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Senators demand probe into Justice Thomas’ undisclosed real estate transactions amid concerns of a donor’s influence
- Washington Post: Senators call for probe of Thomas amid report of real estate deals with GOP donor: Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after ProPublica revealed Thursday that he had failed to report real estate deals made with Harlan Crow, a Dallas business executive and influential Republican donor to causes related to the law and judiciary. According to ProPublica, Crow purchased three properties in Savannah, Ga., from Thomas in 2014, including the single-story house where Thomas’s mother was living and two vacant lots nearby. Thomas did not disclose the $133,363 real estate transaction on his financial disclosure forms, as federal law would have required. Crow told the outlet that he wanted to preserve the first property as a museum dedicated to Thomas in the future, and said he had spent tens of thousands of dollars on improvements to the house “to preserve its long-term viability.”
- CNN: Clarence Thomas to amend financial disclosure forms to reflect sale to GOP megadonor: Justice Clarence Thomas intends to amend his financial disclosure forms to reflect a 2014 real estate deal he made with a GOP megadonor – an acknowledgment that the transaction should have been disclosed almost a decade ago, a source close to Thomas tells CNN. The deal between Thomas and Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and long-time friend of Thomas, involves the sale of three Georgia properties, including the home where Thomas’ mother, Leola Williams, 94, currently lives. Thomas’ revelation of gifts fits a broader pattern of financial non disclosure from the Supreme Court. The source said Thomas has always filled out his forms with the help of aides, and that it was an oversight not to report the real estate transaction. Thomas believed he didn’t have to disclose because he lost money on the deal, according to the source.
- Washington Post: Clarence Thomas might have recognized law at issue in his real estate deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s problems are mounting in the aftermath of yet another ProPublica report detailing his ties to conservative billionaire donor Harlan Crow. While the outlet’s first report detailed how Thomas might have broken the law by failing to disclose luxury trips Crow paid for, its latest describes actual money exchanging hands in a real estate deal between Thomas and Crow. Failing to disclose that might make a more compelling case that Thomas violated the law. Perhaps as notable as anything: The potential violation involves a law Thomas was forced to confront during another controversy, a decade ago and just a few years before his real estate deal.
- The Hill: Clarence Thomas should follow the Abe Fortas precedent and resign gracefully: Justice Clarence Thomas can still redeem himself. One of his predecessors, former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, showed the way. Caught in the midst of a financial scandal, Fortas did the decent thing and resigned rather than continue to embarrass the court and himself. This is one precedent that Thomas, a notorious iconoclast, should follow. Thomas’s dubious financial entanglements have been a source of embarrassment for many years. Indeed, even his unsavory relationship with politically active real-estate billionaire Harlan Crow, which figured so prominently in the recent reports of luxury trips around the world on Crow’s yachts and jets was the subject of an expose a dozen years ago. Washington Monthly magazine published a recap of what was known about Thomas’s hobnobbing with new-found friends who cultivated him after his accession to the high court.
Dominion vs. Fox Trial: $1.6 billion at stake over Fox’s lies about the 2020 Election
- Washington Post: Dominion v. Fox trial delayed for settlement talks, people familiar with the matter say: The beginning of the much-anticipated defamation case between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News has been delayed by one day, until Tuesday, to allow both parties to hold conversations about the possibility of a settlement, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. No reason was officially given for the delay, which was announced Sunday evening by the judge overseeing the case. Jury selection had been scheduled to conclude on Monday and then both sides were expected to give opening statements, kicking off a weeks-long trial. Voting technology company Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network alleging that Fox guests and hosts defamed the company and severely damaged its business by connecting it to a plot to fraudulently steal the 2020 presidential election.
- NBC: Fired Fox News producer says she found more evidence relevant to Dominion case: Ex-Fox News producer Abby Grossberg said she recently found more evidence relevant to Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against her former employer and plans to turn it over to the court. Grossberg, who worked as a senior producer for hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, alleged in a new sworn statement obtained by NBC News that Fox lawyers ignored repeated reminders about an additional cellphone in her possession and did not search it during court-ordered discovery. In the statement, Grossberg said she repeatedly told Fox lawyers that she had an inoperable company-issued cellphone that she used during 2020 election coverage. Fox lawyers told her to hang on to the device but never searched it or copied her files, as they did with her other phones, according to the statement.
- Washington Post: Here are five things to watch in the Fox-Dominion trial: Dominion Voting Systems is about to have its day in court. Opening statements in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News begin Monday, with Delaware Judge Eric M. Davis presiding over the voting technology company’s claims that Fox, the No. 1-ranked cable news network, harmed Dominion’s reputation on 20 occasions from early November 2020 to late January 2021 by broadcasting allegations that the company was involved in election fraud, developed an algorithm that rigged vote counts, was “owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for the dictator Hugo Chávez” and paid kickbacks to government officials.
In The States
MINNESOTA: Minnesota advances voting reforms: expanding access, automatic registration, and ranked choice voting gain momentum
- CBS News Minnesota: Minnesota House passes bill that would expand voter access: The Minnesota House Thursday evening passed a sweeping elections bill dubbed the “Democracy for the People Act.” The bill allows those ages 16 and 17 to pre-register to vote, creates a permanent absentee ballot list and implements automatic voter registration. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C. have automatic voter registration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The act also would require voting instructions and sample ballots to be provided in non-English languages. “Our legislation will strengthen the freedom to vote, protect our democratic institutions and Minnesota voters, and empower voters, not corporations or wealthy special interests in our elections,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman said.
- Politico: The Hottest Political Reform of the Moment Gains Ground: At 8 a.m. this past March, on a day that almost anywhere but St. Paul, Minn. would have been considered terrifyingly cold and windy, the advocates and the opponents of a plan to revamp Minnesota’s elections squared off at the State Capitol complex where the House Elections Committee was about to convene. “Squared off” perhaps casts these mostly aging militants in too un-Minnesota a light: They held signs and milled around on opposite sides of the crowded space. Still, it seemed like quite a show of passion for an innovation better known to political scientists than to voters. At issue was ranked choice voting, a wonky reform that advocates are convinced will help drain the toxins from our national politics. Ranked choice voting allows voters to list their top three or more candidates, eliminates the last-place finisher and then redistributes votes to the remaining candidates until one emerges with a majority. The approach has been quietly making gains across the country, but it burst into the public consciousness last year after it helped a centrist Democrat thwart Sarah Palin’s bid for Congress in Alaska.
GEORGIA: State in the spotlight with upcoming Fulton County indictment decisions and Dominion case
- Atlanta Journal Constitution: Dominion Voting defamation trial could reverberate in Georgia: When a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News goes to trial in Delaware this week, it will likely include evidence about election tampering and false claims of voter fraud in Georgia. Sworn testimony could be relevant to Fulton County prosecutors as they’re considering charges related to allegations that former President Donald Trump and his allies criminally interfered with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The suit by Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactured Georgia’s election equipment, alleges that Fox’s on-air hosts and network executives allowed Trump’s supporters to lie about his loss, resulting in severe financial harm to the company. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Thursday, and then the trial would start Monday. What does the defamation case have to do with the Fulton County investigation into election interference? Both probes involve Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, two of the attorneys who aided the Trump campaign’s efforts to reverse the results of the presidential election in Georgia, where Trump lost by less than 12,000 votes to Democrat Joe Biden.
- ABC News: Timeline: Criminal probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia election results: On Jan. 2, 2021, former President Donald Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to win the state in the 2020 election. The now-infamous phone call helped spark a criminal investigation launched the following month by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looking into the efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Here’s a look at how the probe — one of several investigations involving the former president — has unfolded so far.
FLORIDA: Senate moves to make 27 changes to state’s Elections Code, making it more difficult to vote
- Orlando Sentinel: Yet another scheme to make it harder to vote in Florida: Here we go again. Like the dogwoods that bloom every spring in Tallahassee, the Legislature’s annual obsession with making it harder to vote has returned — just as we all knew it would. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t necessary. And it isn’t right.The Senate sprang a 98-page elections bill on the public with scant 24 hours notice before a recent committee hearing. Naturally, concerned citizens who traveled to Tallahassee from throughout the state had one minute to testify. As some raced through prepared remarks, they sounded like the old Federal Express commercial. You can’t blame them. There’s a lot not to like in this bill. It has more than two dozen specific changes to an elections code that also underwent major changes in 2021 and 2022 — even after trouble-free elections. A year ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis got his elections police force. The year before, the Legislature restricted the use of ballot drop boxes. This time, the targets are first-time voters such as college students, and groups that register new voters.
TENNESSEE: Tennessee protests mischaracterized as ‘insurrection’ by Republicans
- Washington Post: Republicans called Tennessee an ‘insurrection.’ It’s not the first time they’ve misused the term.: On the morning of March 30, hundreds of protesters marched into the Tennessee Capitol calling for gun control legislation after a shooter killed six people, including three children, at a Nashville Christian school. When three state lawmakers interrupted debate over an education bill to lead demonstrators gathered in the chambers’ galleries in chants, House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) recessed the body for just under an hour and ordered security to clear the assembly. The protesters, who were largely parents and students, committed no violence and no arrests or property damage took place at the Capitol, according to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. But during an interview with a local radio station that evening, Sexton compared the actions of two of the lawmakers to Jan. 6 rioters, saying their behavior was “at least equivalent, maybe worse depending on how you look at it, of doing an insurrection in the Capitol.”
What Experts Are Saying
21 Former GOP Members of Congress and Former Prosecutors, Government Attorneys, and Legal Experts: Amicus Brief: Supporting Manhattan DA Bragg’s Motion For Injunctive Relief: “Our federal system of government can, from time to time, create truly difficult questions about the balance of power between the states and the federal government. This case is not one…Congress has no authority to interfere with an ongoing criminal prosecution, particularly one brought by a state prosecutor. That calculus does not change just because the defendant whom a grand jury indicted happens to be a former President of the United States. Nor does it change when Members of Congress attempt to characterize their unlawful interference as ‘oversight.’” Press Release | Full Amicus Brief | Summary of the 21 Amici
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (MSNBC Video): “I spoke with @chrislhayes and @eisingerj on @allinwithchris about why it’s such a problem that Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose lavish gifts and travel from and real estate transactions with a billionaire.” Tweet | MSNBC Video
Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “[T]he evidence here is very strong, which is unusual for a plaintiff in a defamation case. Usually there’s a struggle to prove actual malice—that the defendant made statements that damaged the plaintiff, knowing that they were false or with reckless disregard for their truth. Here the judge has already ruled, as a matter of law, that Fox was peddling falsehoods…The evidence, which includes texts and tapes, is compelling.” Civil Discourse
Lilliana Mason, an expert in political psychology at Johns Hopkins University: “Felicia: ‘I know you on some of your work and in your own podcast, which is terrific. Everyone should listen to it by the way, it’s called Is This Democracy. You’ve started to call politics that’s built around the outsized power of this MAGA faction anti-democratic. I’m assuming that, as a political scientist, you don’t make that claim lightly. What does this mean to you? How worried are you about this anti-democratic threat?’
Lily: ‘There are a couple of ways that I look at this. One is the difference between what we’re seeing in terms of what the right in general wants to do in government versus what the country wants. A great example here is abortion policy. The vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal. Even the majority of Republicans believe that people should have at least some abortion access. And yet what we’re seeing from the Republican Party, in particular from the courts and the Supreme Court and Republican state legislatures, is antithetical to what people want. They’re enforcing something extremely unpopular on their constituents, on the basis of the desires of these very small but powerful minority of people in the party. So that’s the first thing: this divide between what the constituents want and what elected leaders are doing. That to me is a real breakdown in the democratic process.’” The New Republic: How to Save a Country Podcast
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
New York Times: G.O.P. Attacks Bragg on Crime at a Hearing in New York
Washington Post: The right’s short-sighted war on LGBTQ Americans
Salon: Connecting Clarence Thomas and Donald Trump: Tied together by a mutual worship of corrupt power
Business Insider: MAGA-world is rushing to defend Jack Teixeira, the accused Pentagon leaker who allegedly dumped secret documents online to impress his teenage gamer buddies
Salon: A fascist Jesus Christ: MAGA turns Donald Trump into a martyr
Atlantic: An Acute Attack of Trumpism in Tennessee
Trump Investigations
Washington Post: Trump team prepares to fight efforts to block him from ballots over Jan. 6
MSNBC: Trump loses bid to delay civil rape trial, is reminded of legal troubles instead
Washington Post: A top Trump lawyer has recused himself from Mar-a-Lago documents case
The Hill: Trump answered questions for more than 7 hours in New York fraud lawsuit
New York Times: Six Takeaways From Trump’s New Financial Disclosure
The Hill: Barr: Trump faces legal peril because he’s ‘his own worst enemy’
Axios: Trump testifies in New York fraud lawsuit
MSNBC: Why Jack Smith’s reported wire fraud probe into Trump campaign could be a big deal
January 6 And The 2020 Election
New York Times: Man Who Once Modeled for Romance Novels Gets Prison in Jan. 6 Attack
Washington Post: Man who pinned officer to Capitol tunnel door sentenced to 7.5 years
Forbes: Right-Wing Platform Parler—Linked With Kanye, Alex Jones And Jan. 6— Sold, Shuts Down For Now
ABC News: Former DNI John Ratcliffe is latest Trump adviser to appear before Jan. 6 grand jury: Sources
Opinion
Washington Post: The MAGA litigation explosion: The rule of law isn’t comatose yet
The Hill: Opportunism, hypocrisy & graft, oh my! Guiding lights of the new GOP
Los Angeles Times: Don’t underestimate the strengths of Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump
USA Today: Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ron DeSantis? The GOP LOVES cartoon villains
In the States
Oklahoma Watch: As Presidential Elections Near, Oklahoma GOP Eyes Tighter Voting Rules
NBC: From Tenn. to Texas, political majorities have curbed debate, minority rights
