Opinion: Why are we stuck with Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice who doesn’t follow the law?
No sooner had Donald Trump lastly been fingerprinted and booked than we People had been reminded of that different V.I.P. scofflaw who, by his repeat offenses, has lengthy mocked our nationwide conceit that no individual is above the regulation.
Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas.
Teflon Don has discovered that his personal seeming protect towards authorized accountability isn’t impervious, and the previous president possible faces extra arraignments earlier than lengthy. Don’t, nonetheless, count on Thomas to equally face indictment or impeachment after the most recent revelations of his nose-thumbing at ethics and the regulation.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a vital eye to the nationwide political scene. She has many years of expertise overlaying the White Home and Congress.
The nonprofit information group ProPublica reported in separate exposes this month how Thomas has for years loved luxe holidays on the expense of Texas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, and the way cash truly modified fingers in 2014 when a Crow firm purchased and refurbished Thomas household properties in rural Georgia the place the justice’s mom nonetheless lives rent-free.
Crow informed ProPublica that he has by no means tried to affect Thomas about authorized or political points, however he has contributed to conservative teams with a stake in such instances earlier than the Supreme Court docket. For Thomas to simply accept his largess is no less than unethical. What’s probably unlawful is that Thomas repeatedly has didn’t report such presents and transactions within the annual monetary disclosure reviews required of federal officers by a 1978 regulation.
Perversely, it’s as a result of Thomas sits on the best courtroom that he’s all however unaccountable. Trump, as soon as essentially the most highly effective individual on the planet, misplaced the safety of a controversial Justice Division coverage towards indicting a sitting president when he left workplace. However the 9 justices have their jobs for all times. They choose, however are nearly unjudged.
Thomas received’t even endure disgrace, as a result of he’s proven he has none. Which is why he received’t do what he ought to, and what one ethics-challenged justice did a half-century in the past: resign.
That Thomas received’t observe the precedent of former Justice Abe Fortas is a mirrored image not solely of his personal flawed, chip-on-the-shoulder character, but in addition of the radically polarized politics at this time in comparison with Fortas’ time.
Fortas, an appointee and buddy of President Lyndon B. Johnson, resigned in 1969 amid a scandal over disclosures of his monetary ties to a convicted inventory swindler. He maintained his innocence however stated he was stepping down as a result of the courtroom’s popularity and effectiveness “are components paramount to all others.” Fortas additionally sought to keep away from possible impeachment in a Congress managed by Johnson’s fellow Democrats; Thomas needn’t fear that Republicans who now run the Home would ever impeach him, irrespective of how critical his infractions.
In the present day, public belief within the Supreme Court docket is the bottom since polling on the query started, but Thomas isn’t almost selfless sufficient to assist restore it by resigning. For 31 years, he has appeared to nurse resentment over his contentious Senate affirmation, when he was credibly accused of sexual harassment. He’s not about to surrender his seat in humiliation now — particularly when the president who would fill it’s a Democrat.
What’s extra, President Biden isn’t simply any Democrat, however one whose election Thomas’ spouse Ginni, a longtime right-wing activist, labored zealously to overturn. Regardless of her efforts, Thomas has ignored widespread calls to recuse himself — as a federal regulation arguably requires — from instances associated to Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, rebellion. He has thrice voted within the Trump facet’s favor in associated instances.
{That a} justice would present such poor judgment within the matter of an existential menace to democracy is purpose sufficient to favor Thomas’ departure from the courtroom. However there’s all the remaining.
The damning element within the ProPublica blockbusters was new, however enterprising reporters have been zinging Thomas for his gifts-grifting and disclosure lapses no less than since a 2004 investigative piece in The Occasions. After The Occasions first reported the Thomas-Crow connection again then, based mostly on Thomas’ monetary disclosures, what was Thomas’ response? To cease reporting the goodies.
The Occasions wrote then, “By regulation and custom, the Supreme Court docket justices are exempted from most of the guidelines that govern lesser federal judges. Furthermore, every of the justices is free to resolve how the overall ethics tips apply to them.”
Nothing’s modified. As Senate Republican Chief Mitch McConnell informed reporters Tuesday, “I’ve whole confidence within the chief justice of the USA to cope with these courtroom inner points.” Simply as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has executed earlier than. Not.
Take into account the worth of what’s recognized of Crow’s direct and oblique generosity to Thomas over time: hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for the Pin Level Heritage Museum in Thomas’ hometown of Pin Level, Ga.; $175,000 for a Pin Level library devoted to Thomas and financing for an additional in Savannah; $500,000 for Ginni Thomas to begin a far-right advocacy group; a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass; non-public jet flights, an island-hopping yacht trip value lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} and hospitality at California’s Bohemian Grove and at Crow properties in Texas and the Adirondacks.
Thomas additionally has needed to amend his disclosure reviews in years previous to replicate unreported earnings for himself and his spouse, however solely after controversy. He as soon as stated he’d omitted almost $700,000 that Ginni Thomas acquired from 2003 to 2007 from the conservative Heritage Basis due to “a misunderstanding” of the 1978 disclosure regulation. A justice who’s the ultimate phrase on the regulation doesn’t perceive a regulation?
He was unchastened: Final yr the New Yorker revealed that his spouse’s firm had acquired $200,000 from a right-wing, dark-money group for her consulting companies at a time when the group was backing a Muslim ban case earlier than the Supreme Court docket. Thomas didn’t disclose that fee both.
Thomas is for certain to stay unchastened. He’s not solely being defended but in addition hailed as a sufferer by a Republican Social gathering that’s been known as a cult of victimhood.
It’s a damaged political system, and a damaged courtroom, that countenances such habits and moral blindness.
