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US

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; states can ban abortion

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday stripped away the nation’s constitutional protections for abortion that had stood for nearly a half-century. The decision by the court’s conservative majority overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

The ruling, unthinkable just a few years ago, was the culmination of decades of efforts by abortion opponents, made possible by an emboldened right side of the court fortified by three appointees of former President Donald Trump.

Both sides predicted the fight over abortion would continue, in state capitals, in Washington and at the ballot box. Justice Clarence Thomas, part of Friday’s majority, urged colleagues to overturn other high court rulings protecting same-sex marriage, gay sex and the use of contraceptives.

Pregnant women considering abortions already had been dealing with a near-complete ban in Oklahoma and a prohibition after roughly six weeks in Texas. Clinics in at least five other states — Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin and West Virginia — stopped performing abortions after Friday’s decision.

Abortion foes cheered the ruling, but abortion-rights supporters, including President Joe Biden, expressed dismay and pledged to fight to restore the rights.

“It’s a sad day for the court and for the country,” Biden said at the White House. He urged voters to make it a defining issue in the November elections, declaring, “This decision must not be the final word.”

Outside the White House, Ansley Cole, a college student from Atlanta, said she was “scared because what are they going to come after next? … The next election cycle is going to be brutal, like it’s terrifying. And if they’re going to do this, again, what’s next?”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, agreed about the political stakes.

“We are ready to go on offense for life in every single one of those legislative bodies, in each statehouse and the White House,” Dannenfelser said in a statement.

Trump praised the ruling, telling Fox News that it “will work out for everybody.”

The decision is expected to disproportionately affect minority women who already face limited access to health care, according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press.

It also puts the court at odds with a majority of Americans who favored preserving Roe, according to opinion polls.

Surveys conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and others have shown a majority in favor of abortion being legal in all or most circumstances. But many also support restrictions especially later in pregnancy. Surveys consistently show that about 1 in 10 Americans want abortion to be illegal in all cases.

The ruling came more than a month after the stunning leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating the court was prepared to take this momentous step.

Alito, in the final opinion issued Friday, wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to abortion, were wrong had to be be overturned.

“We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito wrote, in an opinion that was very similar to the leaked draft.

Joining Alito were Thomas and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett. The latter three justices are Trump appointees. Thomas first voted to overrule Roe 30 years ago.

Four justices would have left Roe and Casey in place.

The vote was 6-3 to uphold the Mississippi law, but Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t join his conservative colleagues in overturning Roe. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad precedents to rule in Mississippi’s favor.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — the diminished liberal wing of the court — were in dissent.

“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” they wrote, warning that abortion opponents now could pursue a nationwide ban “from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the Justice Department will protect providers and those seeking abortions in states where it is legal and also “work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care.”

In particular, Garland said that the federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of Mifepristone for medication abortions.

More than 90% of abortions take place in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, and more than half are now done with pills, not surgery, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, which was at the center of Friday’s case, continued to see patients Friday. Outside, men used a bullhorn to tell people inside that they would burn in hell. Clinic escorts wearing colorful vests used large speakers to blast Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” at the protesters.

Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri are among 13 states, mainly in the South and Midwest, that already have laws on the books to ban abortion in the event Roe was overturned. Another half-dozen states have near-total bans or prohibitions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

In roughly a half-dozen other states, including West Virginia and Wisconsin, the fight will be over dormant abortion bans that were enacted before Roe was decided in 1973 or new proposals to sharply limit when abortions can be performed, according to Guttmacher.

Outside the barricaded Supreme Court, a crowd of mostly young women grew into the hundreds within hours of the decision. Some shouted, “The Supreme Court is illegitimate,” while waves of others, wearing red shirts with “The Pro-Life Generation Votes,” celebrated, danced and thrust their arms into the air.

The Biden administration and other defenders of abortion rights have warned that a decision overturning Roe also would threaten other high court decisions in favor of gay rights and even potentially contraception.

The liberal justices made the same point in their joint dissent: The majority “eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station. It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the Court’s legitimacy.”

And Thomas, the member of the court most open to jettisoning prior decisions, wrote a separate opinion in which he explicitly called on his colleagues to put the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage, gay sex and contraception cases on the table.

But Alito contended that his analysis addresses abortion only. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” he wrote.

Whatever the intentions of the person who leaked Alito’s draft opinion, the conservatives held firm in overturning Roe and Casey.

In his opinion, Alito dismissed the arguments in favor of retaining the two decisions, including that multiple generations of American women have partly relied on the right to abortion to gain economic and political power.

Changing the makeup of the court has been central to the anti-abortion side’s strategy, as the dissenters archly noted. “The Court reverses course today for one reason and one reason only: because the composition of this Court has changed,” the liberal justices wrote.

Mississippi and its allies made increasingly aggressive arguments as the case developed, and two high-court defenders of abortion rights retired or died. The state initially argued that its law could be upheld without overruling the court’s abortion precedents.

Justice Anthony Kennedy retired shortly after the Mississippi law took effect in 2018 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020. Both had been members of a five-justice majority that was mainly protective of abortion rights.

In their Senate hearings, Trump’s three high-court picks carefully skirted questions about how they would vote in any cases, including about abortion.

___

Associated Press writers Jessica Gresko, Fatima Hussein, Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

For AP’s full coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, go to https://apnews.com/hub/abortion

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US

Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade 

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The opinion is the most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades and will transform the landscape of women’s reproductive health in America.  

Going forward, abortion rights will be determined by states, unless Congress acts.  Already, nearly half of the states have or will pass laws that ban abortion while others have enacted strict measures regulating the procedure.  

The vote was 5-3-1. In a joint dissenting opinion, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan heavily criticized the majority, closing: “With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent.”

The opinion represents the culmination of a decades-long effort on the part of critics of abortion seeking to return more power to the states.  It was made possible by a solid six-member conservative majority — including three of Donald Trump’s nominees.  

At least 21 states have laws or constitutional amendments already in place that would make them certain to attempt to ban abortion as quickly as possible, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion rights. And an additional four states are likely to ban abortions as soon as possible without federal protections.
Chief Justice John Roberts did not join the majority, writing in a concurring opinion that he would not have overturned Roe but instead would have only uphold Mississippi’s law banning abortions after 15 weeks.

Political response is swift

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the ruling “such an insult, a slap in the face to women.”

“There’s no point in saying good morning, because it certainly is not one,” she said. “This morning the radical Supreme Court is eviscerating women’s rights and endangering their health and safety.”

“Today the Republican-controlled courts achieve their dark, extreme goal of repealing a woman’s right to make their own health decisions.”

Former President Barack Obama criticized the decision, saying the high court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent but it “relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues — attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence praised the ruling, saying the high court has given the “American people a new beginning for life” and commended the justices in the majority “having the courage of their convictions.”

“Now that Roe v. Wade has been consigned to the ash heap of history, a new arena in the cause of life has emerged, and it is incumbent on all who cherish the sanctity of life to resolve that we will take the defense of the unborn and the support for women in crisis pregnancy centers to every state in America,” Pence added.

Similar to leaked draft

The final opinion was strikingly similar to the draft written by Alito that was leaked earlier this year. It repeats his scornful language towards the original Roe v. Wade decision that enshrined abortion rights.

Like the draft opinion, Alito included a list of cases that also rested on a right to privacy, as Alito asserted that Roe was distinct from those cases.

“What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both those decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call ‘potential life’ and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an ‘unborn human being,'” Alito wrote, in a line that was also present in the draft.

What’s new is Alito’s response to the dissent, jointly written by the three liberal justices. The dissent would not have been written at the time that the leaked draft was circulated around the court.

“The dissent is very candid that it cannot show that a constitutional right to abortion has any foundation, let alone a ‘deeply rooted’ one, ‘in this Nation’s history and tradition.'” Alito wrote. “The dissent does not identify any pre-Roe authority that supports such a right — no state constitutional provision or statute, no federal or state judicial precedent, not even a scholarly treatise.”

In that four-page section, Alito said that the dissent’s failure “engage with this long tradition is devastating to its position.”

Dissent points to potential impact on women

The dissenters said women’s rights are under attack.

“Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”

Friday’s opinion, the dissent said, “says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of.”

“Across a vast array of circumstances, a State will be able to impose its moral choice on a woman and coerce her to give birth to a child,” the liberal justices added.

The dissent also stressed how the decision will impact poor women who now will have to travel in order to obtain the procedure. “Above all others, women lacking financial resources will suffer from today’s decision.”

The dissent also lashed out at Justice Brett Kavanaugh for suggesting that the decision simply returns the abortion question to the states. As the three liberal Justices wrote, “no language in today’s decision stops the Federal Government from prohibiting abortions nationwide, once again from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest. If that happens,” they explained, throwing Kavanaugh’s words back at him, “‘the views of [an individual State’s] citizens’ will not matter. The challenge for a woman will be to finance a trip not to ‘New York [or] California’ but to Toronto.”

Challenge brought by Mississippi

Championed by supporters of abortion and long reviled by critics, Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 establishing a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability which most experts say occurs now at around 23-24 weeks of pregnancy. The decision was reaffirmed in 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

A majority of the court in that case replaced Roe’s framework with a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions. The court said that a regulation cannot place an “undue burden” on the right to abortion which is defined as a “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”  

Before the court was Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, passed in 2018 but blocked by two federal courts, which allows abortion after 15 weeks “only in medical emergencies or for severe fetal abnormality” and has no exception for rape or incest. A district court blocked the law, holding that it is in direct violation of Supreme Court precedent legalizing abortion nationwide prior to viability, which can occur at around 23-24 weeks of pregnancy. 

A panel of judges on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the district court holding that in an “unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability.” The court said states may “regulate abortion procedures prior to viability” so long as they do not ban abortion. “The law at issue is a ban,” the court held. 

Mississippi appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, and after the justices agreed to hear the case, the state raised the stakes and argued that the justices should not only uphold the law but also invalidate Roe and Casey. 

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart was blunt at oral arguments.  

“Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood versus Casey haunt our country,” Stewart said. “They have no basis in the Constitution. They have no home in our history or traditions. They’ve damaged the democratic process. They poison the law. They’ve choked off compromise. For 50 years they’ve kept this court at the center of a political battle that it can never resolve and 50 years on, they stand alone. Nowhere else does this court recognize a right to end a human life.” 

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued on behalf of the Biden administration in support of the clinics. She urged the justices to uphold precedent and avoid a ruling that would disproportionally harm women who have come to depend upon the decision. 

“For a half century, this Court has correctly recognized that the Constitution protects a woman’s fundamental right to decide whether to end a pregnancy before viability,” she argued. “That guarantee, that the state cannot force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth, has engendered substantial individual and societal reliance. The real-world effects of overruling Roe and Casey would be severe and swift.” 

She added: “The court has never revoked a right that is so fundamental to so many Americans and so central to their ability to participate fully and equally in society.

Julie Rikelman, a lawyer for Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only licensed abortion clinic in Mississippi and Sacheen Carr-Ellis, the clinic’s medical director, told the justices that Mississippi’s ban on abortion “two months before viability” is “flatly unconstitutional under decades of precedent.”  

Public opposed to overturning Roe

A broad majority of Americans did not want to see Roe vs. Wade overturned, polling taken before the Supreme Court’s decision shows.

In a May CNN poll conducted immediately after the leak of the draft opinion, Americans said, 66% to 34%, that they did not want the Supreme Court to completely overturn its decision. In CNN’s polling dating back to 1989, the share of the public in favor of completely overturning Roe has never risen above 36%.

In the CNN poll, 58% of US adults said that, if Roe were overturned, they’d want their state to set abortion laws that were more permissive than restrictive. About half (51%) said they’d like to see their state become a safe haven for women who wanted abortions but couldn’t get them where they lived.

But not everyone was aware in advance how their own state would be affected. Of Americans living in states with trigger laws to immediately ban abortion after the overturn of Roe, only 45% realized that was the case, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in May. Another 42% living in those states were unsure what the impact of the ruling would be where they live.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.

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US

Roe v. Wade overturned by Supreme Court, ending federal abortion rights

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The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973.

The court’s controversial but expected ruling gives individual states the power to set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe, which for nearly half a century had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, which is related to a highly restrictivenew Mississippi abortion law.

Other states plan to maintain more liberal rules governing the termination of pregnancies.

Justice Samuel Alito, as expected, wrote the majority opinion that tossed out Roe as well as a 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights in a case known as Planned Parenthood v. Caseys. He was joined in that judgment by the five other conservatives on the high court, including Chief Justice John Roberts.

The court’s three liberal justices filed a dissenting opinion to the ruling, which quickly drew protestors to the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote.

“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Alito wrote.

“That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote.

In their joint dissent, the courts liberal justices blasted the majority for a decision that “says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of.”

“A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs,” the dissent said.

“An abortion restriction, the majority holds, is permissible whenever rational, the lowest level of scrutiny known to the law. And because, as the Court has often stated, protecting fetal life is rational, States will feel free to enact all manner of restrictions.”

Pro life protestors march in front of the Supreme Court building amid the ruling that could overturn Roe v. Wade on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images

The case that triggered Roe’s demise after nearly a half-century, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is related to a Mississippi law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Dobbs was by far the most significant and controversial dispute of the court’s term. It also posed the most serious threat to abortion rights since Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe.

Dobbs deepened partisan divisions in a period of already intense political tribalism.

The early May leak of a draft of the majority opinion, which completely overturned Roe, sent shockwaves across the country and galvanized activists on both sides of the debate. It also cast a pall over the nation’s highest court, which immediately opened an investigation to find the source of the leak.

The publication of the court’s draft opinion, written by Alito, sparked protests from abortion-rights supporters, who were outraged and fearful about how the decision will impact both patients and providers as 22 states gear up to restrict abortions or ban them outright.

The leaked opinion marked a major victory for conservatives and anti-abortion advocates who had worked for decades to undermine Roe and Casey, which the majority of Americans support keeping in place.

But Republican lawmakers in Washington, who are hoping to win big in the November midterm elections, initially focused more on the leak itself than on what it revealed. They also decried the protests that formed outside the homes of some conservative justices, accusing activists of trying to intimidate the court.

The unprecedented leak of Alito’s draft opinion blew a hole in the cloak of secrecy normally shrouding the court’s internal affairs. It drew harsh scrutiny from the court’s critics, many of whom were already concerned about the politicization of the country’s most powerful deliberative body, where justices are appointed for life.

Roberts vowed that the work of the court “will not be affected in any way” by the leak, which he described as a “betrayal” intended to “undermine the integrity of our operations.”

The leak had clearly had an impact, however. Tall fencing was set up around the court building afterward, and Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the U.S. Marshals Service to “help ensure the Justices’ safety.”

Alito, in his first reported remarks since the leak, spoke remotely from the court building to a crowd attending a forum at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, rather than make the six-mile journey to the school. The Washington Post reported that, when asked during that event how he and the other justices are holding up, Alito replied, “This is a subject I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about today regarding, you know — given all the circumstances.”

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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Business

5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday, June 24

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Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:

1. Wall Street heads for its first weekly advance in the past four

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., June 22, 2022. 

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

2. Powell vows ‘unconditional’ measures to fight decades-high inflation

Powell testified before the House Committee on Financial Services on monetary policy and the state of the U.S. economy.

Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images

In Day 2 of his semiannual economic testimony on Capitol Hill, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee that the central bank’s commitment to reining in 40-year-high inflation is “unconditional.” A day earlier, on Wednesday, Powell told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that the Fed was not trying to provoke a recession but that one was “certainly a possibility.” Last week, monetary policymakers hiked rates by 75 basis points and signaled another increase of 50 to 75 basis points at their July meeting.

3. FedEx reports mixed quarter results as ground unit margin improved

A driver for an independent contractor to FedEx Corp. carries packages for delivery during Cyber Monday in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York, U.S., on Monday, Nov. 29, 2021.

Angus Mordant | Bloomberg | Getty Images

FedEx shares turned lower in Friday’s premarket, the morning after the delivery giant reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter profit but missed on revenue. Adjusted earnings of $6.87 per share beat estimates by a penny. Revenue grew 8% to $24.4 billion, lower than expectations of $24.56 billion. Shipment volumes declined, but that was offset by increased shipping rates and fuel surcharges. FedEx’s closely watched ground unit margin improved, but it has lagged United Parcel Service, whose new CEO adopted a “better not bigger” mantra two years ago. FedEx issued upbeat guidance for fiscal 2023.

4. Zendesk surges on reports that it’s nearing a deal to sell itself

Zendesk co-founder and CEO Mikkel Svane

Eric Piermont | AFP | Getty Images

Zendesk shares surged more than 50% in the premarket on reports that the customer service software vendor was close to a buyout deal with a group of private equity firms. The Wall Street Journal reported that Hellman & Friedman and Permira are among those involved. The potential buyout comes after Zendesk announced last week that it had ended efforts to sell itself. The San Francisco-based firm has been under pressure from activist investor Jana Partners. The Journal said it’s unclear where Zendesk’s discussions with Jana stand.

5. Bill designed to prevent gun violence is headed for House, then Biden

Demonstrators attend a rally with senators outside the U.S. Capitol to demand the Senate take action on gun safety on Thursday, May 26, 2022, in the wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Texas.

Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

A bipartisan bill designed to prevent gun violence that passed the Senate on Thursday night goes to the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised a vote Friday to send the most sweeping firearms measure in decades to President Joe Biden for his signature. The legislation, which seemed unimaginable a month ago, got 15 Republican votes in the Senate, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The May 24 massacre at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school galvanized both sides of the aisle to try to prevent this from happening again.

— CNBC’s Peter Schacknow, Jesse Pound, Sarah Min and Tanaya Macheel as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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5 takeaways from the fifth day of January 6 hearings

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The hearing kicked off mere hours after federal investigators raided the home of Jeffrey Clark, who was one of the key Justice Department figures who was involved in Trump’s schemes. He has denied any wrongdoing related to January 6.

Here are takeaways from Thursday’s hearing.

Thursday’s hearing underscored the role that Trump’s Republican allies in Congress played in furthering his efforts to try to overturn the election — and how many of them sought pardons after January 6.

The House select committee in particular zeroed in on the efforts of Rep. Scott Perry, the Pennsylvania Republican who connected Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark to the White House in December 2020.

CNN has previously reported on the role that Perry played, and the committee in court filings released text messages Perry exchanged with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about Clark.

“He wanted Mr. Clark — Mr. Jeff Clark to take over the Department of Justice,” Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Meadows aide, said about Perry in a clip of her deposition that was played at Thursday’s hearing.

The committee also unveiled new details about Republican members of Congress seeking pardons after January 6, including Perry and Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Matt Gaetz of Florida.

“President Trump asked me to send you this letter. This letter is also pursuant to a request from Matt Gaetz,” said an email Brooks sent to the White House in January 2021, according to the committee. “As such, I recommend that president give general (all purpose) pardons to the following groups of people.”

The email included a group of the names of “every congressman and senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania.”

Thursday’s hearing was led by Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who has largely been ostracized by the Republican conference for his role on the January 6 committee.

“My colleagues up here also take an oath. Some of them failed to uphold theirs and instead chose to spread the big lie,” Kinzinger said before discussing pardons.

Kinzinger is retiring at the end of his term.

Inside a December 2020 Oval Office meeting

The hearing brought to life a high-stakes Oval Office meeting in December 2020, where Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and installing Clark, who was willing to use the powers of federal law enforcement to encourage state lawmakers to overturn Trump’s loss.
Going into these summer hearings, we already knew a lot about the meeting. But on Thursday, for the first time, we heard live testimony from some of the Justice Department officials who were in the room, including Rosen, the then-acting attorney general. (He survived the meeting, after Trump was told that there would be mass resignations at the Justice Department if he replaced Rosen with Clark.)

Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Clark was repeatedly “clobbered over the head” during the meeting. He told the committee that he called Clark a “f—ing a–hole” and said his plans would’ve been illegal. He also said Clark’s plan to send letters to battleground states was “nuts.”

In videotaped testimony that was played Thursday, Donoghue said he eviscerated Clark’s credentials during the meeting, explaining that Clark was woefully underqualified to serve as attorney general.

“You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill,” Donoghue said in the deposition, describing what he told Clark at the White House meeting.

Donoghue said then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called Clark’s plan a “murder-suicide pact.”

Donoghue himself described Clark’s plan as “impossible” and “absurd.”

“It’s never going to happen,” Donoghue said of the plan. “And it’s going to fail.”

Thanks to the pushback from Rosen, Donoghue, Herschmann, Cipollone, and perhaps others, Trump didn’t follow through with his plan, which would’ve put the country in uncharted waters, and would have increased the chances of Trump successfully pulling off his coup attempt.

Italian satellites and seizing voting machines: White House pushes conspiracy theory

The three witnesses who testified Thursday made clear that Trump had attempted to use all the levers of the federal government to help validate his claim that the election was stolen and ultimately overturn the legitimate outcome in the lead-up to January 6.

They described how top officials at the highest levels of government had been pushed to investigate conspiracy theories that originated from fringe corners of the internet as Trump sought to validate what were ultimately baseless claims about widespread voter fraud.

Then-Secretary of Defense Chris Miller even contacted a counterpart in Rome, at the White House’s request, to investigate a conspiracy theory that Italian satellites had changed votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

The conspiracy theory, which CNN has previously reported was among those that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pushed top national security officials to investigate, was characterized as “pure insanity” by former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue, who was also asked to look into the claim.

The former Justice Department officials also detailed how Trump himself had urged them and senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines from state governments in pursuit of the same — all without cause for taking such an unprecedented step.

“Why don’t you guys just seize machines?” Trump said during a White House meeting in late December 2020, according to testimony from Donoghue.

Using the Justice Department, or any other federal agency, to seize voting machines would have been an unprecedented step but Trump made clear that he wanted his allies to pursue it as an option.

“Get Ken Cuccinelli on the phone,” Trump yelled to his secretary after Justice Department officials told him that DHS had expertise in voting machines and determined there was nothing to warrant seizing them, according to Rosen.

Rosen confirmed Thursday he had never told Trump that DHS could seize voting machines. CNN has previously reported that Trump pushed the Justice Department and DHS to seize voting machines.

CNN has also previously reported that Trump allies had drafted executive orders that would have had the military and DHS seize voting machines had they been signed by Trump — but they ultimately were not.

A toned-down hearing featured vivid description of Trump’s pressure campaign

Thursday’s proceedings featured testimony from three lawyers who described behind-the-scenes happenings at the Justice Department and White House. It was a departure from Tuesday’s and earlier hearings, which featured emotional testimony from election workers, and included jarring video montages of the carnage at the Capitol.

But even if there weren’t rhetorical fireworks, the substance of the testimony was essential to understanding the breadth of Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election. The former Justice Department officials described what they saw and heard as Trump tried to enlist them to help him stay in power — and how he tried to oust them when they refused to do his bidding.

The material was dense at times. The witnesses reconstructed White House meetings and phone calls with Trump. They were asked to dissect their handwritten notes of some of these interactions — which is something you more often see at criminal trials, and less commonly at a congressional hearing.

Still, the witnesses’ steady testimony shed new light on events that we’ve known about for more than a year. And the entire hearing evoked memories of the Nixon era, because it was all about how a sitting president tried to weaponize the powers of federal law enforcement to help his political campaign.

Shocking raid of Clark home preceded hearing

The raid by federal investigators of Clark’s northern Virginia home preceded the revelations of Clark’s 2020 actions at the hearing. Lawmakers were caught off guard, but for the first time in a while, it seemed like federal investigators may have been heeding their public calls to finally take some action.

The raid occurred on Wednesday but was reported on Thursday morning. It’s unclear which government entity was behind the raid, and it’s not publicly known what triggered the search of his home, or what investigators were looking for.

Even with these unanswered questions, it’s significant that federal investigators took such an overt step — raiding Clark’s home — against one of the most prominent figures in Trump’s post-elections schemes.

The committee was hoping to turn Clark into a household name Thursday, by eliciting testimony from top Justice Department officials about how he tried to abuse law enforcement powers to help Trump overturn the 2020 results in states that he lost. With the raid, it looks like the committee got its wish.

This story has been updated with additional developments Thursday.

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Supreme Court gun decision: What to know and what’s next

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has issued its biggest gun rights ruling in more than a decade. Here are some questions and answers about what the Thursday decision does and does not do:

WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE SUPREME COURT RULING ON GUNS?

The Supreme Court said that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. That’s important because about half a dozen states have conditioned getting a license to carry a gun in public on the person demonstrating an actual need — sometimes called “good cause” or “proper cause” — to carry the weapon. That limits who can carry a weapon in those states.

In its decision, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s “proper cause” requirement, but other states’ laws are expected to face quick challenges. About one-quarter of the U.S. population lives in states expected to be affected by the ruling.

The last time the court issued major gun decisions was in 2008 and 2010. In those decisions the justices established a nationwide right to keep a gun for self-defense in a person’s home. The question for the court this time was just about carrying a gun outside the home.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s majority opinion that the right extended outside the home as well: “Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms.”

HOW DID THE JUSTICES RULE?

The gun ruling split the court 6-3, with the court’s conservative justices in the majority and its liberals in dissent. In addition to Thomas, the majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The court’s three liberals who dissented are justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

ARE NEW YORKERS NOW FREE TO CARRY A GUN IN PUBLIC?

Not exactly. The justices didn’t touch other parts of New York’s gun law, so other requirements to get a license remain. The court made it clear that the state can continue to make people apply for a license to carry a handgun, and can put limitations on who qualifies for a permit and where a weapon can be carried. In the future, however, New Yorkers will no longer be required to give a specific reason why they want to be able to carry a gun in public.

The decision also doesn’t take effect immediately and state lawmakers said Thursday that they were planning to overhaul the licensing rules this summer. They have yet to detail their plans. Some options under discussion include requiring firearms training and a clean criminal record. The state might also prohibit handguns from being carried in certain places, like near schools or on public transit.

In addition, the decision does not address the law that recently passed in New York in response to the Buffalo grocery store massacre that among things, banned anyone under age 21 from buying or possessing a semi-automatic rifle.

WHAT OTHER STATES ARE LIKELY TO BE IMPACTED?

A handful of states have laws similar to New York’s. The Biden administration has counted California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island as all having laws similar to New York’s. Connecticut and Delaware are also sometimes mentioned as states with similar laws.

WHAT CAN STATES DO TO REGULATE GUNS AFTER THE DECISION?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, noted the limits of the decision. States can still require people to get a license to carry a gun, Kavanaugh wrote, and condition that license on “fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements.” Gun control groups said states could revisit and perhaps increase those requirements. States can also say those with a license to carry a gun must not do so openly but must conceal their weapon.

Justice Samuel Alito noted that the decision said “nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun.” States have long prohibited felons and the mentally ill from possessing weapons, for example. The decision also said nothing “about the kinds of weapons that people may possess,” Alito noted, so states might also try to limit the availability of specific weapons.

The justices also suggested that states can prohibit the carrying of guns altogether in certain “sensitive places.” A previous Supreme Court decision mentioned schools and government buildings as being places where guns could be off limits. Thomas said that the historical record shows legislative assemblies, polling places and courthouses could also be sensitive places. Thomas said courts can “use analogies to those historical regulations of ‘sensitive places’ to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.”

HOW DO COURTS ASSESS GUN RESTRICTIONS GOING FORWARD?

The court made it harder to justify gun restrictions, although it’s hard to know what the new test the court announced will mean for any specific regulation.

Thomas wrote that the nation’s appeals courts have been applying an incorrect standard for assessing whether such laws are impermissible. Courts have generally taken a two-step approach, first looking at the constitutional text and history to see whether a regulation comes under the Second Amendment and then, if it does, looking at the government’s justification for the restriction.

“Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many,” Thomas wrote.

From now on, Thomas wrote, courts can uphold regulations only if the government can prove that they fall within traditionally accepted limits.

Among state and local restrictions already being challenged in federal court are bans on the sale of certain semi-automatic weapons, called assault rifles by opponents, and large-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as minimum age requirements to buy semi-automatic firearms.

WHAT OTHER BIG RULINGS ARE IN THE WORKS?

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the guns case back in November and a decision had been expected before the court begins its summer recess. The court has nine more opinions to issue before it goes on break and plans to release more Friday. Still waiting is a major abortion decision.

___

Associated Press editor David Caruso contributed to this report from New York.

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Gun safety bill: Senate passes first major federal gun safety legislation in decades

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The final vote was 65 to 33 with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in support of the measure, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious policy issues in the country. The bill will next go to the House for a vote before it can be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

The bipartisan gun deal includes millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs and incentives for states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The package amounts to the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the expired 10-year assault weapons ban of 1994 — though it fails to ban any weapons and falls far short of what Democrats and polls show most Americans want to see.

There were a few dozen people in the Senate gallery ahead of the final vote. Senators had noted there were gun violence survivors, family members and groups in attendance to watch the historic vote in the chamber.

The vote on the federal gun safety bill came on the same day as the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun law enacted more than a century ago that places restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun outside the home.

The ruling highlights the conflicting political forces surrounding the issue at all levels of government, as the judicial branch implements the widest expansion of gun rights in a decade, happening right as the legislative branch appears on track to pass its most significant gun safety package in almost 30 years.

A critical vote that required GOP support

The gun safety bill had moved a step closer to passage in the Senate earlier in the day after a critical vote succeeded in advancing the measure with Republican support.

The vote was 65-34, with 15 GOP senators joining Democrats to break the filibuster. The same 15 GOP senators who voted to break the filibuster voted to approve the measure on final passage.

The GOP “yes” votes include all 10 Senate Republicans who signed on to an initial gun safety framework deal: John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Four of the 10 original Republican supporters are retiring this year: Blunt, Burr, Portman and Toomey.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who are in GOP leadership, also voted to break a filibuster on the bill.

Other noteworthy GOP votes include Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Todd Young of Indiana, who were not part of the 10 Republicans who initially signed on to support the framework and are up for reelection in November.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced late Thursday after the bill had passed the Senate that the House will take it up on Friday.

The legislation came together in the aftermath of recent, tragic mass shootings at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school and at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, which was in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

A bipartisan group of negotiators set to work in the Senate and unveiled legislative text on Tuesday. The bill — titled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — was released by Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Lawmakers were racing to pass the bill before leaving for the July 4 recess.

The fact that bill text was finalized, and the legislation now appears poised to pass the Senate, is a major victory for the negotiators who came together to strike a deal.

The bipartisan effort appeared to be on thin ice after several key sticking points emerged, but ultimately negotiators were able to resolve issues that arose. The deal marks a rare instance of compromise across party lines on one of the most contentious issues in Washington — a feat in today’s highly polarized political environment.

Reaching a bipartisan agreement on major gun legislation has been notoriously difficult for lawmakers in recent years even in the face of countless mass shootings across the country.

“For too long political games in Washington on both sides of the aisle have stopped progress towards protecting our communities and keeping families safe and secure,” Sinema said Wednesday in a Senate floor speech.

“Casting blame and trading political barbs and attacks became the path of least resistance, but the communities across our country who have experienced senseless violence deserve better than Washington politics as usual,” the Arizona Democrat said. “Our communities deserve a commitment by their leaders to do the hard work of putting aside politics, identifying problems that need solving, and working together towards common ground and common goals.”

Key provisions in the bill

The bill includes $750 million to help states implement and run crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs — which can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms through a court order — and for other crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.

This bill closes a years-old loophole in domestic violence law — the “boyfriend loophole” — that barred individuals who were convicted of domestic violence crimes against married partners, or partners with whom they shared children or partners with whom they cohabitated, from having guns. Old statutes didn’t include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children. Now, the law will bar from having a gun anyone who is convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone they have a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.”

The law isn’t retroactive. It will, however, allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes to restore their gun rights after five years if they haven’t committed other crimes.

The bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with grants as well as implements a new protocol for checking those records.

The bill goes after individuals who sell guns as primary sources of income but have previously evaded registering as federally licensed firearms dealers. It also increases funding for mental health programs and school security.

GOP divided over the bill

A split has emerged among some prominent members of House and Senate GOP leadership.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had said he supported the bipartisan gun deal. But top House Republican leaders have been lining up in opposition to the bill and are urging their members to vote “no,” even as the Senate moves toward passage of the bill this week.

But even with House GOP leaders opposing the bill, there are already some House Republicans who have indicated they plan to vote for it, and the Democrat-controlled chamber is expected to be able to pass the legislation once it passes in the Senate.

“While more is needed, this package must quickly become law to help protect our children,” Pelosi said in a statement.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Thursday.

CNN’s Daniella Diaz and Tierney Sneed contributed.

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Trump’s allies claim they were assured editorial input before filmmaker was subpoenaed

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Multiple people said they had been told the documentary was focused on Trump’s legacy and would be a flattering portrayal.

But 17 months later, that filmmaker, Alex Holder, has been subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection, and turned over hours of his footage. That has made some in the former President’s orbit nervous, they told CNN, mainly because several don’t recall the full extent of their comments.

An attorney for Holder denies that the Trumps were granted editorial control over the final product.

”The Trumps did not request, and were not granted, any editorial control over the series. To the contrary, Alex Holder said at the outset that he would have full editorial control. The Trumps also did not request any contractual right of control, or even review, so there is none,” Russell Smith said in a statement provided to CNN.

Holder’s “Unprecedented” three-part docuseries about the 2020 election will be released on Discovery Plus, which is owned by CNN’s parent company, later this summer. The documentary includes never-before-seen footage of the Trump family on the campaign trail and their reactions to the outcome of the election.

The then-President’s children sat for multiple interviews with the British filmmaker, who was there in the final weeks of Trump’s time in office. Ivanka Trump did three interviews, her husband, Jared Kushner, was interviewed twice and Eric Trump was interviewed twice, Holder told CNN. Donald Trump Jr. was interviewed once for an hour, but an attempt at a second interview with him did not come to fruition.

Several of the interviews, including with Ivanka Trump, were conducted after Trump had lost the election but as he was still contesting it. Most of Ivanka Trump’s interview focused on her relationship with her father, in addition to a public comment about the ongoing legal challenges over the election. Trump Jr. sat down with Holder about three weeks before the election, another source said.

Now there is some concern among certain figures about what was said on camera given hours of footage have been turned over. One former aide downplayed the likelihood anything relevant to the committee was said.

A person familiar with the matter said the interviews were orchestrated by Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East peace envoy who left the administration in 2019 but remained in close touch with top officials. Greenblatt has not responded to CNN’s request for comment.

Holder sat for a deposition with the committee Thursday morning behind closed doors.

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Paul Clement wins Second Amendment case at Supreme Court, leaves law firm

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Hours later, he was no longer at his law firm.

After the Supreme Court ruled, Clement’s now-former law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, announced in a news release that it will “no longer represent clients with respect to matters involving the interpretation of the Second Amendment.”

The news will come as a surprise to the insular world of appellate litigation, where Clement is considered one of the best Supreme Court advocates in the country and Kirkland is a top law firm and breeding ground for appellate lawyers.

In a statement, Clement and Murphy said they’re starting a new firm.

“In light of Kirkland & Ellis’ announcement that the firm will no longer handle cases implicating the Second Amendment, including ongoing representations of individual plaintiffs we have maintained for years, we have decided to leave the firm and establish our own firm where we will continue to serve the full range of our diverse clients,” Murphy said.

“We do not take this step lightly. Kirkland is a storied firm, and we have many friends and valued colleagues there,” said Clement. “Unfortunately, we were given a stark choice: either withdraw from ongoing representations or withdraw from the firm.”

He added: “We could not abandon ongoing representations just because a client’s position is unpopular in some circles.”

A source with knowledge said that several partners at the firm had expressed discomfort with continuing representations of Second Amendment-related cases following the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre. In the last few days it became apparent that the break was irreparable and that Clement and Murphy would leave out of loyalty to their clients.

Thursday evening, Clement and Murphy called out their former employer as “the law firm that got tired of winning” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“Many businesses drop clients or change suppliers as convenience dictates. To others, the firm’s decision will seem like one more instance of acceding to the demands of the woke,” they wrote. “But law firms aren’t supposed to operate like ordinary businesses. Lawyers owe a duty of loyalty to their clients.”

Kirkland & Ellis described the two lawyers as “valued colleagues.”

“We wish them the best of luck in the future and we look forward to collaborating with them in the future in matters not involving the Second Amendment,” said Jon A. Ballis, chairman of Kirkland’s Executive Committee.

The petitioners in the case resolved Thursday were Robert Nash, Brandon Koch and the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association — an NRA affiliate.  

Nash and Koch had passed the required background checks and obtained licenses to carry guns for hunting and target practice, but they had not been able to establish a special need for self-defense that is required under the New York state law to receive an unrestricted license. 

Clement said at oral arguments last year that the law makes it almost impossible for an ordinary individual to obtain a license because the “proper cause” standard is so demanding and is left to the “broad discretion” of the licensing officer. 

“Good, even impeccable, moral character plus a simple desire to exercise a fundamental right is,” Clement said, “not sufficient.” “Nor is living or being employed in a high crime area.”  

CNN’s Dan Berman contributed to this report.

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Jan. 6 hearing to spotlight Trump’s pressure on DOJ and plan to replace attorney general

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White House lawyer says he told Clark the plan to overturn the election would be a ‘felony’

Former White House senior advisor Eric Herschmann told the committee that when Clark told him about his plans to challenge the election results, Herschmann told him he would be committing a crime.

“Congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you’d take as attorney general would be committing a felony and violating Rule 6C. You’re clearly the right candidate for the job,” Herschmann said he told Clark.

— Kevin Breuninger

Barr says he shudders to think what would have happened to U.S. if he didn’t push back on Trump election fraud claims

Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr is seen on video during his deposition for the public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022. 

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, told the committee that he was glad to have been in the position to be able to say that he “didn’t think there was fraud” in the 2020 election.

That “was really important to moving things forward,” Barr told investigators in an interview clip that played during the hearing.

He said he shudders to think of what would have happened had DOJ not conducted its own investigation. “I’m not sure we would have had a transition at all,” he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Clark letter to Georgia legislature described as ‘murder-suicide pact’

A video former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue speaking is shown on a screen during the fifth public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 23, 2022. 

Jim Bourg | Reuters

Clark co-wrote a December 2020 letter he planned to send to Georgia’s legislature, claiming that the DOJ found “significant concerns” that may have affected the election outcome.

The letter’s claims were a “lie,” Cheney said after displaying a screenshot of the letter. Clark had no evidence of widespread election fraud that could have tipped the outcome of the race, but he knew what Trump wanted him to do, Cheney said.

Had the letter been released on DOJ letterhead, “it would have falsely informed all Americans … that President Trump’s election fraud allegations were likely very real,” Cheney said.

Former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue said White House counsel Pat Cipollone told him: “You know, that letter that this guy wants to send, that letter is a murder-suicide pact, it’s going to damage everyone who touches it.”

— Kevin Breuninger

‘There is much more to come’ from Jan. 6 probe, Cheney says

Committee Vice Chair U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) gives her opening statement during the public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the committee has much more evidence to reveal in its investigation into the Capitol riot.

“Our committee has just begun to show America the evidence that we have gathered,” Cheney said in her opening remarks.

“There is much more to come, both in our hearings and in our report,” Cheney said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump wanted DOJ to ‘help legitimize his lies,’ Thompson says

Former President Donald Trump appears on screen during the fourth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Trump wanted the Department of Justice to actively aid in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, Thompson said at the start of the hearing.

“Trump didn’t just want the Justice Department to investigate. He wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his election lies. To baselessly call the election corrupt. To appoint a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud. To send a letter to six state legislatures urging them to consider altering the election results,” Thompson said.

When these efforts failed, Trump sought to replace then-acting Attorney General Rosen with Clark, he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Federal agents reportedly searched home of Jeffrey Clark, ex-DOJ official tied to Trump’s election efforts

Jeff Clark, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, September 14, 2020.

Susan Walsh | AFP | Getty Images

Federal agents on Wednesday morning searched the Virginia residence of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, multiple news outlets reported.

Clark, a former environmental lawyer at the Justice Department, played a public role in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The committee plans to examine his involvement during its hearing Thursday afternoon. The panel plans to show how Trump wanted to install Clark as acting attorney general as part of his plan to overturn Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

ABC News, which reported earlier Thursday the activity at Clark’s Lorton, Virginia, home, cited a neighbor who said they saw FBI agents entering and exiting the residence.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., told NBC News that it “can confirm there was law enforcement activity in that area yesterday.” The spokesperson declined to provide further detail.

Spokespeople for the DOJ, FBI, and select committee did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment on the reported search.

— Kevin Breuninger

Hearing will look at Trump’s presidential pardons, chairman said

US Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot speaks during a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 13, 2022.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said late Wednesday that the fifth public hearing will include “some conversations about pardons.”

Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., noted in a prior hearing that “multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.”

She called out Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., who allegedly tried to get pro-Trump DOJ official Clark installed as acting attorney general, and has refused to testify before the committee.

Thompson on Wednesday night declined to name any other pardon-seeking lawmakers. “You must come to the hearing,” he told reporters.

Thompson also said the committee may hold more than the seven hearings that were originally announced. “We can do eight, nine or ten. A lot just depends on what we come up with,” he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

GOP Rep. Kinzinger details death threats against him and his family

U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) participates at the opening public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the select committee, said that threats and harassment targeted at him, his family and other members of the panel are “constant” and have been increasing.

Kinzinger on Sunday posted a screenshot on Twitter showing a handwritten death threat, which the congressman said was “Addressed to my wife, sent to my home, threatening the life of my family.”

“The Darkness is spreading courtesy of cowardly leaders fearful of truth,” Kinzinger tweeted.

Kinzinger told CNN on Wednesday that he received another message “last night, threatening execution,” saying that it now seems to be “the normal thing.”

The congressman’s participation in the Jan. 6 investigation and regular criticism of Trump have made him a pariah among many Republicans. He said he shared the death threat to point out the “depravity” swirling around the politically charged probe, decrying “that there are people that literally would come up with this idea of killing a five-month-old because you disagree with me being on the January 6 committee.”

“We have security, we’ve amped up our security posture,” Kinzinger said. “We’re going to move on, and it’s not going to hinder us and it’s not going to intimidate us.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Committee has pushed back several hearings

This afternoon’s hearing on the DOJ was originally scheduled for last week, but it was postponed without a clear explanation.

On Wednesday, the committee announced that it was also pushing back its final two public hearings from June to July.

Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., suggested Wednesday that new evidence received by the committee prompted the scheduling changes. A select committee aide told CNBC that the panel “continues to receive additional evidence relevant to our investigation” into the Capitol riot, and that it will announce dates and times for the final hearings “soon.”

That new evidence reportedly includes never-before-seen documentary footage from a filmmaker who had access to Trump and his family before and after the riot. The investigators also continue to seek cooperation from key witnesses, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

— Kevin Breuninger

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