Not.Ĭonsider the value of what’s known of Crow’s direct and indirect generosity to Thomas over the years: millions of dollars for the Pin Point Heritage Museum in Thomas’ hometown of Pin Point, Ga. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday, “I have total confidence in the chief justice of the United States to deal with these court internal issues.” Just as Chief Justice John G.
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Moreover, each of the justices is free to decide how the general ethics guidelines apply to them.” The Times wrote then, “By law and tradition, the Supreme Court justices are exempted from many of the rules that govern lesser federal judges. After The Times first reported the Thomas-Crow connection back then, based on Thomas’ financial disclosures, what was Thomas’ response? To stop reporting the goodies. The damning detail in the ProPublica blockbusters was new, but enterprising reporters have been zinging Thomas for his gifts-grifting and disclosure lapses at least since a 2004 investigative piece in The Times. That a justice would show such poor judgment in the matter of an existential threat to democracy is reason enough to favor Thomas’ departure from the court.
He has three times voted in the Trump side’s favor in related cases. Despite her efforts, Thomas has ignored widespread calls to recuse himself - as a federal law arguably requires - from cases related to Trump and the Jan. What’s more, President Biden isn’t just any Democrat, but one whose election Thomas’ wife Ginni, a longtime right-wing activist, worked zealously to overturn. It is implausible that the justice has been unaware of his wife’s efforts to overturn Biden’s election. Opinion Calmes: Now there’s no doubt Clarence Thomas should be recusing He maintained his innocence but said he was stepping down because the court’s reputation and effectiveness “are factors paramount to all others.” Fortas also sought to avoid likely impeachment in a Congress controlled by Johnson’s fellow Democrats Thomas need not worry that Republicans who now run the House would ever impeach him, no matter how serious his infractions. Johnson, resigned in 1969 amid a scandal over disclosures of his financial ties to a convicted stock swindler. That Thomas won’t follow the precedent of former Justice Abe Fortas is a reflection not only of his own flawed, chip-on-the-shoulder character, but also of the radically polarized politics today compared to Fortas’ time.įortas, an appointee and friend of President Lyndon B. Which is why he won’t do what he should, and what one ethics-challenged justice did a half-century ago: resign. Thomas won’t even suffer shame, because he’s shown he has none. ProPublica reported on Thomas’ undisclosed private jet and yacht trips, now it says he failed to disclose real estate transactions. Opinion Abcarian: What Clarence Thomas calls hospitality looks a lot more like corruption But the nine justices have their jobs for life. Trump, once the most powerful person on the planet, lost the protection of a controversial Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president when he left office. Perversely, it is because Thomas sits on the highest court that he’s all but unaccountable. What is possibly illegal is that Thomas repeatedly has failed to report such gifts and transactions in the annual financial disclosure reports required of federal officials by a 1978 law.
For Thomas to accept his largess is at least unethical. The nonprofit news organization ProPublica reported in separate exposes this month how Thomas has for years enjoyed luxe vacations at the expense of Texas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, and how money actually changed hands in 2014 when a Crow company bought and refurbished Thomas family properties in rural Georgia where the justice’s mother still lives rent-free.Ĭrow told ProPublica that he has never tried to influence Thomas about legal or political issues, but he has contributed to conservative groups with a stake in such cases before the Supreme Court.
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