Clarence Thomas scandal deepens with report of rightwing activist’s secret payments to wife – live | US politics

Lawmakers in North Carolina have passed a 12-week abortion ban, a change from the current 20-week ban in response to the supreme court’s overturn of Roe v Wade last year.

The vote, which came on Thursday as a 29-20 party-line vote, was met with opposition from about 100 observers who watched the debate in the state senate, the Associated Press reports.

“Abortion rights now!” some observers shouted while others yelled: “Shame!” The state House passed the bill on Wednesday evening on a similar party-line vote.

Meanwhile, the Republican state senator Joyce Krawiec hailed the bill on Thursday, saying: “Many of us who have worked for decades to save unborn babies for the sanctity of human life, we saw it as an opportunity to put forth a very pro-life, pro-woman legislation.”

“This is a pro-life plan, not an abortion plan,” she said.

The Democratic state senator Sydney Batch pushed back against the bill, saying, “This bill is an extreme and oppressive step backwards for our society and one that will deny women the right to make decisions about their own health care and future.”

Democratic governor Roy Cooper has vowed to veto the bill, saying it is an “egregious, unacceptable attack on the women of our state”.

The bill also includes additional medical and paperwork requirements for patients and physicians, as well as increased licensing requirements for abortion clinics that would make the procedure more difficult to attain.

Meanwhile, across the state are growing fears as Mark Robinson, an extreme Republican who once labeled the transgender movement “demonic” and called Muslims “invaders”, runs for the governor’s office.

“We have bills right now going through our general assembly to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. We have a ban against trans athletes or young people competing in sports right now. We have a lot of discriminatory, just persecuting our own citizens-type of legislation happening in our state,” Anderson Clayton, chair of the state’s Democratic party, told the Guardian.

“And Mark Robinson is only going to be the person who’s going to make that worse.”

Rightwing judicial activist Leonard Leo made secret payments to Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, ten years ago and emphasized “No mention of Ginni” on the documents, according to a new Washington Post investigation.

In January 2012, Leo directed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill the Judicial Education Project, a non-profit group he advises. He then ordered that money be used to pay Ginni Thomas, telling Conway that he wanted to “give” Thomas “another 25k”.

“No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo told Conway, who later became a senior adviser to Donald Trump, the Post reports. The subsequent bill sent to the JEP by Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, titled the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting”, according to documents reviewed by the Post.

Later that year, the JEP filed an amicus brief in a case that challenged a civil rights law that sought to protect minority voters. In a 5-to-4 majority which Clarence Thomas was part of, the supreme court stripped away a formula in the Voting Rights Act that determined which states had to get federal permission before altering their voting rules and procedures.

Following the Post’s revelations about the secret payments, Leo defended himself, telling the outlet:

“It is no secret that Ginni Thomas has a long history of working on issues within the conservative movement, and part of that work has involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment. The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues…

As an advisor to JEP I have long been supportive of its opinion research relating to limited government, and The Polling Company, along with Ginni Thomas’s help, has been an invaluable resource for gauging public attitudes…

Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni.”

The investigation comes amid a handful of reports in recent weeks surrounding Clarence Thomas, who received luxury gifts, travel and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them. He has since faced a slew of impeachment calls.

In response to the reports, Democrats have been calling for investigations into Clarence Thomas and for tighter ethics standards for the supreme court justices, which Republicans have condemned as an “assault … well beyond ethics … [and] about trying to delegitimize a conservative court”.

Meanwhile Leo himself has been accused of illegally misusing $73m from non-profit groups and diverting money to his businesses, according to a complaint from the non-profit watchdog organization, Campaign for Accountability.

Good morning, US politics readers. A prominent conservative judicial activist arranged for Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work over ten years ago and emphasized “no mention of Ginni” on the payments, according to a new report.

An investigation by the Washington Post revealed that Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society who led campaigns to support the nominations of a handful of conservative supreme court justices, directed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway in 2012 to bill the Judicial Education Project, a non-profit Leo advises.

Leo then told Conway, a former advisor to Donald Trump, that he wanted to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25k”, according to documents reviewed by the Post. “No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo emphasized.

The $25,000 bill Conway sent to the Judicial Education Project listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting” the Post reports.

The investigation comes amid a handful of reports in recent weeks surrounding Clarence Thomas, who received luxury gifts, travel and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them.

Here are other developments in US politics:

• North Carolina lawmakers have passed a 12-week abortion ban, which Democratic governor Roy Cooper promised to veto.

• New York mayor Eric Adams and police are facing increasing criticism from protestors for a lack of action over 30-year-old Jordan Neely’s death.

• Senate Democrats are criticizing House Republicans’ proposal to raise the government’s borrowing limit in exchange for spending cuts.