The Clarence and Ginni Thomas problem [View all]
March 19, 2022, 5:30 AM EDT
By Wayne Batchis, associate professor of political science at the University of Delaware
... if anything has the potential to awaken us from our stupor of exhaustion, it must be the recent news that Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, attended the Jan. 6 populist rally at the Ellipse in Washington, which preceded that day's Capitol riot. Not to diminish voters’ very legitimate concerns about America’s elected officials, but politicians and political movements come and go. Without trust in the courts, American democracy does not stand a chance ...
... It is rare, if not unheard of, for the spouse of a justice to play such a prominent and active role in partisan politics, if only because this might create the potential appearance of impropriety. A judge, of course, is expected to objectively apply the law, without a preconceived commitment to a particular outcome.
The American people .. are not fools. While we may hope, and believe, that judges make their best effort to remain fair and impartial, people likely understand that the modern Supreme Court decides many issues that overlap with our most deeply held beliefs ... Jan. 6, however, is entirely different terrain.
... Thomas not only sat on the board of an organization that promoted the dangerous fiction that the 2020 election was “stolen” from former President Donald Trump through fraud, she also attended the rally attempting to vindicate this paranoid propagandistic fantasy ... All the while, in what might resemble the coordinated efforts of synchronized swimmers, husband and wife seemingly sought to thwart the investigation into the democratically perilous events of Jan. 6. Ginni Thomas signed on to a letter seeking the expulsion of Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican conference for joining the House Jan. 6 investigation committee; Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter — standing in opposition to the rest of the court, including its three Trump appointees — in a decision allowing for the release of Jan. 6-related documents to said committee ...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-court-s-clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas-problem-ncna1292351
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