Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 12

Looking forward to an eventful week - This week is shaping up to be a big one for former president Donald Trump. He's expected to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Tuesday

The Supreme Court's New Ruling Could Help Democrats Flip The House In 2024

All of these maps look completely ridiculous to me. Multi-member districts would make this whole thing so much easier. (And massively hurt both established parties, which is of course why they'll never be implemented.)

Will the Judge in Trump’s Case Recuse Herself—or Be Forced To?
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/will-the-judge-in-trumps-case-recuse-herself-or-be-forced-to

Judge Aileen Cannon‘s involvement will no doubt be a hot media topic in the Trump case. This article is a Q&A with “Stephen Gillers, a professor emeritus at N.Y.U. Law and an expert on judicial matters” on rules and court process when dealing with a judge who is perceived as unable to remain impartial in a trial. He more or less says that he thinks she should recuse herself and there is a standard process to get to that point. But whether or not it happens…

AP: 2 active-duty Marines plead guilty to Capitol riot charges

Joshua Abate and Dodge Dale Hellonen are scheduled to be sentenced in September by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes. Both pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Many Capitol rioters are military veterans, but only a few were actively serving in the armed forces when they joined a mob’s attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

A third active-duty Marine, Micah Coomer, also was charged with Abate and Hellonen. Coomer pleaded guilty to the same misdemeanor charge in May and is scheduled to be sentenced by Reyes on Aug. 30.

All three men face a maximum sentence of six months of imprisonment.

As of May 19, the Marines were still in the service. No additional information was available Monday.

NYT: Hard Right Agrees to Allow House Votes but Threatens Continued Blockade

Hard-right House Republicans agreed late Monday to give their party leaders a temporary reprieve from a weeklong blockade of the House floor, allowing some legislative business to move forward on Tuesday but insisting they would withhold their support for future votes if their demands were not met.

The move counted as progress for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, after days of paralysis in the House that showcased his weak grip on his fractious conference in the face of the rage of right-wing Republicans over the deal he cut with President Biden to suspend the debt limit and avert a federal default. But the agreement was only provisional, and the group of about a dozen ultraconservative lawmakers who have held the floor hostage made it clear they planned to continue using guerrilla tactics to keep a tight leash on Mr. McCarthy, effectively exercising veto power on what he is able to accomplish.

The House remained at a standstill on Monday evening, after Mr. McCarthy canceled scheduled votes. But under a deal he reached with the right-wing members of the House Freedom Caucus, business was set to resume on Tuesday with votes on legislation to guard against restrictions on gas stoves and other government regulations, as well as a separate bill to kill stricter federal rules for pistols with stabilizing braces, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke about them on the condition of anonymity.

In conversations on Monday, the people said, members of the rebel group were explicit with Mr. McCarthy that he could not count on their support for bringing up any other legislation next week or in the future, until they had worked out a power-sharing agreement that guaranteed them major influence on the legislative agenda.

Even a Damning Federal Case Can’t Break the GOP’s Devotion to Donald Trump

Found this to be a pretty succinct take on the “death spiral” of the MAGA movement post indictment(s)

Fight Over Renewal of FISA With Section 702 set to expire National security officials make case for keeping surveillance powers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/13/section-702-fisa-biden-warrant/

Congress will not renew powerful, expiring surveillance authorities without substantial changes to shield Americans from warrantless eavesdropping, senators in both parties warned Biden administration officials Tuesday.

That message came during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where national security officials pressed their case for reauthorizing the surveillance powers, known as Section 702, in part by revealing previously classified details about how spy agencies have used those authorities to combat threats such as fentanyl trafficking and prominent ransomware attacks.

Section 702 permits warrantless surveillance against foreign targets but occasionally collects communications with Americans, which go into a database. The law allows investigators to search that database by using U.S. phone numbers, email addresses and other identifiers. One of the chief sticking points raised by legislators is whether Section 702 should be amended to require a warrant to access information about Americans.

The FBI can search the database when they have evidence of crimes or for foreign intelligence purposes. But that process has been far from perfect: A recently unsealed court document revealed that the FBI had misused the database more than 278,000 times between 2020 and early 2021, including against thousands of donors to a congressional candidate and people protesting the police killing of George Floyd.

“I will only support the reauthorization of Section 702 if there are significant, significant reforms,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). “And that means first and foremost, addressing the warrantless surveillance of Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, the reforms must also include safeguards to prevent future abuses and ensure effective oversight by Congress and the courts.”

Section 702 is set to expire at the end of this year, and the Judiciary Committee shares jurisdiction in steering the law’s fate alongside the Senate Intelligence Committee and their House counterparts. Durbin said he would work to bridge the gap between deep skeptics of Section 702 and those who favor only small changes.

Trump lawyer who quit classified documents case withdraws from $475 million CNN defamation suit

• Trump lawyer Jim Trusty said he would no longer represent the former president in his $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN.
• Trusty had recently quit defending Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents criminal case.