Clarence Thomas corruption

[Gospel]

No one will do jailtime for robbing the American people of a supreme court justice but sell cigarettes' on the street corner and you're toast.

 

[blastula]

Harlan Crow Bought Property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.

The transaction is the first known instance of money flowing from Crow to the Supreme Court justice. The sale netted the GOP megadonor two vacant lots and the house where Thomas’ mother was living.

www.propublica.org

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.

 

[laughing dog]

How much has changed in the past 55 years. in 1969, Justice Abe Fortas resigned under bipartisan outrage over his apparent conflict of interest when he took $20,000 (and returned it) from someone indicated for securities fraud and his wife's connection to a price-fixing case.

There is precedent for Justice Thomas to resign - it is the honorable and honest course of action if he cares about the standing of SCOTUS.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There is precedent for Justice Thomas to resign - it is the honorable and honest course of action if he cares about the standing of SCOTUS.

Dream on. This is not the right wing style. For one, Thomas isn't going to have anyone in the Republican party saying he did anything wrong. If he gets the boot it won't have anything to do with honor. You can count on that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Totally above board. Who hasn't had a billion buy and rebuild your parents home?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

He makes a pigsty look clean.

 

[scombrid]

All the Republicans on our local politics board on the surfing forum are saying it is a hoax. Then spamming the board with “go woke go broke” stories about their snowflake idols melting down over beer and whiskey because the trans movement is the biggest threat to our nation in decades. I am not exaggerating.

 

[laughing dog]

There is precedent for Justice Thomas to resign - it is the honorable and honest course of action if he cares about the standing of SCOTUS.

Dream on. This is not the right wing style. For one, Thomas isn't going to have anyone in the Republican party saying he did anything wrong. If he gets the boot it won't have anything to do with honor. You can count on that.

I’d like to think that if sufficient public outrage is reached, Thomas will be gone.

 

[Shadowy Man]

There is precedent for Justice Thomas to resign - it is the honorable and honest course of action if he cares about the standing of SCOTUS.

Dream on. This is not the right wing style. For one, Thomas isn't going to have anyone in the Republican party saying he did anything wrong. If he gets the boot it won't have anything to do with honor. You can count on that.

I’d like to think that if sufficient public outrage is reached, Thomas will be gone.

“Sufficient” being the operative word here. In this day and age I fear that sufficiency cannot be met.

 

[Swammerdami]

I’d like maintain my current view of Justice Roberts as an honourable person with whom I often disagree. But I am willing to change what is left of my mind on this matter.

I felt the same way... before his tenure as chief justice. But in that role, he has been failing to live up to the most basic responsibilities of his office. History will not remember him kindly.

Don't forget that John Roberts got his start in the Reagan White House, serving almost as an acolyte of Karl Rove, and plotting ways to suppress black vote. It was Roberts who changed Citizens United from a minor case into a decision that turned democracy over to the billionaires.

Sure, he rescued Obamacare from the Court's four trump-lickers but that was done not for the good of the country, but to rescue the GOP from chaotic disaster. Please don't treat this despicable swine as a man of integrity or honor.

 

[lpetrich]

Sinema, Manchin Got Cash From GOP Billionaire Funding Clarence Thomas's Vacations

• GOP megadonor Harlan Crow has been secretly funding lavish vacations for Justice Clarence Thomas.
• But he's also given thousands to Democrats who've stymied the party's agenda at various times.
• They include Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, as well as Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Henry Cuellar.

...
According to an Insider review of federal campaign finance data, Crow has given a total $5,800 to Democratic-turned-Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's campaign account and $5,000 in May 2022 to Getting Stuff Done PAC, a leadership PAC tied to the Arizona senator.

The same Kyrsten Sinema who once called campaign contributions "bribery".

According to federal campaign finance data, the Texas billionaire has given $16,800 to Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey since 2018, contributing thousands as recently as October 2022.

...
And Crow has contributed $12,500 to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas since 2006. Cuellar, a conservative opponent of abortion rights, faced a strong primary challenge from progressive activist Jessica Cisneros in 2022.

Also in 2020 -- she almost won in both times.

Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are the two most conservative Democrats in the Senate, and Josh Gottheimer and Henry Cuellar are the two most conservative Democrats in the House (govtrack.us ideology scores for 2022).

 

[Copernicus]

Harlan Crow is one of those US oligarchs who has learned how to buy himself a lot of political influence, if not outright ownership of politicians. He certainly has Clarence Thomas in his pocket, but he is one of the GOP's biggest megadonors. The only estimate I've seen of his net worth is $2 billion, which seems very low when one considers all the money he seems to lavish on political figures and his extensive collections of priceless objects. Whatever his real net worth is, he has done a very good job of hiding it.

 

[lpetrich]

Clarence Thomas Sold Home to GOP Donor Harlan Crow: ProPublica

Under federal law, an employee of the government, including the Supreme Court, is supposed to report any real estate transaction worth more than a thousand dollars.

But when Justice Clarence Thomas and his family sold his childhood home in 2014, the sale never appeared on a disclosure form, ProPublica reported on Thursday, nor did he reveal the identity of the buyer: Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow.

Citing a state tax filing and a deed to the property — a home and two nearby vacant lots in Savannah, Georgia — ProPublica said the transaction netted $133,363 for Thomas, his mother, and his now-deceased brother.

Neighbors who spoke to the outlet said the home, where Thomas spent part of his youth, is still occupied by the justice's 94-year-old mother. It is also in much better condition than before the sale, with Crow having invested $36,000 in improvements, ProPublica reported.

 

[ZiprHead]

Who's this Soros guy again?

 

[Elixir]

Who's this Soros guy again?

That’s a monster in a fictional account, not unlike the Cyclops of The Odyssey. It was created by GQP Conspiracy Manufacturing Inc. to unify millions of American morons in terror of a Common Enemy, hopefully resulting in the appointment of Hair Furor to Supreme Leader.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Who's this Soros guy again?

Alt-right for "The Jews!!!"

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And a little more:

(Washington post, meterwalled)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/04/16/clarence-thomas-ginger-financial-disclosure/

This one looks more like sloppy paperwork, but that says something about the lack of care that goes into his disclosures.

 

[Patooka]

Non Paywalled story;

More Irregularities Uncovered in Clarence Thomas' Financial Disclosures: Report

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas inaccurately reported income from real estate holdings by listing the name of a shuttered real estate firm.

www.rollingstone.com

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Clarence Thomas has for more than a decade claimed on mandatory financial disclosure forms that he received significant income from a defunct real estate firm, Ginger, Ltd., Partnership, that has been shuttered since 2006.

Who's this Soros guy again?

For reich wingers, every accusation is a confession.

 

[Copernicus]

Non Paywalled story;

More Irregularities Uncovered in Clarence Thomas' Financial Disclosures: Report

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas inaccurately reported income from real estate holdings by listing the name of a shuttered real estate firm.

www.rollingstone.com

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Clarence Thomas has for more than a decade claimed on mandatory financial disclosure forms that he received significant income from a defunct real estate firm, Ginger, Ltd., Partnership, that has been shuttered since 2006.

Maybe for some ordinary Joe, this could just be dismissed as sloppy paperwork. For a Supreme Court justice, one ought to have a higher level of expectation. The man started out reporting these gifts and then stopped. Years later he gets caught and then gives the lame excuse that some anonymous people told him he didn't need to report these (or any?) gifts from somebody that he considered a "dear friend"? He appears to be taking the position that he needed to report nothing and that the laws and ethical standards could only possibly apply if some stranger showed up out of the blue and started showering gifts on him. But some stranger with nefarious motives would never actually try to befriend him or tell him that multiple luxury vacations were all just no-strings-attached gifts reserved for dear friends. The cynicism and hypocrisy that runs through the Roberts Supreme Court is beyond the pale.

 

[Patooka]

Maybe for some ordinary Joe, this could just be dismissed as sloppy paperwork.

I don't think it's particularly constructive to go after someone if something ethically questionable happened once.

However, it appears a very clear pattern of impropriety is happening with regards to Thomas. Sustained over many years. Not good.

But something something whatabout Pelosi, I guess.