Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Breyer

Breyer to retire from Supreme Court on Thursday, clearing way for Jackson swearing-in - The Washington Post

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Post Politics Now Breyer to retire Thursday from Supreme Court, clearing way for Jackson swearing-in

Key updates

This just in: Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Trump White House counsel Cipollone

This just in: Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony

This just in: Breyer tells White House he will retire at noon Thursday

President Biden applauds as Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers remarks at the White House on April 8 on her Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

By John Wagner

and

Mariana Alfaro

Updated June 29, 2022 at 8:46 p.m. EDT|Published June 29, 2022 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

Today, Justice Stephen G. Breyer told the White House that he will retire from the Supreme Court at noon Thursday, clearing the way for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be sworn in. Minutes after the retirement is official, Jackson will be sworn in at a private ceremony at the Supreme Court, with Breyer and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administering the oaths. Jackson will become the first Black woman to serve on the high court and its fourth current female justice, joining Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett.

Meanwhile, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection issued a subpoena to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone on Wednesday evening after blockbuster testimony from a former aide identified the lawyer as having firsthand knowledge of potential criminal activity in the Trump White House.

It wasn’t the only development about committee witnesses Wednesday. Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is resisting an interview with the panel. In a letter, her attorney told the panel that he wants “a better justification for why Mrs. Thomas’s testimony is relevant” before he can recommend that the conservative activist comply with the request to talk about her role in seeking to reverse President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Members of the panel are hoping the bombshell-upon-bombshell testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson at Tuesday’s hearing will prompt other potential witnesses to tell their stories, as the committee continues to focus on Trump’s actions on that deadly day.

Got a question about politics? Submit it here. At 3 p.m. Eastern weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers.

On our radar: Jackson to be sworn in, Biden departs Europe

8:46 p.m.

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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court when she’s sworn in at noon Thursday following the retirement of Justice Stephen G. Breyer. We will be covering Jackson’s swearing-in ceremony, which will be held at the Supreme Court. Breyer and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will administer the oaths.

Here’s what else is going on Thursday:

Biden, who is in Spain, will deliver remarks at another NATO session. He will then hold a news conference. The president will fly back from Europe on Thursday evening.
The House and Senate are out. No votes are expected until next week.

Key update

This just in: Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Trump White House counsel Cipollone

8:24 p.m.

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The Jan. 6 committee investigating the insurrection issued a subpoena Wednesday to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone after blockbuster testimony from a former aide identified the lawyer as having firsthand knowledge of potential criminal activity in the Trump White House, Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey report.

The decision marks the committee’s escalation in communications with Cipollone. The panel held extensive negotiations with Cipollone and put added pressure on him in recent days to testify:

Committee members have come to believe that the former counsel’s testimony could be critical to their investigation, given his proximity to Trump and presence during key moments before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The subpoena is likely to trigger a lengthy legal battle.

Cipollone sat for an informal interview with the committee on April 13, according to a letter from the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), but he has declined to cooperate further.

“In the weeks since, the Select Committee has continued to obtain evidence about which you are uniquely positioned to testify; unfortunately, however, you have declined to cooperate with us further, including by providing on-the-record testimony. We are left with no choice but to issue you this subpoena,” Thompson wrote.

A statement from Thompson and the committee’s vice chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), said the committee’s investigation had “revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded.”

Read more about this subpoena and what it means to the investigation here.

The latest: Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines

7:39 p.m.

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Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, several national antiabortion groups and their allies in Republican-led state legislatures are advancing plans to stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere, report Caroline Kitchener and Devlin Barrett. Many are basing their language on the Texas abortion ban enacted last year in which private citizens were empowered to enforce the law through civil litigation.

Among the examples:

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers, an antiabortion organization led by Republican state legislators, has begun working with the authors of the Texas abortion ban to explore model legislation that would restrict people from crossing state lines for abortions.
The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal organization, is drafting model legislation for state lawmakers that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a resident of a state that has banned abortion from terminating a pregnancy outside of that state.

As Caroline and Devlin write:

In relying on private citizens to enforce civil litigation, rather than attempting to impose a state-enforced ban on receiving abortions across state lines, such a law is more difficult to challenge in court because abortion rights groups don’t have a clear person to sue.

But not every antiabortion group is on board with the idea.

Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life, noted that people access medical procedures across state lines all the time.

“I don’t think you can prevent that,” she said.

Analysis: The subtle but vital effects of letting Louisiana’s congressional map stand

7:30 p.m.

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Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ordered that Louisiana’s post-census congressional maps be redrawn to include an additional seat likely to be represented by a Black legislator. The math isn’t terribly complicated, Philip Bump writes: About a third of the state’s population is Black, and there will be six seats in the next Congress. New maps were ordered to be more representative.

And then, the Supreme Court blocked them, making it easier for Republicans to take over the House in this year’s midterms.

As Phil explains, this is what the congressional lines upheld by the Supreme Court look like:

If we overlay where Black adult Louisianans live, you can see why the boundaries of that sixth district were drawn the way they were. (These maps, using data from the invaluable site Districtr, extends boundaries into the ocean.) That district heads west from New Orleans then north across a thin stretch of land to include much of the Black population of Baton Rouge.

As Phil writes, you can see that thin ribbon connecting the two segments of the district. A bit of blue, surrounded by the R+23 6th District. Just under 33 percent of the Black adults in Louisiana live in the blue 2nd District. Two-thirds live outside it. Including pockets in each of the other districts — pockets that were not granted the courtesy of being connected with thin regions to create a more densely Black House seat.

The result? Most Black Louisianans will be forced into districts that will almost certainly be won by Republicans — despite Black Louisianans being heavily Democratic.

The latest: Senate drops plan to reshape veterans’ health-care system

6:18 p.m.

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The Senate, because of bipartisan political resistance, killed plans for a long-sought realignment of the government-run health-care system for veterans — the country’s largest health-care system.

As Lisa Rein reports:

A commission, mandated that year by Congress, was tasked with weighing recommendations from the Department of Veterans Affairs for each of its 1,200 hospitals and clinics across the country and holding hearings in affected communities. The southward migration of veterans from the Northeast and Midwest, the shift from costly inpatient to outpatient care and the age of each building would factor into whether facilities would be urged to close, reduce service or shift patients into private care. VA would finally catch up to modern private hospitals, saving billions of dollars from it spends each year to shore up its aging health-care facilities, proponents of the plan argued.

But 12 senators said they would not approve the nine nominees up for confirmation to establish the Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission, and the lawmakers indicated that the politically explosive recommendations VA made in March made moving forward impractical.

And while the lawmakers said they remain committed to a “continued push” to help VA invest in “21st century [health-care] facilities” for veterans, by halting the commission — and the sweeping plan released by VA Secretary Denis McDonough to build about 80 new clinics, hospitals and nursing homes and close a net of three major hospitals and dozens of clinics with unused inpatient beds — the lawmakers left the agency with no blueprint to modernize its aging system.

This just in: Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony

5:24 p.m.

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Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows who testified before the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, said in a statement that she stands by her testimony.

Hutchinson said Trump was aware that his supporters were armed as they marched toward the Capitol and that he wanted to meet them there. She then spoke of a supposed altercation between Trump and Secret Service agents in a presidential vehicle on Jan. 6, 2021, which was sparked when the agents told him they could not take him to the Capitol.

Hutchinson said Anthony M. Ornato, who was deputy chief of staff at the time, told her that Trump was so “irate” that he wasn’t allowed to go to the Capitol that he tried to grab the steering wheel of the vehicle and lunged toward Bobby Engel, the head of the president’s Secret Service detail.

Hutchinson is standing by her words, according to a statement released via her lawyers on Wednesday.

“Ms. Hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” said the statement, which was issued by her counsel, Jody Hunt and William Jordan.

Since the hearing, three Secret Service agents who accompanied Trump on Jan. 6 have disputed the narrative Hutchinson shared Tuesday, according to one current and one former law enforcement official familiar with their accounts.

The three agents — Engel, Ornato and the agent driving the Suburban that was carrying the president — are also willing to testify to the committee, the two people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.

The latest: Memo appears to show Secret Service minimizing Proud Boys threat on Jan. 6

4:48 p.m.

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A new memo obtained by Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility (CREW) in Washington, a watchdog group, appears to show that the Secret Service minimized the threat posed by right-wing extremist group Proud Boys ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

In the memo, which CREW obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Secret Service describes the group — whose members were among the first to violently attack officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — as one not prone to “civil disobedience” that day.

The group, the memo states, was expected to host an “unnamed demonstration” in D.C. ahead of “pro-Trump demonstrations.” Members, the Secret Service said, were expected not to wear a uniform but rather dress “incognito.”

“Proud Boys is of record for numerous demonstrations at the White House and temporarily protected sites,” the memo advises. “Their demonstrations have concluded without arrests.”

The extremist organization, is one of two groups repeatedly cited by investigators for helping orchestrate the riot. Many of its members have been charged in connection to the attack, including former leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who was indicted on a federal charge of seditious conspiracy.

While the memo claims that previous Proud Boys demonstrations in D.C. resulted “without arrests,” demonstrations led by the group in December 2020 led to 39 arrests.

Your questions, answered: Why don’t Democrats open abortion clinics on federal lands?

4:31 p.m.

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Why don’t Democrats open abortion clinics in federal lands located in red states? — asks a reader.

As soon as the Supreme Court decided Friday to strike down Roe v. Wade, some Democrats began suggesting the Biden administration could secure the access to abortion in states with laws that would ban the procedure by opening abortion clinics on federal lands within these states.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led the call for the administration to use federal lands for this purpose. Warren even suggested to our colleague Caroline Kitchener that the White House could “put up tents, have trained personnel” ready to perform abortions on the edges of national parks.

But members of the Biden administration have dismissed this suggestion.

Vice President Harris told CNN Monday that the White House is not considering making such a move. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre expanded on that sentiment Tuesday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that building abortion clinics on federal lands would have “dangerous ramifications.”

“We understand the proposal is well-intentioned, but here’s the thing: It could actually put women and providers at risk,” Jean-Pierre said. “In states where abortion is now illegal, women and providers who are not federal employees, as you look at the federal land, could be potentially be prosecuted.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra didn’t go as far as Jean-Pierre on Tuesday when asked about the chance of building abortion clinics on federal land. The administration, he said, has made “no decisions yet.”

“Every option is on the table,” he said. “We will take a look at everything we can, and everything we do will be in compliance with the law.”

The latest: New Georgia poll shows Warnock ahead of Walker

3:46 p.m.

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A new Quinnipiac Poll in Georgia finds Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) ahead of his Republican challenger, former NFL star Herschel Walker.

The poll shows Warnock with 54 percent of the support, while Walker clocks in at 44 percent (with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points). The poll was conducted in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as days after Walker was accused of hiding three of his children whom he had not spoken about publicly.

The poll also found that President Biden has a 60 percent disapproval rate, but the number didn’t appear to affect Warnock’s popularity — or that of fellow Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp (R). Abrams and Kemp, according to the poll, are tied at 48 percent.

In January, the same polling company found Warnock and Walker virtually tied — 48 percent to 49 percent, respectively. The numbers in the governor’s race have remained virtually the same — in January, 49 percent supported Kemp, and 47 percent supported Abrams.

Democrats are hoping that Warnock — who came to the Senate in 2021 following a special election against Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) to replace the retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) — will hold on to his seat as they aim to secure a larger majority in the chamber.

Campaign watchdog alleges another gun manufacturer broke federal law

By Isaac Stanley-Becker3:25 p.m.

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When Daniel Defense, the maker of the rifle used to kill 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., gave $100,000 to a pro-gun super PAC last year, it violated a ban on federal contractors contributing to federal candidates or committees, according to a complaint filed earlier this month with the Federal Election Commission.

Now, a new complaint filed Wednesday alleges that another gun manufacturer, Ohio Ordnance Works, broke the same law when it gave $100,000 to Club for Growth Action, a conservative super PAC, in February.

Both complaints were filed by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group. They illustrate intensifying scrutiny of the gun lobby after a spate of mass shootings.

This is also an area of campaign finance law that the FEC, whose six members increasingly deadlock along party lines, has proved willing to enforce. In April, the commission fined a lab equipment manufacturer $56,000 for violating the ban on federal contractors making political donations.

Neither Ohio Ordnance Works nor Club for Growth immediately responded to requests for comment. At the time of the contribution, the Ohio manufacturer had multiple active federal contracts, including a purchase order with the Air Force and a delivery order with the Defense Logistics Agency, according to federal spending records.

The prohibition in federal campaign finance law on contributions from federal contractors, the complaint states, “has for decades served as a bulwark against corruption and the appearance of corruption by avoiding the creation of a ‘pay to play’ culture in which companies benefiting from taxpayer-funded federal contracts receive favored treatment in exchange for their political contributions.”

The latest: Texas AG says he’d defend sodomy law if 2003 ruling is revisited

3:03 p.m.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) appeared to express support for Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion that the high court could review other precedents that may be deemed “demonstrably erroneous,” including those impacting the LGBTQ community — namely Lawrence V. Texas, which prevents states from banning intimate same-sex relationships.

Lawrence is the 2003 ruling that struck down a 1973 Texas law that criminalized the act of sodomy. But as Roe v. Wade was overturned Friday, Paxton said he would defend the state’s defunct sodomy law if the Supreme Court were to follow Thomas’s remarks.

“I mean, there’s all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there’s any constitutional provision dealing with,” said Paxton in a Friday interview with NewsNation. “They were legislative issues and this is one of those issues and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and dependent on what state law had said at the time.”

As Timothy Bella reports, when asked whether the Texas legislature would pass a similar sodomy law, and if he would defend it and bring it to the Supreme Court, the Republican attorney general suggested he would be comfortable supporting a law outlawing intimate same-sex relationships.

“Yeah, look my job is to defend state law and I’ll continue to do that,” Paxton said. “That is my job under the Constitution and I’m certainly willing and able to do that.”

Paxton is running for reelection in November.

Analysis: Only 7 Hill Republicans were willing to hold Trump accountable

2:45 p.m.

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As investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have revealed, Republicans in Congress were under no delusions about the cause of the attack, and many were quick to contact the White House to quell the unrest.

But, in the aftermath of the deadly riot, many of these Republicans appeared to forget this, turning instead to conspiracy theories or pure denial when looking for someone to blame for the attack.

As Philip Bump writes, of the 256 Republicans serving in the House and Senate who were seated in Congress for at least one key vote offering a chance to hold President Donald Trump to account, 249 of them have on at least one occasion declined to do so.

That means only seven Republicans have consistently demonstrated interest in leveraging their institutional power against Trump’s effort to seize a second term in office.

More of those Republicans serve in the Senate. There are three votes that show us which GOP members of the Senate were willing to defy Trump and his false accusations:

Eight GOP senators voted to reject a slate of electors submitted by Arizona or Pennsylvania in the wake of the Capitol riot. These eight also opposed the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack, and they also opposed convicting Trump during his second impeachment.
34 GOP senators voted to approve the slate of electors but declined to convict Trump in his impeachment trial and opposed the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the riot.
Five GOP senators voted to approve the electors, convict Trump and form a bipartisan commission.

It gets worse in the House. Legislators there had the same three opportunities. As Phil writes:

Of the currently serving representatives who were seated for one of those votes, 132 voted to reject at least one slate of electors, to oppose Trump’s impeachment and to block the formation of the committee.
Only two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — chose to take the position in opposition to Trump on all three occasions. That’s a 66 to 1 ratio.

One on one: Schiff encourages Cipollone, other Trump allies to testify

2:40 p.m.

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Every week, Post Politics Now publishes a conversation with a newsmaker. Our guest this week is Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the select House committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. This email interview took place before Tuesday’s hearing.

PPN: You’ve been intimately involved in holding the Trump administration to account through two impeachments and now this investigation. Why do you think the outcome this time will be different?

Schiff: The goal during the impeachments was to remove the former president from office or disqualify him from holding office again, so our objective was very different from the present hearings, where our primary aim is to expose all the facts surrounding the effort to overturn the presidential election and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, as well as prescribe remedies to keep our democracy safe from any repetition.

PPN: You told MSNBC that Pat Cipollone may have important information for Jan. 6. Can you elaborate?

Schiff: According to other witnesses, Cipollone resisted some of the president’s efforts to overturn the election and he clearly has relevant information. Bear in mind that Cipollone was a staunch defender of Trump right up until the end, including during the president’s efforts to extort Ukraine for help in his reelection campaign, which led to Trump’s first impeachment. And while I’m not able to discuss the substance of what he might say, I do believe it is the patriotic duty of everyone — even those working in the Trump White House at a senior level — to appear and help the country understand the events of Jan. 6. And there is still time to do so.

PPN: What do you think has been the most impactful moment of the hearings so far?

Schiff: I think hearing live testimony from dedicated public servants — like Speaker Rusty Bowers or Shaye Moss — has been incredibly powerful.

We must show the American people just how far former president Donald Trump was willing to go to stay in power and the lives he endangered as a result. All he cared about was himself and maintaining his power.

On our radar: Cheney to speak from Calif. on GOP’s future

2:29 p.m.

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Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), whose profile has risen significantly in her role as vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee, is to deliver an address Wednesday night on the future of the Republican Party from the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

Cheney has not pulled any punches in expressing her view that former president Donald Trump should not be the GOP’s future. In Wyoming, Cheney is facing a Trump-backed challenger, Harriet Hageman, in a competitive GOP primary for her seat.

In previous speeches, Cheney has criticized Trump as being the only U.S. president, as she describes it, who was not committed to a peaceful transfer of power. Earlier Wednesday, she shared a column on social media suggesting that Trump could be held criminally responsible for his actions related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Wednesday night’s address is part of a “Time for Choosing” speakers series being hosted by the Reagan Library.

Key update

Relevant Science

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Breyer

Post Politics Now Breyer to retire Thursday from Supreme Court, clearing way for Jackson swearing-in

On our radar: Jackson to be sworn in, Biden departs Europe

This just in: Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Trump White House counsel Cipollone

The latest: Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines

Analysis: The subtle but vital effects of letting Louisiana’s congressional map stand

The latest: Senate drops plan to reshape veterans’ health-care system

This just in: Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony

The latest: Memo appears to show Secret Service minimizing Proud Boys threat on Jan. 6

Your questions, answered: Why don’t Democrats open abortion clinics on federal lands?

The latest: New Georgia poll shows Warnock ahead of Walker

Campaign watchdog alleges another gun manufacturer broke federal law

The latest: Texas AG says he’d defend sodomy law if 2003 ruling is revisited

Analysis: Only 7 Hill Republicans were willing to hold Trump accountable

One on one: Schiff encourages Cipollone, other Trump allies to testify

On our radar: Cheney to speak from Calif. on GOP’s future

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Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Breyer

On our radar: Jackson to be sworn in, Biden departs Europe

This just in: Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Trump White House counsel Cipollone

The latest: Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines

Analysis: The subtle but vital effects of letting Louisiana’s congressional map stand

The latest: Senate drops plan to reshape veterans’ health-care system

This just in: Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony

The latest: Memo appears to show Secret Service minimizing Proud Boys threat on Jan. 6

Your questions, answered: Why don’t Democrats open abortion clinics on federal lands?

The latest: New Georgia poll shows Warnock ahead of Walker

Campaign watchdog alleges another gun manufacturer broke federal law

The latest: Texas AG says he’d defend sodomy law if 2003 ruling is revisited

Analysis: Only 7 Hill Republicans were willing to hold Trump accountable

One on one: Schiff encourages Cipollone, other Trump allies to testify

On our radar: Cheney to speak from Calif. on GOP’s future

No comments:

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