All posts tagged "John Neely Kennedy"

Talking Points Memo writer Kate Riga reports a loyal ally of President Donald Trump appears to be turning on one of the president’s judicial nominees.

“Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), usually a fairly reliable Republican foot soldier, grilled a Trump judicial nominee Wednesday about his bigoted preachings,” Riga wrote Wednesday.

Trump nominated attorney Justin Olson to be a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Indiana. But Olsen has been active in anti-trans litigation, leading a case to have transgender female athletes stripped of their NCAA awards. ...

Senate Republicans are expected to vote soon on whether to keep a controversial provision that was included in the legislation that reopened the federal government after the recent 43-day shutdown. But that language is causing significant division among the Senate Republican Conference.

That's according to a Tuesday article by Politico's Hailey Fuchs and Jordain Carney, who reported that senators are planning to discuss that section in a Wednesday lunch meeting. The provision in question would allow Republican senators whose phone records were accessed by former Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith's team as part of their "Operation: Arctic Frost" investigation to sue the government for up to $500,000.

"[C]onfusion, frustration and anger ran rampant about what has quickly become branded as a politically toxic, taxpayer-funded windfall for a select few," Fuchs and Carney wrote....