Key events
The final opinion of the day is Becerra v San Carlos Apache Tribe, which deals with the Indian Health Service’s financial obligations.
The decision brought together an ideologically motley group of justices: the chief justice, John Roberts, wrote the opinion, which was joined by fellow conservative Neil Gorsuch. The court’s three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elana Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, also signed on.
The other conservatives, Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented in an opinion written by Brett Kavanaugh.
The second case is Connelly v United States, which deals with taxation and life insurance.
Conservative justice Clarence Thomas wrote the court’s opinion, which was unanimous.
The first case is Truck Insurance Exchange v Kaiser Gypsum Company, which deals with US bankruptcy law.
Liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the court’s opinion, which all justices joined except for conservative Samuel Alito, who did not take part in deciding the case.
Supreme court to release latest batch of decisions
It’s almost 10am in Washington DC, which means the supreme court will release its latest decision, or decisions.
As always, we do not know in advance which cases they will release their opinions on, but we will follow the decisions’ release on this live blog.
Top Senate Republican suggests Democratic lawmakers should face ‘discipline’ for pressuring court
As Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell played a major role in creating the conservative supermajority on the supreme court, by confirming Donald Trump’s rightwing justices and blocking Barack Obama from appointing a liberal judge in 2016.
Republicans are now in the minority in the Senate, but McConnell still leads the party, and he is not happy with Democratic senators who have called for Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases concerning the 2020 election, or for the chief justice, John Roberts, to sit down for a meeting to discuss the court’s ethics.
In a speech on the chamber’s floor yesterday, McConnell warned that two of the Democratic senators calling for the court to (so far unsuccessfully) act, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, could face “discipline” because they are lawyers who have been admitted to the supreme court’s bar.
Here’s more from McConnell:
Three of our colleagues have taken it upon themselves to write to the chief justice and demand Justice Alito’s recusal in cases. One went so far as to tell the chief that he should strip Justices Alito and Thomas of the ability to write majority opinions unless they recuse from the cases liberals don’t want them hearing.
This goes beyond the standard disgraceful bullying my Democratic colleagues have perfected. Recusal is a judicial act.
These senators are telling the chief justice, privately, to change the course of pending litigation. This is known as ex parte communication and it is frowned upon by the ABA’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct.
This matters because at least two of these colleagues of ours, the junior senator from Rhode Island and the senior senator from Connecticut, seem to be members of the supreme court bar. If so, they are, therefore, potentially engaged in unethical professional conduct before the court.
They may be under the mistaken impression that their persistent attempts to threaten the federal courts are a permissible use of their legislative office.
But they are officers of the court and bound by a different set of rules than a mere senator. These rules provide for discipline against those who engage in ‘conduct unbecoming’ an officer of the court.
I might suggest to our colleagues that unethical ex parte communications seeking to change the course of pending litigation is such conduct. And that the court should take any remedial action it feels to be appropriate.
Trump calls on supreme court to intervene after felony conviction
As president, Donald Trump created the conservative supermajority on the supreme court by appointing three rightwing justices who have since supported decisions overturning the constitutional right to abortion, and weakening firearm protections and environmental regulations.
When the court heard arguments over Trump’s petition for immunity from the federal charges against him for allegedly conspiring to overturn the election, those same justices seemed open to a ruling that will likely have the net effect of further delaying his federal trial, perhaps until after the November election. And after he was convicted last week of felony business fraud charges, the president openly appealed to the court to throw the conviction out. The Guardian’s Robert Tait has more:
Donald Trump has called on the US supreme court to step in and annul his guilty verdict in a hush-money trial that left him with the unwanted distinction of being the first former US president to be a convicted felon.
The 2024 presumptive Republican nominee made his plea in a typically florid post on his Truth Social site, highlighting that a sentencing hearing scheduled for 11 July falls just four days before the GOP’s national convention in Milwaukee, when his nomination is expected to become official.
“The ‘Sentencing’ for not having done anything wrong will be, conveniently for the Fascists, 4 days before the Republican National Convention,” Trump wrote. “A Radical Left Soros backed D.A., who ran on a platform of ‘I will get Trump,’ reporting to an ‘Acting’ Local Judge, appointed by the Democrats, who is HIGHLY CONFLICTED, will make a decision which will determine the future of our Nation?”
A jury in Manhattan found the ex-president guilty last Thursday on all 34 counts of falsifying documents to conceal a sexual liaison with an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won over Hillary Clinton.
The verdict, which Trump has pledged to appeal, raised the atmosphere in this year’s presidential campaign to fever pitch more than five months before polling day, with Republicans circling the wagons while Democrats sought ways to exploit it.
Supreme court could upend abortion access and give Trump immunity with new rulings
Good morning, US politics blog readers.
The supreme court will issue another batch of decisions this morning at 10am ET, and a host of hot-button issues are pending before the conservative-dominated bench. While there is no telling in advance which cases the justices will weigh in on, they have yet to decide a case that could see the availability of the abortion drug mifepristone rolled back, and another over whether the Biden administration can require states with bans on the procedure to perform emergency abortions at federally funded hospitals. But perhaps the most controversial case pending before the supreme court is Donald Trump’s petition for immunity from the federal election meddling charges brought against him by special prosecutor Jack Smith. It is a divisive matter not only because the case involves the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, but also because one of the justices on the bench, Samuel Alito, was reported to have flown flags sympathetic to Trump’s cause at two of his properties.
Democrats are outraged by Alito’s conduct, but last week the conservative justice said he would not recuse himself from that case or any other dealing with the 2020 election. Should the Trump case be decided today, how Alito rules will be one of the most closely watched elements. We’ll let you know if that happens.
Here’s what else is going on today:
-
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, suggested Democratic senators who pressured the supreme court to act on Alito’s flag flap should face “discipline”.
-
Joe Biden is marking the 80th anniversary of D-day with a visit to Normandy. He’s speaking now, and you can follow it live here.
-
Trump once again made clear that he would use his powers “to go after” his political opponents, if elected, in an interview yesterday with Fox News.
