this court took that constitutional right away, and we are suffering as a nation because of it,” she added.Harrissaid: “I believe government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies. I believe government should not be telling women how to plan their families…should not be criminalizing healthcare providers…should not be saying ‘no exception for rape or incest’.”Before becoming a US Senator and then the first female US vice-president, Harris was attorney general of California and, before that, district attorney of San Francisco.“As a prosecutor, former prosecutor, who specialized in child sexual assault cases, understanding the violence that occurs against women and children, and then to further subject them to those kind of inhumane conditions – that’s what I believe,” she said.The vice-president also remarked that she has “great concern about the integrity of the court overall”.Since the Trump administration achieved three appointments to the nine-member bench, the court has swung sharply to the right with a six-three conservative supermajority. It voted in June to dismantle Roe, returning the power over abortion rights to the states and leaving 58% of US women of reproductive age, or 40 million women, in states hostile to abortion rights.The post-Trump supreme court: where hard-won rights die in darknessRead moreAnd Roberts defended the court. “He added, at the Friday event: “I don’t understand the connection between the opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the supreme court,” he said, while being interviewed by two judges from the Denver-based 10th US circuit court of appeals at its conference in Colorado Springs, the Gazette newspaper reported.“If the court doesn’t retain its legitimate function of interpreting the constitution, I’m not sure who would take up that mantle. You don’t want the political branches telling you what the law is, and you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate decision is,” Roberts said.Roberts said that fencing around the court building in Washington DC, installed amid fierce protests over abortion rights, has come down. And that when the next supreme court term begins in October, arguments will be open to the public in person again, after the building was shut in the pandemic.TopicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election

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      Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election The wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas urged a Wisconsin state senator and representative to do their ‘duty’ Ginni Thomas, the wife of the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied lawmakers in Wisconsin as well as Arizona in November 2020, seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victories over Donald Trump in both swing states.Thomas emailed lawmakers in support of Trump’s lie that Biden won thanks to electoral fraud.Cheney and Kinzinger tee up possible January 6 subpoena for Ginni ThomasRead moreThe Washington Post reported Thomas’s efforts in Arizona earlier this summer. On Thursday it detailed her efforts in Wisconsin, citing emails obtained under public-records law.Thomas emailed a Wisconsin state senator and a state representative, both Republican, on 9 November, two days after the election was called for Biden.The messages used the same text as those sent to Arizona officials and were also sent using a form-emailing platform.The subject line read: “Please do your constitutional duty!”The text said: “Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure. Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.”Ginni Thomas did not comment to the Post. Nor did a supreme court spokesperson.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said: “Ginni Thomas tried to overthrow the government. Clarence Thomas gets to rule on that attempt to overthrow the government. See the problem?”After the deadly attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat, Clarence Thomas was the only justice to say Trump should not have to give White House records to the investigating House committee.Ginni Thomas is now known to have been in touch with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who claimed the vice-president, Mike Pence, could stop certification on January 6, about attempts to overturn the election.The House January 6 committee asked Thomas to voluntarily sit for an interview and provide documentation. Her lawyer, the Post said, told the committee she was willing but he did not think she had to.In July, Liz Cheney, the committee vice-chair, told CNN: “The committee is engaged with counsel. We certainly hope that [Thomas] will agree to come in voluntarily but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”No subpoena has been issued.Cheney is a stringent conservative but last month she lost her Republican primary in Wyoming, over her opposition to Trump.She has become popular with some on the left but others have grown frustrated, particularly over the lack of an attempt to compel Ginni Thomas to testify.On Thursday, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for the Nation, tweeted: “Answer the question ‘Why wasn’t Ginni Thomas subpoenaed by the January 6 committee?’ before you ask me to roll with Liz Cheney.”One of the Wisconsin lawmakers who Thomas contacted, the state senator Kathy Bernier, spoke to the Washington Post.She said: “As we went through the process and the legal challenges were made and discounted by the judicial system, there was nothing proven as far as actual voter fraud.”Bernier also said she did not link Ginni Thomas’s actions to her husband’s position.“I was married for 20 years,” she said. “I took on some identity of my husband, but I had my own mind. Just because you’re married to someone doesn’t mean that you’re a clone.”TopicsUS newsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpClarence ThomasUS politicsRepublicansArizonanewsReuse this content More

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      New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decision

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      New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decisionAfter court overturned 1911 New York law, state lawmakers produced act to create ‘gun-free zones’ and strengthen gun control measures After a federal judge said New York could implement gun restrictions passed after the US supreme court struck down a century-old law, the state attorney general saluted “a victory in our efforts to protect New Yorkers”.Texas judge overturns state ban on young adults carrying gunsRead more“Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law,” Letitia James said on Wednesday night.In June, in the aftermath of mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned a New York law passed in 1911.The law said anyone wanting to carry a handgun in public had to prove “proper cause”.Justice Clarence Thomas said the 111-year-old law was a violation of the second amendment right to bear arms and also the 14th amendment, which made second-amendment rights applicable to the states.“Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier jurisdictions,” Thomas wrote, “American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense.”In dissent, Stephen Breyer, a liberal, wrote: “In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms. Since the start of this year there have been 277 reported mass shootings – an average of more than one per day.”The same source, the Gun Violence Archive, now puts that total at 450.Breyer wrote: “Gun violence has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … the court today severely burdens states’ efforts to do so.”Joe Biden said: “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, said: “The supreme court is setting us backwards … This decision is not just reckless, it’s reprehensible.”Hochul called the legislature back into session. It produced the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, or CCIA.As defined by James, the CCIA “strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive locations, allows private businesses to ban guns on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, requires social media review ahead of certain gun purchases, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases to protect New Yorkers”.The law was challenged by the Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation. On Wednesday, the GOA said the CCIA “would essentially make all of NY a gun-free zone and infringes upon the rights of its citizens”.Judge Glenn Suddaby, of the US district court in the northern district of New York, said the two gun groups lacked standing to bring the case.But Suddaby also indicated support, describing “a strong sense of the safety that a licensed concealed handgun regularly provides, or would provide, to the many law-abiding responsible citizens in the state too powerless to physically defend themselves in public without a handgun”.An appeal is likely. The CCIA went into effect on Thursday.On Wednesday the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, said: “The US supreme court’s … decision was the shot heard round the world that took dead aim at the safety of all New Yorkers.“New York City will defend itself against this decision, and, beginning tomorrow, new eligibility requirements for concealed carry permit applicants and restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons in ‘sensitive locations’, like Times Square, take effect.”The new law has prompted a change in what New York City authorities officially consider to be Times Square. As the New York Times reported, the new boundaries extend far beyond the traffic-choked and neon-blitzed Midtown hub known to tourists worldwide but largely avoided by locals.Under CCIA, the Times Square “gun free zone” will run “from Ninth to Sixth Avenues and from 53rd to 40th Streets and consists of about three dozen blocks”, the paper said.One New Yorker interviewed by the Times dismissed the idea that the Port Authority Bus Terminal, on Eighth Avenue, could be considered part of Times Square, even in order to make it a gun-free zone.“Nah,” Robert Govan, 62, told the city’s paper of record. “No way. Not going to happen.”TopicsNew YorkUS gun controlUS politicsUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)newsReuse this content More