Worst Scandal Involving A Supreme Court Justice In American History

Justice Clarence Thomas violated the law when he failed to recuse himself from a case in which his wife had an interest in his ruling in such a way that would protect her text messages strategizing the January 6 insurrection with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows from being disclosed. Justice Thomas violated 28 U.S. Code § 455:

(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances:

(5) He or his spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person:

(i) Is a party to the proceeding, or an officer, director, or trustee of a party;
(ii) Is acting as a lawyer in the proceeding;
(iii) Is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding;
(iv) Is to the judge’s knowledge likely to be a material witness in the proceeding.

The problem is that there is no enforcement mechanism or legal penalty for a justice who violates this statutory ethics code.

Nor is Chief Justice John Roberts in a position to discipline a fellow justice of the Supreme Court for failing to follow the law.

David Von Drehle at the Washington Post explains, John Roberts must be at his limit:

In theory, the branches of the U.S. government are equal, but the heads of those branches are not. The president can make all sorts of things happen with a nod or an order. Leaders in Congress must assemble majorities, but power over committee assignments and other tools help them do it.

Then there’s the chief justice of the United States, head of the judicial branch, who has neither authority over the other justices nor much in the way of influence with them. Power on the Supreme Court is the number five, former justice William J. Brennan Jr. taught new clerks: Five votes wins, regardless of whether the chief’s is one of them.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. must be feeling his limits acutely right now. While his judicial philosophy is ascendant as conservatives consolidate their grip on the court, his mission to preserve the institution’s battered credibility, above the blind partisanship of modern politics, is slipping from his grasp.

[B]ut is Justice Thomas his wife’s keeper? Of course not. He is, however, a man whose power now rivals that of the chief justice. Though liberals have spent decades belittling this complex, fascinating man, Clarence Thomas — as senior associate justice — ranks second to Roberts in the ability to assign opinions. Given changes to court personnel in recent years, a solid majority of five conservative votes can now be assembled without Roberts. Should that happen, Thomas decides who will write the court’s opinion.

In short, the 6-3 radical Republican majority (which includes John Roberts on most issues) on the Supreme Court means that the Chief Justice is only nominally in charge of the Supreme Court by virtue of his title. The other 5 radical Republicans who have demonstrated that they do not care a wit about the credibility or integrity of the institution of the Supreme Court can shunt him aside and leave him alone on an island all by himself writing angry dissents, but there is little else he can do about it.

Well, there is one thing Chief Justice Roberts could do to shake things up: he can announce that he is retiring at the end of this term because he has had enough of the antics of his fellow radical Republicans. He could reverse his longstanding opposition to applying the judicial code of ethics to the Supreme Court, and announce that he is joining one of the nonprofit organizations working to restore the credibility and integrity of the Supreme Court by imposing the judicial code of ethics on the court. And he could craft an enfocement mechanism for 28 U.S. Code § 455 through new legislation, working with Congress.

But he won’t.

MSNBC anchor and former U.S. Senate aide Lawrence O’Donnell, in a commentary on The Last Word on Tuesday night, declared that Clarence Thomas’ latest scandal is “the most important story about a Supreme Court justice in the history of the court.” Lawrence O’Donnell breaks down ‘the most important story about a Supreme Court justice in history’:

“We turn now to the most important story about a Supreme Court justice in the history of the court.

“No member of the United States Supreme Court has ever been suspected of, or accused of, anything as bad as what we already know Clarence Thomas has actually done,” O’Donnell declared.

“Federal law [28 U.S. Code § 455] says that no Supreme Court justice or any other federal judge can participate ‘in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’ Clarence Thomas participated in the Supreme Court case involving his wife’s communications with the White House chief of staff, and others,” he explained.

“Clarence Thomas tried to block the January six committee from getting communications that could include his own wife’s communications. And those communications were about criminally overturning a presidential election,” he explained. “That is what we already know Clarence Thomas has done.”

“There have been precious few scandals, in fact, of any sort involving any of the 115 people who have served as Supreme Court justices. 99% of them never come close to anything in their judicial conduct that could be called scandalous,” he explained. “And 100% of them have never come close to anything as bad as what we already know Clarence Thomas has done.”

For further analysis, O’Donnell interviewed constitutional law expert and Harvard law Professor Laurence Tribe.

Tribe agreed that the scandal was historic, saying “it is not something that our history indicates other justices have done. There have been scandals, but nothing like this.”

Over 2 dozen Democrats sound the alarm about Clarence Thomas’ potential conflicts of interest, with some calling for his resignation or impeachment:

A growing number of Democratic lawmakers are demanding that Justice Clarence Thomas resign from the Supreme Court — or at the very least recuse himself from cases related to the January 6 insurrection — following news that his wife pushed the Trump White House to challenge the 2020 presidential election results. A few progressives have raised the prospect of impeachment.

“Clarence Thomas should resign,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Tuesday. The New York Democrat said that if Thomas refuses to step down, lawmakers should investigate the conservative justice’s potential conflicts of interest, which she said “could serve as grounds for impeachment.” A Supreme Court justice can only be removed through a congressional impeachment.

“Congress must understand that a failure to hold Clarence Thomas accountable sends a loud, dangerous signal to the full Court – Kavanaugh, Barrett, & the rest – that his acts are fair game,” she added. “This is a tipping point. Inaction is a decision to erode and further delegitimize SCOTUS.”

Note: Two recent opinion polls indicate that the American public is souring on the Supreme Court. Gallup’s long-running survey on the high court found that public approval of its actions had plunged to 40 percent, the lowest recorded level since it began asking the question in 2000. A separate Marquette University poll also found that 50 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the Republican-majority court’s rulings.

Reps. Nydia Velázquez of New York, Veronica Escobar of Texas, and Hank Johnson of Georgia have also recently called on Thomas to resign. But more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers have not gone as far, only calling on Thomas to recuse himself from future cases concerning the January 6 insurrection.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat of Minnesota, went farther and said last week that Thomas should be impeached. Federal judicial impeachments are rare and a Supreme Court justice hasn’t been impeached since 1804. A majority of House lawmakers would need to vote for impeachment and a two-thirds majority of Senate lawmakers would need to vote to convict.

Impeachment has been rendered a nullity as a remedy by the fascist MAGA/QAnon cult Republicans in Congress.

[In] the wake of the text revelations, Thomas has come under scrutiny for a potential conflict of interest in his Supreme Court work. Specifically, Democrats have criticized him for not recusing himself from a Supreme Court ruling handed down two months ago, when the majority of justices rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to withhold White House records from the January 6 committee. Thomas was the only justice to dissent. The longest-serving member on the bench, Thomas did not provide an explanation for his dissent — a standard omission for such emergency motions that come before the court.

Democrats are largely calling on Thomas to provide an explanation for his dissent in that case and for his recusal in future cases related to the January 6 Capitol riot and the congressional committee’s investigation, given his wife’s texts. But Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said Thomas “should be censured for having voted in cases related to the election,” Politico reported.

In a letter sent to Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday, 24 Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about “the urgent need for significant ethics reform at the Supreme Court.”

“In particular, given the serious conflict-of-interest issues presented by Ms. Thomas’s leadership in the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, we call upon Justice Thomas to immediately issue a written explanation for his failure to recuse himself in prior Supreme Court cases involving efforts to overturn the 2020 election or the January 6th attack on the Capitol and promptly recuse himself from any future Supreme Court cases involving efforts to overturn the 2020 election or the January 6th attack on the Capitol,” the letter said.

The letter’s signatories include Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Ron Wyden of Oregon, along with Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday said Thomas should recuse himself from January 6-related cases and said the Court should adopt “some kind of code of ethics” for Justices. He added there are “serious questions about how close Justice Thomas and his wife were to the planning and execution of the insurrection.” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin also told reporters on Capitol Hill this week that Thomas “should recuse himself from those cases.”

Some prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have not taken as strong of a stance, instead saying it’s up to Thomas himself to decide whether to recuse himself from cases. “It’s up to an individual justice to decide to recuse himself if his wife is participating in a coup,” Pelosi said during a caucus meeting on Tuesday, according to Punchbowl News’ Heather Caygle.

Republicans, for their part, have taken a similar position. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday that Thomas can make his own decisions “like he’s made them every other time.”

“It’s his decision based upon law,” McCarthy said.

But he didn’t follow the ethics law, dumbass.

The January 6 committee is expected to request an interview with Ginni Thomas following the public revelation of the text messages.

There is something else the January 6 committee should ask this insurrectionist about. There Was ANOTHER Rally Planned On Jan. 6 … At The Supreme Court – is this why Ginni Thomas was on the Elipse that day to cheer on the MAGA/QAnon insurrectionists?

The same people who organized Trump’s fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a separate, previously unreported rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.

According to text messages and invoices obtained by TPM and provided to the House Jan. 6 Committee, the rally outside of the Supreme Court was set for the afternoon of Jan. 6 with some of the same speakers scheduled to appear.

The plan for a Supreme Court rally after the event at the Ellipse reveals a new and different perspective on the geography and timing of the attack on the Capitol.

We already knew that President Trump amassed supporters at the Ellipse, at the White House end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and dispatched them toward the Capitol end of Pennsylvania Avenue, declaring that he would walk with them before promptly returning to the White House. But whether the rally at the Ellipse was planned as a march on the Capitol, even though it was never issued a march permit, remains a hotly contested issue. Regardless, rioters penetrated the Capitol even as the President was still speaking at the Ellipse.

But now TPM’s reporting suggests that the Ellipse rally organizers intended to hold a separate 2 p.m. ET event on the steps of the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, where Congress began certifying the Electoral College vote at noon ET. It suggests that organizers wanted to keep up the pressure on Congress through an event far closer to the Capitol.

And to get there, Big Lie supporters would have had to walk past the Capitol building, traversing a geographic bit of irony: Constitution Avenue.

In the end the organizers delayed, then aborted the Supreme Court rally as the assault on the Capitol unfolded and roads around the building were blocked.

But the picture this new information paints is of a pressure campaign directed at lawmakers by Trump-aligned activists that would continue well after election certification was underway. It included the two big D.C. rallies that have already been reported — Jan. 5 at Freedom Plaza and Jan. 6 at the Ellipse — as well as a third in that set: a rally at the Supreme Court later on the day of the insurrection.

Since Ginni Thomas was a go-between for the insurrectionists and Team Trump at the White House, “what did she know and when did she know it?“The insurrectionists also planned to occupy the Supreme Court as well. Document on plan to ‘occupy’ Capitol Hill buildings, Supreme Court on January 6 discovered by prosecutors:

Prosecutors have discovered a written plan to “infiltrate” and “occupy” six congressional office buildings and the Supreme Court on January 6, 2021, as part of the federal investigationinto Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, according to his indictment and a source familiar with the case.

The nine-page planning document, titled “1776 Returns,” is mentioned briefly in the federal indictment filed last week against Tarrio, who is accused of orchestrating key participants in the US Capitol attack that day. A source revealed more details than were previously known about the plan.

In court, prosecutors described an unnamed person sending Tarrio the document in late December 2020.

“The revolution is important,” the unnamed person told him. According to prosecutors, Tarrio replied: “That’s what every waking moment consists of … I’m not playing games.”

Sounds an awful lot like Ginni Thomas’ tweets to Mark Meadows.