Alito And Thomas Should Be Forced To Recuse Themselves

It has become obvious that Justices Alito and Thomas are biased in the cases concerning Donald Trump, but both are refusing to recuse themselves. Maybe it is time to force those recusals. Here is part of what Rep. Jamie Raskin has to say about that in The New York Times:

Many people have gloomily accepted the conventional wisdom that because there is no binding Supreme Court ethics code, there is no way to force Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from the Jan. 6 cases that are before the court.

Justices Alito and Thomas are probably making the same assumption.

But all of them are wrong. . . .

Justices Alito and Thomas face a groundswell of appeals beseeching them not to participate in Trump v. United States, the case that will decide whether Mr. Trump enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, and Fischer v. United States, which will decide whether Jan. 6 insurrectionists — and Mr. Trump — can be charged under a statute that criminalizes “corruptly” obstructing an official proceeding.

Everyone assumes that nothing can be done about the recusal situation because the highest court in the land has the lowest ethical standards — no binding ethics code or process outside of personal reflection. Each justice decides for him- or herself whether he or she can be impartial. . . .

The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion: the Constitution of the United States, specifically the due process clause, and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 28 U.S.C. Section 455. . . .

The constitutional and statutory standards apply to Supreme Court justices. The Constitution, and the federal laws under it, is the “supreme law of the land,” and the recusal statute explicitly treats Supreme Court justices like other judges: “Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The only justices in the federal judiciary are the ones on the Supreme Court.

This recusal statute, if triggered, is not a friendly suggestion. It is Congress’s command, binding on the justices, just as the due process clause is. The Supreme Court cannot disregard this law just because it directly affects one or two of its justices. Ignoring it would trespass on the constitutional separation of powers because the justices would essentially be saying that they have the power to override a congressional command.

When the arguments are properly before the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor will have both a constitutional obligation and a statutory obligation to enforce recusal standards.

Indeed, there is even a compelling argument based on case law that Chief Justice Roberts and the other, unaffected justices should raise the matter of recusal on their own (or sua sponte). Numerous circuit courts have agreed with the Eighth Circuit that this is the right course of action when members of an appellate court are aware of “overt acts” of a judge reflecting personal bias. Cases like this stand for the idea that appellate jurists who see something should say something instead of placing all the burden on parties in a case who would have to risk angering a judge by bringing up the awkward matter of potential bias and favoritism on the bench.

But even if no member of the court raises the issue of recusal, the urgent need to deal with it persists. Once it is raised, the court would almost surely have to find that the due process clause and Section 455 compel Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. To arrive at that substantive conclusion, the justices need only read their court’s own recusal decisions. . . .

The federal statute on disqualification, Section 455(b), also makes recusal analysis directly applicable to bias imputed to a spouse’s interest in the case. Ms. Thomas and Mrs. Alito (who, according to Justice Alito, is the one who put up the inverted flag outside their home) meet this standard. A judge must recuse him- or herself when a spouse “is known by the judge to have an interest in a case that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

Clarence Thomas - The Most Corrupt Judge In America?

The following post is from NPR.org:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted more vacations and gifts from billionaire benefactors than previously reported, according to a new report by ProPublica.

The conservative justice, who has come under scrutiny for his failure to disclose such gifts, took at least 38 vacations, 26 private jet flights, eight flights by helicopter, a dozen VIP passes to sporting events, as well as stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica, the nonprofit news site reports. ProPublica notes that Thomas appears to have broken the law by failing to disclose flights, cruises and sports tickets.

The report is the latest revelation about the justice that has brought into the spotlight the Supreme Court justices and the ethics rules they are supposed to follow.

ProPublica previously revealed that Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire, paid for Thomas' vacations, his mother's house, and a nephew's tuition payments. Separately, The New York Times reported that Thomas received special treatment from members of the Horatio Alger Association, including David Sokol, a former Berkshire Hathaway executive; and H. Wayne Huizenga, the billionaire. ProPublica reported that Paul "Tony" Novelly, the oil baron, is a previously unnamed benefactor of the justice. The total value of the undisclosed trips Thomas has received from these men since 1991, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court, is likely in the millions, the news site said.

Neither Thomas nor Novelly responded to ProPublica's questions for its report. Huizenga died in 2018. In a statement, Sokol said though he hosted the Thomases, they "have never once discussed any pending court matter."

Thomas isn't the only justice to come under such scrutiny. ProPublica reported in June that in 2008 Justice Samuel Alito went on a fishing trip to Alaska with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, a Republican donor who has had cases before the Supreme Court. Alito traveled to the remote Alaska site on Singer's private jet, along with Leonard Leo, a longtime leader of the conservative Federalist Society, who helped organize the trip. And the salmon fishing lodge that they all stayed at was owned at the time by another big Republican donor, Robin Arkley II, who footed the bill for Alito's lodging. Alito did not subsequently recuse himself from a case involving Singer's legal interests before the court.

Legal experts have said that the justices should have disclosed free trips like these.

"The statute itself is clear, and the justices can be very harsh on litigants who fail to follow statutory language," Amanda Frost, a University of Virginia professor, told NPR in June. "So I think they should hold themselves to that same standard."

In April, Thomas issued a statement declaring that when he first came on the court in 1991, he was advised by his colleagues and others that he didn't have to disclose hospitality from personal friends. That understanding has been corrected, he said, and he would in the future disclose such personal travel and entertainment paid for by others. He did not, however, commit to amending his prior disclosure forms.

Polls show that Americans of all political stripes are increasingly troubled by the lack of a code of ethics for the high court. Chief Justice John Roberts has more than once said the court is working on an ethics code for itself, but so far one has failed to materialize.

Clarence Thomas Must Resign Or Be Impeached

Clarence Thomas' corruption is obvious. He needs to resign, or should be impeached. Here is how James Downie puts it at MSNBC.com:

The proverbial faucet of ethics scandals around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas continues to drip. The Washington Post reported Thursday that conservative activist Leonard Leo, a key architect of the right’s takeover of the court, arranged in 2012 for Thomas’ wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work. And he specifically requested that the billing paperwork have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”

While neither NBC News nor MSNBC have independently verified the report, Leo issued a statement to the Post that didn’t deny the story. Asked why he sought to hide Ginni Thomas’ name, Leo said, “Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni.” 

The new scandal follows reports from ProPublica that in the decades since Clarence Thomas became a Supreme Court justice, billionaire donor Harlan Crow has provided the Thomases with gifts and luxury trips, purchased the justice’s mother’s home and paid for the expensive private school tuition of their grandnephew, who was in the Thomases’ legal custody.

Neither NBC News nor MSNBC have independently confirmed the latter report either, but a close friend of the justice acknowledged it in a statement. In response to each ProPublica report, Crow has issued statements either confirming or not disputing the stories. While Thomas has acknowledged the gifts and trips, which he described as "personal hospitality from close personal friends," he has not commented on the real estate sale or the tuition payments.

But enough is enough. Thomas must resign — or be impeached.

A few lawmakers have already grasped this reality, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Cori Bush, D-Mo.; and Summer Lee, D-Pa. Others — such as Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. — have at least called for Thomas’ resignation. But even many critics of the justice have remained mum about any consequences for his behavior. Their reticence is understandable. Impeaching a Supreme Court justice, after all, is highly unusual. The legislative branch must tread carefully given concerns about separation of powers. And impeachment will never even come up for a vote in the Republican-controlled House.

But reluctance to take this extraordinary step, though rational, is mistaken. Unprecedented ethical breaches demand an unprecedented response. The closest precedent to Thomas — Justice Abe Fortas — rightly resigned over improper financial dealings. (He also stepped down to avoid a meritless investigation of his wife by Richard Nixon’s Justice Department, political hardball that Republicans would still be complaining about today had it happened to a conservative justice.) The allegations against Thomas are unlike any in the history of the high court; any other government official, including any lower court judge, would face deafening calls to step down.

And the excuses for Thomas’ behavior — both from the justice and his allies — have been ludicrous. After initially refusing to comment on the first report, about luxury trips and lodgings, Thomas then emerged to claim that “personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

As MSNBC columnist and ethics lawyer Richard Painter and others have pointed out, the “personal hospitality” exception in the relevant statutes has never included travel. Furthermore, Crow was on the “founders committee” of the anti-tax Club for Growth, which he co-founded, when the court heard a case involving the group. Crow’s family also held a non-controlling interest in a real estate company whose case was considered by the court. In neither instance did Thomas recuse himself. Similarly, Leo’s payment to Ginni Thomas came through a group called the Judicial Education Project. The fee, and the request for “No mention of Ginni,” came the same year that JEP filed a brief with the court in a key voting rights case.

Regardless, when ProPublica confronted the justice with the real estate sale — which indisputably should have been disclosed — Thomas chose silence again, and has stuck with that course in the face of subsequent stories. Then again, his silence looks sage compared to Republican lawmakers’ reactions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for example, dismissed the first ProPublica story as “silly,” mocking the “horror that one Supreme Court justice vacations with his friends.” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, labeled Thomas’ critics as “intolerant bigots.” These are defenses offered when there is no defense.

Again, in practical terms, impeachment will never pass the House, let alone receive a two-thirds majority for conviction in the Senate. But Democrats twice pursued the impeachment of Donald Trump through to the end, long after it was clear he wouldn’t be convicted. They correctly judged that even an unsuccessful impeachment was worth the message that action would send. While the fault for Thomas’ actions ultimately lies with the justice himself, his conservative allies have abetted his behavior. Impeachment would require Republicans to go on the record defending wealthy patrons for Supreme Court justices and generally beclowning themselves as unprincipled defenders of a corrupt system.

“The job is not worth doing for what they pay,” Clarence Thomas said in a 2001 speech. “But it is worth doing for the principle.” A noble sentiment — undercut by the fact that Thomas has behaved as though he is entitled to both riches and a seat on the nation’s highest court. Yet the deliberate concealment of gift after gift suggests that he knows this belief is wrong.

If Clarence and Ginni Thomas want to live in the lap of luxury, he should step down to pal around with his wealthy friends. If Ginni Thomas wants to continue her work as a conservative activist, then her husband should resign to let her pursue her passion. Every day that Clarence Thomas sits on the court is an affront to the idea of an impartial judiciary and ethical government. Democrats need not pretend they must be a part of this farce.

Most Say Thomas' Failure To Disclose Gifts Was Wrong

The chart above is from the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 8th and 11th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Thomas Is A Blight On Supreme Court - He MUST RESIGN!

Justice Clarence Thomas has tried to explain away the millions of dollars in gifts (mainly vacations) he received from billionaires Harlan Crow. But that is not the extent of his corruption. We now learn that he sold property to Crow at above market price. He also has neglected to report his wife's income (amounting to millions of dollars from right-wing sources). It is time for Thomas to resign!

The following is an op-ed on this corruption by Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post: 

The matter of Clarence Thomas’s relationship with billionaire Harlan Crow has now entered new territory, treacherous for the justice and the court on which he serves.

Until Thursday’s ProPublica’s report disclosing Crow’s purchase of property owned by Thomas and his family in 2014, the story was about Thomas’s judgment, or lack thereof, in accepting large amounts of luxury travel from the Republican megadonor, and whether he had failed once again to comply with federal financial disclosure rules.

The latest revelation escalates the situation to a new and concerning level. This time, Thomas directly received money from Crow — perhaps in excess of the market value of the Chatham County, Ga., properties that Crow purchased from Thomas and his kin. This is no longer about receiving “personal hospitality.” It’s about a financial transaction between Thomas and a GOP donor who has also subsidized his vacations.

There is no doubt that the sale of personal real estate to Crow should have been reported on the justice’s financial disclosure form for 2014, and there is no excuse for failing to do so. The most logical explanation is that Thomas, whose relationship with Crow had already been the subject of unflattering news reports, wanted to keep it from public view.

Thomas’s relationship with Crow and the accuracy of his financial disclosure reports must now be fully scrutinized by the Judicial Conference of the United States, which oversees the federal judiciary and may refer the matter to the Justice Department for additional action. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. surely understands, this is a problem not just for Thomas but also for the court and its public legitimacy.

According to the ProPublica report, a company controlled by Crow bought the properties in Savannah, Ga., for $133,363 from Thomas, the family of his late brother, and his mother Leola Williams, who continued to live there.

“Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees,” ProPublica reported. “The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.”

Crow told the publication that the transaction was “at market rate.” The year before, he bought two other properties — a vacant lot and a house on the same block for $40,000. Thomas, in earlier financial disclosure forms, listed his one-third interest in “rental property” in Savannah at $15,000 or less.

Crow said his interest in the property was “to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice” and “approached the Thomas family about my desire to maintain this historic site so future generations could learn about the inspiring life of one of our greatest Americans.”

Fine, but the real estate deal raises several questions, among them: Why didn’t Thomas report the transaction on his financial disclosure forms? And did Thomas’s mother pay Crow rent as he improved the home and paid taxes on it? ProPublica posed this question to Crow, but he did not answer.

Thomas has said that he didn’t have to disclose his Crow-paid vacations under the exemption for “personal hospitality” — a dubious defense when it comes to his use of Crow’s private jet. Thomas had reported travel at Crow’s expense before he stopped disclosing it in the wake of negative news stories.

But Thomas’s obligation to report the real estate deal couldn’t be clearer. He had reported the property as an asset. Selling it was a transaction that necessitated disclosure.

The Ethics in Government Act requires judges, like other senior officials, to file annual financial reports, and sets out the consequences for failing to comply. It further provides that the relevant party, which in the case of judges is the Judicial Conference, “shall refer to the Attorney General the name of any individual which such official or committee has reasonable cause to believe has willfully failed to file information required to be reported.” A violation can result in a fine under the criminal code.

Did Thomas act “knowingly and willfully” in failing to report the property sale? One relevant consideration: The Judicial Conference has seen this kind of nondisclosure from Thomas before.

Like other senior officials in government, justices must disclose their spouses’ sources of income, although not the dollar amounts. On his financial disclosure forms, Thomas simply marked the box labeled “NONE” for noninvestment income earned by his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. In fact, she was employed by the House Republican leadership, Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation, earning more than $1.6 million from those sources, according to separate records compiled by Common Cause and the Alliance for Justice.

Thomas’s explanation — a “misunderstanding” of the reporting rules — was unconvincing then, and relevant to the situation now. As the instructions for “filer’s spouse” state, “Report only the date(s) and source of earned income from any source that exceeds $1,000.”

Second, Thomas had complied with those rules for the previous decade, reporting the source of his wife’s income during his years as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, when he was a judge on the D.C. Circuit, and for the first five years of his tenure on the Supreme Court.

The justice is a repeat offender. Judges aren’t eager to police their own — especially not a sitting justice. Human nature and history suggest the Judicial Conference won’t do a thing. But the Georgia real estate deal will make that dodge harder. And the law requires otherwise.

ProPublica Exposes A Corrupt Supreme Court Justice

 The following article is by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner:

A hallmark of great journalism is that it shines a bright light on information that is in the public’s interest but that powerful forces and actors desperately want to remain hidden. 

A perfect example of this came today with a blockbuster investigative report from ProPublica about serious ethical questions concerning Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In a thorough examination of Thomas’s two-decade relationship with billionaire and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, reporters Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski detail a series of trips gifted to Thomas and his wife, Ginni, that on the open market would likely have totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

None of these were disclosed by Thomas, who likes to portray himself as a man of simple tastes. The report notes that in a recent documentary about his life, Thomas stated, “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.” Let’s just say that none of the trips Thomas took with Crow on his yacht and to his private resort in the Adirondacks resembled a Walmart parking lot. 

It is fitting that this news would drop a day after we wrote about the election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The reporting on Thomas shows the utter hypocrisy of those on the political right claiming that progressive judges are the ones undermining faith in our judicial system.

 

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts likes to intone on how much he cares for the integrity of the court. But under his watch, the court's standing with the public has dropped precipitously. And he need look no further than his ideological counterparts in the court’s right-wing majority.

 

The damage to the court’s reputation has been manifest in a series of rulings that have made a mockery of the ideas of judicial restraint and precedent. These have overturned Roe v. Wade, emboldened unrestricted gun rights, and undermined our representative government through gerrymandered elections. And that’s just the beginning.

 

Then there is the personal conduct of the justices, of which Thomas, a hero to the right, is a particularly egregious example. Here he is hobnobbing with rich, powerful interests and not letting anyone know.

There he was refusing to recuse himself from a case involving the January 6 insurrection even though his own wife was implicated. It is clear he feels he has no need to defend his actions to anyone. He is completely unaccountable and flaunts it. 

Senate Democrats today called for an ethics code for the Supreme Court. But color us skeptical that anything will change anytime soon. 

This is a time of great tension in the function (or perhaps more aptly, the dysfunction) of our democracy. It feels as if we have been walking a high wire for years. But the tension still increases. In just the last few days, we have seen a state legislator in North Carolina who had run as a solid Democrat switch parties, giving Republicans a supermajority. In Tennessee, Republicans in the state’s House expelled two Democratic representatives who had joined students in protesting inaction on gun violence. And this on top of what we saw in Wisconsin.

 

There is also the backdrop of the former president facing numerous strands of legal peril.

 

There has always been an element of hardball in politics. There have always been public officials who skirted or crossed the lines of ethics and the law. There have always been judges who had dubious connections. Democracy is always precarious. 

But there is a sense that now the danger is building. Voters are angry. The will of the majority is being undermined on issues like abortion and gun safety. Power is being accrued for its own sake and not to address the needs of the people.

 

These are times when we need a fearless press to explain where there is peril and where there is promise around the ability of our nation to regain its footing and thrive. Kudos to ProPublica for its contribution to the health of American democracy. 

Thomas Should Recuse Himself In Cases About 2020 Election

The chart above is from the new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between March 31st and April 4th of a nationwide sample of 1,436 adults, with a 2.6 point margin of error. 

A majority of Americans say Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself in any cases dealing with the 2020 election because of his wife's involvement in trying to overturn the results of that election.

Thomas Voted To Hide His Wife's Opposition To Democracy

 Illustration is by artist Victor Juhasz.

It has been no secret that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a right-wing extremist. But now we learn that she had an active part in trying to subvert our democratic system by overturning the legitimate results of the 2020 election. She texted Mark Meadows (Trump's White House Chief of Staff) at least 20 times, asking him to continue efforts to overturn the election. She also attended the January 6th insurrection.

This wouldn't be newsworthy, except her husband voted to keep secret Meadows texts -- including those from his wife. Justice Thomas should have recused himself, but instead became the ONLY justice to vote to keep the texts secret and deny their release to the January 6th Select Committee.

Here is part of how this was reported in The Washington Post:

Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.

On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

When Meadows wrote to Thomas on Nov. 24, the White House chief of staff invoked God to describe the effort to overturn the election. “This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”. . .

The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results — and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice. Among Thomas’s stated goals in the messages was for lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted incendiary and unsupported claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team. . . .

It is unknown whether Ginni Thomas and Meadows exchanged additional messages between the election and Biden’s inauguration beyond the 29 received by the committee. Shortly after providing the 2,320 messages, Meadows ceased cooperating with the committee, arguing that any further engagement could violate Trump’s claims of executive privilege. Committee members and aides said they believe the messages may be just a portion of the pair’s total exchanges. . . .

In February 2021, when the Supreme Court rejected election challenges filed by Trump and his allies, Thomas wrote in a dissent that it was “baffling” and “inexplicable” that the majority had decided against hearing the cases because he believed the Supreme Court should provide states with guidance for future elections.

In her text messages to Meadows, Ginni Thomas spread false theories, commented on cable news segments and advocated with urgency and fervor that the president and his team take action to reverse the outcome of the election. She urged that they take a hard line with Trump staffers and congressional Republicans who had resisted arguments that the election was stolen.

It's Time For Congress To Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas

 

The following is part of a post by Mehdi Hasan at MSNBC.com:

Today, we agree that a judge cannot, and should not, be removed simply because we disagree with their rulings. But we should then also agree that if judges are violating ethics or subject to conflicts of interest, they should in theory be impeached and removed from the bench.

In January, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer profiled Thomas’ wife, Ginni, a longtime conservative operative and lobbyist, and revealed how her lobbying firm was on the payroll of far-right activist Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy. Gaffney and others submitted an amicus brief to the court in 2017 in support of the Trump administration’s travel ban, arguing that “the challenge of Islam must be confronted.”

Shockingly, Thomas did not recuse himself from the case given the clear financial conflict. He never even disclosed the $200,000 paid to his wife despite being required to report the source of a spouse’s income as part of his annual financial disclosures, according to The New Yorker. Thomas would later join his fellow four conservative justices in voting to uphold Trump’s shameful Muslim ban.

In February, The New York Times Magazine reported that Ginni Thomas served on the board of a secretive right-wing group called CNP Action. In November 2020, it circulated a “November ‘action steps’ document” instructing its members in the days after the election “to pressure Republican lawmakers into challenging the election results and appointing alternate slates of electors,” according to the report.

But when former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to block the House Jan. 6 committee from obtaining hundreds of pages of White House records from the National Archives, Thomas was the sole justice to vote against the House investigators.

Then on Monday, in an interview with a conservative blog, Ginni Thomas admitted to having attended the "Stop the Steal" rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. She admitted to being in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, thereby endorsing that day's Trump-led rally to overturn the election, but she claimed to have left before Trump addressed the crowd because she “got cold.”

To recap: These reports showed that the wife of a Supreme Court justice not only took undisclosed money from an activist who filed a brief in front of the court, but that she was also part of a campaign to try to overturn the 2020 election result and attended the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. And as Ginni Thomas herself helpfully explained in Monday’s interview: “Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America.”

Ridiculously, Clarence Thomas wants us to believe he can carry on as an associate justice and remain above the fray. In September, speaking at the University of Notre Dame, he railed against growing criticisms of the court’s partisan behavior. If he really wanted to avoid looking like a politician, why allow his wife’s political activism and income streams to have even the appearance of an impact on his decisions instead of recusing himself?

In fact, unlike others on the court, such as Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Stephen Breyer, who have recused themselves from cases involving family members, Clarence Thomas has never recused himself from a casebecause of Ginni Thomas or her work.

Why should we continue to tolerate his outrageous and unethical behavior?

Justice Thomas Willing To Trash Constitutional Rights

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has long been, along with Justice Antonin Scalia, the most extreme right-winger on the Court. And in a recent Supreme Court decision (on the offering of prayers before city government meetings), he showed he is even further to the extreme right than Scalia (which is hard to do). In fact, Thomas is so far to the right that he is willing to trash the Constitution to uphold his personal beliefs -- the same Constitution he has sworn to uphold.

In the case of Town of Greece vs. Galloway, Thomas voted with the majority to allow the town to open meetings with a prayer -- but Thomas went further than the other justices, and in a separate opinion stated that he does not believe the First Amendment clause prohibiting government from an "establishment of religion" applies to the states -- but only to the federal government. He says the Constitution does not prohibit any state from establishing an official religion (and presumably forcing its citizens to participate in that official state religion).

This flies in the face of religious tradition in the United States. Many early settlers of this country came here because they were denied the freedom to practice their own religion in another country. And the framers of the Constitution included freedom of religion in the First Amendment, because they wanted to make sure this country did not make the mistake of forcing people to accept a religion they did not want. That amendment assures every American the right to believe in whatever religion he/she wants to, or in no religion at all.

Sadly, Thomas doesn't seem to be smart enough to realize that if the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment doesn't apply to the states, then it is of no value at all. What good is a federal guarantee of religious freedom if any state can ignore that guarantee and force its preferred religion on its inhabitants?

And what about other guaranteed rights in the Constitution? If the states can ignore religious freedom rights, why can't they ignore other rights. How about the First Amendment rights of free speech or free assembly? How about the Second Amendment? Does it also apply only to the federal government? Can a state ignore it and deny all citizens the right to own a firearm (and even confiscate those firearms currently owned by their citizens)? How about the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments? Can the rights guaranteed in those amendments be denied by the states?

As you can see, Thomas' argument is ridiculous? No individual (not even Justice Thomas) or state can deny to any citizen any right contained in the Constitution, and that includes the right to religious freedom (including the right to be free of an imposed state religion). And individuals and states cannot choose which rights apply to them and which do not. Either all constitutional rights are guaranteed to citizens of all the states, or no rights are guaranteed to the citizens of any state. There is no middle ground (no matter how much right-wingers might wish there was).

The Constitution is absolute. It is the law of the land, and every state must adhere to it (and that includes local government as well). This country will be a lot better off when Justice Thomas is no longer on the Supreme Court. We don't need any justice willing to trash the Constitution he swore to uphold.

(NOTE -- The caricature of Justice Thomas above is by DonkeyHotey.)

Clarence Thomas Again Ignoring Ethics Of His Position

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has always played fast and loose with judicial ethics (sexual harassment, failure to report family income, speaking at political functions, etc.), and now he's doing it again. He, along with federal appeals court Judge Diane Sykes have agreed to headline the fundraising dinner of the Federalist Society (scheduled for the evening of November 14th).

The problem with that is that the Judicial Code of Ethics doesn't permit federal judges to do that. The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges bars judges from participating in any fundraising event and specifically states "judge may not be a speaker, guest of honor, or featured on the program" of a fundraising event. Judge Sykes is legally required to abide by that code of ethics. Justice Thomas is not, but Chief Justice Roberts says the justices follow that code even though not legally required to do so. He is obviously wrong when it comes to Justice Thomas.

Fortunately, someone is finally calling these judges on their ethical violation. Rep Louise Slaughter (D-New York) and Common Cause have sent a letter of complaint to Chief Justice Roberts (regarding Thomas' ethical lapse) and filed a formal ethics complaint about Judge Sykes (regarding her ethical violation in appearing at the event). Arn Pearson of Common Cause says:

"Justice Thomas is among several members of the high court who’ve made a habit of flouting judicial ethics by headlining Federalist Society fundraisers. He gets away with it because the Court has exempted itself from the Code, but that doesn’t make it right. Our nation’s highest court should not have the lowest ethical standards. However, that loophole does not extend to Judge Sykes, so we have filed a formal ethics complaint with the Seventh Circuit."

"Judges undermine the integrity of our legal system when they lend their prestige to fundraising efforts, particularly by groups that have an ideological agenda or have proceedings before the courts. It is time to stop the growing politicization of American courts.” 

I agree with this, and commend the action of Rep. Slaughter and Common Cause. It is ridiculous that the Supreme Court has exempted itself from the same ethical rules that all other judges are required to follow. The Supreme Court should not only be subject to the same rules, but should be even more scrupulous in the following of those rules so they can set a good example for all other federal judges to follow.