Senate Judiciary Committee adjourns abruptly as GOP threatens subpoenas on Harlan Crow, Leonard Leo

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday abruptly adjourned a hearing that was supposed to issue subpoenas on the Supreme Court’s ethics investigation into Associate Justice Clarence Thomas after Republicans offered several countersubpoenas.

Thomas has come under scrutiny from the public and Senate Democrats after several ProPublica investigative reports documenting his close ties to real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and suggesting he may have been unduly influenced by them. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin had scheduled a vote for Thursday to subpoena Crow and Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, a prominent conservative who advised the Trump administration on judicial nominations, to speak Thomas, but abruptly adjourned the hearing to do so after Republicans. indicated that they would force a vote on several controversial counter-subpoenas.

“When you offer the subpoena, there’s going to be a bunch of amendments … we’re all opposed to what you’re doing,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, the ranking member of the committee.

“You made this decision, here, to go after individuals, to go after the court in a way that we believe is trying to delegitimize not only Clarence Thomas, but the court in general,” he charged the Democrats, adding a warning that “you’ve opened Pandora’s box and you’ll see. It’s not very pretty.”

“Sen. Cornyn had planned to offer an amendment to subpoena George Soros and Alex Soros for information related to their efforts to influence the composition of the United States Supreme Court and matters before the Court,” said an aide to Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas to The Daily Caller Foundation News The subpoena amendment, a copy of which was seen by the DCNF, would subpoena both Soros, who have run the left-leaning nonprofit Open Society Foundations, for funds they spent to “influence the composition of the Supreme Court” or influence cases. before it.

“There’s a backlog of demand on our part for information… What’s going on [Associate Justice Sonia] Does Sotomayor sell her books? I want to know how 240,000 people in four countries got parole when the law says it should be done on an individual basis,” Graham said, indicating that Republicans wanted to issue subpoenas on these issues, in response to Leo’s subpoenas and Crow. “I promise you that everything I was working on with the committee is now in jeopardy.”

After Graham’s remarks, Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee spoke, listing several people she would seek to impeach, starting with Sotomayor on the allegations that her taxpayer-paid staff forced entities to buy books she authored, the sales of which would earn her royalties.

“This summer, what we learned was that over the years, his staff has lobbied public institutions to buy his books, and those books and his book deals have earned him $4 million,” he said. Blackburn on Sotomayor, noting that she allegedly refused to recuse herself. herself from two copyright infringement cases before the court against the publisher of her book. “So I’ve filed an amendment to issue a subpoena to Judge Sotomayor’s staff who helped sell the books, as well as her book publisher so we can fully understand the backstory of the settlement.”

Blackburn also announced an amendment that would issue “a subpoena to the estate of Jeffrey Epstein to provide the flight logs of his private jet. Given the many allegations of human trafficking and sexual abuse surrounding Mr. Epstein, I think it’s very important that we identify everyone who was on that plane, and how many trips were made on that plane and the destinations.”

He also said he had filed subpoenas against Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra over the loss of 85,000 migrant children from the custody of his department, the Department of Justice (DOJ) to document the cancellation of the “Initiative of China” to attack and prosecute. Chinese spies in the United States and for documents on “political donations and involvement of special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff.”

Finally, Blackburn announced that it would seek to subpoena the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that conservative speech was censored online because of its actions, “DOJ, on behalf of the FTC, filed a privacy and security practices lawsuit against Twitter…we need to get to the bottom of President Biden’s efforts to silence Elon Musk.That’s why I’ve filed a subpoena to compel the DOJ and the FTC to provide all documents related to Elon Musk’s research.”

Thursday’s adjournment without subpoenas is the second time such an adjournment has occurred. On November 2, the committee had met similarly to vote on the subpoenas, but declined to do so at Graham’s request that Republicans consider his responses. The committee, before adjourning Thursday, voted to advance two of Biden’s judicial nominees to the Senate floor for confirmation.

Thomas has strongly denied allegations that his relationship with Crow improperly influenced him or that he violated ethical standards. Conservative groups and former Supreme Court employees in the chambers of Tomàs, likewise, they have tried to defend him in the public domain.

The Senate Judiciary Committee did not immediately respond to DCNF’s request for comment.

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