Abuse of Power – Deep Left Field

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has scheduled a hearing on crime in the city of Manhattan for next Monday, April 17 as part of spotlighting what Jordan claims are the “victims” of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted failed former president Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records last month.

But the hearing may wind up turning into a massive public relations nightmare for Jordan, according to Greg Sargent of The Washington Post.

The emerging details are already shining a harsh light on what you might call the ‘governing by Fox News’ problem, in which Republicans use committee hearings to create right-wing media boomlets but ultimately run into the buzzsaw of outside scrutiny, Sargent reports.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), who sits on the committee chaired by Jordan, says he’s looking forward to the “field hearing” planned by the chairman.

“We are eager to use this as an opportunity to highlight what is the real pressing issue in terms of public safety around the country. And that’s the prevalence of assault weapons.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, Sargent adds. Others Democrats on the committee are also planning to give Jordan a humiliating fact-check to counter his bullshit.

Committee Democrats, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), also plan to push back against lurid and widely debunked GOP claims about Bragg, New York City and crime. Among these claims: Bragg didn’t prosecute an alleged murder on the subway (he did); crime in Manhattan is at record highs (that’s nonsense); Bragg is a wholly owned puppet of George Soros (that’s pure fantasy talk); and the judge hearing Trump’s case is a Trump-hater (even Trump’s own lawyer won’t say this).

And there will also be plenty of facts presented by Democrats that tie House Republicans to Trump, serving as a taxpayer-funded “Trump legal team,” according to Congressman Goldman.

“It’s an opportunity for the public to learn exactly the degree of coordination and collusion between House Republican leadership and Donald Trump.”

It should be fun to watch as Jordan loses his temper and proves that he’s nothing more than a whore for Trump and the most extremist elements of the GOP. Grab your popcorn and settle in for a show.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is a step closer to being criminally referred the U.S. Department of Justice for expensive trips and other perks he received from a top Republican donor, some of which were valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last week, ProPublica revealed the connections between Thomas and billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow.

One of the trips Thomas took was to Indonesia.

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

But there were many other jaunts around the globe for Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni, who worked to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election so that Donald Trump could remain in office despite having lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has written a committee of federal judges who oversee matters related to members of the judiciary and is requesting a formal criminal referral of Thomas to the Justice Department, noting:

Campaign Legal Center respectfully requests that the Judicial Conference exercise its authority pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 13106(b) and refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Attorney General because there is “reasonable cause to believe” that he “willfully failed to file information required to be reported” under the Ethics in GovernmentAct (“EIGA”).

Specifically, Justice Thomas’ public statement on April 7, 2023, and recent news reporting, confirm that for over twenty years he did not file required gift disclosures of private plane and yacht travel from one individual. There is reasonable cause to believe that the omissions were willful because Justice Thomas (1) previously reported private plane travel from the same individual in compliance with the law, but stopped the disclosures after negative media attention; and (2) has a history of omitting significant information from his financial disclosure reports.

Thomas has served on the Supreme Court since 1991.