Closing summary
The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked supreme court chief justice John Roberts to testify early next month about the panel’s approach to ethics. The request comes after a series of articles published by ProPublica raised questions about conservative justice Clarence Thomas’s ties to Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Roberts has not responded yet, and the judiciary chair Richard Durbin says he’s not looking to compel his testimony with a subpoena.
Here’s what else happened today:
The debt limit battle has officially started. Latest development: one Democratic senator thinks Joe Biden should negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy.
House Republicans pushed through a measure to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports at schools and universities, a bill that will meet its doom in the Senate.
A top Donald Trump adviser was scheduled to be interviewed by the special counsel investigating the former president’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection and possession of classified documents.
Trump’s comments about abortion being left to the states displeased an influential group opposed to the procedure.
Mike Lindell, a noted conspiracy theorist and pillow magnate, appears to be on the hook for $5mn to a software expert who took him up on his challenge to debunk data Lindell claimed proved fraud in the 2020 election.
An Internal Revenue Service official alleges an investigation into the president’s son Hunter Biden has been mishandled, and is seeking whistleblower protection to inform Congress, the Associated Press reports.
The GOP has for months been trying to use the younger Biden’s legal trouble to tar the president. The US attorney in Delaware, who was appointed by Donald Trump and whom Joe Biden’s White House kept in his post after taking office, is reportedly considering charges against Hunter Biden related to lying on a gun purchase background check form and failing to report some business activities to the tax authorities.
According to the AP, the unnamed IRS employee contacted through their attorney the leaders of several congressional committees after sharing their information within the IRS, and with the justice department’s watchdog. Here’s more from their report:
Mark Lytle, the attorney for the IRS whistleblower, wrote to lawmakers Wednesday that his client has information about a “failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition” of a criminal investigation related to the younger Biden’s taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase.
“Despite serious risks of retaliation, my client is offering to provide you with information necessary to exercise your constitutional oversight function and wishes to make the disclosures in a nonpartisan manner to the leadership of the relevant committees on both sides of the political aisle,” Lytle said in a letter, obtained by The Associated Press, that was sent to the chairmen and ranking members of several House and Senate committees.
The letter states that the supervisory special agent previously disclosed the information they are seeking to share with Congress internally with the IRS and a watchdog for the Justice Department. Lytle added that his client is able to contradict sworn testimony to lawmakers “by a senior political appointee.” That appointee is not named.
The special agent also wants to disclose “examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected,” the lawyer added.
