Clarence Thomas’ ethics mess goes from bad to worse
By any fair measure, Justice Clarence Thomas was already one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most controversial members, even before this year got underway. But in recent months, the far-right jurist has faced a series of ethics questions that he and his allies have struggled to answer.
Over the last three months, ProPublica has taken the lead on exposing Thomas’ unusual and previously undisclosed ties to a Republican megadonor. Over the weekend, The New York Times took the story considerably further.
Let’s just call him “Clearance Thomas”, because he’s for sale cheap!
He won't be removed. But he needs to be impeached/censured and ethics rules and term limits need to be imposed. All Article III judges (and all federal employees) should be forced into senior status at 30 years of service, with an ad hoc ability to retire.
If you enforce those limits, he's off the SCOTUS. And Alito will be behind him shortly.
Impeachment with Republicans is a non-starter.
At this point we are dependent on election outcomes that change the majorities in the House and Senate to be overwhelmingly Democrat. Manchin and Sinema need to have no power in this either.
This country is beholden to a tiny amount of egotistical assholes.
There’s nothing anyone can do to him so why should he resign. He knows republicans don’t care as long as he’s for their agenda. With a dem president and senate nothing short of a Supreme Court judge passing will remove a republican appointee from the court.
The fact that people like Clarence Thomas still sit in their positions shows how imperfect the entire system is in the US.
No ethical oversight, no real rules and very little accountability for those who overstep the boundaries of their offices.
In a sane country, Trump would be detained pending trial, half the Supreme Court would be removed from their seats, and every member of the “Freedom” Caucus would be expelled from Congress. But nooooooo…
Investigation Uncovers More of Clarence Thomas’ Undisclosed Freebies from Wealthy Pals
CLARENCE THOMAS’ CONNECTIONS to wealth and expensive vacations run deeper than billionaire businessman and Nazi-enthusiast Harlan Crow. The New York Times reports that Thomas has milked relationships with the rich he made through the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, a scholarship association, to benefit himself and his wife.
Because of their Horatio Alger connections, Thomas and his spouse, Virginia, have been invited to join luxurious vacations and parties in addition being granted V.I.P. access to sports events. Thanks to the association, Thomas also rubbed elbows with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Ed McMahon during a lavish three-day Montana birthday party for billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington.
Each time the Court denies they need an ethics code, we find out more reasons why they do need one.
They'll either have to act to implement one themselves or they'll have to bend to accept external oversight. This issue has become far too salient to get swept under the rug.
Thomas has zero shame, so he won't be pressured into anything.
And I'll believe Thomas retires when I see it. I would wager quite a bit of money that he dies an active SCOTUS Justice.
Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo
Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.
The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.
The Constitution has been amended 27 times. Of our 3 branches of govt only the Judicial Branch hasn't been changed. We changed the Executive Branch by instituting term limits not originally in the Constitution. We changed the Legislative Branch by capping the House of Representatives at 435 members.
Yet when it comes to a SCOTUS some attempt to the constitution as a cudgel. Demand that because the constitution does not explicitly prohibit things like the Federalist Society and Justices mingling with Billionaires who have business before the court there is nothing that can be done.
In my opinion the two biggest problems with the court at the moment are that it (SCOTUS) selects which cases they will hear and there are no official rules of ethics with an enforcement component.
Edward Blum is a Republican activist who specializes in overturning portions of the civil rights act through the Supreme Court. He is responsible for 2013's Shelby County v Holder supreme court case and the recent Harvard Affirmative Action case. Blum has been before SCOTUS with cases several times.
SCOTUS chooses which cases to hear and magically always chooses to hear Blum's cases. Even when Blum has repeatedly lost in all lower court rulings as was the case in Shelby County and Harvard.
SCOTUS is petitioned to hear over 7,000 cases per year and only accepts about 100 cases or 1.5% of requests. Yet somehow people like Blum get repeatedly before the court. It is ridiculous. There should be a separate panel of circuit court justices that recommend cases to the Supreme Court. Justices shouldn't control which cases they want to hear.
There are already ethical standards and rules with enforceable components for Federal Justices. Those rules just don't apply to the Supreme Court. This is clearly an oversight and not some useful thing the all knowing Founding Father's purposefully did for some virtuous reason. Simply change the law so those ethics cover SCOTUS.
These are not hard lifts. These are not changes that are partisan and by design favor a political party. These are changes which would simply make the system hard to corrupt..
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