Category: Law & Crime

DOJ charges ‘Pink Beret’ Jan. 6 rioter IDed after an ex spotted her in a viral FBI tweet

NBC News

DOJ charges ‘Pink Beret’ Jan. 6 rioter IDed after an ex spotted her in a viral FBI tweet

Ryan J. Reilly – May 8, 2023

WASHINGTON — A woman who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 while wearing a pink beret and was recently identified to the FBI by an ex-romantic partner was charged with four federal counts Monday.

As NBC News first reported, an ex identified Jennifer Inzunza Vargas Geller of California and reported her to the FBI after the bureau featured her in a viral tweet last month. She faces four misdemeanor counts: entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in the Capitol grounds or buildings and unlawfully parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. She was not in custody Monday, a law enforcement source said, but there is now a warrant out for her arrest.

For more than two years, online sleuths who identified hundreds of participants in connection with the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, had been unable to determine Vargas Geller’s identity, and the woman they dubbed #PinkBeret had been the subject of online conspiracy theories. An attorney for another Jan. 6 defendant suggested she was working at the behest of the government.

But the last weekend of April, a clothing designer Vargas Geller used to date was standing in the checkout line at a Joann Fabric and Crafts store when his buddy showed him a funny tweet from the FBI’s Washington field office on his phone.

Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)

“He’s always on Twitter, and he said something like, ‘Yo, check out this chick,'” the designer said.“I stopped dead in my tracks,” he said. “I’m like, ‘That’s Jenny.’”

While most recent tweets from the Washington field office account had received a few thousand views, the tweet featuring Vargas Geller racked up millions. Twitter users dubbed her “Insurrection Eva Braun” and “fascist Matilda” and compared her to April Ludgate, the character played by Aubrey Plaza in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.” Several users joked that she seemed straight out of a Wes Anderson movie, and one user tweeted “Emily in-carceration,” referring to the show “Emily in Paris.”

Vargas Geller was charged 11 days after the viral tweet, which is an extremely quick turnaround compared to other Jan. 6 cases. Online sleuths have identified hundreds of additional Capitol riot participants who have not been charged, some of whom were first IDed more than two years ago, in 2021.

Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)

Vargas Geller was from Sacramento, the clothing designer said, and she went to meet him in Los Angeles in early 2019, when they were in their early 20s. “We weren’t, like, trying to get married or anything,” he said. “We were hooking up for a few months.”

But there was a red flag that sparked a breakup: Vargas Geller, he said, wrote on Discord that she was reading Adolf Hitler’s 1925 manifesto.

“I was just instantly turned off, like, ‘Yo, I don’t think this is going to work out,’” he said. “You’re, like, reading ‘Mein Kampf.’ You think immigrants don’t deserve X, Y, Z.” (A social media account linked to Vargas Geller, viewed by NBC News, also referred to Hitler.)

Vargas Geller could not be reached for comment.

Kira West, the defense attorney for Jan. 6 defendant Darrell Neely, who suggested “Pink Beret” was working as a government agent, said after Vargas Geller was identified that the government should have tried to ID her sooner.

“Our question is why they weren’t looking sooner when we brought it to their attention long ago? Especially with Mr. Neely’s liberty on the line,” West said.

Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)

Vargas Geller’s ex knew she had traveled to Washington and asked her whether she was on the “no fly” list in a message he wrote to her a few days after the attack.

“Nope, cause I didn’t go into the [Capitol],” she wrote, despite extensive video evidence later viewed by NBC News and cited in Monday’s affidavit that the FBI says shows her inside the building.

“But you still crossed state lines to riot,” he replied.

“I was there to support the president. Not to partake in that riot. I support the police,” Vargas Geller responded on Jan. 10, 2021, in a conservation shared with NBC News.

Jennifer Vargas inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Jennifer Vargas inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)

Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,000 people in connection with the Capitol attack, and hundreds of additional participants who have been identified have not yet been arrested.

Most defendants who face charges similar to Vargas Geller’s have received either probation or short sentences of incarceration. The longest sentence — more than 14 years in federal prison — went to a violent rioter with an extensive criminal record.

Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes

Daily Beast

Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes

Martin Sheil – May 5, 2023

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty

Gift taxes were probably not a topic discussed on the yacht or around the campfire during the Harlan Crow-subsidized luxury vacations for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni. But maybe they should have been.

Recent reports indicate that Crow provided Thomas’ grandnephew with tuition to a pricey boarding school in the 1990s. Thomas did not report this gift from Harlan Crow as required on his annual disclosure forms. But that is nothing new. ProPublica had previously reported on multiple luxury vacations provided to Justice Thomas and his wife via Crow’s yacht and jets—including an island-hopping junket in Indonesia that ProPublica valued at $500,000.

That Thomas has made multiple lapses in ethical judgment in not reporting the receipt of such valued largesse from Crow is something for him, SCOTUS, and now Congress to muse over.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-11-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Clarence Thomas Has Some Obscenely ‘Generous’ Friends

But what about Crow’s judgment? Did he file gift tax returns and pay gift taxes on any of the gifts he provided to the Thomas family?

It is a reasonable question to ask, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) appears to have formally done so, with a reported due date of a response May 8. In lieu of gift taxes, did Crow expense the value of the trips and tuition provided the Thomases on either personal or business income tax returns? Wyden wants to know.

If Crow took business expense deductions for the above referenced “gifts,” then he can’t claim they were gifts. And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t have had to file gift tax returns which—given a potential tax rate of up to 40 percent—would represent a pretty price for the billionaire real estate magnate.

The criteria for what constitutes an untaxed gift that exceeds the limit to avoid paying tax vary by year. For example, the limit was $13,000 per recipient in 2013, but $17,000 in 2023. The Indonesian junket—valued at over $500,000 by ProPublica—would generate gift taxes of approximately $200,000 for Mr. Crow.

<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>Executive Director of MoveOn.org Rahna Epting speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C. </p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">Jemal Countess / Getty </div>
Executive Director of MoveOn.org Rahna Epting speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C.Jemal Countess / Getty

Now, if Crow did take business deductions for the value of the luxury vacations provided to the Thomases, he would have opened up another can of worms for himself tax-wise. That’s because Crow has publicly stated he did not discuss any business before the court with Justice Thomas.

If that is true, then it is possible that Crow falsified his income tax returns by expensing the cost of the vacation provided the Thomases. It’s also possible the vacations provided the Thomas family could be viewed as income to Thomas—since he would be viewed as providing value to Crow through business discussions. To be very clear, this is speculative and none of this is proven, but the possibility alone makes it worth investigating.

What seems much more clear-cut is that Justice Thomas doesn’t seem to think he has to report gifts from wealthy businessmen, who also are generous corporate political donors, like Harlan Crow.

“Not reportable” is the phrase used by Thomas’ attorney/friend Mark Paoletta when he tweeted (incorrectly) about how the tuition payment by Crow to the school attended by the grandnephew was not reportable as a gift.

Oh my!

Now Would Be a Good Time to Investigate Ginni Thomas

Such an admission by Paoletta suggests knowledge of gift tax requirements by both Thomas and Crow going all the way back to the 1990s. It also raises additional questions. Was Justice Thomas motivated not to disclose valuable junkets provided to him and his family in order to abet his buddy Crow’s non-filing of gift tax returns and/or expensing of the value of the trips on his tax returns?

Oh me oh my!

Now, Mr. Crow may think he has insulated himself by procuring a golden passport from St. Kitts and Nevis—which is a notorious tax haven and money laundering refuge in the Caribbean. Then there’s the fact that Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, has a registered ownership under an entity called Rochelle Marine Limited—a company domiciled in Guernsey, another notorious tax haven located just off the shores of the U.K.

Mr. Crow clearly has employed some clever tax accountants and lawyers over the years. And we all look forward to the answers he provides to the questions posed by Sen. Wyden but, clearly, Crow has exhibited a predisposition for tax avoidance behavior. Did he cross the line into tax fraud? That is something to contemplate and discuss around the campfire.

<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>Analilia Mejia of the Center for Popular Democracy, center, joins other activists calling for ethics reform in the U.S. Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has been criticized for accepting luxury trips nearly every year for more than two decades from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms.</p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">J. Scott Applewhite / AP</div>
Analilia Mejia of the Center for Popular Democracy, center, joins other activists calling for ethics reform in the U.S. Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has been criticized for accepting luxury trips nearly every year for more than two decades from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms.J. Scott Applewhite / AP

But why is this question even significant?

It is murky as to whether any of Crow’s business dealings were ever subject to SCOTUS review—even indirectly. What is not unclear are the heavy-duty political campaign contributions made by Harlan Crow.

Has Mr. Crow donated to dark money PACs? We don’t know, because anonymity is the whole point of dark money PACs.

What about corporate political donations?

There is no limit to those given the Citizens United decision, wherein SCOTUS bestowed personhood on corporations and concluded that limiting corporate political contributions was tantamount to limiting freedom of speech—which was unconstitutional.

Clarence Thomas Shows Why Supreme Court Justices Cannot Be Above the Law

Might that issue have ever come up when Thomas was sailing on Crow’s yacht or flying on his corporate jet? Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United, which certainly had to make corporate executives everywhere in the U.S. pleased—even if it opened the door to contributions from overseas, and not just from Caribbean tax havens, and not just from dual passport holders.

That Justice Thomas was unethical in not disclosing receipt of luxury gifts provided to him is transparently obvious, though it seems inconsequential to date. But it does raise the question as to whether those who provide wealthy gifts to civil servants that hold positions of power should face any consequences, particularly when tax responsibilities are clear.

Should wealthy corporate executives who make large political donations to obtain results favorable to their business (or make luxury gifts to powerful people) be held accountable? Bottom line—does the wealth, power, and position of the wealthy insulate them from the consequences of their actions? (Normal tax-paying citizens would certainly face such a reckoning.)

These questions are bigger than just Thomas and Crow. They speak to the integrity of our political systems, and whether ordinary Americans should have to live by different rules than the wealthy and politically powerful.

“No mention of Ginni.’ Conservative activist directed money to wife of Justice Clarence Thomas

USA Today

“No mention of Ginni.’ Conservative activist directed money to wife of Justice Clarence Thomas

John Fritze, USA TODAY – May 5, 2023

WASHINGTON − A well-known conservative legal activist who has helped shape the modern Supreme Court arranged for the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas to receive tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work, according to a report Thursday in The Washington Post.

Leonard Leo, the former longtime vice president of the Federalist Society who helped President Donald Trump’s administration vet nominees for the high court, instructed Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit called the Judicial Education Project and to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas $25,000, The Post reported. Leo made the request in 2012.

“No mention of Ginni, of course,” The Post quoted Leo instructing Conway.

The Post reported that Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, paid Ginni Thomas’s firm $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012 and expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. It was not clear what the money was for, though Leo told The Post in a statement that it “involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment.”

The revelation was the latest in a series of reports in recent weeks about money and gifts Thomas and his family have received from outside interests. Earlier Thursday, ProPublica reported that GOP megadonor Harlan Crow had paid private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew. Last month, ProPublica revealed new details about private jet travel and luxury yacht trips Thomas also accepted from Crow.

In his statement to The Post, Leo explained his desire to keep Ginni Thomas’ name off the paperwork by asserting he has “always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni” because of how “disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas listens as President Donald Trump speaks before administering the Constitutional Oath to Amy Coney Barrett on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, after she was confirmed by the Senate earlier in the evening. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas listens as President Donald Trump speaks before administering the Constitutional Oath to Amy Coney Barrett on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, after she was confirmed by the Senate earlier in the evening. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Thomas’s problems multiply at Supreme Court

The Hill

Clarence Thomas’s problems multiply at Supreme Court

 Al Weaver – May 5, 2023

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is facing a fresh round of scrutiny after the third blockbuster report in less than a month links him financially to GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

ProPublica reported Thursday that Crow, a Dallas-based real estate developer, paid thousands of dollars in tuition to a private boarding school for Thomas’s great-nephew, whom Thomas has said he raised “as a son.”

Federal ethics laws require the justices to report gifts given to a “dependent child,” but that term is defined to only include the justices’ children or stepchildren. Thomas’s allies have insisted the payment doesn’t violate the disclosure law since it was for Thomas’s sister’s grandson.

But the revelation has only added to the increasing pressure from Democrats for the justices to adopt a binding code of ethics.

“Today’s report continues a steady stream of revelations calling Justices’ ethics standards and practices into question. I hope that the Chief Justice understands that something must be done—the reputation and credibility of the Court is at stake,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.

When asked during a SiriusXM interview about impeaching Thomas, however, Durbin said “no.” He noted that only one justice, Samuel Chase, had been impeached previously, and Chase was acquitted in the Senate in 1805.

“I don’t think an impeachment is in the works, particularly with the House in a political situation that it’s in today,” Durbin said on “The Briefing with Steve Scully.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Judiciary Committee member, argued the matter should be referred to the Department of Justice.

“There’s a potential criminal violation in the misreporting or failure to report certain benefits, gifts and financial transactions. There’s just a drip, drip, drip of additional information that is gravely undermining the Court, but also creating the need for a full factual investigation,” Blumenthal said.

“If [the Justice Department] fails to do so, Congress definitely has a role,” he added.

Thomas did not return a request for comment through a court spokesperson.

Later on Thursday, The Washington Post reported that Leonard Leo, a conservative judicial activist who played a key role in the Supreme Court’s rightward shift, directed tens of thousands of dollars be paid to Thomas’s wife, Ginni, roughly a decade ago.

Leo requested that she not be named in the paperwork, according to the Post. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist herself, has long insisted that she doesn’t talk about the court’s business with her husband.

Judiciary Committee Democrats have been hamstrung on taking action regarding the court, including on a potential subpoena for Chief Justice John Roberts. He declined an invitation from Durbin to appear at a Tuesday hearing on Supreme Court ethics, noting that it is “exceedingly rare” for a chief justice to give testimony.

That could change if Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been absent for months due to shingles, returns and once again gives Democrats an 11-10 majority on the panel — though even then subpoenaing the chief justice of the Supreme Court would be an extraordinary step.

Thursday’s ProPublica report was the latest financial transaction involving Thomas and Crow to come to light. The investigative outlet last month reported Thomas had accepted luxury trips from Crow, including flying on his private jet, without disclosing the travels.

ProPublica also reported Crow had purchased real estate from Thomas’s mother that Thomas had an interest in.

“The definition of insanity is seeing the same Supreme Court justice violate ethics rules over and over again and expecting him to actually hold himself accountable,” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court Action Fund, said in a statement. “How many more examples of Thomas flouting disclosure rules do our elected leaders need to see before they intervene? Thomas needs to answer for his misconduct. It’s time to subpoena him.”

Republicans, on the other hand, indicated little willingness to wade into the waters related to the justice who has served on the court for 32 years. They say this is an issue for the Supreme Court to deal with and not something that requires congressional oversight. Interfering, they argue, would go against the separation of powers.

“The Supreme Court … writes its own rules and if there is any policing of those rules to be done, I think it ought to be done by them,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters. “I assume the members of the Court, who I have a high level of confidence in, will make the right decisions for the justices on the Court and for the people who work at the Supreme Court in the same way as we make the rules for all members of Congress.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who recently indicated that he was dismayed by reports of the ethical issues for Thomas, said the Court needs to make ethics changes.

“These revelations with regards to a number of justices, both those appointed by Republicans and by Democrats, suggest that the Court itself needs to evaluate what their disclosure rules are and ethics rules are and methods for enforcing those,” Romney said. “I presume that the chief justice will undertake that.”

Republicans have further portrayed the Thomas scrutiny as a double standard, taking aim at the ethics of the high court’s liberal justices.

They note that liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted an award in 2010 from the Woman’s National Democratic Club.

They have also pointed to liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor not recusing herself when the court considered taking up two cases involving book publisher Penguin Random House, despite disclosing payments from the conglomerate for her books. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also received payments from the publisher for his book, similarly did not recuse.

Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni was paid nearly $100,000 for ‘consulting’ by a nonprofit that ended up filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court

Insider

Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni was paid nearly $100,000 for ‘consulting’ by a nonprofit that ended up filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court: report

Erin Snodgrass and Matthew Loh – May 4, 2023

Ginni Thomas against blue background
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 23, 2017.Susan Walsh/AP
  • A conservative activist helped Ginni Thomas rake in nearly $100,000 for consulting, The Washington Post reported.
  • Conservative lawyer Leonard Leo reportedly ensured Ginni Thomas’ name was kept off the paperwork.
  • The nonprofit that was billed filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court that same year.

A little more than a decade ago, a conservative judicial activist helped Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, secure consulting work that yielded her nearly $100,000 — all the while asking that her name was left off the financial paperwork, according to a new Washington Post report.

Leonard Leo, a lawyer and conservative legal activist, told then-GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit he advised, Judicial Education Project, and give that money to Ginni Thomas in January 2012, the outlet reported, citing financial documents.

That very same year, Leo’s nonprofit filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in a key voting rights case in which a 5-4 majority — that included Thomas — ultimately opted to strike down a component of the Voting Rights Act.

The Post highlighted an opinion that Thomas wrote for the case, in which he favored the same outcome that the Judicial Education Project pushed for alongside other conservative organizations. However, he did not mention the amicus brief submitted by the nonprofit.

The latest scandal comes amid a flood of judicial misconduct allegations against Thomas in recent weeks. A series of ProPublica reports alleged that the longest-serving justice sold his childhood home to GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow without disclosing the sale and accepted decades of expensive — and undisclosed — vacations from Crow.

Ginni Thomas has previously courted controversy with her public, pro-Trump activities, and other conservative activism.

The Post said documents show that Leo instructed Conway at the time to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” noting that the billing information should have “no mention of Ginni, of course.”

“When you funnel tens of thousands of dollars to the wife of a Supreme Court justice and go out of your way to specify that her name must be kept off all records of the transaction, that means you know you are doing something wrong,” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of the Supreme Court advocacy nonprofit Take Back the Court, said in a statement shared with Insider.

Leo told The Post in a statement that Ginni Thomas’ work at the Judicial Education Project “did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues.”

“Anybody who thinks that Justice Thomas is influenced in his work by what others say or do, including his wife Ginni, is completely ignorant of who this man is and what he stands for,” Leo’s statement read, per The Post. “And anybody who thinks Ginni Thomas would seek to influence the Supreme Court’s work is completely ignorant of the respect she has for her husband and the important role that he and his colleagues play in our society.”

The conservative activist said he kept Thomas’ name off the financial paperwork “knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be,” per The Post.

“I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni,” he told the outlet.

Leo and Thomas first met when the justice was a clerk in the District of Columbia Circuit, and have been friends for decades, per The New York Times. Thomas is the godfather to one of Leo’s children and has spent time at the activist’s vacation home, The Times reported, while Ginni Thomas considers Leo a mentor, per The Washington Post.

Leo himself has been under recent scrutiny. Politico reported in March that Leo’s personal wealth soared as he started playing a key role in political fundraising and assisting then-President Donald Trump in 2016 with creating a conservative Supreme Court majority.

And on April 6, a nonprofit watchdog organization in Washington accused Leo of acquiring $73 million over six years from nonprofit groups that illegally sent money to his businesses.

Representatives for Ginni Thomas and the Supreme Court, did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment sent outside regular business hours. Leo’s firm, CRC Advisors, and Conway’s website did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Previously, SCOTUS experts have said that a main issue is the lack of enforcement of ethics standards; justices are tasked with policing themselves.

GOP donor Harlan Crow paid private tuition for relative of Justice Clarence Thomas

USA Today

GOP donor Harlan Crow paid private tuition for relative of Justice Clarence Thomas

John Fritze – May 4, 2023

WASHINGTON − Republican megadonor Harlan Crow paid private boarding school tuition for the grandnephew of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to a report Thursday in ProPublica that was likely to bring a fresh round of scrutiny to both Thomas and the ethics practices at the nation’s highest court.

Thomas had taken legal custody of his grandnephew at the time and told C-SPAN in an interview he was “raising him as a son.” Tuition at the Georgia boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month, ProPublica reported. Thomas did not note the payments from Crow on his annual financial disclosures.

The revelation was the latest involving Thomas and Crow, who paid for lavish trips and private jet travel for the justice and his wife and who purchased three Georgia properties from Thomas and his family − none of which were reported on disclosure forms officials are required to file to give the public insight into their financial arrangements.

The court did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, Mark Paoletta, who has represented Thomas’ wife, Ginni, said the tuition payment was not reportable because disclosure requirements do not cover nephews.

“This malicious story shows nothing except for the fact that the Thomases and the Crows are kind, generous, and loving people who tried to help this young man,” Paoletta said.

What’s the potential impact of the latest Clarence Thomas revelations?
  • The latest ProPublica story came as Thomas and the Supreme Court are under heightened scrutiny from Congress and outside groups over ethics concerns. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday in which Democrats, in particular, slammed the court for a series of recent stories questioning disclosure practices.
  • But the debate over ethics at the Supreme Court has also become increasingly partisan, and Republican senators at the hearing accused Democrats of highlighting the ethics issues as a way to delegitimatize a court that handed down several controversial and conservative opinions on abortion, guns and religion in recent years.
  • In response to the initial ProPublica story about travel, Thomas said he was “advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable.” He said he has “endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure,” Thomas said in a statement, “and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”
Justice Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court are under heightened scrutiny from Congress and outside groups over ethics concerns.
Justice Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court are under heightened scrutiny from Congress and outside groups over ethics concerns.
‘Harlan picked up the tab’

It was not clear exactly how much money Crow spent on the tuition at the school, Hidden Lake Academy. ProPublica identified a bank statement for July 2009 that showed Crow paid the tuition for Thomas’ relative that month. Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school, told ProPublica that Crow paid the tuition the entire time Thomas’ grandnephew was a student there.

“Harlan picked up the tab,” Grimwood told ProPublica.

Crow’s office responded with a statement asserting that his family has supported many scholarships and blamed “partisan political interests” for trying to turn an effort to help “at-risk youth” into something “nefarious.”

Thomas and Ginni Thomas have also accepted luxury trips for years paid for by Crow, including international travel on his private jet and yacht, ProPublica reported last month. Crow also purchased three Georgia properties from Thomas and members of his family in 2014, a transaction that Thomas failed to note on his annual disclosure forms.

GOP Lawmaker’s Wild Claim About Those Who ‘Hate Homosexuals’ Causes Literal Jaw-Drop

HuffPost

GOP Lawmaker’s Wild Claim About Those Who ‘Hate Homosexuals’ Causes Literal Jaw-Drop

Ed Mazza – May 3, 2023

Fox News Flips Over ‘Woke’ Legos

The right-wing network has added another new enemy to its list — the Lego toy company.

There was a jaw-dropping moment on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives this week after a Republican lawmaker’s comment about who really hates the LGBTQ+ community.

“ISIS, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Those are the folks who discriminate,” state Rep. Jeff Holcomb said Monday. “Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do.”

It’s not clear if he misspoke or intended to say it like that, but he was speaking in support of a bill that urges Congress to prohibit “woke social engineering and experimentation” that are “eroding” the military.

The implication that Republicans hate the gay community ― but terrorists hate them even more ― led to gasps in the audience, while Democratic Rep. Kelly Skidmore’s jaw literally dropped:

Holcomb, who is in the Navy Reserve, continued by quoting the Navy creed: “I am committed to excellence and fair treatment of all.”

Former GOP Lawmaker Rips Republicans With ‘Simple’ Answer To Gun Violence

HuffPost

Former GOP Lawmaker Rips Republicans With ‘Simple’ Answer To Gun Violence

Lee Moran – May 2, 2023

Another Day, Another Mass Shooting

Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) on Monday suggested a “simple” political solution to America’s gun violence.

“I would say the political answer to gun violence in America is never again elect a Republican. It’s that simple,” Jolly told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace during an analysis of the latest mass shooting in Texas in which five people were killed.

“They are bad-faith actors,” Jolly, who left the GOP in 2018, said of his former Republican colleagues, further slamming them for focusing on “motive as opposed to the means.”

“Listen, there is no motive that can accomplish gun violence without the means and the means is the weapon and the access to that weapon and in cases like we just saw, to weapons of war,” he explained.

Jolly noted a general consensus nationwide about “common sense measures” for gun control but said he felt “we need to get more aggressive” and talk about “licensing and registration” and much deeper background checks.

This woman was told her mortgage was paid off: 10 years later, she received a foreclosure notice in the mail. She decided to fight.

MarketWatch – The Human Cost

This woman was told her mortgage was paid off: 10 years later, she received a foreclosure notice in the mail. She decided to fight.

Aarthi Swaminathan – May 2, 2023

Mortgages originated in the early 2000’s and largely forgotten are now being pursued by debt collectors. Government officials are concerned.
Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, stands beside homeowner Rose Prophete during a field hearing in Brooklyn, N.Y. PHOTO: LEGAL SERVICES NYC

Rose Prophete bought her home in Canarsie, Brooklyn, N.Y. in May 2005. She thought she had paid off her loans until recently, when a company approached her about a debt she thought she had settled a long time ago.

The company expected Prophete to pay up over $130,000, or face foreclosure.

When refinancing her mortgage on the home, Prophete had split her mortgage into two. Prophete said she had been erroneously told that her second mortgage was paid off. That debt, having laid dormant for years, was now being pursued by a debt-collection firm.

Prophete is one of 13 plaintiffs in a 2021 federal lawsuit against the firm, and she recently testified at a field hearing into “zombie debts” held by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency responsible for consumer protection in the financial-services sector.

The CFPB last week announced that it was issuing legal guidance for debt collectors trying to collect on mortgages that were long considered forgiven by borrowers, who in particular had no notices or statements sent over a decade about outstanding debt.

‘This is really frustrating — I don’t want to lose my home.’— Rose Prophete, who bought her home in Brooklyn, N.Y. in May 2005

The federal agency said that a debt collector “who brings or threatens to bring a state-court foreclosure action to collect a time-barred mortgage debt may violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.” Time-barred refers to debt whose statute of limitations has run out.

“Debt collectors do not get to claim ignorance of the law or ignorance of the debt’s age,” Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, said during the hearing. “If the statute of limitations has expired, taking legal action threatening to bring a suit of foreclosure may be illegal no matter what the debt collector claims to have known. This is the law.”

Prophete, a Haitian immigrant and a hospital technician, said during the CFPB hearing that she had worked three jobs to afford the two-family Brooklyn home, on top of taking care of small children. 

According to the lawsuit, a little more than a year after they completed the purchase, the broker who arranged the financing suggested she refinance the mortgage to lower her monthly payments. She agreed to refinance her mortgage into two, as the broker told her that this “financing structure would be the most financially advantageous to her,” per the filing. The first loan was for $504,000 and the second for $63,000 with an interest rate of 9%.

‘Debt collectors do not get to claim ignorance of the law or ignorance of the debt’s age.’— Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, speaking about the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

After a couple of years, she received a note from her first lender that the second loan was fulfilled — that she didn’t need to pay for it. She said she didn’t receive any statements for the second mortgage, so she focused on paying off her first one, the lawsuit said.

She said she never heard back from the mortgage servicer, until over a decade later, in March 2021, when she received a foreclosure notice in the mail. The creditor was attempting to collect on payments due from Jan. 1, 2009 to the date of filing in 2021. The payments had ballooned from $63,000 to over $130,000, according to the lawsuit.

“This is really frustrating — I don’t want to lose my home,” Prophete said during the field hearing. 

New York Attorney General Leticia James, who also spoke during the hearing, said that debt-collection firms were engaged in “predatory practices” to “rob individuals of the equity in their home.” 

Debt buyers were acquiring these mortgages “often for pennies on the dollar,” James said, and they were now suing homeowners and “seeking to exploit rising housing values by reviving the long-dormant zombie debt.” 

“I find this practice predatory and abusive and an affront to the American dream of sustainable home ownership,” she added. “I will fight this despicable practice.”

Can American’s expect this U.S. Supreme Court to be fair and impartial? U.S. Supreme Court to examine whistleblower claims against financial firms in UBS case

Reuters

U.S. Supreme Court to examine whistleblower claims against financial firms in UBS case

Daniel Wiessner – May 1, 2023

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine how difficult it should be for financial whistleblowers to win retaliation lawsuits against their employers as the justices took up a long-running case involving Switzerland’s UBS Group AG.

The justices will hear an appeal by Trevor Murray, a former UBS bond strategist, of a lower court’s decision to throw out his 2021 lawsuit that accused the company of unlawfully firing him for refusing to publish misleading research reports and complaining about being pressured to do so.

The appeal involves a technical but important issue – whether whistleblowers who sue their employers for retaliation under the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act must prove that companies acted with “retaliatory intent.”

The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year decided that Murray was required to meet that bar and failed, creating a split with four other federal appeals courts. Those courts have said that defendants in Sarbanes-Oxley cases can raise the lack of intent as a defense, but that plaintiffs do not have to prove employers acted with intent.

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of UBS could significantly curtail financial whistleblower lawsuits because it is often difficult for plaintiffs to prove a defendant’s motives.

Robert Herbst, a lawyer for Murray, said the 2nd Circuit decision ignored the text of the whistleblower law, adding that he looked forward to arguing the case before the Supreme Court.

A UBS spokesperson said, “We expect the court will uphold the 2nd Circuit’s decision.”

Murray, who worked in UBS’s mortgage securitization unit, accused UBS officials of pressuring him to issue skewed and bullish research on commercial mortgage-backed securities in order to support the bank’s trading and underwriting operations. He has said he was fired in 2012 about two months after complaining to supervisors and despite receiving excellent performance reviews.

UBS has denied wrongdoing and said Murray’s termination was part of a cost-cutting campaign that eliminated thousands of jobs.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was adopted in 2002 and created enhanced accounting standards for publicly traded U.S. companies after a series of accounting scandals, along with new legal protections for employees who report illegal conduct.

The Supreme Court is due to hear the case in its next term, which begins in October.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Will Dunham)