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☆ How Justice Thomas’s ‘Nearly Adopted Daughter’ Became His Law Clerk
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Steve Eder | Abbie Vansickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The email went out to members of Justice Clarence Thomas’s law clerk network late last month celebrating his newest addition to an exclusive club. “Crystal Clanton’s clerkship for OT ’24 was announced by Scalia Law today!” wrote an assistant to Virginia Thomas, the justice’s wife, who is known as Ginni. The email referred to the 2024 October term of the court, and the tone was jubilant: “Please take a look at these posts of congratulations and support. In 2019, at the Thomases’ urging, Ms. Clanton enrolled at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Virginia, where Justice Thomas has taught. She received a full merit scholarship, according to another judge who later hired her.

Persons: Clarence Thomas’s, Scalia, ”, Virginia Thomas, Clanton, ” Ms, Thomas, Antonin Scalia Organizations: Scalia Law, Antonin, George Mason University Locations: New York, Virginia

The comments came at a time when many Republicans who would later become loyalists of Mr. Trump were disparaging him and declaring him unfit to hold the nation’s highest office. Only later did they fall in line and serve as the first-line defenders of his most extreme words and actions. But Mr. Johnson’s anti-Trump screed has, until now, flown under the radar, in a large part because Mr. Johnson himself did, too, before his unlikely election as speaker last month put him second in line to the presidency. These days, Mr. Johnson only praises Mr. Trump and defends him against what he dismisses as politically motivated indictments and criminal charges. Mr. Trump has lauded Mr. Johnson as someone who has acted as a loyal soldier since the beginning of his political rise.

Persons: Trump, Johnson’s, Johnson, ” Organizations: Republicans, Mr, Trump, New York Times Locations: Washington

Floors at the abortion clinic where they worked, they told him, were flecked with dried blood. For many people in Louisiana, the allegations against the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge were a grim confirmation of what they already suspected. Aided by Mr. Johnson, a local TV news investigation would lead Louisiana’s Republican governor to declare a public health emergency. It was Mr. Johnson’s first triumph in a grinding two-decade battle against the Delta clinic — and against abortion more broadly — that would become one of the animating crusades of his public life. “I think the Delta clinic was the pivot point for Mike,” said Gene Mills, president of Louisiana Family Forum, an influential conservative group.

Persons: Mike Johnson, Johnson, Johnson’s, “, Mike, ”, Gene Mills Organizations: Delta Clinic of Baton, Delta, Mr, Louisiana Family Forum Locations: Baton Rouge, La, Louisiana, Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge

In the moments before he was to face a vote on becoming speaker of the House this week, Representative Mike Johnson posted a photograph on social media of the inscription carved into marble atop the chamber’s rostrum: “In God We Trust.”His colleagues celebrated his candidacy by circulating an image of him on bended knee praying for divine guidance with other lawmakers on the House floor. And in his first speech from the chamber as speaker, Mr. Johnson cast his ascendance to the position second in line to the presidency in religious terms, saying, “I believe God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment.”Mr. Johnson, a mild-mannered conservative Republican from Louisiana whose elevation to the speakership on Wednesday followed weeks of chaos, is known for placing his evangelical Christianity at the center of his political life and policy positions. Now, as the most powerful Republican in Washington, he is in a position to inject it squarely into the national political discourse, where he has argued for years that it belongs.

Persons: Mike Johnson, ”, Johnson, “, Mr Organizations: Republican Locations: Louisiana, Washington

The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the suit, but not before Mr. Johnson convinced more than 60 percent of House Republicans to sign onto the effort. He did so by telling them the initiative had been personally blessed by Mr. Trump, and the former president was “anxiously awaiting” to see who in Congress would step up to the plate to defend him. A constitutional lawyer, Mr. Johnson also was a key architect of Republicans’ objections to certifying the victory of then President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Johnson instead faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional. After a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters, believing the election was rigged, stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, injuring about 150 police officers, Mr. Johnson condemned the violence.

Persons: Johnson, Trump, “, ’, Joseph R, Biden, Trump’s, ” Organizations: Republicans, Mr, Capitol

In interviews, doctors at several other hospitals said they also used Burst’s products and expressed surprise that the F.D.A. Dr. Sandhu said he had used the product on at least 50 patients, thought it worked well and hadn’t detected any problems. He recalled that for some patients, insurance covered Burst treatment, which typically cost thousands of dollars. He said he would have notified patients had the F.D.A. He said he got off to a good start working for Dr. Härtl, but their standoff over the Burst research soured their relationship.

Persons: Faheem, Sandhu, ”, Gadjradj, Härtl Organizations: Georgetown University Hospital, Weill Cornell Locations: New York

Only three months into Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first Supreme Court term, she announced a book deal negotiated by the same powerhouse lawyer who represented the Obamas and James Patterson. The deal was worth about $3 million, according to people familiar with the agreement, and made Justice Jackson the latest Supreme Court justice to parlay her fame into a big book contract. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch had made $650,000 for a book of essays and personal reflections on the role of judges, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a $2 million advance for her forthcoming book about keeping personal feelings out of judicial rulings. Those newer justices joined two of their more senior colleagues, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, in securing payments that eclipse their government salaries. In recent months reports by ProPublica, The New York Times and others have highlighted a lack of transparency at the Supreme Court, as well as the absence of a binding ethics code for the justices.

Persons: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s, James Patterson, Jackson, Neil M, Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, ProPublica, Thomas’s, Justice Samuel A, Alito Jr, John G, Roberts Organizations: The New York Times, Supreme, Republican Locations: The

On Oct. 15, 1991, Clarence Thomas secured his seat on the Supreme Court, a narrow victory after a bruising confirmation fight that left him isolated and disillusioned. Within months, the new justice enjoyed a far-warmer acceptance to a second exclusive club: the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, named for the Gilded Age author whose rags-to-riches novels represented an aspirational version of Justice Thomas’s own bootstraps origin story. If Justice Thomas’s life had unfolded as he had envisioned, his Horatio Alger induction might have been a celebration of his triumphs as a prosperous lawyer instead of a judge. So began his grudging path to a judicial career that brought him great prestige but only modest material wealth after decades of financial struggle. When he joined the Horatio Alger Association, Justice Thomas entered a world whose defining ethos of meritocratic success — that anyone can achieve the American dream with hard work, pluck and a little luck — was the embodiment of his own life philosophy, and a foundation of his jurisprudence.

Persons: Clarence Thomas, Horatio Alger, Thomas’s, Justice Thomas, —, ” Organizations: Distinguished, Yale Law School, Horatio, Horatio Alger Association, Justice

☆ Alabama Basketball Manager Says He, Not Player, Was at Deadly Shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Steve Eder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A student manager of Alabama’s men’s basketball team said Friday that he had been a passenger in the car of a star player, Brandon Miller, during a January shooting in Tuscaloosa. One person was killed and Mr. Miller’s car was hit by stray bullets in the episode, which involved multiple vehicles. “I can confirm that I was the passenger in Brandon Miller’s car at the time of the shooting,” Mr. Lee, 21, said in an email to The Times. Mr. Lee, who is not accused of wrongdoing, declined to comment further beyond confirming that Mr. Spears was not in the car. His LinkedIn profile lists him as a hospitality and sports management major at the university.

Persons: Alabama’s, Brandon Miller, Cooper Lee, Kai Spears, Spears, Lee, Brandon Miller’s, ” Mr Organizations: New York Times, The Times Locations: Tuscaloosa, Brandon

☆ How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Steve Eder | Jo Becker | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the fall of 2017, an administrator at George Mason University’s law school circulated a confidential memo about a prospective hire. Just months earlier, Neil M. Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge from Colorado, had won confirmation to the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia, the conservative icon for whom the school was named. For President Donald J. Trump, bringing Judge Gorsuch to Washington was the first step toward fulfilling a campaign promise to cement the high court unassailably on the right. For the leaders of the law school, bringing the new justice to teach at Scalia Law was a way to advance their own parallel ambition. By the winter of 2019, the law school faculty would include not just Justice Gorsuch but also two other members of the court, Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh — all deployed as strategic assets in a campaign to make Scalia Law, a public school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, a Yale or Harvard of conservative legal scholarship and influence.

The most far-reaching of Mr. Trump’s ploys to overturn his defeat, the objections to the Electoral College results by so many House Republicans did more than any lawsuit, speech or rally to engrave in party orthodoxy the myth of a stolen election. Their actions that day legitimized Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede, gave new life to his claims of conspiracy and fraud and lent institutional weight to doubts about the central ritual of American democracy. While most House Republicans had amplified Mr. Trump’s claims about the election in the aftermath of his loss, only the right flank of the caucus continued to loudly echo Mr. Trump’s fraud allegations in the days before Jan. 6, The Times found. More Republican lawmakers appeared to seek a way to placate Mr. Trump and his supporters without formally endorsing his extraordinary allegations. His Republican critics called it a Trojan horse that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president while hiding behind a more defensible case.

Persons: Trump’s ploys, Trump’s, Mr, Trump, Mike Johnson Organizations: Trump Republican, Mr, Electoral, Republicans, Times, Republican Locations: Louisiana

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