politicnewsbusterinsiderpostreview: Supreme Court denies Trump's request to stop release of Jan. 6 records

Thursday 20 January 2022

Supreme Court denies Trump's request to stop release of Jan. 6 records

January 20, 2022

Howdy. I've got some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that the Democrats' voting rights push ended in bitter failure as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin joined with Republicans to block a rules change to the filibuster. Republican politicians quickly deployed the procedure to squash the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, the paired bills that aimed, among other things, to stem gerrymandering and voter suppression across the nation.

This conclusion was all but inevitable since at least last week, when Sinema announced that she wouldn't vote to curtail the filibuster, even to protect voting rights. However, Democrats did make an impassioned case for the legislation, and the fact that 48 of them managed to unite around filibuster reform does show how far their thinking on structural reform has shifted over the last few years.

Now, the good news: Recently, there has been a bevy of developments involving the January 6 committee's investigation. Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trump's request to block the release of White House records relating to the attack on the Capitol. This opens up access to roughly 800 pages of papers that Trump had desperately fought to keep sealed.

In addition, the committee appears to be escalating its attempts to interview Trump's closest allies and family members. Today, committee members requested the voluntary cooperation of Ivanka Trump, and on Tuesday they subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani, who led the efforts to overturn the election throughout the end of 2020.

There are likely to be new developments in the coming weeks. We'll continue bringing you updates as the committee's investigation heats up.

—Noah Y. Kim