Amy Coney Barrett supreme court hearing sets stage for partisan clash

Four days of hearings are scheduled before the Senate judiciary committee, beginning with opening statements on Monday

Judge Amy Coney Barrett will appear on Capitol Hill for the opening of her supreme court confirmation hearings on Monday, setting the stage for an extraordinary partisan clash three weeks before election day.

Four days of hearings are scheduled before the Senate judiciary committee, beginning with opening statements on Monday, followed by two days of questioning. Thursday, the Senate panel will hear from outside experts.

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Who is Clare Bronfman, the Seagram’s heiress who financed Nxivm?

Bronfman was the first sentenced in connection with the group led by Keith Raniere – but while she was part of Nxivm, she used her wealth ‘as a means of intimidation’

Clare Bronfman, daughter of a billionaire Canadian father and a British mother, was making a name for herself as a showjumper in Europe in 2002.

Riding a 12-year-old gelding called Charlton, Bronfman – the heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune – won the Rome Grand Prix equestrian tournament, and later placed second in a show in Bremen.

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Revealed: Amy Coney Barrett lived in home of secretive Christian group’s co-founder

Details of link to Kevin Ranaghan raise fresh questions about supreme court nominee’s involvement with People of Praise

Amy Coney Barrett lived in the home of one of the founders of the People of Praise while she was a law student, raising new questions about the supreme court nominee’s involvement with the secretive Christian faith group that has been criticized for dominating the lives of its members and subjugating women.

Related: Amy Coney Barrett: quick confirmation under threat as three senators infected

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Breonna Taylor: grand jury testimony reveals police did not search her home

Hours of private proceeding were made public, with an officer telling the grand jury police announced their presence before shooting

In grand jury testimony made public on Friday, a law enforcement officer said police in Kentucky did not end up searching Breonna Taylor’s apartment on the day she was shot and killed by police who had arrived with a search warrant.

Police were carrying a narcotics warrant for Taylor’s Louisville apartment on 13 March. In a botched raid, they shot her after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them on the assumption that they were intruders.

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Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein facing six new sexual assault charges

The disgraced film mogul, who is serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape, is accused of alleged LA attacks between 2004 and 2010

Harvey Weinstein, the convicted rapist and imprisoned film mogul, is facing six new sexual assault charges, prosecutors in Los Angeles announced on Friday.

Weinstein, 68, was charged with three additional forcible rape felonies and three forcible oral copulation charges stemming from alleged attacks between 2004 and 2010 in Beverly Hills. The new criminal complaint expands the LA case to a total of five victims, authorities said.

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Democrats on the attack after Trump tax return revelations – live

Trump said back in 2011 that even low-income Americans should have to pay some taxes and that he pays “a lot of tax,” a new CNN report reveals.

The tax information obtained by the New York Times indicates Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year that he won the presidency.

Related: Trump reels from taxes bombshell as he gets set for crunch debate with Biden

Florida police have released body camera footage from officers’ interaction with Brad Parscale, the president’s former campaign manager who was involuntarily hospitalized yesterday.

In the video, Parscale’s wife, Candice, can be heard saying he brandished a gun and has multiple firearms in the home.

New: Police just released body camera footage of the incident involving Brad Parscale https://t.co/QBpA7jIjEg

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Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett to US supreme court – video

Donald Trump has nominated appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to take the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US supreme court, saying he expected the appointment to be confirmed before the 3 November presidential election. Barrett is a devout pro-life Catholic and would tip the supreme court 6-3 in favour of conservatives.

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Trump names Amy Coney Barrett for supreme court, stoking liberal backlash

Donald Trump’s pick for America’s highest court, Amy Coney Barrett, is an “ideological fanatic” who threatens abortion rights, healthcare and the environment, activists warned on Saturday, before Trump unveiled his third supreme court nominee in the White House Rose Garden.

Related: 'Not special any more': how the Senate has failed the American people

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Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett to supreme court – live

A quick glance at the guest list for Amy Comey Barrett’s nomination ceremony today makes troubling reading. Among the guests were representatives from Judicial Watch, which has described climate science as a “fraud”; the Heritage Foundation (which has also pushed back against climate science); and the Family Research Council (which has opposed abortion, divorce and LGBT rights).

Attendees at Trump's SCOTUS nomination of Amy Coney Barrett:
•Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino
Heritage Foundation's Kay Cole James
•Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton
•Family Research Council's Tony Perkins
•Cleta Mitchell—a lawyer tied to many GOP 'dark money' nonprofits https://t.co/q5BzTkPBs9

Now that Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated for the supreme court, the senate hearings are likely to last from 12-15 October. And, as is more than likely, she will be confirmed by the Republican-held Senate by 29 October, well before the 3 November elections.

Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency, Joe Biden, has issued a statement saying the process should be delayed until after the election.

Election Day is just weeks away, and millions of Americans are already voting because the stakes in this election could not be higher. They feel the urgency of this choice – an urgency made all the more acute by what’s at stake at the U.S. Supreme Court.

They are voting because their health care hangs in the balance. They are voting because they worry about losing their right to vote or being expelled from the only country they have ever known. They are voting right now because they fear losing their collective bargaining rights. They are voting to demand that equal justice be guaranteed for all. They are voting because they don’t want Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, to be overturned.

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Donald Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to supreme court, reports say

President expected to announce pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday, setting stage for rightward shift

Donald Trump is planning to name Amy Coney Barrett as his pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the supreme court on Saturday, according to multiple reports.

Related: Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes first woman to lie in state in US Capitol

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US supreme court vacancy upends Senate races with just weeks to go

Open seat offers chance for both parties to rally their bases as Democrats see chance to take control of chamber

The shock of a sudden new vacancy on the US supreme court has rippled out to some of the most contentious Senate races in the final weeks before the 3 November elections, throwing the vital issue of who might win control of the body into confusion.

The recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while Republicans control the Senate and the White House virtually ensures that her replacement will be conservative, swinging the court into a 6-3 conservative majority.

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Romney says he supports voting on Trump’s supreme court nominee

Republican who voted to convict Trump at impeachment trial said decision is ‘based on the immutable fairness of following the law’

Donald Trump received a major boost on Tuesday when Republican senator Mitt Romney announced his support for considering the US president’s supreme court nominee.

Related: 'Fill that seat': Trump's weaponizing of the courts will be his lasting legacy

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Trump races to fill supreme court seat as Republicans fall into line

Democrats’ hopes of keeping seat empty fade as two key Republican senators signal support for moving quickly

Donald Trump has raced to cement a conservative majority on the US supreme court before the presidential election on 3 November, and Democrats’ hopes of keeping the seat empty have faded as two Republican senators signalled their support for moving quickly.

The president said on Monday he would name his third supreme court nominee on Friday or Saturday, following memorials for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal justice who died aged 87 on Friday.

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Trump says he wants supreme court seat filled ‘before the election’ – live

Hello! Kari Paul here in California taking over for the next few hours. Stay tuned for updates.

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague. Kari Paul, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Supreme court: Biden accuses Trump and Republicans of abuse of power

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, made an urgent plea on Sunday to the conscience of Senate Republicans, asking them to defy Donald Trump and refuse to ram through his nominee to the supreme court before the November election.

Related: Rushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell shows power trumps principle | Robert Reich

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Trump vows to nominate a woman for US supreme court vacancy within a week

President says he has ‘obligation’ to fill the vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Donald Trump has promised to put forward a female nominee in the coming week to fill the supreme court vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pushing the Republican-controlled Senate to consider the pick without delay.

Taking the stage at a North Carolina rally to chants of “Fill that seat”, the president said he would nominate his selection despite Democrats’ objections.

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Trump vows to select Ginsburg replacement ‘without delay’ – live

Tim Alberta, the chap I quoted a while back re Mitch “Mule Piss” McConnell and his single-minded pursuit of judicial appointments, has a fascinating piece up at Politico.

“If there’s one Republican who could be convinced that filling the sudden supreme court vacancy is a bad idea,” he writes, “it’s President Donald Trump.”

Related: Trump names three sitting senators among 20 possible supreme court picks

Any number of variables could tip the scales in such a tight election. But it’s not difficult to deduce that had a supreme court seat not been hanging in the balance, Hillary Clinton would be president right now. When I offered this theory last year to McConnell … he grinned.

“I agree,” McConnell said.

Having been reminded countless times over the past 45 months that his Supreme Court gambit won him the trust of social conservatives – which, in turn, won him the election – Trump surely realizes that this is a moment of maximum leverage. Maybe he doesn’t bother using it; maybe he automatically produces more of the goods, keeping his most important customers satisfied, believing it’s one more accomplishment to point to.

But the president is transactional to his core. This was exactly the word– “transactional” – that Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, used when we discussed the supreme court list Trump unveiled in 2016.

News is starting to come out of the Senate Democrats’ caucus call today…

Per source Schumer started with moment of silence for RBG and said “nothing is off the table” next year if GOP moves forward w/nominating process

Related: Battle hymn of the Democrats: why it's time for liberals to fight dirty

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How Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death could affect Senate races – and Trump v Biden

Susan Collins of Maine is among vulnerable Republican senators as polls indicate voters trust Biden more on justice picks

On the question of supreme court nominees, the Republican senator Susan Collins has repeatedly threaded the same political needle. It is one with a shrinking eye.

Related: Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed America long before she joined the supreme court | Moira Donegan

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: death of liberal justice gives Trump chance to reshape the US for generations

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has sparked a titanic political fight that could shape the future of US supreme court decisions on abortion rights, voting rights and other fundamental issues for a generation.

Related: What does Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death mean for the supreme court?

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Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – a life in pictures

The supreme court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died of metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was 87 years old.

Ginsburg was the second woman appointed to the court in history and became a liberal icon for her sharp questioning of witnesses and intellectually rigorous defenses of civil liberties, reproductive rights, first amendment rights and equal protections under the law

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