There is just something about Justice Clarence Thomas that gets under Democrats’ skin.
They are drumming up fake ethics violations to try to remove him from the court before Joe Biden gets booted out of the White House.
Now, several high-profile Democrats are latching on to a ProPublica report that hints that Thomas has been on the take for decades.
Remove Him
A letter written by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Hank Johnson (D-GA), and Ted Lieu (D-CA) was sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on the matter.
This after Dems appealed to Chief Justice Roberts, who more or less told them all to go pound sand.
The letter, in part, asked Garland “to launch an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for consistently failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires for nearly two decades—in defiance of his duty under federal law.”
The report found that Thomas accepted “38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.”
Here is the thing… by current Supreme Court ethics, Thomas did nothing wrong, as he recently explained that “personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”
Thomas and Crow have been friends for decades. Now, one could make the argument had Thomas not been made a Supreme Court justice, that friendship would have never happened, but I can guarantee you that you can say that about the list of friends for any justice.
The question is if Thomas ever influenced a case on behalf of one of those friends, and there is no evidence that he has ever done such a thing.
The sticking point here is that Thomas did not report those trips, but go look at any Supreme Court justices filings and you will see some pretty costly trips that were paid for by other people, including major Democrat donors.
Even Saint RBG had some trips on her forms that were rather expensive, but she never paid a dime for them.
Let me take you back to an Open Secrets report from 2019, that reported, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disclosed taking more trips than any other justice in 2018, totaling 14. She visited Tel Aviv, Israel where she was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Genesis Prize Foundation. Shortly following the award ceremony, she disclosed being provided transportation, food, and lodging as a tourist and guest of billionaire Israeli businessman Morris Kahn.
“Companies spawned by Kahn have had had business before the Supreme Court before. The high court handed Amdocs Limited a win in November 2017 when it declined to take up a patent-related case.”
So, Ginsburg took the trip after the case, a possible "thank you" for the verdict? Is that something anyone considered at the time?
The former Justice Stephen Breyer used the Pritzker family as a travel agent, but Dems never said a word.
In 2018 alone, Justice Sotomayor took 13 trips that were paid for on someone else’s dime, but not a peep. In 2016, Ginsburg took 12 trips that were sponsored and Breyer took a whopping 20 trips that were sponsored by someone else, including trips to London, Spain, France, and Italy.
So, Democrats, please get off your high horse saying that Thomas was living a lifestyle well beyond his means when it is clear that EVERY justice does this and has been doing it for decades.
