(WASHINGTON) — A push led by Democrats to give more time for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA, failed on Thursday.
The measure didn’t win the support needed to clear a key 60-vote threshold, with the final tally being 51 to 47. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer changed his vote to no in order to bring it back again in the near future.
“This issue is too important, and we are not giving up,” Schumer said in brief remarks after the vote.
Almost all Republicans voted against the legislation, though Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, lobbied for it in floor remarks before the vote.
“We’ve certainly made great strides as women since 1923, but there is a lot more that needs to be done,” she said.
The ERA, first introduced in Congress a century ago, would enshrine gender equality in the Constitution and states that rights “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
Democrats renewed efforts to ratify the ERA following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last summer, which ended the national right to abortion and prompted a wave of state-level bans on the procedure.
In recent weeks, a new legal battle over medication abortion has been thrust to the fore after a federal judge in Texas sought to suspend the government’s decades-old approval of the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.
The Supreme Court has since paused that ruling as proceedings continue in lower courts.
“If you look at the terrible things happening to women’s rights in this country, it’s clear we must act,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Thursday.
The ERA was passed with bipartisan support in 1972 but ultimately fell short of the three-fourths majority of states needed to ratify it before a deadline set by Congress.
The resolution voted on Thursday in the Senate would’ve removed the deadline for state ratification.
“There is no good reason — none — for this chamber, this Congress and this nation to bind itself to limitations set 50 years ago,” Schumer argued ahead of the vote.
Three states in recent years voted to ratify the amendment — Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020 — and advocates argue that has propelled it to the state threshold needed for the resolution to be added to the Constitution.
However, the courts and Department of Justice have disagreed, citing the prior missed deadline from Congress that Thursday’s vote would have addressed.
“States have met the threshold ratification, the only thing standing in our way is the arbitrary deadline set by Congress,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott last month.
Pressley and other members of the the ERA Caucus and the Democratic Women’s Caucus on Thursday marched through the Capitol to the Senate for the vote.
The Biden White House has expressed support for the ERA, saying earlier this week that Congress should act quickly.
“In the United States of America, no one’s rights should be denied on account of their sex,” press secretary Karine Jean-Piere told reporters. “It is long past time to definitively enshrine the principle of gender equality in the Constitution.”
(WASHINGTON) — There’s no conservative-liberal divide on the U.S. Supreme Court when it comes to calls for a new, enforceable ethics code.
All nine justices, in a rare step, on Tuesday released a joint statement reaffirming their voluntary adherence to a general code of conduct but rebutting proposals for independent oversight, mandatory compliance with ethics rules and greater transparency in cases of recusal.
The implication, though not expressly stated, is that the court unanimously rejects legislation proposed by Democrats seeking to impose on the justices the same ethics obligations applied to all other federal judges.
“The justices … consult a wide variety of authorities to address specific ethical issues,” the members of the high court said in a document titled “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices.”
It appears to be the first time an entire court has publicly explained its approach to ethics issues and attested to specific parts of federal law governing their conduct.
“This statement aims to provide new clarity to the bar and to the public on how justices address certain recurring issues,” they wrote, “and also seeks to dispel some common misconceptions.”
The Supreme Court has come under mounting pressure to address its procedures for handling potential conflicts of interest after a wave of recent headlines alleging ethical lapses by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
Public confidence in the justices is at its lowest point in more than 20 years of Gallup polling.
The justices’ statement, appended to a letter from Chief Justice John Roberts to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., appears squarely aimed at answering critics’ concerns and demands from some for outside oversight.
“Without a formal code of conduct, without a way to receive ethics complaints and without a way to investigate them, the Supreme Court has set itself apart from all other federal institutions,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a nonpartisan judicial watchdog group that has been lobbying Congress to mandate a high court code.
Durbin said Thursday in a statement that the justices’ explanation of their approach to ethics “raises more questions than it resolves.”
“Make no mistake,” he said, “Supreme Court ethics reform must happen whether the Court participates in the process or not.”
The Judiciary Committee, which is considering draft legislation to govern the justices’ ethics compliance, invited Roberts to testify next Tuesday, but he declined, citing “separation of power concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”
In a letter released Thursday, Durbin asked Roberts to provide more details in writing about how the court drafted its ethics statement this week and how it enforces its terms internally.
The tussle between Congress and the current court over ethics is not new.
More than a decade ago, amid a similar wave of headlines alleging misconduct by several justices, Roberts worked to fend off a similar political push for regulation.
“I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted,” Roberts wrote in his 2011 year-end report on the federal judiciary. “They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process.”
He promised at the time to study the question of whether to have a code of judicial conduct that is applicable only to the Supreme Court. But then — as now — he also forcefully defended the institution from what he saw as undue meddling by other, co-equal branches of government.
The justices argued in their joint statement this week that proposals to force members of the court to recuse themselves under specified circumstances, publicly elaborate on the recusal process and subject their decisions to review could create more harm than good.
“If the full Court or any subset of the Court were to review the recusal decisions of individual justices,” they wrote, “it would create an undesirable situation in which the Court could affect the outcome of a case by selecting who among its members may participate.”
Later, they added that public disclosure of the basis for recusal could “encourage strategic behavior by lawyers who may seek to prompt recusals in future cases” by framing them a certain way in an attempt to disqualify a particular member of the court.
Many conservative lawmakers and legal scholars point out that justices already face the prospect of discipline for misbehavior: impeachment. It remains the only constitutionally authorized mechanism for removing a life-appointed justice accused of wrongdoing.
And many veteran court watchers note that few of the recently surfaced ethics allegations likely rise to that level.
“There’s no actual evidence of corruption in the outcome of any case or even the appearance of corruption in any case,” said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News legal contributor and former Justice Department attorney. “It’s just that something like this could lead to the appearance of corruption.”
Many ethics experts say, on the whole, that members of the current court appear to have reasonably complied with financial disclosure and gift and travel guidelines, but they noted there are several high-profile examples of reporting lapses, inadvertent or not, including those in the latest headlines.
Justices appointed by presidents of both parties have routinely had to amend their financial disclosure forms after errors or omissions have been observed. It is not clear whether Justices Thomas or Gorsuch have moved to amend their disclosure forms following the recent reports about unreported gifts and real estate transactions.
Senate Democrats, who have called for an investigation of Thomas, received notice last week from the federal courts’ administrative body — the Judicial Conference of the U.S. — that their complaint had been referred to a committee which oversees financial disclosure compliance.
Thomas has denied wrongdoing. His allies insist the cascade of news stories scrutinizing his relationships, travel and business dealings with conservatives are politically motivated.
“It’s no surprise that the justices who are being targeted by these stories are all on one side of the ideological spectrum, because it’s not that there aren’t other justices who have wealthy friends,” said Carrie Severino, a former Thomas clerk and president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group.
“It’s very clear [all the justices] recognize what’s going on. That’s why they signed this statement. This isn’t about the ethics code, because they’ve got one,” Severino contended. “This is about intimidating certain members of the court, and they all can get behind exactly what the proper guidelines are.”
(NEW YORK) — Top music industry leaders joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday to back a federal bill that would limit the use of rap lyrics by federal prosecutors in criminal proceedings.
The Restoring Artistic Protection Act, which was co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), was first introduced last year but was re-introduced on Thursday in a press conference that began with remarks from President of the Recording Academy Harvey Mason Jr.
Mason said that the bill not only seeks to protect hip-hop artists or musicians, but is also intended to protect the creative expression of all artists and creators across musical disciplines.
“Our mission, our responsibility is to protect creative rights,” Mason said. “Silencing creative expression is a violation against all artists in all forms,” he added.
The Restoring Artistic Protection Act, which is also known as the RAP Act, seeks to amend the federal rules of evidence “to limit the admissibility of … a defendant’s creative or artistic expression” in a criminal proceeding, according to the text of the bill.
While the law would not completely bar rap lyrics from being admitted as evidence, it would essentially require prosecutors to prove that the lyrics in question refer “to the specific facts of the crime alleged” and “that defendant intended to adopt the literal meaning of the expression as the defendant’s own thought or statement,” the bill reads.
Johnson told reports that the bill is “long overdue” and already has bipartisan support, with 20 Republican lawmakers backing it as of Thursday afternoon.
“For too long artists have been unfairly targeted by prosecutors,” Johnson said.
Supporters of the RAP Act include the Recording Academy, the Recording Industry Association of America, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Records, Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, the Black Music Action Coalition and The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, whose president, actress Fran Drescher, also spoke at the press conference.
“I have hope that the whole music and creative community has come together,” said CEO of 300 Entertainment Kevin Liles at the press conference.
“I have hope in groups on the right and the left both saying that this is against the values of Americans. I have hope in blue states and red states advancing legislation to end this practice,” he added, referencing similar state-level bills in Missouri and Louisiana that have been sponsored by Republican lawmakers.
Rap lyrics have been used by prosecutors in the U.S. for decades as alleged evidence in criminal cases, helping put rappers behind bars. However, it wasn’t until lyrics were used in the indictment of hip-hop star Young Thug in May 2022 on gang-related charges, that the controversial practice sparked a movement in the music industry and fueled a wave of support for legislation seeking to limit the practice.
Although the scope of the indictment, which names 28 individuals, goes far beyond the lyrics, the use of rappers’ lyrics as part of the alleged evidence is what has drawn pushback from the music industry.
Research outlined in the 2019 book Rap on Trial by Erik Nielson and Andrea Dennis – which was referenced by Johnson and other speakers at the press conference, shows that the practice of using lyrics in court disproportionately impacts rap musicians.
Nielson previously told ABC News in an interview that aired on ABC Studios’ Rap Trap: Hip-Hop on Trial, which is now streaming on Hulu, that rap lyrics used by prosecutors in court usually lack a factual connection to an alleged crime and are often used as a form of character evidence that could prejudice a jury and prevent a defendant from getting a fair trial.
Liles, who leads the label under which Young Thug is signed, wrote an op-ed in June 2022, launching the “Protect Black Art” movement, and as the campaign gained steam, artists across genres have voiced their support.
Liles said on Thursday that hip–hop is being “attacked” and that advocating for these bills has become a “passion project” for him.
“That’s because hip-hop is what made me,” Liles said. “It’s who I am.”
(HELENA, Mt.) — The day after state Rep. Zooey Zephyr was censured by Montana House Republicans, she could be found seated in the public area of the state capitol building, voting and participating from her laptop as close to the House floor as she was allowed.
“The people sent me here to do the work, and much of that work is on the House floor,” Zephyr told ABC News in an interview. “I need to be as close as possible, so I can have the conversations with legislators and make sure that I can, at least in some way, make sure the voice of my constituents can be discussed.”
Zephyr’s calls to vote against a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth on bill SB99 prompted days of being ignored by Republican leaders on the House floor.
“If you are denying gender-affirming care and forcing a trans child to go through puberty, that is tantamount to torture, and this body should be ashamed,” Zephyr said in the April 18 debate.
She continued, “If you vote yes on this bill, I hope the next time you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”
Republican lawmakers responded by refusing to allow her to speak or comment on the House floor, she says. Some legislators, including House Speaker Matt Regier, argued she had broken House rules of decorum.
“All representatives are free to participate in House debate while following the House rules. The choice to not follow House rules is one that Representative Zephyr has made,” said Regier in a statement to reporters. “The only person silencing Representative Zephyr is Representative Zephyr.”
Demonstrators in support of Zephyr interrupted House business several days later to protest her silencing. Zephyr showed her support by holding up her mic and failing to leave the House floor.
“Let her speak,” protesters chanted.
House Republicans voted to censure her in response, representing just over the two-thirds needed to bar her from the House floor.
Several of her colleagues argued that Zephyr was inciting “violence” and showing “flagrant disregard for the safety and well-being” of those at the House, according to one statement from the Montana Freedom Caucus.
Zephyr argues the real violence is the negative impact gender-affirming care bans may have on transgender youth.
Zephyr, the first openly trans lawmaker in the state, told ABC News transitioning has played a pivotal role in her life.
“Trans people, when they transition, we come fully alive into ourselves,” Zephyr said. “We live lives full of joy and purpose … we live in a resonance with our bodies that we were unable to do prior to our transitions.”
She continued, “Trans people know that and those who love and care about us, they see that as well. And so, to me, that is one of the fundamental truths underpinning this moment. And it’s why ultimately, we’ll win.”
Due to discrimination and gender dysphoria, the psychological distress of presenting as a gender that doesn’t feel like one’s own, trans youth face higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, research shows. Receiving gender-affirming care has proven to improve such mental health conditions, according to several studies.
Zephyr said she has seen these consequences firsthand.
“I have lost friends to suicide this year,” Zephyr said. “I’ve had families call me when there have been – and discuss with colleagues of mine as well – when there have been suicide attempts by trans youth, including one trans teenager who attempted to take her life watching one of these hearings on legislation targeting the transgender community.”
If SB99 is signed by Montana’s governor, it will join at least 13 other states — Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah — in passing laws or policies that restrict gender-affirming care for people under the age of legal majority, which is the threshold for legal adulthood.
As the legislative session comes to an end in the coming weeks, Zephyr told ABC News she hopes to continue to speak up “in defense of our communities with a passion, that is with an urgency that meets the moment.”
“The policies you bring forward, both directly and indirectly, make it impossible for trans people to thrive and live in the world,” she said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide — free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call or text the national lifeline at 988. Even if you feel like it, you are not alone.
(WASHINGTON) — With the marbled 14th century Palazzo Colonna as his backdrop, a tuxedo-clad U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito approached the lectern in July 2022 to deliver a rebuke of his critics as searing as the Italian sun.
Before launching into an impassioned defense of the court’s monumental decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, made just weeks earlier, the conservative justice took a moment to thank his hosts, the University of Notre Dame Law School, “for the warm hospitality” extended to him and his wife — which included a hotel room overlooking the iconic Roman Forum.
After his speech, Alito was photographed mingling with the law school’s scholars — several of whom had only recently advocated in favor of overturning Roe in three amicus briefs filed with the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Alitos’ trip to Italy, paid for by the university, is just one example of how academic institutions have sought to leverage their ample resources for opportunities to access the justices — a play at prestige and advocacy that has contributed to an already messy ecosystem of influence-peddling on the court.
Justices appointed by presidents of both parties have for years accepted travel and honoraria from academic institutions — a tradition that has transcended ideological boundaries, as the late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg repeatedly demonstrated.
And while a wave of recent reports chronicling Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial ties to a Texas billionaire alleged a more overt breach of rules and norms, an ABC News examination of how law schools engage with the court presents a more nuanced take on possible unethical conduct.
A spokesperson for the court did not respond to specific questions from ABC News. She said, “The Justices comply with the Ethics in Government Act, which permits judges to accept travel reimbursement relating to appearances and teaching engagements, and directs them to disclose reimbursements on their financial disclosure reports.”
But to critics, the existing rules remain woefully insufficient and contribute to an atmosphere of mistrust. Ethics experts warned that these relationships stand as yet another opportunity for certain voices to press their views on an institution whose credibility is already plummeting.
“So long as the justices are reporting the free trips on their annual disclosures, no laws are being violated,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a leading Supreme Court watchdog. “But it’s reasonable to be concerned about the propriety of this situation, especially with the Court’s ethics issues being top of mind.”
‘Inside baseball’
Top-tier law schools pay unknown sums to fly justices on both ends of the political spectrum across the globe for speaking engagements and teaching stints while also filing amicus briefs intended to sway the court’s high-stakes opinions.
It is an arrangement that some court watchers framed as “inside baseball,” and one that they say merits more attention as Washington becomes increasingly aware of the gaps in justices’ financial disclosures.
“If an entity’s stated goal is to influence the outcome of legal cases — and that’s the purpose of many of these amicus briefs — the fact that any justice would accept compensation or travel expenses to a desirable foreign location from that entity is deeply troubling,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the government ethics group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
From 2004-2018, justices disclosed more than 1,300 trips where their travel and accommodations were reimbursed by third parties, according to the government accountability watchdog OpenSecrets — including several paid for by university law schools.
In 2018, Justice Neil Gorsuch reported travel-related reimbursements for a three-week trip to Padua, Italy, for George Mason University — another institution whose Supreme Court clinic frequently files amicus briefs with the court. And in 2019, Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed reimbursements for travel to Lisbon, Portugal, paid for New York University School of Law.
After a lull in travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Notre Dame Law School has emerged as the most aggressive underwriter of the justices’ travel and solicitor of their teaching services.
In 2020 and 2021 alone, four conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — reported payments and reimbursements for guest lectures, teaching engagements, or other events hosted by the law school.
Thomas collected nearly $20,000 from the university for a September 2021 week-long teaching stint. And Barrett reported earning almost $15,000 from the law school for teaching gigs in 2021, her first full year on the court. (Barrett, who taught at the law school since 2002, reported earning another $28,000 in 2020, the year she was nominated and confirmed to the bench.)
Already in 2023, Justice Brett Kavanaugh has traveled to London for a seminar with the school’s London Gateway program and visited its South Bend campus for a law symposium. Barrett was also reportedly expected to teach students at the law school’s London Gateway program this spring.
Justices are entitled to accept payments for teaching, so long as they seek prior approval from the chief justice. In fact, according to an existing ethics statement signed by all nine members of the court, engagement with academic institutions is encouraged, “to avoid isolation from the society in which they live and to contribute to the public’s understanding of the law.”
But Richard Painter, a former chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, suggested that “all the wining and dining of justices” by Notre Dame could cross ethical lines and present the appearance of impropriety and conflicts of interest. Justices, unlike members of Congress, are not required to put a dollar amount of reimbursements for travel expenses or meals, further complicating transparency efforts.
“I think they’ve gone too far when they’re flying the justices to Europe,” he said. “They shouldn’t be doing that.”
Marcus Cole, dean of Notre Dame Law, said in a statement to ABC News that “visits by members of our nation’s highest court have been valuable learning opportunities for our students and the broader campus and local communities.”
Amicus advocacy
Concerns about the possible impact of the ties justices’ teaching and speaking engagements may foster with law schools come into sharper relief for court watchdogs as scholars file amicus briefs with the court — legal documents that provide broader legal context and judicial justifications to support certain positions in cases before the court.
Since 2020, when Notre Dame launched its Religious Liberty Initiative, faculty and board members of the initiative have filed briefs in at least ten cases before the court. Of those ten cases, the court has overwhelmingly voted in favor the positions taken in briefs filed by the Notre Dame-associated figures.
Experts emphasized that the court currently holds a conservative majority, so the fact that their opinions reflect a conservative ideology cannot necessarily be attributed to the university law school’s advocacy.
Some amicus briefs filed by Notre Dame scholars extend beyond the school’s Catholic foundations. But the school’s faculty has been most active in advocating for conservative legal causes and providing a Catholic perspective on issues like abortion before a court that has shown itself to be sympathetic to those views — and where six of the nine justices identify as Catholic.
Last week, for example, the justices heard arguments in Groff v. DeJoy, which highlights a dispute pertaining to a part-time mail carrier who resigned after the Postal Service required him to work on the Sabbath.
The Religious Liberty Initiative’s amicus brief in Groff, which urged the court to side with the mail carrier, highlights another aspect of the issue: personal relationships.
Richard Garnett, a Notre Dame law professor who signed onto one of the school’s amicus brief in the Groff case and a faculty fellow with the Religious Liberty Initiative, is a longtime friend and neighbor to Justice Barrett. Barrett is a godmother to one of Garnett’s daughters and co-hosted a baby shower for his wife, Nicole Stelle Garnett, another faculty member at the law school and a faculty fellow with the Religious Liberty Initiative.
Liberal members of the court also have financial ties to academic institutions. Justice Elena Kagan, for example, served as the dean of Harvard’s law school before her appointment to the Supreme Court in 2010. From 2011 to 2021, Kagan reported earning $140,500 from Harvard Law for teaching gigs and unquantified reimbursements for travel expenses each year of those years — sometimes multiple times each year.
Meanwhile, the Harvard Supreme Court Litigation Clinic frequently files amicus briefs with the court, and one of its instructors, Kevin Russell, recently argued a case before the justices. Kagan has so far declined to recuse herself from a high-stakes affirmative action case in which Harvard is a party, raising questions about whether the former dean can be impartial on the matter.
Ethics experts said amicus briefs have emerged in recent years as a more explicit way to influence the court’s rulings. Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, said that, like traditional lobbying in the other branches of government, “if justices see an amicus brief by someone they’re connected to, they’re reading those.”
But unlike lobbying, experts said, there are very few rules dictating who can or cannot file amicus briefs — only a disclosure certifying that attorneys who signed onto the amicus did not represent or financially back any party in the case at hand.
These types of briefs have become more prevalent features of Supreme Court deliberations in recent years, and experts have raised concerns with close friends of the justices involving themselves in cases before the court.
“More and more amicus briefs are being used to influence the court’s decisions to a degree that they take on the form of a lobbying activity,” said Canter, “and there’s nothing to regulate ethics issues that arise from accepting tens of thousands of dollars from an educational sponsor of these types of amicus briefs while providing members of the Court compensation for teaching activity or reimbursing them for travel costs to desirable foreign locations.”
Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law at Boston College, expressed concern with the increasingly close ties between the two entities, but urged caution on casting the relationship as one tethered to money or influence — instead framing the justices and their academic ties as being more deeply rooted in an existing “sympatico” view of the world.
“There’s a certain intellectual alignment already in place,” Kaveny explained. “I don’t think these justices are doing it for the money — they’ve got a shared vision of how things should be.”
Even so, Kaveny said, “any time a Supreme Court looks like it’s captured by an interest group, its credibility is diminished.”
Transparency push
Reports in ProPublica and elsewhere about Justice Thomas’ relationship with Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and Republican megadonor, have renewed calls for ethics reform at the Supreme Court — which Roth has called “America’s most powerful, least accountable government institution.”
Crow bankrolled transportation and accommodations for Thomas and his wife to far-flung destinations like Indonesia and New Zealand. These vacations and others to Crow’s own properties reportedly included lavish trimmings, including use of billionaire’s private jet, yacht, and chef.
None of those gifts appeared on Thomas’ annual financial disclosure reports — omissions that attracted bipartisan condemnation. But Supreme Court watchers noted that even the entries that justices report lack key information.
In Alito’s case, details of his trip to Rome won’t become public until this summer, when financial disclosure forms for 2022 are due. Even then, those filings may not include information about how much money the law school paid to reimburse his expenses, whether his wife’s expenses were paid for, or details on their accommodations — including that hotel room in the heart of Rome.
Advocacy groups and lawmakers have pushed to change that. A bill proposed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would require the court to adopt a “code of conduct” akin to what is imposed on members of Congress, who must report specific dollar amount of gifts within a month of receiving them.
Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a separate bill this week that would require the court to appoint an official to handle any violations of a code of conduct.
Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., invited Chief Justice John Roberts testify at a public hearing about Supreme Court ethics reform. Lawmakers have also encouraged the chief justice to launch his own investigation into Thomas’ relationship with Crow.
Roberts this week declined Durbin’s invitation, responding in a letter that a chief justice’s testimony before Congress is “exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”
Durbin said his committee would move forward with a hearing on May 2 to review proposals for tighter oversight of the court.
“Make no mistake,” Durbin said in a statement on Tuesday. “Supreme Court ethics reform must happen whether the Court participates in the process or not.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has again swiped at President Joe Biden’s age after he formally launched his 2024 bid this week and on Thursday the White House shot back.
Haley suggested during an interview with Fox News Wednesday that Biden wouldn’t “make it” to the end of a second term were he to be reelected.
“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” Haley said.
The Haley campaign continued that criticism on Thursday, tweeting: “A vote for Joe Biden is a vote to make Kamala Harris president.”
The former South Carolina governor, who is 51 years old, jumped into the race for the GOP nomination in February. She’s pitched herself to voters as much-needed generational change against figures like Biden, 80, and Donald Trump, 76.
Asked for a response Thursday, White House deputy spokesman Andrew Bates told ABC News: “As you know, we don’t engage with campaigns. But honestly, I forgot she was running.”
Haley’s platform includes proposed mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75, though she hasn’t elaborated on what those tests would look like or entail.
Biden is the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, and if he’s successful in the next election would be 82 when sworn in for a second term and 86 by the time that term ended.
Questions about his age have swirled around his reelection announcement. Biden said he took a “hard look” at his age himself when weighing whether to run again and respects Americans doing the same.
“I can’t even say, I guess, how old I am. I can’t even say the number, it doesn’t register with me,” Biden told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on Wednesday.
“But the only thing I can say is that one of the things that people are going to find out, they’re going to see a race and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it,” Biden continued. “I respect them taking a hard look at it, I’d take a hard look at it as well.”
Biden’s critics jumped on an exchange with he had with kids Thursday when he appeared to forget when asked about the last foreign trip he made — to Ireland — as he said it’s “hard to keep track” of all his meetings with heads of state.
When previously asked about Haley’s proposition of mental competency tests, the White House dismissed the idea, telling ABC’s Stephanie Ramos that they’ve “heard these types of attacks and remarks before.”
“If you go back to 2020, they said that the president couldn’t do it in 2020 and attacked him there and he beat them,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Ramos in February.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared Thursday before a grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s role and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Pence was inside the courthouse in Washington for more than seven hours and his vehicle was later seen leaving by ABC News.
A spokesperson for special counsel Jack Smith declined to comment.
He was initially subpoenaed by Smith in February for documents and testimony related to the failed attempt by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. The subpoena came after months of negotiations between federal prosecutors and Pence’s legal team.
Trump unsuccessfully sought to stop Pence’s testimony, including by asserting a claim of executive privilege that was rejected late last month by the chief judge for the D.C. district court, James Boasberg.
Boasberg ordered Pence to testify before the grand jury and to provide records to Smith and, according to sources, Boasberg ruled that Pence should have to provide answers to Smith on any questions that implicate any illegal acts on Trump’s part.
The judge, however, did narrowly uphold parts of a separate legal challenge brought by Pence himself, who argued he should be shielded from having to testify on certain aspects related to his role as president of the Senate overseeing the certification of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal appeals panel on Wednesday rejected a further effort from Trump’s legal team to prevent Pence from testifying.
Pence said earlier this month that he would not appeal the D.C. district court ruling and would comply with the grand jury subpoena.
(WASHINGTON) — Flanked by two pint-sized “Secret Service agents,” President Joe Biden took to the South Lawn on Thursday afternoon to greet kids at the White House for “Take Your Child to Work Day” and answered various questions from children of the press and White House staff.
Kid “reporters” inquired about his favorite color and ice cream, what he had for breakfast (bacon, egg and cheese on a croissant) and his accomplishments during his administration, to name a few.
At one point, though, the president seemed to have some trouble answering what was the last country he visited — which was his beloved Ireland less than two weeks ago.
“I’m trying to think where the last place I was. It’s hard to keep track,” he said, noting he’s met with 89 heads of state so far.
A child shouted, “Ireland!” to remind him, to which Biden replied, “Yeah, you’re right, Ireland.”
Still, Biden appeared to enjoy the event, walking across the crowd to take questions from all sides.
Asked what it’s like being president, Biden said, “It’s probably the greatest honor anyone in America can have bestowed on them,” and said the best parts of the job are meeting different people and living in the White House.
About his favorite ice cream, Biden said he “may be among the dullest presidents of the world because I’m known for two things: My Ray-Ban sunglasses and chocolate chip ice cream.”
Asked who were his biggest inspirations, Biden said politically it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but for personal inspiration, his parents.
He said his favorite movie of the year was “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Biden wasn’t the only one at the White House facing questions from a flurry of kids.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held a briefing for children of the White House press corps earlier in the day, where she took questions on a wide range of topics from artificial intelligence and climate change to some of Biden’s favorite things.
Matthew Anderson, son of ABC News White House Correspondent Karen Travers, asked Jean-Pierre what the U.S. is doing to support Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“For the past year, we have been one of the leading countries, the US, in sending Ukraine security assistance, whether it’s ammunition, whatever is needed for them to fight this war that they’re dealing with in Ukraine…Also economic assistance and humanitarian assistance,” she said. “What we’re seeing in Ukraine are the Ukrainian people really fighting very bravely. And so we are incredibly proud of them.”
Following up, Anderson pushed Jean-Pierre on how long Biden wants to continue supporting Ukraine like this.
“As long as it takes. But we don’t know, we don’t have a time on when the war is going to end. We always say the war can end today, easily, if Russia decides to move on out and stop the war that they started, this aggression that they started,” she said. “Seriously, Russia can end this today.”
Later on the South Lawn, Biden thanked all the children for skipping school to make the trip, offering a special thanks to the mini-Secret Service agents for leading him outside.
“Take Our Kids to Work Day” is sponsored by the Take Our Daughters And Sons to Work Foundation. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the annual event, held on the fourth Thursday in April, intended to encourage learning and help children explore what is possible in their futures.
(WASHINGTON) — The Chinese cyber threat is “unparalleled” by any other national security challenge seen by the U.S. government, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
China, seemingly gearing up to invade Taiwan within years or even months, poses the most significant threat to the United States more broadly, Wray said during Thursday testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee.
“They’ve got a bigger hacking program than every other major nation,” Wray said.
“There’s no country that presents a more significant threat to our innovation, our ideas, our economic security, our national security than Chinese government. And that’s why we’ve grown the number of investigations into threats from China about 1300%,” he added.
The Chinese government has taken steps to intimidate expatriates who speak out against the country’s domestic crackdowns on civil liberties and aggressive international posture. Last week, the FBI arrested two men for operating an illegal Chinese police station in New York, which DOJ says was set up to harass dissidents in the United States.
“It’s frankly outrageous,” he said. “The Chinese government would think that they could set up shop here on our soil, and conduct uncoordinated unsanctioned illegal law enforcement operations, and unfortunately, it fits in with a pattern of the Chinese government trying to basically run willy-nilly disregard for the rule of law and threaten, harass, stalk surveil dissidents.”
China has been ramping up its technological abilities in recent months, a national push memorably encapsulated by a Chinese spy balloon traversing U.S. soil in February.
But China, the director said, is just the tip of the cyber iceberg.
“China is not the only challenge in cyberspace. Not even close,” he said, noting the department is investigating over 100 different ransomware variants.
“So, in addition to China countries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and it is getting more and more challenging to discern where the nation state threat ends, and the cybercriminal threat again,” he continued.
Wray said the “unbelievably dangerous” nature of the dark web could imperil individuals via coordinated criminal activity such as drug trafficking.
“[It’s] everything from certainly things like fentanyl, as we already talked about, but also all the way over to stolen credentials to log into somebody’s network, or you can hire a hitman,” he said. “I mean we’ve even had WMD type products, if you will, being marketed on the dark net. So, it really is a kind of soup-to-nuts, a place of just unbelievably dangerous criminal activity.”
The director said the FBI is focused on combatting the “threat” of gangs and cartels moving fentanyl through the U.S. and said the FBI is investigating some of the top brass of the cartels in Mexico.
“We’re now pursuing investigations against transnational organized criminal groups in all 56 FBI field offices and have more than 300, close to 400, now active investigations into cartel leadership,” he said.
Wray, who called on Mexico to “help us with this problem,” also touched on migration, saying he anticipates that the FBI’s DNA collections will increase by at least 30,000 with the lifting of pandemic-era Title 42 expedited processing of migrants. For some populations who are arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border, the FBI collects DNA and is required to do so by law for some who are arrested.
When Wray was asked about the politicization of the FBI, just one day after the House narrowly passed a 22% reduction in funding for the bureau, he emphasized that there are no political appointees, except for himself, in the FBI.
“I’ve put in place all kinds of new policies, procedures, training, systems, enhancements, all to reinforce that sort of top line message,” he said. “We’re going to follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it.”
Wray said that a decrease in funding for the FBI would mean more violent criminals on the street and “hundreds more predators on the loose and hundreds more kids left at their mercy.”
(WASHINGTON) — With “love and thanks,” Rep. Jamie Raskin announced Thursday that he was now in remission from cancer four months after first sharing his diagnosis.
A scan showed Raskin was “negative” for discernible cancer cells and had received a preliminary diagnosis of being in remission, “with a 90% prognosis of no relapse,” he said in an open letter.
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude and love,” he said, going on to thank “my family, my friends, my constituents and my colleagues” and “the many thousands of people—both Marylanders and those of you living much further away—who have reached out to me over the last five months with expressions of prayer, best wishes, concern, solidarity, sympathy and moral encouragement.”
“Not to mention beautiful gifts of bandanas, homemade scarves and sweaters, Capitol Police baseball caps, hospital scrubs, wool hats, chocolate chip cookies, mandel bread, pea soup, vegan matzoh ball soup, and gorgeous paintings, poems and letters that I will treasure forever,” he continued.
On Twitter, he shared video from Tuesday when he “rang the bell” to mark the end of his cancer treatment and thanked medical staff at Med Star Georgetown University Hospital, “who serve with splendid kindness—and saved my life.”
The Maryland Democrat said in December that he had been diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and would be undergoing chemotherapy while continuing to work on Capitol Hill, where he began to wear distinctive bandanas — a reflection of his hair loss from treatment and a nod to musician Steven Van Zandt.
“I give all honor to Little Steven for creating this look for American men going through something,” he told HuffPost in late January. (Van Zandt subsequently gifted him a bandana, wishing him a “rapid recovery.”)
Raskin, a lawyer and former state lawmaker first elected to the House in 2016, saw his profile rise after serving as a manager in former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment. Raskin went on to serve on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. He previously survived colon cancer.
While undergoing treatment, Raskin received support from colleagues on both sides of the aisle. “We’re all rooting for you,” Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told him during a meeting in January.
In his Thursday open letter, Raskin said his heart was full — and his body was tired.
“I have many things that I want to say to the people across America who have stood by me and helped carry me through this prolonged challenge, and I will come to say them soon,” he said. “Right now my hemoglobin and white blood cell counts are plunging from my final five-day round of chemotherapy, and I am afraid I lack the energy to properly thank you all and express the enormity of my feelings about the enduring beauty and promise of our country.”
“In the meantime,” he said, “I just want to send you my profound appreciation.”
