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Joe Biden on Tuesday lamented the impact of "white man’s culture" and bemoaned his own role in Supreme Court confirmation hearings that undermined Anita Hill’s credibility nearly three decades ago.
The former vice president and potential 2020 Democratic candidate said Hill, who is black, should not have been forced to face a panel of "a bunch of white guys" about her sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas.
"To this day I regret I couldn’t come up with a way to give her the kind of hearing she deserved," he said Tuesday night, echoing comments he delivered last fall amid debates about sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation process. "I wish I could have done something."
BIDEN REPORTEDLY DEBATES TAPPING STACEY ABRAMS AS RUNNING MATE FROM THE START – COULD IT BACKFIRE?
Former Vice President of the U.S. Joe Biden speaks during a political rally in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz – RC1D37E63DA0
Biden’s role in the 1991 Thomas confirmation hearings is among his many political challenges as he considers making a 2020 bid for the presidency. If he throws his hat into the already-crowded ring, he would be among a handful of white men in a Democratic presidential field that features several women and minorities.
His comments about Hill drew swift condemnation on social media, with many noting he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time of the hearing.
"It literally does not matter what else Biden says about sexual assault if he cannot acknowledge his own culpability in putting a sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court and then pretending for years like he was powerless to stop it," tweeted Jessica Morales Rocketto, a former aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign who now serves as the political director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance. (Thomas has long denied the accusations.)
Actress and political activist Mia Farrow called Biden’s role in the 1991 hearings "shameful."
BIDEN CALLED COURT PACKING A ‘BONEHEAD IDEA’ DURING 1983 HEARING
"Love you Joe but you were in a position to do better — and you didn’t," she said.
Biden, 76, delivered the remarks at a New York City event honoring young people who helped combat sexual assault on college campuses. The event, held at a venue called the Russian Tea Room, was hosted by the Biden Foundation and the nonprofit group It’s on Us, which Biden founded with former President Barack Obama in 2014.
Biden called on Americans to "change the culture" that dates back centuries and allows pervasive violence against women. "It’s an English jurisprudential culture, a white man’s culture. It’s got to change," he said.
The former vice president also repeatedly denounced violence against women during his remarks, which spanned more than a half-hour. It’s a topic he knows well. As a senator from Delaware, he introduced the Violence Against Women Act in 1990.
BIDEN ADVISERS QUIETLY LINING UP CAMPAIGN TEAM, ENDORSEMENTS AHEAD OF LIKELY 2020 BID
"No man has a right to lay a hand on a woman, no matter what she’s wearing, she does, who she is, unless it’s in self-defense. Never," he said Tuesday.
He then shared a conversation he had with a member of a college fraternity.
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"If you see a brother taking an inebriated co-ed up the stairs at a fraternity house and you don’t go and stop it, you’re a damn coward," Biden said. "You don’t deserve to be called a man."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Justice’s on the nation’s highest court reportedly sided unanimously with an Alaskan moose hunter on Tuesday, overturning lower courts’ rulings in his battle with the National Park Service (NPS). (iStock)
Justice’s on the nation’s highest court reportedly sided unanimously with an Alaskan moose hunter on Tuesday, overturning the rulings of lower courts in his battle with the National Park Service (NPS).
"We reverse the decision below and wish [John] Sturgeon good hunting," Justice Elena Kagan said in reading a summary of the decision.
The Supreme Court’s ruling stemmed from a 2007 incident when Sturgeon, of Anchorage, Alaska, made use of a hovercraft while hunting moose along the state’s Nation River, which runs in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, The Associated Press reported.
But Sturgeon was reportedly notified by multiple Park Service rangers at the time that using the hovercraft was unlawful. The agency had banned hovercraft in other states.
SUPREME COURT WARILY WEIGHS PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING
In siding with Sturgeon, the Supreme Court said the agency was wrong in prohibiting the use of an amphibious vehicle on a river through a national preserve.
In their decision, Justices cited the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that in 1980 set aside 162,500 square miles of land for preservation purposes, the outlet said. The law reportedly created 10 new national parks, preserves and monuments but said agency rules would not apply on state or private land within the conservation units that are not federally owned.
"Sturgeon can again rev up his hovercraft in search of moose," Kagan wrote.
Sturgeon filed a lawsuit on the matter about four years after the incident with the Park Service rangers, although his fight was rejected in the lower courts, The Associated Press said.
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The Supreme Court reportedly weighed in on the matter in 2016, noting that the 1980 law carved out several state-specific exceptions to NPS’s general authority over federally managed preserves and sent the case back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for reconsideration.
That court ultimately decided the NPS had regulatory authority over a river in a preserve, the outlet said. The Supreme Court justices rejected that conclusion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The Supreme Court appeared convinced Tuesday that congressional maps drawn by two state legislatures were overly partisan, but worried whether judges themselves should be the ones to remedy the long-simmering issue.
Partisan gerrymandering may be the wonky side of politics, but the stakes are huge: the balance of power in state legislatures and Congress could tip in coming years, particularly after the 2020 census, when voting boundaries will be redrawn based on population changes.
The justices heard two separate cases. In North Carolina, the 2011 map drawn by the GOP-led legislature now has 10 of 13 congressional seats held by Republicans, despite an overall state population that is mostly divided along party lines, and where statewide elections have recently been close.
And in Maryland, the issue was whether Republican voters could go to court and challenge a redistricting plan they say violated their First Amendment rights. That 2011 voting map shifted the political balance in the state’s rural 6th congressional district, turning a traditional GOP stronghold to Democratic control in an overall blue state.
GOP VOTERS WIN GERRYMANDERING LAWSUIT FORCING MARYLAND TO DRAW NEW CONGRESSIONAL MAP FOR 2020
"Under any measure, this is excessive, isn’t it?" said Justice Elena Kagan.
"The stated goal was seven/one," Justice Brett Kavanaugh told the lawyer representing Maryland, saying Democrats openly boasted of their efforts to have only one Republican member of Congress. "I mean, I don’t think you should run away from the obvious."
A new round of nationwide redistricting will occur after next year’s census. Republicans used strong state victories in 2010 to significantly shape electoral maps to their advantage.
The nearly 80-minues of arguments inside the courtroom showed again the justices would be hard-pressed to articulate a clear, definitive ruling on limiting partisanship in the map-drawing process.
The justices have never invalidated a voting district because of an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. And the targeted questioning from the bench suggested they would not use the pending cases as the precedent to decide the landmark issue.
"The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments over whether politicians can be trusted to draw up their own districts," wrote the governors of Maryland and North Carolina in a joint Washington Post op-ed on Monday. "Take it from us. They can’t."
SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH TEXAS ON GERRYMANDERING DISPUTE
In arguments, lawyer Paul Clement, representing North Carolina lawmakers, pointedly told the court to be wary about wading too deeply into the discretion of lawmakers. "Once you get into the political thicket, you will not get out and you will tarnish the image of this Court."
Justice Stephen Breyer said that was why the court needed to find a "clear standard" going forward. Without it, "you will turn many, many elections in the United States over to the judges," he said. "There’s always someone who wants to contest it. They will always find experts of all kinds. And what you’ll discover is judges simply deciding too much."
"Have we really reached the moment, even though it would be a big lift for this Court to get involved, where the other actors can’t do it?" asked Kavanaugh."
Justice Neil Gorsuch was more pointed: "Why should we wade into this?"
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor and others on the bench pushed back.
"It can’t be that simply because the Constitution says that a particular act is in the hands of one branch of government," she said, "that deprives the courts of reviewing whether that action is constitutional or not."
"This is what this is about," she added of the North Carolina map. "You’re discriminating on the basis of a group’s speech and diluting their vote accordingly."
MYSTERY COMPANY MUST COMPLY WITH SUBPOENA LINKED TO MUELLER PROBE, APPELLATE COURT RULES
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted previous high court precedent gives it jurisdiction over the issue, including the mandate of giving equal individual weight in legislative apportionment, the so-called "one person, one vote" standard.
"Does one person have one vote that counts equally with others if the impact of her vote is reduced based on her party affiliation?" she asked.
Courts nationwide in recent months have tossed out GOP plans in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Opponents of the plans say their constitutional rights were violated.
Attorney Emmet Bondurant — who in 1962 successfully argued one of the first partisan gerrymandering case at the high court — called out GOP lawmakers in North Carolina.
"They take the position that no matter how predominant the intent, no matter how extreme the effects," he told the justices, “there are absolutely no constitutional limitations on partisan gerrymander."
Several conservative justices repeatedly questioned the alternative formulas offered by Bondurant and the attorney opposing Maryland’s map.
"I think is going to turn on numbers, right? How much deviation from proportional representation is enough to dictate an outcome?" asked an exasperated Justice Neil Gorsuch. "So aren’t we just back in the business of deciding what degree of tolerance we’re willing to put up with from proportional representation? We might pluck a number out of the air or see that, you know, maybe two-thirds is used for veto overrides, so we like that. Where are we going to get the number on the business end of this?"
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More than three-dozen states rely on the state legislature to directly redraw boundaries, now using sophisticated computer models that have the ability target voters by their street or household. Other states such as California rely on an independent commission to create what supporters say would be less extreme districts.
The justices appeared aware of the consequences, with Kavanaugh saying "extreme partisan gerrymandering is a real problem for our democracy — and I’m not going to dispute that."
But Chief Justice John Roberts stated the obvious in politics — if one party is enjoying the benefits of a redistricting map, it will be loath to change it.
"I suppose the members of Congress are pretty happy with the way the districting has been done," he said, bringing uneasy laughter in the crowded courtroom.
The North Carolina case is Rucho v. Common Cause (18-422).
The Maryland case is Lamone v. Benisek (18-726). Rulings are expected by June.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is so far declining to stop the Trump administration from enforcing its ban on bump stock devices, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns.
The ban took effect Tuesday. The administration is in the unusual position of arguing against gun rights groups. Gun rights groups asked the court Monday to keep the government from beginning to enforce the ban for now. Chief Justice John Roberts declined a request for the court to get involved Tuesday. A second request is pending in front of Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
President Donald Trump said last year that the government would move to ban bump stocks. The action followed a 2017 Las Vegas shooting where bump stocks were used. Fifty-eight people were killed.
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a company owned by an unidentified foreign government that has refused to turn over information subpoenaed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The company, whose identity remains a mystery with details filed under seal, is facing a $50,000 per day court-imposed fine for failure to turn over documents responsive to a grand jury subpoena. Fines for the company have been accruing since January and could total nearly $3.5 million.
MYSTERY COMPANY MUST COMPLY WITH SUBPOENA LINKED TO MUELLER PROBE, APPELLATE COURT RULES
Federal prosecutors have been trying to get the information from the unnamed company since as early as the summer of 2018.
The company has challenged the subpoena from the federal grand jury in Washington and refused to turn over requested documents to Mueller’s team. The corporation argued that complying with the subpoena would violate the laws of its country and constitute an undue hardship. In December, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their argument.
The high court’s decision comes after Mueller turned over his final report to Attorney General William Barr. Barr, in a summary sent to Congress, said that Mueller found no evidence of collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
MUELLER SEEKING SUBPOENA, CONTEMPT CITATION AGAINST FOREIGN CORPORATION
Despite the fact that the investigation is complete, the status of the grand jury impaneled in the case remains unclear. The fines on the company will continue to accrue until the grand jury is discharged.
The special counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, according to Barr’s summary.
Fox News’ Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Christopher Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told Fox News Wednesday that the idea of increasing the number of justices on the high court is "maybe an argument worth taking seriously," but added that some proposals by Democratic candidates were "just unconstitutional."
Scalia took particular issue with an idea advanced by South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg in which the Supreme Court would have 15 members, five of whom would "only be seated by unanimous agreement of the other 10," as Buttigieg told "Fox News Sunday."
"The problem with that," Scalia told "Your World with Neil Cavuto" Wednesday, "is, obviously Section 2, Article II of the Constitution makes very clear that the president has the power and authority to nominate and, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint Supreme Court justices. So, I mean, I don’t know what … these candidates are talking about, but they certainly can’t have justices appoint their colleagues. So, that would require an [constitutional] amendment that I just don’t think has a snowball’s chance anywhere of being ratified."
Buttigieg is not the only Democratic candidate who has raised the prospect of overhauling the Supreme Court if they win the White House. Other 2020 contenders, including Sens.Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand have mused about adding seats to the court or, in Booker’s case, implementing term limits on what has traditionally been a lifetime appointment.
CLARENCE THOMAS MAKES RARE INTERVENTION DURING SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS
Scalia said the proposals echo Franklin D. Roosevelt’s "court-packing" scheme from the 1930s, which the 32nd president eventually abandoned.
Despite that, Scalia argued that FDR’s proposal "did have an effect. It kind of intimidated a Supreme Court – or so, kind of the conventional wisdom goes – into being more amenable to what he was trying to do with the New Deal.
"So, he didn’t get more justices, but he did get a lot of what he wanted done, done," he added. "And it’s possible that the Democrats, just by raising this threat of packing the court are trying to do something similar."
The Constitution does not enshrine a set number of Supreme Court justices; that is up to Congress. The number of justices has been set at nine since 1869, but the tally has been as low and six and as high as ten.
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Scalia said that the latest proposals by Democrats are the latest step in a political war over the judiciary that has lasted for nearly two decades.
"This goes back to the early 2000s when Democrats filibustered a lot of President Bush’s nominees and Republicans responded in kind by filibustering a lot of Obama’s nominees, and so the Democrats responded by ending the filibuster for lower court nominees, and then Republicans when the Democrats filibustered [Neil] Gorsuch, Republicans got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees," he said. "It goes on and on. So, if the Democrats try to do this, try to pack the court, I don’t know why they’re under the impression that the next time they have the Senate and the next time they have the president, Republicans will never be in power again because they’re on the right side of history and history will finally meet its ultimate end."
Fox News’ Bill Mears contributed to this report.
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas surprised court watchers on Wednesday when he made a rare intervention in court arguments — asking a question in a case where a death row inmate is challenging his conviction and sentence.
Thomas, who is the only African-American and the only Southerner on the court, asked his rare question toward the end of arguments in a case involving a black Mississippi death row inmate, Curtis Flowers, who was tried six different times for the 1996 murders of four people in a furniture store.
CLARENCE THOMAS BACKS TRUMP’S CALL FOR CHANGING DEFAMATION LAW TO EASE SUITS AGAINST MEDIA
Flowers’ lawyers claims a white prosecutor had a history of impermissibly using jury strikes to exclude African-Americans from the jury.
The Associated Press reported that a clear majority of the court appeared “troubled” by the actions of the prosecutor — District Attorney Doug Evans — in the prosecution of Flowers.
Thomas asked if Flowers’ lawyers in the case had made similar decisions, and the race of any struck jurors. Lawyer Sheri Lynn Johnson said three white jurors were excused by Flowers’ lawyer.
According to The Washington Post, two of Flowers’ trials were hung, and convictions in three others were overturned because of misconduct by Evans.
But the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld his 2010 conviction, despite Evans striking five of six black jurors, arguing that Evans had race-neutral reasons for the strikes.
Thomas’ last questions in a case were in 2016, and that was his first intervention in a decade. He has said previously that he relies on the written briefs and believes his colleagues interrupt too much.
Fox News’ Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Supreme Court Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch, left, and Brett Kavanaugh watch as President Trump arrives to give his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington. (Associated Press)
President Trump’s two appointees the U.S. Supreme Court – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – were expected to help bring about a "conservative revolution” on the nation’s highest court. But in two out three rulings by the court Tuesday, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh found themselves on opposing sides.
The two cases in which the justices did not agree involved an Indian tribe and Washington state taxes, and another involving maritime law.
Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump in 2017 to fill the seat Senate Republicans held open for more than a year after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016, sided with the liberal justices in ruling that the Yakama Nation doesn’t have to pay a Washington state fuel tax. He cited an 1855 treaty that made a “handful of modest promises” to the tribe, including the right to move goods to market freely.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS’ RECENT VOTES RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT ‘CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION’ ON SUPREME COURT
Yakama Nation Chairman JoDe Goudy praised the ruling. In a statement cited by NW News Network, he wrote: “Today marks a decision that reinforces the Yakama way of life, both in historical context as well as modern interpretation."
Gorsuch’s opinion was joined only by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the leader of the court’s liberal wing. The other three liberal justices voted for the same outcome, but for different reasons.
Kavanaugh dissented from the Gorsuch and the liberals. He argued that the 1855 treaty merely gave tribal members equal rights to travel.
The other case that saw Kavanaugh and Gorsuch at odds addressed a lawsuit brought by two Navy veterans who had been exposed to asbestos. Writing the court’s opinion, Kavanaugh said that the makers of pumps, turbines, and blowers that required asbestos insulation to operate properly should have warned about the health dangers of asbestos exposure. This is so, Kavanaugh wrote, even though the companies did not manufacture or sell the asbestos to the Navy. The liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts also were in the majority.
Gorsuch, whose dissent was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, wrote that the manufacturers "are at risk of being held responsible retrospectively for failing to warn about other people’s products."
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Tuesday’s third case demonstrated the more common alliance of the conservative justices. The court’s decision, which saw Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in lockstep with the other conservatives, gave the federal government broader power to detain immigrants who are awaiting deportation anytime after they have been released from prison on criminal charges. The four liberal justices dissented.
Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Republican lawmakers announced Tuesday that they would be introducing a constitutional amendment this week that would stop the recent push by some Democrats to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., slammed calls by 2020 Democratic hopefuls to increase the number of sitting judges as “dangerous” and a threat to the balance of power among the three branches of government.
“Schemes to pack the court are dangerous to the Founders’ vision of an independent judiciary that serves as a check on both the Executive and Legislative branches of government,” he wrote on Twitter.
Green said he intends to file a constitutional amendment Thursday that would limit the number of justices to 9 – the number it has been since 1869.
“The Supreme Court must remain a fair and impartial branch of government not beholden to party.”
Several Democrats on the campaign trail, including former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have signaled their openness to expanding the number of judges on the court if they enter the White House.
2020 DEMOCRATS EYE DRAMATIC INCREASE IN SUPREME COURT JUSTICES: ‘ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE’
But Republicans fired back, with even the President saying “it will never happen.”
Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that the move to increase seats comes after the new administration was able to seat two new judges -Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – following the Dems’ loss in the 2016 elections.
“I wouldn’t entertain that. The only reason that they’re doing that is they want to try and catch up, so if they can’t catch up through the ballot box by winning an election, they want to try doing it in a different way," he said.
TRUMP FIRES BACK AT DEM’S COURT-PACKING PUSH: ‘IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN’
Other Republican lawmakers have backed Green’s proposal, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who also announced plans to introduce a similar measure in the Senate.
“We must prevent further destabilization of essential institutions,” he wrote on Twitter. “Court packing is quickly becoming a litmus test for 2020 Democratic candidates.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called increasing calls for expanding the court “ironic.”
“I find it ironic Democrats want to increase the size of the Supreme Court, but gut the military.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the idea to expand the courts “radical.”
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The Constitution does not establish a set number of justices; that is up to Congress. There were initially six members of the high court — then seven, then nine, then down to eight, then up to ten for a while, then back down to eight, and then ticking up to nine in 1869.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Bill mears contributed to this report.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed the Trump administration a victory in its battle to clamp down on illegal immigration by making it easier to detain immigrants with criminal records.
The ruling that federal immigration authorities can detain immigrants awaiting deportation anytime after they have been released from prison on criminal charges represents a victory for President Trump.
In the 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that required immigration officials to immediately detain deportable immigrants with criminal records upon release from jail or prison – instead of months or possibly years later.
In the case before the justices, a group of mostly green card holders argued that unless they were picked up immediately after finishing their prison sentence, they should get a hearing to argue for their release while deportation proceedings go forward.
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During oral arguments in October the Trump administration argued that given the limited money and manpower available, it was nearly impossible for the federal government to immediately detain every immigrant upon their release from custody.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, stating that "neither the statute’s text nor its structure" supported the immigrants’ argument. The court’s conservative justices sided with the Trump administration, which argued as the Obama administration did, against hearings for those convicted of crimes and affected by the law.
The case before the justices involved a class-action lawsuit brought by non-citizens in California and a similar class-action lawsuit brought in the state of Washington. One of the lead plaintiffs, Mony Preap, has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States since 1981 and has two convictions for possession of marijuana. He was released from prison in 2006 but was not taken into immigration custody until 2013.
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Preap won in lower courts, and the government was ordered to provide him and other class members a bond hearing. Preap has since won his deportation case.
The ruling was the first in the court’s current term – which began in October – and the first for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who along with Chief Justice John Roberts, wrote a concurring opinion. The court’s four more liberal justices dissented, and Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading an oral dissent from the bench.
Fox News’ William Mears and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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