Justice Clarence Thomas has an Abe Fortas problem

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I previously posted that the Anthony Weiner story was fortuitously timed to distract the prurient media villagers from the Friday news dump by Justice Clarence Thomas of his financial disclosure forms. Worked like a charm… they took the bait hook, line and sinker. It's so easy.

Now that Weiner has resigned, can we please get back to the real story? The New York Times has started with this story the other day. Friendship of Justice and Magnate Puts Focus on Ethics – NYTimes.com:

[Justice Thomas'] friend turned out to be Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas’s.

The project throws a spotlight on an unusual, and ethically sensitive, friendship that appears to be markedly different from those of other justices on the nation’s highest court.

The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Ms. Thomas to start a Tea Party-related group. They have also spent time together at gatherings of prominent Republicans and businesspeople at Mr. Crow’s Adirondacks estate and his camp in East Texas.

In several instances, news reports of Mr. Crow’s largess provoked controversy and questions, adding fuel to a rising debate about Supreme Court ethics. But Mr. Crow’s financing of the museum, his largest such act of generosity, previously unreported, raises the sharpest questions yet — both about Justice Thomas’s extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct for federal judges.

Steve Benen picks up the story at the Political Animal – Clarence Thomas’ Abe Fortas problem:

After a series of embarrassing revelations over the last several months, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ year got a little worse yesterday. The New York Times reported that the right-wing jurist maintains an “ethically sensitive friendship” with Dallas real estate magnate and GOP financier Harlan Crow.

Despite the fact that Crow’s company has multiple cases in the federal court system, he’s apparently showered Thomas with lucrative gifts, including a massive check to the justice’s wife to start her lobbying organization, and a multimillion-dollar deal in which Crow created a museum at a cannery where Thomas’ mother worked.

Much of this would seem to run afoul of the code of conduct for federal judges, which Supreme Court justices are not bound to follow, but which current members have said they would adhere to.

Ian Millhiser notes that situations like these are not without precedent, but the last justice to get caught up in a similar controversy was forced to resign.

[T]he Thomas scandal is little more than a remake of the forty year-old gifting scandal that brought down Justice Abe Fortas. Like Thomas, Fortas liked to associate with wealthy individuals with potential business before his Court. And like Thomas, Fortas took inappropriate gifts from his wealthy benefactors.

Fortas’ questionable gifts first came out when President Johnson nominated him for a promotion to Chief Justice of the United States in 1968. Fortas had accepted $15,000 to lead seminars at American University — far more than the university normally paid for such services — and the payments were bankrolled by the leaders of frequent corporate litigants including the vice president of Phillip Morris. Fortas survived this revelation, although his nomination for the Chief Justiceship was filibustered into oblivion.

Just a year later, the country learned that Fortas took another highly questionable gift. In 1966, one year after Fortas joined the Court, stock speculator Louis E. Wolfson’s foundation began paying Fortas an annual retainer of $20,000 per year for consulting services. Fortas’ actions were legal, and he eventually returned the money after Wolfson was convicted of securities violations and recused himself from Wolfson’s case, but the damage to Fortas — and the potential harm to the Supreme Court’s reputation — were too great. Fortas resigned in disgrace. 

The controversies aren’t identical, of course, but given the scope of Thomas’ connection to Crow, the generosity Crow has shown towards Thomas, and the fact that Crow has business before the federal judiciary, there are parallels.

Rachel Maddow interviewed Ian Millhiser, an attorney and policy analyst for the Center for American Progress on Monday night about Justice Thomas' Abe Fortas problem. It is time for a congressional inquiry. 

UPDATE: Ian Millhiser has the latest. Clarence Thomas Decided Three Cases Where AEI Filed A Brief After AEI Gave Him A $15,000 Gift | ThinkProgress.

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