Vice President Kamala Harris touched down in Nashville Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after House Republicans in Tennessee voted to expel two Black Democratic state representatives who had supported the 7000 citizen protestors outraged the GOP lawmakers had refused to address gun violence one week earlier in the wake of a school mass shooting. A third Democrat, a white woman who stood with the two men, narrowly escaped expulsion.

VP Harris will meet with all three Democrats who were targeted by state Republicans, former Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, and Rep. Gloria Johnson. (Watch live, link below.)

Harris touched down at 4:00 PM local time, according to her press pool, and traveled to Fisk University to meet with Tennessee Democratic lawmakers, including the “Tennessee Three,” as well as community leaders.

.@VP is wheels down in Nashville, headed to meet with state legislators. pic.twitter.com/dAXtdg78zi

— Kirsten Allen (@KirstenAllen46) April 7, 2023

“Also present was at-large Metro Council member Zulfat Suara, who is among the council members planning to reappoint Justin Jones to the House as early as Monday,” The Tennessean reports.

Fisk University in Nashville holds a student rally in support of The Tennessee Three as Kamala Harris comes into town to meet with the three in private.

Stay with FOX 17 News for continuing coverage, and as always—check out the link in our bio for more.

PHOTO: @FOX17Kylie pic.twitter.com/i2hAGslb2A

— FoxNashville (@FOXNashville) April 7, 2023

“What happened yesterday sent the wrong message to people around the world,” Suara said. “We need to make sure what they (expelled lawmakers) did is not in vain. We need to continue to demand gun reform.”

Harris is also expected to meet with “the young people who led protests at the Tennessee Capitol for gun reform,” and make a push for gun control.

Hundreds gather inside of the Fisk Memorial Chapel for the “Tennessee 3” rally. @VP is expected to speak around 6pm tonight. pic.twitter.com/LNYC0vwlkP

— Danielle Jackson (@DJacksonTV) April 7, 2023

“Six people, including three children, were killed last week in a school shooting in Nashville,” VP Harris said Friday morning. “How did Republican lawmakers in Tennessee respond? By expelling their colleagues who stood with Tennesseans and said enough is enough.  This is undemocratic and dangerous.”

One former U.S. Attorney stated was an illegal act and a violation of their First Amendment rights. A top elections attorney repeatedly since the two Democrats were expelled has urged the Dept. of Justice to investigate and even “remedy” the situation.

The Vice President’s visit comes on the one-year anniversary of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, which she celebrated earlier Friday on social media.

One year ago today, I presided over the Senate vote for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. pic.twitter.com/y9tovdWpTB

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) April 7, 2023

Today we’re celebrating a woman whose name the world now knows: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She made history one year ago today when the Senate confirmed her nomination to become the first Black woman on the highest court in the land. pic.twitter.com/zS3T9Ss9Et

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) April 7, 2023

The Vice President’s surprise trip came after President Joe Biden released a statement denouncing the expulsion of the two Black Democrats.

The Washington Post’s Tyler Pager reports President Biden has also invited the Tennessee Three to the White House.

Watch Live on News Channel 5 (click on Breaking News Update) or watch live at WVLT here (click on red box that says “On Now: hARRIS”).

House Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has invited the Senior Counsel of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to testify despite having no legitimate or constitutional authority to perform oversight of a county elected official’s actions.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Donald Trump for 34 felony violations. Jordan and the House GOP have been warned by Bragg to not interfere. Doing so, Bragg has said, could be illegal.

Legal experts also have repeatedly made clear Jordan, and his counterpart on the House Oversight Committee, Jim Comer, have no authority to investigate any state officials.

“The attempt by conservative House Republicans to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is an abuse of power and antithetical to our federalist structure of government. Congress has no oversight authority over local district attorneys. Former President Donald Trump’s enablers are engaged in nothing but a shameful attempt to protect him from legal scrutiny,” wrote University of California, Berkeley School of Law dean and professor Erwin Chemerinsky, and Dennis Aftergut a former federal prosecutor who is currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy just last week.

READ MORE: ‘He Should Speak to Someone Who Knows the Law’: Clarence Thomas Mocked Over Why He Didn’t Disclose Gifts of Luxury Vacations

But on Friday, despite having no legal authority to do so, Jordan sent a letter to Senior Counsel Matthew Colangelo informing him that “The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the New York County District Attorney’s unprecedented indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office.”

After Bragg’s attorneys repeatedly warned him to stop interfering with an ongoing investigation. On Thursday Bragg spoke directly to Jordan via a statement that reads: “The House GOP continues to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation.”

“Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law. These elected officials would better serve their constituents and the country, and fulfill their oath of office, by doing their jobs in Congress and not intruding on the sovereignty of the state of New York by interfering in an ongoing criminal matter in state court.”

Undeterred by the law, on Friday Jordan told Colangelo:

“According to news reports, District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired you in December 2022 to ‘jump-start’ his office’s investigation of President Trump, reportedly due to your ‘history of taking on Donald J. Trump and his family business.’ You had previously served in senior positions in the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York Attorney General’s Office, both of which had competing investigations related to President Trump. Given your history of working for law-enforcement entities that are pursuing President Trump and the public reporting surrounding your decision to work for the New York County District Attorney’s Office, we request your cooperation with our oversight in your personal capacity.”

READ MORE: ‘Illegal’: Tennessee House Republicans Expelling Two Black Democrats Violates First Amendment Says Former US Attorney

Jordan has repeatedly taken the stance that any prosecution of Trump is an attack on the ex-president. He also has tried to frame legal experts who have stated that the facts show Trump has committed crimes as being partisans who have a deep personal desire to prosecute Trump despite the facts.

His letter Friday to Colangelo continues that faulty logic, suggesting that because he has experience investigating Trump, Bragg should not have hired him to do so.

Jordan is requesting Colangelo hand over a massive trove of 18 months of documents, from June 22, 2021, to December 5, 2022, and present himself to testify by April 21.

You can read Jordan’s letter via the tweet below or at this link.

#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan invites Matthew Colangelo, Senior Counsel to New York County District Attorney’s Office, to appear for a transcribed interview in furtherance of the Committee’s oversight of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s unprecedented prosecutorial conduct. pic.twitter.com/nFViWPmNPJ

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 7, 2023

Image by lev radin/Shutterstock

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is now the subject of both criticism and mockery after releasing a statement in an apparent attempt to tamp down allegations from legal experts he broke the law by not disclosing what are possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in gifts he received over the course of decades. Those gifts came in the form of lavish luxury vacations aboard private planes and private yachts traveling to private resorts, from one influential GOP megadonor and right-wing activist who, according to one U.S. Senator, “has many interests before the Supreme Court.”

Justice Thomas on Friday said, “Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”

A bombshell ProPublica report published Thursday revealed that for over two decades, almost if not every year, Thomas and his wife – the far-right wing activist, lobbyist, and conspiracy theorist Ginni Thomas – were the guests of Harlan Crow, a Republican billionaire real estate magnate who invited them on trips with him and other conservatives, apparently at times the top legal activist at the Federalist Society who is responsible for most of not all of Donald Trump’s federal court picks, including his three Supreme Court nominees.

One trip ProPublica described allegedly would have cost the Thomas’ $500,000 had they paid for it themselves. But all these trips, all these luxury vacations, were all-expenses-paid. Over more than two dozen years, given the trips ProPublica described, it’s difficult to imagine the total cost isn’t well into the millions of dollars.

READ MORE: ‘Illegal’: Tennessee House Republicans Expelling Two Black Democrats Violates First Amendment Says Former US Attorney

Justice Thomas insists he did nothing wrong, but promises to follow what are new guidelines in the future.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” Justice Thomas said in a statement after massive reporting that caused the already embattled Supreme Court, which is suffering a self-inflicted approval rating that is the lowest in history, took another hit.

Thomas’ assertion that these were merely “family trips” taken with “our dearest friends” does not explain the all-expenses-paid part of the trips, which he suggests is a typical arrangement in America: “As friends do.”

Justice Thomas, who is already under heavy criticism from ordinary Americans and legal experts who believe his wife’s activism and actions, which include attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, required him to have recused from several Supreme Court cases. Many feel his choices have placed a stain on the Supreme Court, which is now taking yet another public opinion beating from those unimpressed with, if not offended by, his defense.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) slammed Justice Thomas – and the news media – even before Thomas’s statement. On Thursday, he tweeted:

“It’s not like Harlan Crow is some apolitical pal of Thomas. He CONSTANTLY has cases before the court. He funds groups that argue for outcomes that benefit him. One group, CCI [Center for the Community Interest], filed 8 briefs before the Court. Thomas sided with Crow in all 8 cases.”

Sen. Murphy pointed to this ThinkProgress article from well over a decade ago, 2011, titled: “Second Harlan Crow Connected Group Has A Perfect Litigation Record Before Justice Thomas.”

READ MORE: Legal Expert Reveals What Bragg Discovered Trump Did With Payoffs That Destroys Claims He Was ‘Protecting’ Melania

Murphy and ThinkProgress effectively destroy Justice Thomas’ claim that these were merely “close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court.” And Sen. Murphy made his allegations one day before Justice Thomas’ statement.

Also Thursday Murphy wrote: “Important for news media to not simply label this guy as a ‘GOP mega donor’. It’s so much worse. Crow has many interests before the Supreme Court. His groups file petitions before the court. It’s the clearest, most brazen violation of judicial ethics you can imagine.”

At the core of Justice Thomas’ defense are two claims. First, that Harlan Crow is a mere close friend who has nothing to do with the Supreme Court. That at the very least is false. And second, when he first checked, he was told by people he does not name – and does not even suggest are experts in government ethics or any relevant field – who told him he did not need to disclose the trips. That’s fallacious.

It would be as if someone did their taxes every year for the past 25 years but relied on the tax laws from 1998, the first year they did their taxes.

ProPublica on Thursday also mentioned this quote from Justice Thomas: “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it.”

So rather than look to legal experts, NCRM looked to “normal” people to gauge their response to his defense.

On social media, Justice Thomas is being heavily and accurately condemned. Perhaps most importantly, even those who are not legal or government ethics experts are making very accurate criticisms.

“Thomas says he didn’t think he had to reveal his ‘dear friend’ the billionaire’s largesse,” tweeted an account named Pitt Griffin.
“A: Ignorance of the law is no defense. He should speak to someone who knows the law. B: He claims the right to privacy – something he’d deny to ordinary Americans.”

A user by the name of Ty Johnson writes: “Justice Thomas advised by whom give a name of who told you this. Regardless this looks & smells bad for a SCOTUS Justice doing this without disclosing it. The rules you’re under imply a meal or a visit to their homes not an 1/2 million dollar vacation.”

READ MORE: Alvin Bragg Smacks Down Jim Jordan for ‘Harassment and Intimidation’

ArmyMPVet says, “Clarence Thomas says he was advised he didn’t have to report the gifts. But says, he will in the future….uh no…Thats not how it works. Ignorance of the law is no excuse….”

An account named Will I am (not the rapper) picked up on Thomas’ claim that he “sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary,” and responds, saying, “He’s pulling a Trump trying to throw previous justices under the bus.”

Free Agent Fly on Some Wall writes, “Man with literal *Supreme Court Justice level* legal knowledge tries ‘Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I was told by people that it was not wrong’ defense.”

And an account named Ray Wilson tweets: “Weak sauce dude. The appearance of impropriety. I’m certain you’ve heard the phrase. You have a lifetime appointment to the highest court in our country. We expect better.”

Image: Photo by Preston Keres/USDA via Flickr