“The Supreme Court this morning left in place a Kentucky law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and show and describe it to the patient, regardless of the patient’s wishes,” Politico reports.
“The justices did not offer an explanation for their decision to refuse to hear a challenge to a lower court ruling that upheld the Kentucky restrictions.”
“The Supreme Court on Friday granted President Trump’s emergency request to temporarily block a congressional subpoena for his financial records from Deutsche Bank,” The Hill reports.
“The Senate confirmed eight of President Trump’s court picks this week, underscoring the rapid pace the GOP-controlled chamber has set on judicial nominations,” The Hill reports.
“President Trump has asked the Supreme Court to shield his financial records from the Democratic-led House Oversight and Reform Committee,” The Hill reports.
“The case marks the second time Trump has appealed to the high court to prevent the disclosure of financial documents and sets the stage for a potentially groundbreaking ruling on the extent of congressional oversight authority and presidential power.”
Senate Republicans will vote this week to confirm a lifetime federal judge who claimed that fertility treatments and surrogacy have “grave effects on society, including diminished respect for motherhood and the unique mother-child bond; exploitation of women; commodification of gestation and of children themselves; and weakening of appropriate social mores against eugenic abortion,” the HuffPost reports.
New York Times: “Interviews with more than 50 reproductive rights leaders, clinic directors, political strategists and activists over the past three months reveal a fragmented movement facing longstanding divisions — cultural, financial and political. Many said that abortion rights advocates and leading reproductive rights groups had made several crucial miscalculations that have put them on the defensive.”
“Justice Clarence Thomas is joining public criticism of Joe Biden whose handling of Thomas’ 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings when he was a senator has been a flash point in the former vice president’s 2020 presidential campaign,” ABC News reports.
“In a forthcoming documentary, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, Thomas lashes out at Democrats and Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and oversaw his confirmation process.”
Politico: “Flynn had been on track to be sentenced Dec. 18… District Judge Emmet Sullivan hasn’t indicated how he will handle Flynn’s shift in defense strategies. But the appointee of President Bill Clinton did agree to a joint request from federal prosecutors and Flynn’s attorneys filed Tuesday night asking reshuffle his sentencing schedule in part because of a Justice Department inspector general report that’s slated for release Dec. 9.”
Washington Post: “The court, composed of five conservatives nominated by Republican presidents and four liberals chosen by Democrats, has little choice but to step onto a fiercely partisan battleground. It announced Tuesday that it will consider on Dec. 13 whether to schedule a full briefing and argument on the president’s request that it overturn a lower-court ruling giving New York prosecutors access to Trump’s tax returns and other financial records in their investigation of hush-money payments in the lead-up to the 2016 election. There are many more such evaluations to come.”
“And the first case likely to reach the Supreme Court on the question of Trump’s broad assertion of executive power over those who worked for him features former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who played a pivotal role in the confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.”
Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign has decided to return thousands of dollars in donations from two lawyers who represented Brett Kavanaugh in his controversial confirmation hearing, The Guardian reports.
As expected, the Justice Department has filed an appeal to yesterday’s ruling that former White House counsel Don McGahn must comply with a congressional subpoena.
“The Supreme Court is shielding President Trump’s financial records from House Democrats for now,” the New York Times reports.
“The delay allows the justices to decide how to handle the House subpoena and a similar demand from the Manhattan district attorney at the same time.”
“The House’s quest for the records is not part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry, but the court’s action probably means Democrats will not have the records before an expected vote on impeachment by year’s end.”
“A federal judge has ruled that close presidential advisers aren’t immune from being forced to testify in congressional inquiries in an opinion that could eventually clear the way for numerous administration officials to be summoned as part of the impeachment investigation of President Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson struck a blow against a decades-old legal doctrine known as complete immunity, which has long been asserted by lawyers representing presidential administrations of both parties but has remained largely untested in the courts.”
Los Angeles Times: “Lawyers for the House, citing the ‘rapidly advancing impeachment inquiry,’ urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to reject President Trump’s bid to shield his tax returns and financial records from congressional investigators.”
“It was a historic moment in April 2017 when Supreme Court justice Anthony M. Kennedy presided over the ceremonial Rose Garden swearing-in for the court’s new member, Neil M. Gorsuch: the first time a sitting justice was joined on the nation’s highest court by one of his former law clerks,” the Washington Post reports.
“But a secret meeting moments later in the White House was just as significant, according to a new book by Ruth Marcus.”
“Kennedy requested a private moment with President Trump to deliver a message about the next Supreme Court opening, Marcus reports. Kennedy told Trump he should consider another of his former clerks, Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was not on the president’s first two lists of candidates.”
“The Supreme Court on Monday issued an administrative stay blocking House Democrats’ subpoena for President Trump’s tax returns until both sides can file the necessary legal papers,” Axios reports.
“The lower court order compelling Trump’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA to turn over the president’s financial records will be delayed until the Supreme Court decides whether to take up Trump’s appeal.”
“For the second day in a row, President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to protect his personal and business financial records from disclosure, this time to a congressional committee,” the Washington Post reports.
“In his first public speech as justice, one year after a polarizing Supreme Court confirmation, Brett Kavanaugh heaped gratitude on his supporters and extended an olive branch to critics with praise for the court’s liberal wing,” ABC News reports.
Said Kavanaugh: “They are patriots. They love our court and love our country.”
“Kavanaugh notably singled out Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — a celebrated feminist icon reviled by some right-wing activists — as an ‘inspiration.'”
He added: “I’m grateful for Justice Ginsburg for being so generous to me. Ruth Ginsburg is an inspiration.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.