House Moving Forward With Impeachment | Ginni Thomas Raising Eyebrows Again
January 11, 2021
CAUSE, EFFECT, CONSEQUENCES
|The House plans to move quickly on ensuring PRESIDENT TRUMP faces consequences for inciting the violent, unprecedented takeover of the Capitol last week. Today, the House will unveil its resolution to impeach Trump, charging him with “incitement of insurrection.” The single impeachment article points to the president’s repeated false claims that he won the election and it also cites his call to Georgia’s secretary of state in which Trump urged him to “find” votes so he could be declared the victor in the state. Trump would be the first president in U.S. history to be impeached for the second time.
BE REASONABLE
|Mark Joseph Stern with Slate reports the wife of JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS, GINNI THOMAS, endorsed last week’s Trump rally in Washington that demanded Congress overturn the election results. She sent her “LOVE” to the demonstrators in a tweet, and two days later edited her post to note it was written before the violence broke out. Stern reviews Ginni’s fervent support of DONALD TRUMP over the years and her frequent promotion of baseless conspiracy theories. MJS writes, “Ginni Thomas’ activism on matters that come before her husband raises thorny ethical issues. Federal law requires justices to recuse themselves from any proceeding in which their ‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’ It also compels justices to recuse if their spouse has ‘an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome’ of the case. In the coming months and years, Democrats will likely pressure Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from high-profile cases or to resign altogether.”
THAT WOULD BE A NO
|The Supreme Court today formally refused to fast track challenges PRESIDENT TRUMP and his allies have made to the election results, rejecting pleas for quick consideration of cases out of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (all states JOE BIDEN won). The orders were issued without comment or dissent from justices.
OTHER NEWS
Supreme Court Won’t Review Tribal Phosphorus Dumping Fee Case
Bloomberg Law“The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to determine whether the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes can charge chemical manufacturer FMC Corp. an annual $1.5 million fee for dumping hazardous waste within their boundaries. FMC claims the tribes don’t have the authority to charge a fee for storing the waste from its former phosphorus production plant, located mostly inside the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho. The lower court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, determined the tribes could do so, even though the Environmental Protection Agency set a Superfund cleanup plan for the site.”
Supreme Court Won’t Review Federal Reserve Bank Patent Decision
Bloomberg Law“The U.S. Supreme Court won’t review the Federal Circuit’s determination that Federal Reserve banks aren’t part of the government under the America Invents Act and can challenge patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, it announced Monday. The Federal Circuit decision provides more guidance for the PTAB in determining whether it can review patents challenged by a government-related entity.”