Republican won’t say whether Capitol attack panel will question Ginni Thomas

Adam Kinzinger vows to ‘get to the bottom’ of insurrection after Clarence Thomas’s wife reportedly urged White House to overturn Trump’s election defeat

Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republican members on January 6 committee, on Sunday vowed to “get to the bottom” of events surrounding the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol but refused to reveal whether the panel intends to question Ginni Thomas – wife of US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas – over reports of her urging the White House to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat.

Senior Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from relevant cases and warned the integrity of the supreme court is at stake.

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Ginni Thomas texts spark ethical storm about husband’s supreme court role

Stash of messages from Clarence Thomas’s activist wife released to January 6 committee have raised conflict-of-interest concerns

Calls have erupted for ethical conflict-of-interest rules on America’s top court after it was revealed that Ginni Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The Washington Post reported that it had obtained a stash of 29 text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, then Trump’s top White House aide, which were exchanged in the tumultuous days after the November 2020 election. In the texts, Thomas blatantly urged Meadows to do anything he could to subvert the democratic result so as to frustrate Joe Biden’s victory and keep Trump in power.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson faces renewed Republican attacks in Senate grilling

Hearings on Biden’s supreme court nominee resume with chair chiding Republicans for ‘showcasing election talking points’

The second round of senators’ questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson unfolded on Wednesday after a marathon 13-hour judiciary committee hearing with the supreme court nominee the day before.

The latest hearing began with a review of the previous day’s proceedings, as the Democratic chairman, Dick Durbin, criticized some of his Republican colleagues over their questioning of Jackson.

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US supreme court blocks new Wisconsin voting maps in boost for Republicans

Court took issue with decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee area

The US supreme court threw out Wisconsin’s new state legislative maps on Wednesday, in a ruling that boosts Republicans and takes aim again at one of the last remaining provisions to protect voting discrimination.

The ruling is the latest of many in recent years in which the US supreme court has been hostile to voting rights. In an unsigned ruling, the court took issue with the decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee area, raising the total in the map to seven. The Wisconsin supreme court picked the plan, drawn by Tony Evers, the state’s Democratic governor, earlier this month.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson says Roe v Wade ‘the settled law of the supreme court’ – as it happened

Asked about her views of the second amendment’s right to bear arms, Jackson said that the supreme court had already established it as a “fundamental right.”

“There is precedent in the supreme court related to various rights that the court has recognized as fundamental,” she told Grassley. She added: The court has said that the 14th amendment substantive due process clause does support some fundamental rights, but only things that are implicit in the ordered concept of liberty or deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this country, the kinds of rights that relate to personal individual autonomy.”

In that speech, I talked about my my parents growing up in Florida, attended and had to attend racially-segregated schools because by law when they were young, white children and black children were not allowed to go to school together.

And my reality, when I was born in 1970 and went to school in Miami, Florida was completely different. I went to a diverse public junior high school, high school elementary school. And the fact that we had come that far was to me a testament to the hope and the promise of this country, the greatness of America that in one generation – one generation – we could go from racially-segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian ever to be nominated to the supreme court of the United States. So yes, senator, that is my belief.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks at her confirmation hearing – finally

Nominee talked of ‘historic chance’ to be the first Black woman on supreme court – but first she had to listen to a lot of white men

History was made Monday, as the first Black woman ever nominated to the US supreme court testified to the Senate judiciary committee. But before Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson could speak at her confirmation hearing, she first had to listen to a lot of white men.

The Senate confirmation hearings for Jackson started Monday, giving the judge and every member of the judiciary committee the opportunity to deliver remarks about her nomination.

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Supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson tells Senate ‘I decide cases from a neutral posture’ – as it happened

With the clack of a gavel, Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin opened the hearing. He began by noting Thomas’s hospitalization and wishing him a speedy recovery. He then laid out the rules, asking the audience to remain respectful and vowing to remove any loud or unruly protesters.

He then moved into the meat of his argument, touching on the significance of her nomination.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson vows to defend US constitution in opening remarks

Ketanji Brown Jackson promised to defend the US constitution and what she called the “grand experiment of American democracy” in her opening remarks to the Senate confirmation hearings that could see her become the first Black woman to sit on the US supreme court since in its 233 years of existence.

Jackson, 51, addressed the Senate judiciary committee on Monday at the start of four days of potentially bruising partisan wrangling over her nomination. She struck a conciliatory tone, stressing her ideological neutrality.

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US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas in hospital with ‘flu-like symptoms’

Court says 73-year-old could be released in next couple of days after infection symptoms began abating

Justice Clarence Thomas has been admitted to hospital because of an infection, the supreme court said on Sunday.

Thomas, 73, has been at Sibley memorial hospital in Washington DC since Friday after experiencing “flu-like symptoms”, the court said in a statement.

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Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senator

Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week

The Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.

Hawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year.

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Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, attended rally preceding Capitol attack

Conservative activist who runs a political lobbying firm, says she briefly attended rally but left before Trump addressed crowd

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has admitted attending a rally which preceded the January 6 attack on the US Capitol but denied helping to plan it.

In an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Thomas, a conservative activist who runs a political lobbying firm, said she briefly attended the rally near the White House on 6 January 2021 but left before Donald Trump addressed the crowd.

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Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politics

The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights

The US supreme court could “at some point” become “compromised” by politics, said Clarence Thomas – one of six conservatives on the nine-member court after Republicans denied Barack Obama a nomination then rammed three new justices through during the hard-right presidency of Donald Trump.

“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” said Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, has come under extensive scrutiny for work for rightwing groups including supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn an election.

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Blow to Republicans as supreme court denies bid to overturn electoral maps

Party urged justices to overturn maps imposed in North Carolina and Pennsylvania that made elections more competitive

The US supreme court has rejected requests from Republicans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to overturn electoral maps imposed by the state supreme court in both places that make elections more competitive.

The justices ruled 6-3 on Monday not to block the new North Carolina maps from going into effect, with justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas saying they would have paused the state supreme court’s ruling.

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‘We must march forward’: Kamala Harris commemorates Bloody Sunday anniversary in Selma

US vice president takes to Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama as congressional efforts to restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act falter

US vice president Kamala Harris visited Selma, Alabama on Sunday to commemorate a defining moment in the fight for the right to vote, making her trip as congressional efforts to restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act have faltered.

Under a blazing blue sky, Harris took the stage at the foot of the bridge where in 1965 white state troopers attacked Black voting rights marchers attempting to cross.

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This time McConnell holds few cards to stop Biden’s supreme court pick

Ketanji Brown Jackson can expect little support from across the aisle but Republicans are wary of overreach before midterms

The photograph is a study in contrasts. On the left, standing stiffly and staring glumly, is Mitch McConnell, 80, the Republican minority leader in the Senate accused of committing professional fouls when confronting judicial confirmations.

On the right, at a slightly awkward distance from McConnell, is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, chosen by a Democratic president to be the first Black woman on the US supreme court, smiling warmly at the camera, her posture more relaxed than the senator’s.

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US supreme court reinstates death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber

Court upholds Trump justice department’s challenge to overturning of death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 6-3 vote

The US supreme court on Friday reinstated the convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence for his role in the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others, ruling in favor of the federal government.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices sided with the justice department’s challenge to a 2020 lower court ruling that had upheld Tsarnaev’s conviction but overturned his death sentence.

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Supreme court blocks men behind CIA’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ from testifying

The case was filed by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantánamo prisoner arrested and held without charge since 2002, in Poland

Two psychologists who devised the CIA’s post-9/11 system of US “enhanced interrogation”, which has been widely denounced as torture, cannot be called to testify in a case in Poland brought by a terrorism suspect subjected to the abuses, the supreme court has ruled.

In a 6-3 ruling on Thursday, the court allowed the US government to block the psychologists from giving evidence in a case brought by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantánamo prisoner who was arrested in 2002 and has been held without charge ever since. The majority of the justices granted the government the privilege of “state secrets” – a power that prevents the public disclosure of information deemed harmful to national security.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination is rare moment of celebration for Biden

Biden is embattled on all fronts – from a stalled domestic agenda to international order – but a supreme court pick is an enduring act

Two years ago exactly, Joe Biden stood on a debate stage in Charleston, South Carolina, his candidacy on the ropes, and made a promise: if elected president, he would nominate the first Black woman to the supreme court.

Days later, Biden won the South Carolina primary on the strength of his support among Black voters. The victory propelled him to the Democratic nomination and then to the presidency. Last month, Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement, presenting Biden with an opportunity to fulfill that campaign commitment.

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Biden nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson to become first Black woman on supreme court

  • White House praises ‘exceptionally qualified nominee’
  • Jackson, if confirmed, will replace retiring Stephen Breyer

Joe Biden on Friday nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the supreme court, seeking to elevate a Black woman to the nation’s highest court for the first time in its 232-year history.

Biden’s decision to nominate Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, for whom she clerked, sets up a fierce confirmation battle in the deeply partisan and evenly-divided Senate. Breyer, the most senior jurist in the court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire at the end of the court’s current session this summer.

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Biden interviews three Black women as potential supreme court picks – reports

The White House is urging liberal groups to support nominees against critics’ attacks, CNN reports

Joe Biden has interviewed at least three potential supreme court nominees and is expected to reveal his decision by the end of this month, according to multiple sources close to the president.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Leondra Kruger and J. Michelle Childs – all Black women – were among the contenders who spoke with the president, those familiar with the matter told CNN and the Washington Post.

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