In the News
In the 2022 midterm elections, an unprecedented number of Republican candidates denied or cast doubt on the results of the latest presidential election, spread false conspiracy theories about the nation’s voting systems and, in many cases, questioned the legitimacy of American democracy itself. While a majority of them won, nearly all of the highest-profile candidates lost in what was seen as a national rebuke of the movement. But losing did not seem to deter many of them.
A former Trump campaign staffer who was subpoenaed by the Department of Justice as part of its investigation into the plot to overturn the 2020 election, is currently serving on the House committee overseeing U.S. elections. The House Administration Committee’s employment roster shows Thomas Lane is earning a $155,000 salary in his role as elections counsel. His LinkedIn page confirms his employment began a few months ago. Lane worked at the Republican National Committee in addition to assisting the Trump campaign’s efforts in Arizona and New Mexico in 2020.
Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post. In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show.
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned whether it can still move ahead in a major election law case involving the authority of state legislatures. The justices are hearing an appeal from North Carolina Republican lawmakers of a decision by the state’s top court, which struck down North Carolina’s GOP-drawn voting maps. But that underlying decision was overruled last week, and the Supreme Court in a brief, unsigned order has asked for additional briefing on whether it still has jurisdiction.
In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.” Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill.
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 co-chair.
A prominent conservative former federal judge joined a group of legal experts on Tuesday in calling on Congress to enact new ethical standards for Supreme Court justices, after a series of revelations about the justices’ undisclosed gifts, luxury travel and property deals. The statement by Judge J. Michael Luttig, a retired appeals court judge revered by some conservatives, was released hours before the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Supreme Court ethics.
Partisan cannon fire dominated Senate Democrats’ high-profile hearing Tuesday on Supreme Court ethics, but behind the bluster, some Republicans acknowledged the high court needed to address a spate of controversies about justices’ conduct. The Senate Judiciary Committee hosted the hearing to call for more formal ethical standards at the high court.
As AI image generators and other tools have proliferated, the technology has quickly become an instrument of political messaging, mischief and misinformation. Meanwhile, the technology’s rapid development has outpaced U.S. regulation. Some in Congress say that’s a problem. On Tuesday, Rep. Yvette D.
Artificial intelligence is already affecting the 2024 election in ways that could reshape how campaigns are run and how voters are informed — or misled. There are no rules for using AI in politics. Operatives in both parties are tapping the technology to identify donors and voters more efficiently — and to create photos and videos that reveal the potential risks of "deepfake" messages that could fool voters.