Justice department won’t pursue criminal contempt charge against Merrick Garland – as it happened | US politics

Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:

• The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland. This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

• The supreme court has ruled 6-3 in favor of a challenge to a federal ban on gun ‘bump stock’ devices. The vote was 6-3, with liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.

• In her dissent against the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks, liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor said: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” She adds that the “majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”

• Joe Biden released a statement in light of the supreme court’s latest decision on bump stocks, saying: “Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”

• Vice president Kamala Harris has released the following statement in response to the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks: “Weapons of war have no place on the streets of a civil society… Unfortunately, today’s supreme court ruling strikes down this important, commonsense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute.”

• Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump.” Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.

• The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces. “The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more,” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.

• March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.” It went on to add: “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave.”

That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.

Louisiana’s Republican representative Garret Graves will not be running for re-election, he announced on Friday.

In a statement, Graves, who has represented the state’s 6th district since 2015, said:

“After much input from constituents, consultation with supporters, consensus from family, and guidance from the Almighty, it is clear that running for Congress this year does not make sense. It is evident that a run in any temporary district will cause actual permanent damage to Louisiana’s great representation in Congress.”

Democrats are seizing on Donald Trump’s ‘horrible city’ remark about Milwaukee for ads.

Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:

US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings – a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is set to be the party’s presidential nominee this November.

Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden’s victory over him.

Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.

For the full story, click here:

The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.

This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.

On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.

March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision on bump stocks, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.”

It went on to add:

“While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave…

While this decision is egregious, dangerous, and out of touch, we can’t say we’re surprised. The NRA spent $2 million to help place ideological extremists on the bench that have done nothing but bend over backward to serve the gun lobby. The recent audio recordings of the Justices depict exactly what we already knew – that they are extreme, ultra-conservative, partisan, and rely on their own personal beliefs to make decisions rather than settled constitutional jurisprudence.”

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator of Massachusetts, has called on Congress to ban bump stocks following the supreme court decision, which she said “enables mass shooters to inflict carnage”.

Kamala Harris, who earlier released a statement criticizing the ruling on bump stocks, said the court was “rolling back” on “important progress” to prevent gun violence in America.

Republicans and Democrats alike have targeted Wisconsin as a must-win state in November’s poll.

Joe Biden won it by a margin of about 21,000 votes in the 2020 election, although Donald Trump challenged some vote tallies in his drive to prove that the election had been “stolen”.

Trump scored a narrow win in the state in the 2016 election, a result that played a crucial role in his victory over Hillary Clinton.

Milwaukee is on the western shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago and east of the state capital of Madison, and is a minority white, largely industrial city that votes Democratic, with a long history of racial segregation laws against Black residents. African Americans make up almost 39% of the population, with about 20% Hispanic or Latino.

In a tacit admission of the potential self-harm inflicted, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, described the reporting of the comment as “total bullshit”.

“He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as,” Cheung posted on X, insisting that Trump had been referring to crime and election issues.

Robert Tait

Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings, a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican National Convention.

Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021.

Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.

Trump and Biden are running neck and neck in the state, according to numerous polls.

The remark calling Milwaukee horrible drew immediate condemnation from Democrats. Republicans – recognising the extent of the possible damage – initially denied the comment had been made, before trying to soften the blow by putting it in various contexts.

In a graphic sign of the high stakes, the Democratic election machine swiftly commissioned several billboards to be erected in Milwaukee, the local newspaper the Journal Sentinel reported.

One featured picture of Trump next to an image of the X post that broke the story. “TRUMP TO HOUSE REPUBLICANS: ‘Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city’.” it read.

The other had the incriminating quote next to a picture of the former president against a red background.

Ten billboards are planned to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to the convention to maximise the words’ effect.

Here’s how the justices voted in the supreme court’s decision to strike down a federal ban on bump stocks:

The ruling was 6-3, with the court’s liberal justices dissenting from the conservative majority’s decision.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump”.

Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.

The far-right Supreme Court continues their unprecedented assault on public safety by reversing the commonsense guidance issued in 2018 by the ATF … Sadly it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda.

He added that he warned the Trump administration at the time that “the only way to permanently close this loophole is through legislation.” Schumer added:

Senate Democrats are ready to pass legislation to ban bump stocks but we will need votes from Senate Republicans.

The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces.

“The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more, ” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.

The ATF has gone rogue in assuming lawmaking authority that it does not have with pistol brace rules, homemade firearms, who a gun dealer is, etc, and they must be reined in.