Lithwick: Clarence Thomas Broke the Law and It Isn't Even Close

[Nevilledog]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/clarence-thomas-broke-the-law-harlan-crow.html

ProPublica’s scrupulously reported new piece on Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong luxury travel on the dime of a single GOP megadonor will probably not shock you at all. Sure, the dollar amounts spent are astronomical, and of course the justice failed to report any of it, and of course the megadonor insists that he and Thomas are dear old friends, so of course the superyacht and the flights on the Bombardier Global 5000 jet and the resorts are all perfectly benign. So while the details are shocking, the pattern here is hardly a new one. This is a longstanding ethics loophole that has been exploited by parties with political interests in cases before the court to curry favor in exchange for astonishing junkets and perks. It is allowed to happen.

We will doubtless spend a few news cycles expressing outrage that Harlan Crow has spent millions of dollars lavishing the Thomases with lux vacations and high-end travel and barely pretended to separate business and pleasure, giving half a million dollars to a Tea Party group founded by Ginni Thomas in 2011 (which funded her own $120,000 salary). But because the justices are left to police themselves and opt not to do so, we will turn to other matters in due time. Before the outrage dries up, however, it is worth zeroing in on two aspects of the ProPublica report that do have lasting legal implications. First, the same people who benefited from the lax status quo continue to fight against any meaningful reforms that might curb the justices’ gravy train. Second, the rules governing Thomas’ conduct over these years, while terribly insufficient, actually did require him to disclose at least some of these extravagant gifts. The fact that he ignored the rules anyway illustrates just how difficult it will be to force the justices to obey the law: Without the strong threat of enforcement, a putative public servant like Thomas will thumb his nose at the law.

If there is a single image that captures this seedy state of affairs, it is a painting of Thomas hanging out with Leonard Leo (Federalist Society co-chair and judicial power broker) and Mark Paoletta (who has served as chief counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence and general counsel of Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget). Both are political operatives, though Crow assures us that they would never dare talk about Thomas’ work. This image should be enough to shock anyone into taking action against the spigot of dark money that flows directly from billionaire donors into the court, its justices, and their spouses’ pockets. Continuing to live as though there is nothing to be done about any of this is a choice. We make it every day.

In addition to working in the Trump-Pence administration, Paoletta serves as the Thomases’ longtime fixer, attack dog, and booster. He represented Ginni Thomas when she spoke to the Jan 6. committee about her support for overturning the 2020 election. He also edited a biography of Clarence Thomas based on an almost comically obsequious documentary (in which he was also involved). So it should not be a surprise that Paoletta has also testified against any ethics reform measures for the Supreme Court, dismissing the reform movement as part of “the coordinated campaign by some Democrats and their allies in the corporate media to smear conservative Justices with the goal of delegitimizing the court.”

*snip*

[hippywife]

1. "...on the dime of a single GOP megadonor..."

That we know of. It's an easy bet there have been others.

[bluestarone]

2. PROOF that the saying NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW

Means NOTHING. Can't touch these bastards!

[republianmushroom]

12. You nailed it

[Evolve Dammit]

14. Yep. It's a catchy expression, but not true. Unfortunately. n/t

[RussBLib]

19. I think the problem is....

...there there are basically no laws that the SCOTUS is subject to. Hell, they don't even have a code of ethics. We have always treated the SCOTUS like this sacrosanct entity, immune to the passions of the day, but that's not true either. There have been many bad decisions issued by the SCOTUS. Eventually, they get corrected.

If we had laws concerning the SCOTUS, we could prosecute when they were broken, but there are not many laws at all in regards to the SCOTUS.

[Duppers]

21. + 100

[enough]

3. Blood boiling, again.

[onetexan]

13. Ditto

[MOMFUDSKI]

5. Do these 'gifts'

have to be reported on one's taxes? Anyone know?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. We need an impeachment-capable majority in both houses.

Fascist Oligarch eXtremists are too close to owning the Judiciary branch.

[icymist]

7. Wow. A gift of a six figure salary? A gift?!

giving half a million dollars to a Tea Party group founded by Ginni Thomas in 2011 (which funded her own $120,000 salary).

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Who would deny a friend a favor?

Especially an astronomically rich friend with so many rich friends with interesting lives.

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R

[BOSSHOG]

10. Dems and the Media

Working “to smear conservative justices with the goal of delegitimizing the court.” And they have only one “weapon.” THE TRUTH. Something conservatives don’t give a flying dog fuck about and haven’t since at least 1980.

[Martin Eden]

23. "Conservative" logic is truly amazing to behold

When the media reports facts that are egregious violations of ethical (and likely legal) standards, then Democrats publicly denounce these violations, THEY are the ones who are "deligitimizing" the court.

NOT the justices whose unethical (likely illegal) actions are merely being revealed to the public.

Such logic reeks of FASCISM.

Denounce the media and the political opposition for reporting the truth and speaking about it.

If that is the mindset of justices on the highest court in the land, how can we not doubt they would readily serve the FASCISTS who now embody American "conservatism"?

[NullTuples]

15. Some day we as a nation are going to have to deal with the fact that we were founded...

...by men of some great privilege, with a purpose in no small part being to increase the profits of the businesses they owned (those tea taxes weren't at the retail level). And when they wrote all those highfalutin bedrock documents about equality and liberty and the equal rule of law and such, they left out one group.

Themselves.

It's clear now that they simply assumed that anyone of high enough socio-economic stature to attain public office would at least publicly act with a sense of propriety over the nation and act - at least insofar as public opinion went - in good faith to protect it and the values we "hold so dear". So they simply didn't see the need to bother hard-coding in many actual laws to govern the behavior of lawmakers. Nearly everything especially in Congress is handled in-house, by their peers. It's all done by "tradition" and "rules" rather than laws that hold those with the most power to the highest standards.

Of course, they also didn't seem to be able to conceive of the idea that someday one party might be taken over by even wealthier funders - amazingly, astoundingly wealthy funders by the 21st century - in an attempt to simply buy the state and federal governments and to no small degree dismantle everything the United States of America was ostensibly supposed to stand for.

Someday, we're going to have to ask lawmakers to write laws that hinder themselves. Laws that restrain them to the point of forcing them to do the right thing or risk jail time, not just censure at worst. I wonder how that will go.

[BComplex]

25. That's a great post. I'm recommending it.

Here

[Evolve Dammit]

16. And you just wonder what votes on what decisions were a result of these "gifts?" n/t

[Irish_Dem]

18. Yes you don't give that kind of money without some strings attached.

[Evolve Dammit]

26. Just a "dear friend" according to Clarence. Ya right...

[Irish_Dem]

27. A SC Justice lying his ass off.

He thinks we are fools.

[Evolve Dammit]

29. Well, he got away with it with Anita Hill, his wife is an election rigger, so for them, it works.

[Irish_Dem]

17. The SC is a corrupt political junta.

And there is nothing anyone can do about it.
The justices know it.

[Warpy]

20. At the very least, he needs to get socked with a huge tax bill

for all the cheating he's done all over the years plus interest and penalties.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

22. Clarence Thomas may have violated financial disclosure law, ethics experts say

We need to prosecute Thomas

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-gifts-propublica-rcna78477

Clarence Thomas is in the news again — and it’s not good news for him or the Supreme Court. A staggering investigation published Thursday by the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica revealed new details about Republican megadonor Harlan Crow’s relationship to the GOP justice. The report doesn’t claim that Thomas fixed cases for Crow but, rather, that Thomas failed to disclose gifts from the billionaire, who for years reportedly treated the justice to lavish trips around the world via private jet and yacht.

According to legal experts interviewed by ProPublica, Thomas' alleged reporting failures appear to violate a post-Watergate disclosure law. Kedric Payne, a senior director at the nonprofit government watchdog Campaign Legal Center, told the outlet, “If Justice Thomas received free travel on private planes and yachts, failure to report the gifts is a violation of the disclosure law." Thomas didn’t respond to a detailed list of questions for the article, ProPublica said.

Link to tweet

The report, which is worth reading in full, is jammed with stunning details like the following anecdote that opens the story:

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

The latest airing of Thomas' dubious ethical behavior might rally calls, yet again, for the court to adopt a formal ethics code. Of course, it’s ridiculous that the justices don’t have one while lower federal judges do. But what's a code — or any law, for that matter — worth if there’s no enforcement? It seems the only real consequence is impeachment and removal from the bench. It wouldn’t be the first time that Thomas’ impeachment has been called for.

[bluestarone]

24. Don't quite know how things work, BUT

What needs to be done to pass a bill, stating that IF a justice receives more than $435, they are forced to RECUSE from any voting pertaining to that person (company) PERIOD! It possible?

[FakeNoose]

28. K & R