Politics

By Joseph Ax and Alexandra Ulmer

(Reuters) -This week’s testimony at congressional hearings on the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol assault portrayed an enraged Donald Trump throwing food against a White House wall, voicing support for threats against his vice president, and dismissing the news that some of his supporters had come armed with rifles.

Democrats hope the revelations will remind voters why they didn’t reelect the former president in 2020. But the biggest political beneficiary may be Trump’s fellow Republican, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his top potential rival for the 2024 presidential nomination.

Neither Trump nor DeSantis has yet declared a 2024 run for the White House, the first nominating contests are more than 18 months away, and the nation still needs to get through the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years. Trump has proven remarkably resistant to political damage and remains his party’s most popular figure.

But still, there are signs that DeSantis’ star is rising.

Dan Eberhart, a prominent Republican donor, estimated three-quarters of roughly 150 fellow donors with whom he regularly interacts backed Trump six months ago, with a quarter going for DeSantis. Now, the balance has shifted: about two-thirds want DeSantis as the 2024 nominee.

“The donor class is ready for something new,” said Eberhart, who supports both politicians but says he’s much more excited about DeSantis. “And DeSantis feels more fresh and more calibrated than Trump. He’s easier to defend, he’s less likely to embarrass, and he’s got the momentum.”

DeSantis has emerged as a fundraising giant, with a political war chest similar to Trump’s in size. He has raised more than $120 million since winning office in 2018, with recent financial disclosures showing his political accounts had over $110 million in cash in mid-June, with a November reelection campaign ahead.

By comparison, Trump’s Save America group – his main political committee – had just over $100 million in cash at the end of May, according to a federal disclosure.

Should DeSantis run for president, federal election rules would bar him from transferring leftover gubernatorial race money to a presidential campaign. He could, however, refund donors and resolicit the money for a White House bid.

EASIER TO ‘INCH AWAY’

It remains to be seen whether the Jan. 6 hearings, which have presented evidence that Trump and his inner circle pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud they knew to be false, will mar Trump’s standing among his supporters. The twice-impeached Trump has defied conventional wisdom many times in the face of prior scandals.

In posts on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump lambasted a former White House aide who testified about his behavior on Jan. 6 and denied her most explosive allegations.

His reaction proved that he recognized how damaging the testimony was, said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist.

“It’s beneficial for anybody who’s looking at running for 2024,” Heye said. “This is making it easier for Republicans – candidate and voter – to inch away from Trump.”

An opinion poll released last week in the state of New Hampshire, traditionally the site of the first presidential primary, showed Trump and DeSantis in a statistical tie among likely Republican voters.

The University of New Hampshire poll found 39% supported DeSantis, with 37% backing Trump. That’s a dramatic swing from October, when Trump had double DeSantis’ support.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is weighing a 2024 campaign after breaking with Trump following the Capitol riot, was in a distant third at 9%.

There have been other signals suggesting Trump’s power over Republican voters is not absolute. He has seen mixed results for his most high-profile endorsements in key swing states during this year’s midterm elections.

Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich said Trump was in a “stronger position” than ever. “The American people remain hungry for his leadership,” Budowich said.

A DeSantis spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

DeSantis, 43, owes his political rise in part to Trump, who endorsed him for governor in 2018 when DeSantis was a relatively obscure congressman. Trump’s backing helped propel DeSantis to an upset victory in the Republican primary, and he edged out a scandal-damaged Democratic candidate, Andrew Gillum, that November.

After the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, DeSantis was aggressively skeptical on containment policies, relaxing restrictions on businesses and schools in defiance of federal guidelines and overruling local officials who sought to preserve mask mandates.

He has also enacted numerous conservative bills with the help of the Republican-controlled legislature, including an election “police force” dedicated to investigating voter fraud, new voting limits, and a ban on teachers discussing gender identity with young children – decried by critics as the “don’t say gay” law.

In an unprecedented move, he effectively took over the redistricting process from Republican lawmakers, vetoing their congressional map and substituting his own proposal that eliminated two majority-Black districts while delivering four additional seats to Republicans.

“He’s taking on every culture war fight that he can to demonstrate to the base that he’s a fighter,” Heye said.

(Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington, Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Rose Horowitch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in on Thursday as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, making history as the first Black woman on the nation’s top judicial body while joining it at a time when its conservative majority has been flexing its muscles in major rulings.

Jackson, 51, joins the liberal bloc of a court with a 6-3 conservative majority. Her swearing in as President Joe Biden’s replacement for retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer came six days after the court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade landmark that legalized abortion nationwide. Breyer, at 83 the court’s oldest member, officially retired on Thursday.

“With a full heart, I accept the solemn responsibility of supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States and administering justice without fear or favor,” Jackson said in a statement.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week found that a majority of Americans – 57% – holds a negative view of the court following the abortion ruling, a significant shift from earlier in the month when a narrow majority held a positive view.

Jackson is the 116th justice, sixth woman and third Black person to serve on the Supreme Court since its 1789 founding.

“I am glad for America,” Breyer said in a statement. “Ketanji will interpret the law wisely and fairly, helping that law to work better for the American people, whom it serves.”

Biden appointed Jackson last year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after she spent eight years as a federal district judge. At the time of the ceremony, Biden was flying back to Washington from a NATO summit in Madrid.

Like the three conservative justices appointed by the Democratic president’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump, Jackson is young enough to serve for decades in the lifetime job.

“I am pleased to welcome Justice Jackson to the court and to our common calling,” Chief Justice John Roberts said at the ceremony.

The Senate confirmed Jackson on a 53-47 vote on April 7, with three Republicans joining the Democrats in support of her. Jackson’s appointment does not shift the court’s ideological balance.

“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Jackson said at an April 8 event celebrating her confirmation. “But we’ve made it.”

Biden has aimed to bring more women and minorities and a wider range of backgrounds to the federal judiciary. Jackson’s appointment fulfilled a pledge Biden made during the 2020 presidential campaign to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court. With Jackson’s addition, the Supreme Court for the first time has four women on the bench.

Breyer in January announced his plans to retire, having served since being appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994. Jackson served as a clerk for Breyer early in her legal career.

The court issued its final two rulings of its current term on Thursday, including one powered by the conservative justices that put limits on the federal government’s authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.

Jackson joins a liberal bloc that has found itself outvoted in numerous major rulings this term, not only on abortion rights but on gun rights, expanding religious liberties and other matters.

Jackson will participate in arguments in cases for the first time when the court’s next term opens in October. One major case for the coming term gives the conservative justices an opportunity to end affirmative action policies used by colleges and universities in their admissions processes to increase their enrollment of Black and Hispanic students to achieve campus diversity.

(Reporting by Rose Horowitch; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

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By Joseph Ax and Alexandra Ulmer

(Reuters) – This week’s testimony at congressional hearings on the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol assault portrayed an enraged Donald Trump throwing food against a White House wall, voicing support for threats against his vice president, and dismissing the news that some of his supporters had come armed with rifles.

Democrats hope the revelations will remind voters why they didn’t reelect the former president in 2020. But the biggest political beneficiary may be Trump’s fellow Republican, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his top potential rival for the 2024 presidential nomination.

Neither Trump nor DeSantis has yet declared a 2024 run for the White House, the first nominating contests are more than 18 months away, and the nation still needs to get through the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years. Trump has proven remarkably resistant to political damage and remains his party’s most popular figure.

But still, there are signs that DeSantis’ star is rising.

Dan Eberhart, a prominent Republican donor, estimated three-quarters of roughly 150 fellow donors with whom he regularly interacts backed Trump six months ago, with a quarter going for DeSantis. Now, the balance has shifted: about two-thirds want DeSantis as the 2024 nominee.

“The donor class is ready for something new,” said Eberhart, who supports both politicians but says he’s much more excited about DeSantis. “And DeSantis feels more fresh and more calibrated than Trump. He’s easier to defend, he’s less likely to embarrass, and he’s got the momentum.”

DeSantis has emerged as a fundraising giant, with a political war chest similar to Trump’s in size. He has raised more than $120 million since winning office in 2018, with recent financial disclosures showing his political accounts had over $110 million in cash in mid-June, with a November reelection campaign ahead.

By comparison, Trump’s Save America group – his main political committee – had just over $100 million in cash at the end of May, according to a federal disclosure.

Should DeSantis run for president, federal election rules would bar him from transferring leftover gubernatorial race money to a presidential campaign. He could, however, refund donors and resolicit the money for a White House bid.

EASIER TO ‘INCH AWAY’

It remains to be seen whether the Jan. 6 hearings, which have presented evidence that Trump and his inner circle pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud they knew to be false, will mar Trump’s standing among his supporters. The twice-impeached Trump has defied conventional wisdom many times in the face of prior scandals.

In posts on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump lambasted a former White House aide who testified about his behavior on Jan. 6 and denied her most explosive allegations.

His reaction proved that he recognized how damaging the testimony was, said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist.

“It’s beneficial for anybody who’s looking at running for 2024,” Heye said. “This is making it easier for Republicans – candidate and voter – to inch away from Trump.”

An opinion poll released last week in the state of New Hampshire, traditionally the site of the first presidential primary, showed Trump and DeSantis in a statistical tie among likely Republican voters.

The University of New Hampshire poll found 39% supported DeSantis, with 37% backing Trump. That’s a dramatic swing from October, when Trump had double DeSantis’ support.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is weighing a 2024 campaign after breaking with Trump following the Capitol riot, was in a distant third at 9%.

There have been other signals suggesting Trump’s power over Republican voters is not absolute. He has seen mixed results for his most high-profile endorsements in key swing states during this year’s midterm elections.

Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich said Trump was in a “stronger position” than ever. “The American people remain hungry for his leadership,” Budowich said.

A DeSantis spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

DeSantis, 43, owes his political rise in part to Trump, who endorsed him for governor in 2018 when DeSantis was a relatively obscure congressman. Trump’s backing helped propel DeSantis to an upset victory in the Republican primary, and he edged out a scandal-damaged Democratic candidate, Andrew Gillum, that November.

After the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, DeSantis was aggressively skeptical on containment policies, relaxing restrictions on businesses and schools in defiance of federal guidelines and overruling local officials who sought to preserve mask mandates.

He has also enacted numerous conservative bills with the help of the Republican-controlled legislature, including an election “police force” dedicated to investigating voter fraud, new voting limits, and a ban on teachers discussing gender identity with young children – decried by critics as the “don’t say gay” law.

In an unprecedented move, he effectively took over the redistricting process from Republican lawmakers, vetoing their congressional map and substituting his own proposal that eliminated two majority-Black districts while delivering four additional seats to Republicans.

“He’s taking on every culture war fight that he can to demonstrate to the base that he’s a fighter,” Heye said.

(Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington, Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House is unlikely to take up the bold steps to protect women’s right to have an abortion that Democratic lawmakers have called for in recent days, interviews with officials show.

In a speech after the rollback of the Roe vs. Wade decision on Friday, President Joe Biden slammed the “extreme ideology” of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, but said then there are few things he could do by executive order to protect women’s reproductive rights.

Since then, lawmakers including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have suggested Biden limit the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction or expand its membership, end the legislative “filibuster” rule, build abortion clinics on federal lands, declare a national emergency and establish Planned Parenthood outposts outside U.S. national parks, among other options.

More than 30 Senate Democrats signed a letter to Biden, urging him to ‘fight back,” take “bold action” and “lead a national response to this devastating decision” after the court overturned the right to abortion.

But the White House is pursuing a more limited set of policy responses while urging voters and Congress to act. The White House’s plans include a range of executive actions in the coming days, as well as promising to protect women who cross state lines for abortions and support for medical abortion.

Biden and officials are concerned that more radical moves would be politically polarizing ahead of November’s midterm elections, undermine public trust in institutions like the Supreme Court or lack strong legal footing, sources inside and outside the White House say.

Biden is “telling people the truth and putting the focus where it needs to be, holding Republicans’ feet to the fire for the harm they’re causing,” a White House official said when asked about the strategy.

Biden is “fighting hard in the executive branch – like through protecting access to medication and protecting the right to interstate travel – while pushing for legislation.”

Protecting abortion rights is a top issue for women Democrats, Reuters polling shows. The White House, which misjudged when the ruling would be issued, is still not meeting the moment on the issue, some health experts and Democrats complain.

“The White House had a month, if not a year, to plan for this and they should have really come out with a major white paper plan of action the moment Dobbs was announced,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University and faculty director of its Institute for National and Global Health Law. “The impression is that the White House is leading from behind, that they were caught flat footed.”

Here’s what may happen, and what may not, in the weeks to come, based on interviews with White House officials, outside advisers, Congressional aides and legal experts.

NO SUPREME COURT REFORM

A number of legal experts, constitutional scholars and irate Democrats say the Supreme Court’s recent rulings, including on abortion, undermine the court’s legitimacy, in part because they don’t reflect popular opinion.

But the White House is not publicly entertaining the idea of reforming the court itself or expanding the nine-member panel, an option pushed by Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Representative Pramila Jayapal.

Privately, Biden has expressed skepticism about a wide range of Supreme Court reform proposals, including restricting the court’s power, setting term limits for justices, and strengthening ethics and transparency rules, according to a person involved in the conversations weeks prior to the most recent Supreme Court decision.

Last week’s ruling is unlikely to change his thinking, this person said. An expert commission Biden created to examine the issue of Supreme Court deadlocked on reform proposals in December.

FILIBUSTER CARVE-OUT?

Biden has not endorsed scrapping the Senate filibuster rule that could allow them to pass a federal law making abortion legal with a simple majority. Democrats only have 50 votes in the 100-seat Senate – not enough to get around a filibuster – and Republicans have lined up against proposals to make abortion a legal right nationwide.

Several Democratic lawmakers want to get rid of the filibuster altogether, including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And Republicans plan to scrap it to pass a law making abortion illegal nationwide, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele said this week.

Biden has only endorsed Congress suspending the filibuster in limited cases, for instance to pass voting rights legislation or to raise the debt ceiling.

White House officials worry Democrats don’t have enough votes currently to support doing away with the filibuster to pass an abortion bill, and see political risks to Biden supporting the idea. Key swing votes, especially Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, oppose doing away with the filibuster.

NO FEDERAL LANDS

The White House does not support calls to allow abortion providers to work from federal property, because it is worried the federal government won’t be able to keep them safe on or off the property, two sources explained.

Offering federal funding to women to travel out of state could run afoul of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions except in cases of risk to a mother’s life, rape or incest, two sources said.

A White House official said the idea is well-intentioned but it could put women and providers at risk. “In states where abortion is now illegal, women and providers who are not federal employees could be potentially be prosecuted,” the official said.

WHAT IS BEING CONSIDERED

The White House may take executive action in coming days, sources said, and is pushing federal agencies to make announcements on steps they will take to protect a woman’s right to reproductive care.

On Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said the federal government would protect access to medication abortion, defend medical professionals who perform abortions and is watching closely for states that violate women’s rights.

Officials plan to meet with activists, and are considering proposals to defend the right of a woman to travel to another state to get an abortion or fund travel to another state using Medicaid funds.

Separately, Pelosi outlined specific legislation that Democrats will consider including shielding women from criminal prosecution if they travel out of state to seek an abortion and protecting women’s personal data stored in reproductive health apps from state lawmakers.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)

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By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will officially retire on Thursday, paving the way for President Joe Biden’s appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson to be sworn in to the lifetime position to replace him, the court said on Wednesday.

Breyer, 83, has served on the court since 1994 and announced his plans to retire in January. He will retire at noon (1600 GMT) on Thursday shortly after the court issues the last of its rulings of its current term. Jackson is set to become the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s top judicial body.

“It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law,” Breyer said in a letter to Biden.

Jackson’s confirmation by the U.S. Senate on April 7 marked a victory for Biden, who has sought to infuse the federal judiciary with a broader range of backgrounds.

Breyer, the court’s oldest justice, often found himself in dissent on a court that has moved ever rightward, including last Friday when its conservative majority overturned the constitutional right to abortion recognized in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. That decision upheld a Mississippi ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Breyer also dissented in another major ruling last week when the court’s conservatives endorsed for the first time a right under the U.S. Constitution to carry a handgun in public.

After announcing his retirement, Breyer spoke at an event at the White House.

“People have come to accept this Constitution and they have come to accept the importance of the rule of law,” Breyer said, holding a copy of the 18th century foundational document in his hand.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

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SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Victims have been found with no identification documents at all and in one case a stolen ID. Remote villages lack phone service to reach family members and determine the whereabouts of missing migrants. Fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by different governments.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is blaming President Joe Biden and his immigration policies.

In a tweet, Abbott said Monday evening’s discovery rests squarely on Biden. “At Least 42 People Found Dead Inside Truck Carrying Migrants In Texas. These deaths are on Biden,” Abbott said.

The number of dead rose to 53 on Wednesday after two more migrants died, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office. Forty of the victims were male and 13 were female, it said.

Officials had potential identifications on 37 of the victims as of Wednesday morning, pending verification with authorities in other countries.

“It’s a tedious, tedious, sad, difficult process,” said Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, who represents the district where the truck was abandoned.

The truck, which was registered in Alamo, Texas, but had fake plates and logos, was carrying 67 migrants, Francisco Garduño, chief of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, said Wednesday.

The driver was apprehended after trying to pretend he was one of the migrants, Garduño said. Two other Mexican men also have been detained, he said.

Among the dead were 27 people from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, he said. One of the victims had no identification, Garduño said.

The tragedy occurred at a time when huge numbers of migrants have been coming to the U.S., many of them taking perilous risks to cross swift rivers and canals and scorching desert landscapes. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Lev Parnas, a figure in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, sentenced to 20 months in prison for campaign finance crimes.

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By Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential limousine on Jan. 6, 2021, when his security detail declined to take him to the U.S. Capitol where his supporters were rioting, a former aide testified on Tuesday.

The then-president dismissed concerns that some supporters gathered for his fiery speech outside the White House that day carried AR-15-style rifles, instead asking security to stop screening attendees with metal-detecting magnetometers so the crowd would look larger, the aide testified.

“Take the effing mags away; they’re not here to hurt me,” Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Trump’s then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, quoted Trump as saying that morning.

Hutchinson, in testimony on the sixth day of House of Representatives hearings into the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol assault by Trump’s followers, said the conversation was relayed to her by Tony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official who was Trump’s deputy chief of staff for operations.

The New York Times and NBC, citing sources in the Secret Service, said the head of Trump’s security detail, Robert Engel, and the limousine driver were prepared to testify under oath that Trump never lunged for the steering wheel. Engel was in the room when Ornato relayed the story, Hutchinson said.

The New York Times and CNN, citing unnamed sources, said Ornato also denied the story and was willing to testify.

Citing her conversation with Ornato, Hutchinson testified that Trump struggled with Secret Service agents who insisted he return to the White House rather than join supporters storming the Capitol where Congress was meeting to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over him in the presidential election.

Trump’s supporters were roused by his false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud

“‘I’m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now,’” Hutchinson quoted an enraged Trump as saying. She said Trump tried from the back seat to grab the steering wheel of the heavily armored presidential vehicle and lunged in anger at a Secret Service official.

Trump, a Republican, denied her account of his actions.

“Her Fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of the White House Limousine in order to steer it to the Capitol Building is ‘sick’ and fraudulent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media app.

In a statement, the Secret Service said it was cooperating fully with the committee and would continue to do so.

“We learned of the new information shared at today’s hearing and plan on responding formally and on the record as soon as they can accommodate us,” it added.

Hutchinson’s lawyer Jody Hunt wrote on Twitter that she had “testified, under oath, and recounted what she was told. Those with knowledge of the episode also should testify under oath.”

Dozens of courts, election officials and reviews by Trump’s own administration rejected his fraud claims, including outlandish stories about an Italian security firm and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s tampering with U.S. ballots.

Four people died the day of the attack, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.

WITNESS TAMPERING?

At the end of about two hours of testimony, Representative Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the nine-member House panel, presented possible evidence of witness tampering and obstruction of justice.

Cheney showed messages to unidentified witnesses advising them that an unidentified person would be watching their testimony closely and expecting loyalty.

Republican Mick Mulvaney, who served as Trump’s chief of staff before Meadows, tweeted: “There is an old maxim: it’s never the crime, it’s always the cover-up. Things went very badly for the former President today. My guess is that it will get worse from here.”

Hutchinson told the committee that Meadows and Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani had sought pardons from Trump.

Giuliani told WSYR radio in Syracuse, New York, on Tuesday that he had not sought a pardon.

Tuesday’s hastily called hearing marked the first time this month, in six hearings, that a former White House official appeared for live testimony.

Speaking in soft but assured tones, Hutchinson, 26, painted a picture of panicked White House officials bristling at the possibility of Trump’s joining what was to become a violent mob pushing its way into the Capitol, hunting for his vice president, Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers who were certifying the victory of Biden over Trump.

‘EVERY CRIME IMAGINABLE’

The White House officials’ worries focused on the potential criminal charges Trump and others could face.

“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Hutchinson said White House counselor Pat Cipollone told her if Trump were to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“‘We need to make sure that this doesn’t happen, this would be a really terrible idea for us. We have serious legal concerns if we go up to the Capitol that day,’” Cipollone said, Hutchinson testified.

Hutchinson, who sat doors away from Trump’s Oval Office, testified that days before the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Meadows knew of the looming violence that could unfold.

“‘Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6,’” she quoted him as saying inside the White House on Jan. 2 with her boss.

She testified that Giuliani had said of Jan. 6: “‘We’re going to the Capitol, it’s going to be great. The president’s going to be there; he’s going to look powerful.’”

At that point, she told the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans: “It was the first moment that I remembered feeling scared and nervous of what could happen on Jan. 6.”

This month’s hearings featured videotaped testimony from figures including Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, and his former attorney general Bill Barr. They and other witnesses testified that they did not believe Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud and tried to dissuade him of them.

Before resigning, Barr told the Associated Press in an interview there was no evidence of fraud. That angered Trump so much that he threw his lunch at a White House wall, breaking a porcelain dish and leaving ketchup dripping down the wall, according to video testimony to the committee from Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s White House press secretary at the time.

Hutchinson told the committee it was not unusual for Trump to throw food when he was angry: “There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor and likely break or go everywhere.”

(This story corrects paragraph 12 to drop typographical error)

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton; additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Rose Horowitch, Costas Pitas, Rami Ayyub and Shivam Patel; Editing by Scott Malone, Howard Goller, Leslie Adler and Tim Ahmann)

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By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated a Republican-drawn map of Louisiana’s six U.S. House of Representatives districts that had been blocked by a judge who found that it likely discriminates against Black voters, a setback for Democrats as they try to retain control of Congress in November’s elections.

The justices granted a request by Louisiana’s Republican secretary of state to put on hold U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick’s injunction requiring a new map that has a second district where Black voters represent the majority of voters rather than just one in the version adopted by the Republican-led state legislature.

The conservative-majority nine-member court’s three liberal justices dissented from the decision.

Democrats control the U.S. House by a slim margin, making every seat vital in Republican efforts to wrest control from President Joe Biden’s party one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 12 had refused to reinstate the Republican-drawn Louisiana districts, calling evidence presented by Black voters who challenged the map “stronger” than evidence presented in defense of the map.

The plaintiffs said in their lawsuit that the Republican-drawn map maximizes “political power for white citizens” by packing large numbers of Black voters into a single district and dispersing the rest into the five others where they are too few to elect their preferred candidates.

The Louisiana legislature passed the map in February. Democratic Governor Jon Bel Edwards then vetoed it https://gov.louisiana.gov/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/3585 – criticizing it for failing to include a second Black-majority district considering that Black voters comprise almost a third of the state’s population – but the legislature overrode the veto.

Democrats have accused Republicans of exploiting state legislature majorities to draw electoral maps that dilute the clout of Black and other minority voters, who tend to support Democratic candidates. Republicans have said the consideration of race in drawing electoral maps must be limited.

After the map was challenged by groups of Black voters – one alongside civil rights groups including the Louisiana NAACP – the judge ruled that the way it was drawn likely violated the Voting Rights Act. That landmark 1965 federal law for decades has been used to counter racially biased actions in voting and drawing electoral districts.

The plaintiffs said that in Louisiana, “stark racially polarized voting almost universally leads to the electoral defeat of Black-preferred candidates.”

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin said in his legal filing that the judge’s order to adopt a second majority-Black district requires race to predominate in the map-making process, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The Louisiana dispute mirrors one from Alabama that the Supreme Court has already agreed to hear that could further weaken the Voting Rights Act. Arguments in the Alabama case are scheduled for Oct. 4. The eventual ruling, due by the end of June 2023, could make it harder for courts to consider race when determining whether an electoral district map violates the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, which bars voting practices that result in racial discrimination.

The Supreme Court’s order on Tuesday said they justices would take up the Louisiana case and hold it until it decides the Alabama case.

The Louisiana case is among dozens of legal challenges nationwide over the composition of electoral districts, which are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes as measured by a national census, last taken in 2020.

In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain.

In a ruling last July in favor of Republican-backed voting restrictions in Arizona, the Supreme Court made it harder to prove violations under Section 2.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court has chipped away at the wall separating church and state in a series of new rulings, eroding American legal traditions intended to prevent government officials from promoting any particular faith.

In three decisions in the past eight weeks, the court has ruled against government officials whose policies and actions were taken to avoid violating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition on governmental endorsement of religion – known as the “establishment clause.”

The court on Monday backed a Washington state public high school football coach who was suspended by a local school district for refusing to stop leading Christian prayers with players on the field after games.

On June 21, it endorsed taxpayer money paying for students to attend religious schools under a Maine tuition assistance program in rural areas lacking nearby public high schools.

On May 2, it ruled in favor of a Christian group that sought to fly a flag emblazoned with a cross at Boston city hall under a program aimed at promoting diversity and tolerance among the city’s different communities.

The court’s conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority, in particular have taken a broad view of religious rights. They also delivered a decision on Friday that was hailed by religious conservatives – overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide – though that case did not involve the establishment clause.

Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf said the court’s majority appears skeptical of government decision-making premised on secularism.

“They regard secularism, which for centuries has been the liberal world’s understanding of what it means to be neutral, as itself a form of discrimination against religion,” Dorf said of the conservative justices.

In Monday’s ruling, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the court’s aim was to prevent public officials from being hostile to religion as they navigate the establishment clause. Gorsuch said that “in no world may a government entity’s concerns about phantom violations justify actual violations of an individuals First Amendment rights.”

‘WALL OF SEPARATION’

It was President Thomas Jefferson who famously said in an 1802 letter that the establishment clause should represent a “wall of separation” between church and state. The provision prevents the government from establishing a state religion and prohibits it from favoring one faith over another.

In the three recent rulings, the court decided that government actions intended to maintain a separation of church and state had instead infringed separate rights to free speech or the free exercise of religion also protected by the First Amendment.

But, as liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the Maine case, such an approach “leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”

Opinions vary over to how much flexibility government officials have in allowing religious expression, whether by public employees, on public land or by people during an official proceeding. Those who favor a strict separation of church and state are concerned that landmark Supreme Court precedents, including a 1962 ruling that prohibited prayer in public schools, could be imperiled.

“It’s a whole new door that (the court) has opened to what teachers, coaches and government employees can do when it comes to proselytizing to children,” said Nick Little, legal director for the Center for Inquiry, a group promoting secularism and science.

Lori Windham, a lawyer with the religious liberty legal group Becket, said the court’s decisions will allow for greater religious expression by individuals without undermining the establishment clause.

“Separation of church and state continues in a way that protects church and state. It stops the government from interfering with churches but it also protects diverse religious expression,” Windham added.

Most of the religious-rights rulings in recent years involved Christian plaintiffs. But the court also has backed followers of other religions including a Muslim woman in 2015 who was denied a retail sales job because she wore a head scarf for religious reasons and a Buddhist death row inmate in 2019 who wanted a spiritual adviser present at his execution in Texas.

The court also sided with both Christian and Jewish congregations in challenges based on religious rights to governmental restrictions such as limits on public gatherings imposed as public safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nicole Stelle Garnett, a Notre Dame Law School professor who joined a brief filed with the justices backing the football coach, said the court was merely making clear that governments must treat religious people the same as everyone else.

Following Monday’s ruling, many issues relating to religious conduct in schools may be litigated anew under the court’s rationale that the conduct must be “coercive” in order to raise establishment clause concerns.

“Every classroom,” Garnett said, “is a courtroom.”

(For a related graphic, click https://tmsnrt.rs/3njwtCD)

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

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