Attention to the Unseen

CNN reports: Justice Sandra Day O’Connor provided the early framework that steered the outcome in the dispute over the 2000 presidential election and ensured George W. Bush would win the White House over Al Gore, Supreme Court documents released on Tuesday show. Memos found in the newly opened files of the late Justice John Paul Stevens offer a first-ever view of the behind-the-scenes negotiations on Bush v. Gore at the court. They also demonstrate the tension among the nine justices…

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The New York Times reports: A standoff between House Republicans and President Biden over raising the nation’s borrowing limit has administration officials debating what to do if the government runs out of cash to pay its bills, including one option that previous administrations had deemed unthinkable. That option is effectively a constitutional challenge to the debt limit. Under the theory, the government would be required by the 14th Amendment to continue issuing new debt to pay bondholders, Social Security recipients,…

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Politico reports: Leonard Leo, who helped to choose judicial nominees for former President Donald Trump, obtained a historic $1.6 billion gift for his conservative legal network via an introduction through the Federalist Society, whose tax status forbids political activism. Leo first met Barre Seid, the now 91-year-old manufacturing magnate turned donor, through an introduction arranged by Eugene Meyer, the longtime director of the Federalist Society. At the time, Leo was the society’s executive vice president, and he is currently its…

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CNN reports: The Supreme Court agreed Monday to reconsider long held precedent and decide whether to significantly scale back on the power of federal agencies in a case that can impact everything from how the government addresses everything from climate change to public health to immigration. Conservative justices have long sought to rein in regulatory authority, arguing that Washington has too much control over American businesses and individual lives. The justices have been incrementally diminishing federal power but the new…

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The New York Times reports: In the fall of 2017, an administrator at George Mason University’s law school circulated a confidential memo about a prospective hire. Just months earlier, Neil M. Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge from Colorado, had won confirmation to the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia, the conservative icon for whom the school was named. For President Donald J. Trump, bringing Judge Gorsuch to Washington was the first step toward fulfilling a…

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Insider reports: Two years after John Roberts’ confirmation as the Supreme Court’s chief justice in 2005, his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, made a pivot. After a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, she refashioned herself as a legal recruiter, a matchmaker who pairs job-hunting lawyers up with corporations and firms. Roberts told a friend that the change was motivated by a desire to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, given that her husband was now the highest-ranking judge…

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The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump on Thursday praised and embraced a woman convicted of defying police orders on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. “Listen, you just hang in there,” Trump told the woman, Micki Larson-Olson, who was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of resisting police efforts to clear the grounds after the insurrection by a pro-Trump mob. “You guys are gonna be okay.” Trump, who was campaigning here in New Hampshire, then agreed…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: As a high-school student, the Air National Guardsman charged with leaking classified intelligence documents admitted he made violent threats that prevented him from getting a firearms license. Two years later, however, he secured a top-secret security clearance. The episode, which was reported to local police, was one of several that Airman First Class Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard admitted had been problematic—to authorities weighing his application for a gun license, to investigators…

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The Washington Post reports: Former president Trump’s campaign quietly commissioned a second firm to study election fraud claims in the weeks after the 2020 election, and the founder of the firm was recently questioned by the Justice Department about his work disproving the claims. Ken Block, founder of the firm Simpatico Software Systems, studied more than a dozen voter fraud theories and allegations for Trump’s campaign in late 2020 and found they were “all false,” he said in an interview…

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NPR reports: The co-founder of a fundraising group linked to Steve Bannon that promised to help Donald Trump construct a wall along the southern U.S. border was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on Wednesday for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors. Brian Kolfage, a decorated Air Force veteran who lost both of his legs and an arm in the Iraq War, previously pleaded guilty for his role in siphoning donations from the We Build…

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Politico reports: The federal judge overseeing the civil trial in which Donald Trump is accused of rape admonished the former president for a social media post in which he called the lawsuit “a made up SCAM.” Trump could be “tampering with a new source of potential liability,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told one of Trump’s lawyers in court on Wednesday. [Continue reading…] Commentary from former federal prosecutor, Harry Litman:  

Ian Millhiser writes: The Supreme Court has run out of excuses. Earlier this month, after ProPublica revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas frequently takes lavish vacations funded by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow, Thomas attempted to defend himself by claiming that this sort of “personal hospitality from close personal friends” is fine because Crow “did not have business before the court.” As it turns out, that’s not true. As Bloomberg reports, the Supreme Court — including Justice Thomas — did briefly consider…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Sens. Angus King (I., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) will introduce a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would require the U.S. Supreme Court to create its own code of conduct within a year, following media reports that raise questions about whether Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch properly disclosed their financial activities. “It’s pitiful that we’re having to introduce this bill—it’s pathetic that the Supreme Court hasn’t done this itself,” Mr. King said. The senator,…

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The Lever reports: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voted to end federal tenant protections that his billionaire benefactor’s company says threatened its real estate profit margins, according to corporate documents reviewed by The Lever. Thomas did not disclose his relationship with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow, nor did he recuse himself from the 2021 case, despite its potential impact on Crow Holdings. Now, rent control — which Crow Holdings’ documents also say threatens the company’s business — could come before Thomas, and there…

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