Judicial Conference declines to refer Justice Clarence Thomas to DOJ over alleged ethics violations

Federal court officials have announced that they will not be making criminal referrals to the DOJ against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson, as Fox News reports.

Thomas has been the subject of substantial scrutiny over his close relationship with longtime friend Harlan Crow, a billionaire real estate developer who has paid for numerous trips and other gifts to Thomas. 

The justice was under no obligation to report the interactions in question, but that didn't stop leftists from attacking him, as Thomas is the most feared conservative justice on the Supreme Court.

Thomas has since agreed to follow updated guidelines on listing free private travel and gifts from friends seemingly ending the supposed "ethics" issue, which critics say was a complete farce designed to attack the conservative-leaning high court.

Furthermore, there will now be no criminal referral to the Department of Justice, which is a devastating defeat for Democrats who have been campaigning against conservative justices for years.

Justice Thomas effectively cleared

With the announcement, Justice Thomas is in the clear after years of unfounded accusations that he has been making judicial rulings based on payments made by billionaire friends.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is also in the clear after she amended her financial disclosures following complaints about her husband’s consulting income as a physician.

Jackson's issues were discovered thanks to the increased scrutiny, which really kneecapped the investigation into the Supreme Court's conservative justices. It turned out that Jackson actually was the justice benefitting the most from outside sources.

Democrat Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) specifically requested that the judicial body investigate Justice Thomas, but notably, there was no request to investigate Justice Jackson.

Judge Robert Conrad, who heads the federal judicial policymaking body, responded to that request with a letter saying, "Because the Judicial Conference does not superintend the Supreme Court and because any effort to grant the Conference such authority would raise serious constitutional questions, one would expect Congress at a minimum to state any such directive clearly. But no such express directive appears in this provision."

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, and neither the executive nor legislative branches have any authority to investigate it.

All issues of discipline and ethics are internally regulated, but that hasn't stopped Democrats from trying to subvert that established order.

Supreme Court independence emphasized

Democrats in Congress have attempted to impose rules on the Supreme Court, while President Joe Biden has openly floated initiatives to pack the court and add more liberal justices.

Through all of this, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has had to toe a fine line between preserving the court's independence and not making the court a bigger target for Democrats after multiple high-profile cases reversing their agenda.

Now with President-elect Donald Trump set to start his second term, the pressure is significantly reduced, and the independence of the Supreme Court stands a good chance of surviving for at least a few more years.