Clarence Thomas corruption

[lpetrich]

(oops)

 

[Bronzeage]

The next Supreme Court Justice nominee hearings are going to be very interesting.

 

[TomC]

The next Supreme Court Justice nominee hearings are going to be very interesting.

If there's really a God, those hearings will start before Christmas.
Tom

 

[lpetrich]

(oops)

 

[Shadowy Man]

The next Supreme Court Justice nominee hearings are going to be very interesting.

If there's really a God, those hearings will start before Christmas.
Tom

Right before an election?? thats crazy!!

 

[ZiprHead]

Pressure grows on Clarence Thomas after more gifts from rightwing donor

Disclosures detail more flights and stays with Harlan Crow as Democrats vow to investigate scandal ‘in which this court is enmired’

www.theguardian.com

 

[ZiprHead]

Justice Clarence Thomas reports he took 3 trips on Republican donor's plane last year

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is acknowledging that he took three trips last year aboard a private plane owned by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.

apnews.com

Elliot Berke, a lawyer representing Thomas, issued a blistering statement defending the justice’s conduct and taking aim at his critics.

“The attacks on Justice Thomas are nothing less than ridiculous and dangerous, and they set a terrible precedent for political blood sport through federal ethics filings,” Berke said. “Justice Thomas’s amended report answers — and utterly refutes— the charges trumped up in this partisan feeding frenzy.”

But two ethics experts who have advised justices or nominees to the high court said it has been clear to them for years that travel on private planes must be reported.

 

[lpetrich]

Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events — ProPublica

With a picture captioned "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California, with billionaire industrialist David Koch, right, and Ken Burns, whose films Koch has financially supported."

"Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court."

On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead.

Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s most powerful allies was on board: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

During the summit, the justice went to a private dinner for the network’s donors. Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years, according to interviews with three former network employees and one major donor. The justice was brought in to speak, staffers said, in the hopes that such access would encourage donors to continue giving.

 

[scombrid]

But Trump didn’t literally tell people to drink Chlorox. Your priorities are out of whack.

 

[laughing dog]

At this point, I would be surprised if Justice Thomas showed some recognizable ethical standards instead of the persistent stench of impropriety.

Both he and Justice Alito are so ingrained to this "largesse" that they cannot see how compromised it makes them appear. It really is pathetic and it shows that Supreme Court Justices should have to at least follow the same ethical standards that most federal court judges must follow. Frankly, I think they should operate under the same standards any federal employee must follow.

 

[Copernicus]

At this point, I would be surprised if Justice Thomas showed some recognizable ethical standards instead of the persistent stench of impropriety.

Both he and Justice Alito are so ingrained to this "largesse" that they cannot see how compromised it makes them appear. It really is pathetic and it shows that Supreme Court Justices should have to at least follow the same ethical standards that most federal court judges must follow. Frankly, I think they should operate under the same standards any federal employee must follow.

Republicans are not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, so it is unlikely that Congress will impose any ethical standards at all on the justices. It could even set a bad precedent for their own preferred method of dealing with corruption scandals--sending the matter to an ethics committee that will bury it.

 

[laughing dog]

At this point, I would be surprised if Justice Thomas showed some recognizable ethical standards instead of the persistent stench of impropriety.

Both he and Justice Alito are so ingrained to this "largesse" that they cannot see how compromised it makes them appear. It really is pathetic and it shows that Supreme Court Justices should have to at least follow the same ethical standards that most federal court judges must follow. Frankly, I think they should operate under the same standards any federal employee must follow.

Republicans are not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, so it is unlikely that Congress will impose any ethical standards at all on the justices. It could even set a bad precedent for their own preferred method of dealing with corruption scandals--sending the matter to an ethics committee that will bury it.

I agree it is unlikely but there is a crucial distinction between unelected justices for life and elected officials: the relevant public can fail to return an elected official at the ballot box. Unelected justices do not face regularly scheduled referendums on their efficacy and behaviour.

 

[lpetrich]

Andy Kroll on X: "1/ I have a BIG new story to share with you. ... / X

1/ I have a BIG new story to share with you.
It’s about LEONARD LEO, the man who’s been called the “hidden architect” of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
Our investigation goes deeper, and reveals more, than any story about Leo.
It's time…

2/ If Leo’s name rings a bell, it’s probably for his work advising Donald Trump.
Remember Trump's list of SCOTUS picks from 2016?
Leo crafted it.
But what Leo built is SO MUCH bigger than just — just! — the Supreme Court.
Here’s what we learned…

3/ We talked to more than 100 people who know Leo, worked with him, got his funding or studied his rise.
We drew on thousands of pages of court documents, tax filings, emails, and other records.
We unearthed tons of new material (including the photo below)...
(a picture of LL riding a camel)

4/ There’s scoopy material throughout our story.
We reveal, for instance, that Leo arranged for a group of conservative mega-donors to meet with Clarence Thomas in private . . . AT the Supreme Court.
The leader of this donor group? Paul Singer.

with

On a chilly day in March 2017, about six weeks into Trump's presidency, Leo arranged for a select group to have a private audience with Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court. The attendees were group of high-net-worth donors who had been organized by Singer to marshal huge resources toward electing Republicans and pushing conservative causes. That afternoon, the donors spoke with Thomas. The previously unreported meeting was described by a person familiar with it and corroborated by planning documents.

At the court building itself? It's almost like he isn't trying to hide how bought he is.

 

[lpetrich]

5/ Long ago, Leo realized it wasn’t enough to have the Supreme Court.
To undo rulings like Roe, he’d need to ensure SCOTUS heard the right cases brought by the right lawyers & heard by the right lower ct judges.
He built a machine to shape state courts, AGs & judge races.

with

Leo began building a machine to do just that. He didn't just cultivate friendships with conservative Supreme Court justices, arranging private jet trips, joining them on vacation, brokering speaking engagements. He also drew on his network of contacts to place Federalist Society protégés in clerkships, judgeships and jobs in the White House and across the federal government. He personally called state attorneys general to recommend hires for positions he presciently understood were key, like solicitors general, the unsung litigators who represent states before the U.S. Supreme Court. In states that elect jurists, groups close to him spent millions of dollars to place his allies on the bench. In states that appoint top judges, he maneuvered to play a role in their selection.

In effect, buying judges all across the judiciary.

/ He also created a pipeline to train and churn out conservative judges and lawyers — the future Scalias and Thomases, if you will.
You’ll recognize some of the judges whose careers he nurtured, including Aileen Cannon — now JUDGE Aileen Cannon of the Mar-a-Lago docs case

with

Leo said he did not recall making calls on VanDyke's behalf. He acknowledged nurturing the careers of a whole generation of young conservative attorneys, among them VanDyke; Andrew Ferguson, the Virginia solicitor general; Kathryn Mizelle, the federal judge who struck down the federal mask mandate for air travel; and Aileen Cannon, the federal judge overseeing the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents case.

What a connection. I notice that she hasn't recused herself.

 

[lpetrich]

7/ To fuel this machine, Leo raised a huuuuuge amount of money.
$600 million between 2014 and 2020, to be precise.
And then, in 2021, he blew that sum out of the water when he took control of a $1.6 billion — with a B — fund

Barre Seid Donated $1.6 Billion to Conservative Marble Freedom Trust — ProPublica - "In the largest known political advocacy donation in U.S. history, industrialist Barre Seid funded a new group run by Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, who guided Trump’s Supreme Court picks and helped end federal abortion rights."

No wonder right-wingers hate George Soros so much. He reminds them of all the right-wing moneybags that right-wing orgs get their money from.

8/ One key revelation about Leo’s influence is his close relationships with Supreme Court justices.
He once said Antonin Scalia was “like an uncle.”
Clarence Thomas is a godfather to one of his daughters.
He’s traveled with Samuel Alito and Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann.

9/ But as George Conway (@gtconway3d) told us, Leo is more than a friend to the justices.
He’s a “den mother," Conway said, helping take care of the judges even after they had made it to the highest court in the country.
This quote from Conway is illuminating:

with

"THERE WAS ALWAYS A CONCERN THAT SCALIA OR THOMAS WOULD SAY, 'FUCK IT,' AND QUIT THE JOB AND GO MAKE WAY MORE MONEY AT JONES DAY OR SOMEWHERE ELSE."

-George Conway, a veteran of the conservative movement

So these right-wing Justices are being bribed into staying on the job.

 

[lpetrich]

10/ As George Conway and others saw it, Leo’s relationships w/ the justices amplified his influence.
Leo hosted a dinner during the big Federalist Society conference w. justices, donors, and public figures.
Conway attended a few of Leo's dinners.
He described the dynamic:

with

"With Leonard, it went both ways," Conway said. "It made the justices happy to meet people who revered them. It made the donors happy to meet the justices and no doubt more inclined to give to Leonard's causes."

So having these sorts of friends also makes them want to stay on the job.

11/ Another crucial thing to understand about Leo is his faith.
He’s a devout Roman Catholic.
A big admirer and supporter of Opus Dei.
He’s a Knight of Malta, the global charitable group of influential Catholics.
Here's @ForeignPolicy on the knights:

Who Are the Knights of Malta — and What Do They Want? – Foreign Policy - "They're a secretive religious order with a long and bloody history and unique status under international law, but that doesn't mean they run the world."

Opus Dei ("God's Work" in Latin) is a hardline Catholic organization.

12/ Leo is a big supporter of the Catholic Information Center, an Opus Dei-affiliated outreach group that says it’s the closest tabernacle to the White House.
That political power speaks to the nexus of politics & religion in Leo’s work.
Leo is a big CIC donor — see this photo
(showing a CIC info plaque)

13/ More than any other person, Leo stands at that nexus of the conservative legal movement and the religious right.
He’s involved w/ Students for Life, the Becket Fund, and Catholic University.
His faith also helped forge those connections with several Supreme Court justices.

14/ There’s something else our story illuminates in a new way:
Leonard Leo’s influence at the state level.
I think this paragraph in our story absolutely nails it in a way no other story has:

with

Leo began building a machine to do just that. He didn't just cultivate friendships with conservative Supreme Court justices, arranging private jet trips, joining them on vacation, brokering speaking engagements. He also drew on his network of contacts to place Federalist Society protégés in clerkships, judgeships and jobs in the White House and across the federal government. He personally called state attorneys general to recommend hires for positions he presciently understood were key, like solicitors general, the unsung litigators who represent states before the U.S. Supreme Court. In states that elect jurists, groups close to him spent millions of dollars to place his allies on the bench. In states that appoint top judges, he maneuvered to play a role in their selection.

 

[lpetrich]

15/ Leo is not afraid to play bare-knuckle politics.
We shed new light on a time he lit into a GOP governor over a judicial pick he disagreed with.
He threatened that governor with “fury from the conservative base, the likes of which you and the Governor have never seen.”

with

Blunt appointed Breckenridge anyway. Leo piled on. "Your boss is a coward and conservatives have neither the time nor the patience for the likes of him," he wrote to Martin.

16/ He's also not infallible.

He's suffered defeats. In Missouri, he and his team's efforts to defeat Breckenridge and sink the so-called "Missouri Plan" failed.
He's lost in Wisconsin too.
But he's learned from the defeats as much as the victories, people told us.
See this:

with

Kelly's loss was Leo's loss. But it was also, paradoxically, a win. Conservatives were acting as if judgeships were a prize for a political party, rather than an independent branch of government what Geske calls "super-legislators." And thanks to Leo, those super-legislators could be especially hard-line.

In effect, judicial activism, legislating from the bench, as opposed to acting like an umpire who is careful to avoid taking sides: "calling balls and strikes".

 

[lpetrich]

17/ One of the biggest questions we tried to answer was:
What does Leo do next?
What are his plans for the future? His next targets?
We delve into all of that in our investigation...

We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority — ProPublica -- "The inside story of how Leonard Leo built a machine that remade the American legal system — and what he plans to do next."

18/ Top of his list: He wants to expand the strategy he used at the Federalist Society to shape…
…all of *American* society.
He sees a nation plagued with ills: “wokism” in education, “one-sided” journalism, misguided ideas like environmental, social and governance policies.

with

Having reshaped the courts, Leo now has grander ambitions. Today, he sees a nation plagued with ills: "wokism" in education, "one-sided" journalism, and ideas like environmental, social and governance, or ESG, policies sweeping corporate America. A member of the Roman Catholic Church, he intends to wage a broader cultural war against a "progressive Ku Klux Klan" and "vile and immoral current-day barbarians, secularists and bigots" who demonize people of faith and move society further from its "natural order."

Right-wing self-pity. Will he be happy with anything less than a right-wing-Catholic theocracy?

 

[lpetrich]

19/ He views the broader American culture as increasingly hostile to people of faith.
In a 2022 speech, he blasted a “progressive Ku Klux Klan” and “current-day barbarians, secularists and bigots” who move America further from a “natural order.”
Watch:

2022 John Paul II New Evangelization Award Leonard Leo Remarks - YouTube
at a podium with "Catholic Information Center" on it.

20/ And he has the money to fuel these growing ambitions:
In 2021, the Chicago businessman Barre Seid put his fortune — $1.6 billion — into a trust.
Then Seid gave Leo control over that money.
The guy nicknamed "Moneybags Kid" in high school is now a mega-donor of his own.

21/ He's investing in projects like the Teneo Network, a “confidential” network of young conservatives and libertarians.
Teneo wants to create a “talent pipeline for the future of America.”
Think CEOs, doctors, media moguls.
Maybe a future president.

Private, Conservative Teneo Seeks Political, Cultural Influence — ProPublica - "Leonard Leo, a key architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, is now the chairman of Teneo Network, a group that aims to influence all aspects of American politics and culture."

 

[lpetrich]

22/ After months of talks, Leo agreed to be interviewed on the condition we NOT ask him about his financial activities or relationships w/ SCOTUS justices.
We declined & sent a list of Qs & facts we planned to report.
His responses are in the story. Here are a few key quotes…

23/ In response to the main thrust of our story, Leo told us:
“The work I have done in the legal culture has been shaped by the conviction that respecting and enforcing limits on the power of the state are essential to advancing the dignity and worth of all individuals.”

with

Over the past three decades, you built an influence machine that reaches from the Supreme Court to state courts, state attorneys general to the Justice Department, law schools to boutique litigation firms. You have been personally involved in selecting conservative state judges, in backing state AGs and in placing protégés in clerkships, judgeships, and top government jobs in the White House and Justice Department. How would you describe your vision for how to make the kind of change you want to see in government and the judiciary?

"The work I have done in the legal culture has been shaped by the conviction that respecting and enforcing limits on the power of the state are essential to advancing the dignity and worth of all individuals."

Except, of course, if the state is a right-wing Catholic theocracy.

24/ We also asked Leo about his fundraising talents, and whether his relationships with judges, justices, and other influential figures helped him raise huge amounts of money.
Here was our question and his response:

with

You've also become one of the most prolific fundraisers in the conservative movement. According to our reporting, part of your success stems from your unique relationships with judges and justices, and those relationships have enhanced your reputation and helped you raise money and recruit talent for your various projects. Do you see it that way? If not, why not?

"To the I extent that I have been successful at raising funds, it has been because the ideas I have tried to advance are compelling and because I have always placed a premium on I driving results through highly effective talent pipelines and infrastructure."

More like he's very good at buying people's support.