Today so far
That’s it from us today. Here’s how the day unfolded in Washington:
- Joe Biden is facing increased pressure from members of his own party to protect abortion rights after the supreme court ruled Friday to reverse Roe v Wade. Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for the impeachment of supreme court justices who allegedly misled senators about their thoughts on Roe during their confirmation hearings. Appearing on NBC News yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez said, “I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense.”
- The supreme court ruled 6-3 in favor of a former football coach who clashed with his public school district over his practice of praying with players after games. Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that Bremerton School District had violated the First Amendment rights of coach Joseph Kennedy. But in her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her conservative colleagues of ignoring the establishment clause, which stipulates that the government cannot “establish” a religion.
- The supreme court’s next decision day will be Wednesday. The justices still have four decisions left to announce, including major rulings on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory powers and the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy for migrants seeking to enter the US.
- The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has announced that it will hold its next public hearing tomorrow afternoon. The committee said it would reconvene at 1pm ET tomorrow to “present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony”. The announcement came as a surprise, as the committee previously indicated it would not hold another hearing until July.
- A Russian missile struck a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. A local Ukrainian official said 11 people were dead and 56 injured after the attack, although those numbers could grow. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that more than 1,000 people were inside the building at the time of the strike.
The US politics live blog will be back tomorrow with coverage of the January 6 committee’s next hearing and the fight to protect abortion rights in a post-Roe America. See you then.
When the Kyiv opera house reopened in late May it was seen by many as the symbol of a return to normality after months of war, with the melodies of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville replacing the din of Russian artillery.
Around the same time local authorities relaxed the curfew hours, anti-tank roadblocks were moved aside and the main thoroughfare of Khreshchatyk Street was once buzzing again with busy cafes, businesses and bars.
Four explosions in the space of a few seconds in the early hours of Sunday morning catapulted the entire city back to a crude reality.
Columns of smoke rose over buildings next to his apartment, home to a cluster of universities, restaurants and art galleries, as air-launched Russian missiles fired from the Caspian Sea served as a violent reminder that the Ukrainian capital is still in a conflict zone.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
Jim Risch, the Republican ranking member of the Senate foreign relations committee, visited Ukraine over the weekend and met with President Voldymyr Zelenskiy.
“It was an honor to meet with President Zelenskyy this weekend to discuss the ongoing Russian assault against Ukraine,” Risch said.
“I’ve been in many war zones, but I’ve never been to one where I’ve seen people rebuilding as the war continues. The Ukrainian people are incredibly resilient, endlessly adaptable, and courageously willing to fight. We cannot let them down.”
It was an honor to meet with @ZelenskyyUa this weekend to discuss the ongoing #Russian assault against #Ukraine. I’ve been in many war zones, but I’ve never been to one where I’ve seen people rebuilding as the war continues.
— Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member (@SenateForeign) June 27, 2022
More.⬇️https://t.co/45t6YwRa1j pic.twitter.com/83khaizdvq
During his trip to Ukraine, Risch took the opportunity to tour Kyiv, Irpin and Hostomel and witness some of the devastation unleashed by Russia’s attacks on its neighbor.
“Ukraine can win this war, but only if we help get it what it needs, before it needs it. I was taken aback by the atrocities I saw firsthand in Irpin and Hostomel, and we cannot stand by and watch these happen again,” Risch said.
“I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure the Biden Administration uses the authorities Congress has given to provide President Zelenskyy and Ukrainian defense forces exactly what they need to end this conflict. Ukraine must win this fight.”
The leader of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which captivated a wave of Donald Trump supporters and infiltrated the Republican party, began posting again over the weekend, after nearly two years of silence
“Q”, as the figurehead of the movement is known, published three cryptic posts on a message board on Friday night – the account’s first posts since December 2020.
“Shall we play a game once more?” the account posted on the far-right board 8kun. The post was signed: “Q”.
The account had a unique identifier, the New York Times reported, which had been used on previous Q posts.
When a user asked why Q had been absent, the account replied: “It had to be done this way.”
Later, the account posted: “Are you ready to serve your country again? Remember your oath.”
QAnon is an antisemitic internet conspiracy theory that swept the US right wing in 2017. Proponents claim that Trump was waging a secret battle against a cabal of pedophiles and its “deep state” collaborators.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
Updated
It is possible that the January 6 committee will share footage from British documentarian Alex Holder at its newly announced hearing tomorrow afternoon.
Holder repeatedly interviewed Donald Trump and his family members in the days leading up to and immediately after the Capitol attack. The committee issued a subpoena to Holder for his footage, and he met with investigators on Thursday morning.
“I have provided the committee with all requested materials and am fully cooperating with the investigation,” Holder said in a statement on Thursday.
“I have no further comment at this time other than to say that our conversation today was thorough and I appreciated the opportunity to share more context about my project.”
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Instead of just presenting the facts from their investigation, the January 6 committee has generated a clear narrative, teasing how each piece will connect to the next at a future hearing.
They have promised and delivered on new sensational details, making the hearings can’t miss television. The committee, which is getting advice from a former ABC News executive, have put on hearings that felt more like a Hollywood prestige limited series than a congressional inquiry.
“They have put on the Watergate hearings for the streaming era,” said Norman Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House judiciary committee during Trump’s first impeachment.
The committee has done this in a few key ways. They’ve broken up the hearings into several pieces, keeping each hearing to just a few hours (short by Congress’s standards) and focused on a particular topic.
A single member of the committee, or professional staff, has handled the questioning, without interruptions from the opposing party. And the committee has placed a beating heart at the center of its investigation, featuring testimony from police officers, elected officials, and election workers who have all emotionally laid out the severe consequences of Trump’s pressure campaign.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
January 6 committee announces hearing to be held tomorrow
The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has announced that it will hold its next public hearing tomorrow afternoon.
The committee said it would reconvene at 1pm ET tomorrow to “present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony”.
The Select Committee will convene a hearing tomorrow, June 28 at 1:00pm to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.https://t.co/6knNdD9UWb
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 27, 2022
The announcement came as a surprise, given that committee leaders had previously indicated the panel’s hearings would not resume until July.
It’s unclear what evidence the committee plans to share tomorrow, although the panel’s chair, Bennie Thompson, has previously said this month’s hearings sparked a flood of tips with new information about the deadly attack on the Capitol.
“Those hearings have spurred an influx of new information that the committee and our investigators are working to assess,” Thompson said on Thursday. “We are committed to presenting the American people with the most complete information possible.”
A six-page communique from the group of seven industrialised countries of the G7 – the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy – said it was “committed to helping Ukraine to end Russia’s war […] to defend itself and to choose its future”. It said it would provide materials, training, logistics, intelligence and economic support.
As G7 leaders gathered in Germany, US officials confirmed they were discussing the idea of placing a cap on the price of Russian oil, adding that the US had managed to extract a commitment that the proposals would be examined in greater depth. Germany is sceptical that the plan is workable, but it would reduce the revenue reached the Russian treasury and cut the price of oil for western consumers.
A senior White House official said the proposal was for a “mechanism that sets a worldwide ceiling for Russian oil”.
In tough language calling for a Russian withdrawal, the G7 communique said: “We reiterate our demand that Russia put an end to this war of choice, and immediately, unconditionally cease all hostilities and withdraw its troops and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”
The missile strike in Kremenchuk comes as Joe Biden and other world leaders have gathered in Schloss Elmau, Germany, for the G7 summit.
Biden attended a summit session on Ukraine this morning, as the US and its allies continue to provide financial and military assistance to Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskiy addressed the G7 leaders, pleading with them to help his country end its war with Russia before the winter.
“If Ukraine wins, you all win,” Zelenskiy said.
At least two dead as Russian missile hits shopping centre in Ukraine
The Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo and Pjotr Sauer in Kyiv report on a devastating missile attack in Ukraine:
A Russian missile strike has hit a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, killing at least two people and wounding 20, senior Ukrainian officials have said.
Footage circulating on social media showed fire raging and smoke billowing from the entirety of the shopping centre, with fire trucks parked nearby.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote on Telegram that more than 1,000 civilians were inside the shopping centre in Kremenchuk and that the number of victims was “unimaginable”.
He said: “The occupiers fired missiles at the shopping centre, where there were more than a thousand civilians. The mall is on fire, rescuers are extinguishing the fire, the number of victims is unimaginable.
“Russia continues to take out its impotence on ordinary citizens. It is useless to hope for decency and humanity from Russia.”
Read the Guardian’s full report:
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Joe Biden is facing increased pressure from members of his own party to protect abortion rights after the supreme court ruled Friday to reverse Roe v Wade. Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for the impeachment of supreme court justices who allegedly misled senators about their thoughts on Roe during their confirmation hearings. Appearing on NBC News yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez said, “I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense.”
- The supreme court ruled 6-3 in favor of a former football coach who clashed with his public school district over his practice of praying with players after games. Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that Bremerton School District had violated the First Amendment rights of coach Joseph Kennedy. But in her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her conservative colleagues of ignoring the establishment clause, which stipulates that the government cannot “establish” a religion.
- The supreme court’s next decision day will be Wednesday. The justices still have four decisions left to announce, including major rulings on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory powers and the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy for migrants seeking to enter the US.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Supreme court announces next decision day will be Wednesday
The supreme court has indicated that it will announce its next batch of rulings on Wednesday, as the court looks to wrap up its term in the coming days.
The justices still have four decisions left to announce, including major rulings on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory powers and the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy for migrants seeking to enter the US.
The court did not signal that Wednesday would be the final decision day, meaning additional rulings will likely be announced on Thursday or Friday.
This has already been a hugely consequential term for the supreme court, which ruled to overturn Roe v Wade and delivered a major victory for gun rights groups last week.
Updated
Conservatives celebrated the supreme court’s decision in Kennedy v Bremerton School District as a victory for the First Amendment.
“Americans of faith do not turn their devotion off and on like a light switch, and we must reject any attempt by the government to control private religious expression—especially those who call on their faith when answering the call to participate in public service,” Mike Pence, former vice-president to Donald Trump, said in a statement released by his political action committee, Advancing American Freedom.
Pence added, “We are pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision today that agrees with Advancing American Freedom’s position and we will continue to stand up to unconstitutional restrictions on personal religious freedom and the free exercise of religion that are the lifeblood of our Republic.”
But critics of the court’s decision warned that the ruling would further chip away at the American principle of separation of church and state.
“Public schools should be open and welcoming to all, regardless of background or belief,” said Katy Joseph, director of policy and advocacy at the group Interfaith Alliance.
“And since 1962, the Supreme Court has consistently recognized that school prayer is coercive, undermining the religious freedom rights of students who feel pressured to participate. Yet today’s decision dismantles decades of progress.”
Updated
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch argued that football coach Joseph Kennedy had a right to publicly pray after games because he was not requiring others to participate in the practice.
“Joseph Kennedy lost his job as a high school football coach because he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet prayer of thanks,” Gorsuch wrote.
“Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied. Still, the Bremerton School District disciplined him anyway.”
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the dissenting liberals, said Gorsuch’s logic ignored the facts of the case and the potential coercive impact of young students witnessing their coach engage in a religious exercise.
“Despite the direct record evidence that students felt coerced to participate in Kennedy’s prayers, the Court nonetheless concludes that coercion was not present in any event because ‘Kennedy did not seek to direct any prayers to students or require anyone else to participate,” Sotomayor wrote.
“But nowhere does the Court engage with the unique coercive power of a coach’s actions on his adolescent players.”
To underscore her point, Sotomayor included pictures in her opinion, showing Kennedy praying with his players. They appear to contradict Gorsuch’s claim that Kennedy “offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied”:
Majority: "Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied."
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 27, 2022
Dissent: pic.twitter.com/RsYizGSLxE
Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her conservative colleagues, who decided Kennedy v Bremerton School District, of overturning the precedent of Lemon v Kurtzman without acknowledging that they had done so.
Legal experts similarly expressed deep concerns about the possibility of the supreme court making a habit out of discarding major precedent cases, particularly in the wake of the reversal of Roe v Wade on Friday.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, described the majority’s reasoning in Kennedy as “sketchy” at best:
As Leah notes, the conservative majority in Kennedy overrules #SCOTUS's major prior Establishment Clause precedent in Lemon, but tries to pretend that the Court had *already* overruled it in prior cases (spoiler alert: it hadn't). This is sketchy *even if* you think it's correct. https://t.co/fNZkIXnlXU
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 27, 2022
In the majority opinion for Kennedy v Bremerton School District, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the supreme court had previously abandoned the precedent established in Lemon v Kurtzman in cases involving religious liberty.
Lemon v Kurtzman was a 1971 decision focused on a Pennsylvania law allowing private schools, many of which were Catholic, to be reimbursed for teachers’ salaries.
The court ruled in Lemon that the Pennsylvania law violated the establishment clause, which stipulates that the government cannot “establish” a religion. The court also outlined a test to determine the constitutionality of policies involving religion.
Gorsuch wrote in the Kennedy decision that the supreme court had “long ago abandoned Lemon and its endorsement test offshoot”.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dismisses Gorsuch’s claim, saying the conservative justices’ decision in Kennedy had overturned vital precedent and ignored the repercussions of doing so.
“Today’s decision goes beyond merely misreading the record. The Court overrules Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), and calls into question decades of subsequent precedents that it deems ‘offshoot[s]’ of that decision,” Sotomayor wrote.
“In the process, the Court rejects longstanding concerns surrounding government endorsement of religion and replaces the standard for reviewing such questions with a new ‘history and tradition’ test.”
The supreme court issued two more decisions – in Concepcion v United States and Xiulu Ruan v United States – and has wrapped up its announcements for the day.
The court has still not announced its decisions in major cases involving the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory powers and the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy for migrants seeking to enter the US.
As of now, the court has not yet said when its next decision day will be, so it’s unclear when the country might learn about the outcome of those significant cases.
The blog will have more analysis of Kennedy v Bremerton School District coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
The supreme court’s three liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer – filed a dissenting opinion to conservatives’ decision in Kennedy v Bremerton School District.
In the dissent, Sotomayor argues that conservatives’ ruling for Kennedy, a former football coach criticized for publicly praying after games, ignores the establishment clause of the US constitution.
The establishment clause stipulates that the government cannot “establish” a religion, in order to protect the separation of church and state.
“Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents, as embodied in both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Sotomayor writes.
“The Court now charts a different path, yet again paying almost exclusive attention to the Free Exercise Clause’s protection for individual religious exercise while giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause’s prohibition on state establishment of religion.”
Updated
Supreme court rules in favor of former coach criticized for praying
The supreme court has started to release its next round of decisions, and the first case is Kennedy v Bremerton School District.
The case focuses on Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach at a public high school who clashed with his employer over his practice of praying with some of his players after games.
In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservatives ruled that the school district had violated Kennedy’s First Amendment rights by terminating his employment.
“The Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion.
“The Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”
Updated
How many people to expect?
It’s the question anguished reproductive care providers in California are grappling with after the US supreme court voted to overturn the federal right to abortion.
With more than half of US states set to outlaw abortion, California has pledged to become a “sanctuary” for people seeking reproductive care. The state has putforward a package of legislation to expand access for residents and support people seeking abortions from out of state. The state’s governor on Friday signed a bill protecting patients and abortion providers in California from civil liability.
Researchers estimate that California could see a nearly 3,000% increase in the number of people whose nearest legal abortion provider is in the state. California’s annual patient load could rise from from 46,000 people to 1.4 million, according to a Guttmacher Institute report.
Providers in the state have been preparing for the moment for months.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has proposed the impeachment of supreme court justices who allegedly misled senators about their thoughts on Roe during their confirmation hearings.
At least two senators, Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin, have said the reversal of Roe contradicts Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh’s previous comments about the landmark case.
“I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense,” Ocasio-Cortez said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” yesterday.
“And I believe that this is something that should be very seriously considered, including by senators like Joe Manchin and Susan Collins.”
WATCH: Democrats must realize that the implications of the Roe decision are "not just a crisis of Roe" but "a crisis of our democracy,” @AOC says. #MTP
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 26, 2022
“The Supreme Court has dramatically overreached its authority. … This is a crisis of legitimacy.” pic.twitter.com/PlExDJ6mXX
Ocasio-Cortez also pointed to the alleged involvement of Ginni Thomas, the wife of supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, in the January 6 insurrection to argue that the court is losing its credibility with the public.
She warned that the supreme court’s willingness to issue sweeping, unpopular decisions could threaten the foundation of America’s system of government.
“This is not just a crisis of Roe; this is a crisis of our democracy. The supreme court has dramatically overreached its authority,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“This is a crisis of legitimacy, and President Biden must address that.”
Updated
After the revocation of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, pregnancy-related deaths will almost certainly increase – especially among people of color, experts say. They called for urgent action to protect reproductive rights and the health of patients around the country.
“There are going to be more people who are forced to carry a pregnancy to term, which means that there’s going to be a greater number of people who are at risk,” said Rachel Hardeman, a reproductive health equity professor and researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “More pregnancy means more likelihood of deaths.”
Existing state bans could lead to an additional 75,000 births a year for those who can’t access abortions, according to one estimate. The bans will disproportionately affect younger, poorer people of color and those who already have children.
But America is an incredibly difficult place to be pregnant, with the highest maternal mortality rate by far of any developed country – and it’s rising sharply.
For every 100,000 births, 23.8 people died from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes in 2020 – a total of 861 women – according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Read the Guardian’s full report:
Biden faces pressure to protect abortion rights after supreme court reverses Roe
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Joe Biden is facing increased pressure from members of his own party to protect abortion rights after the supreme court ruled Friday to reverse Roe v Wade.
A number of Democrats are calling on Biden to use executive action to shore up abortion access, as several states immediately moved to ban the procedure.
Shortly before the court’s decision was announced, congresswoman Ayanna Pressley led a group of Black women lawmakers to demand that Biden declare a public health and national emergency on abortion access.
“It is clear that attacks on reproductive rights and abortion access are a threat to the public health and will put Black lives most at risk,” the lawmakers wrote in a public letter.
“We urge you to use any and all executive authorities to address the public health crisis our nation will face if Roe v Wade is dismantled.”
Biden may soon offer more clues as to what his next steps will be to address one of the court’s most profound rulings in decades.
Here’s what else is happening today:
- The supreme court is expected to issue more rulings at 10am ET. The justices still have several more major decisions they need to announce before the end of the term.
- Biden is in Germany for the G7 summit. The US president is attending summit sessions on Ukraine, climate and gender equality today.
- Kamala Harris is swearing in the new US ambassador to Ukraine. The Senate unanimously confirmed foreign service officer Bridget Brink to fill the role last month.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
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