Clarence Thomas corruption

[Copernicus]

Yeah, there's more.

Leonard Leo directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ - The Washington Post.

Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.

 Leonard Leo is also a leader of the Federalist Society, which is the Republican Party's mechanism for packing the Supreme Court with conservative justices that use it as a kind of surrogate legislature for imposing policies on the the country that are too unpopular to bring about through normal legislative action. Thomas himself was installed in the Supreme Court largely because he was on a short list provided to GHW Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall. Needless to say, Leo is another good buddy of Crow and shows up on summer vacations with Thomas.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Citizenship in Island Tax Haven - "Leaked documents reveal the GOP megadonor held dual citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis as he lavished the Supreme Court justice with gifts."

St. Kitts and Nevis are two Caribbean islands that are part of one nation, though a very small one.

I wouldn't automatically consider this dirty. At that level of wealth having a backup passport is a form of insurance--and the number of places you can simply buy citizenship is limited. I believe St Kitts is one of the cheaper options.

Insurance against what? It seems more likely that he purchased the passport in order to leave and enter at will so that he could stash some of his wealth illegally hidden away from the taxman. There might be some less dirty interpretation of what he was doing, but I find it hard to imagine a plausible one. Nobody actually seems to know how wealthy Crow is, and he seems to want to stay off of the Forbes list.

Insurance against the government going bad. On the other hand, if it goes bad he's likely to be in a position to like that.

However, the Republicans have de-facto admitted some of their justices are corrupt:

Conservatives criticize liberal Supreme Court justices for ethics issues

Conservatives are criticizing the liberal Supreme Court justices over ethics issues following the series of reports of the ties between Justice Clarence Thomas and a major Republican donor. T…

thehill.com

When the Republicans go to a they-do-it-also they are effectively admitting it.

Yes, and Republicans would probably also point out that everyone else also uses the "they-do-it-also" tactic to excuse themselves using the tactic.

Except it's not normally the rebuttal to bad behavior.

 

[lpetrich]

To show how general DC corruption is, I note:
Pelosi Gets Hospital Lobbyists’ Award After Blocking Reforms

A top lobbying group for hospitals on Monday gave Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) an award for “her incredible efforts in advancing health care,” after the former House Speaker spent the past four years fulfilling the industry’s top legislative priority: blocking consideration of Medicare for All or any other major reforms to the insurance-based health care system.

While the American Hospital Association says it’s “dedicated to providing high-quality care to all patients,” the lobbying group actually serves the financial interests of its hospital chain members — which profit immensely from the country’s private insurance system.

“Throughout her career, Speaker Emerita Pelosi has been a friend to America’s hospitals and health systems,” said Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association (AHA), in a press release announcing Pelosi’s award. “She is a champion for better health care, an advocate for patients, and she continues to work hard to expand opportunities for children, seniors, students, veterans, and the poor.”

...
The AHA, which raised $129 million in 2021, is a powerful Washington lobbying operation that represents large hospital chains like CommonSpirit Health, Ascension, and Tenet Healthcare.

Corrupt Democrats may be unwilling to expose corrupt Republicans, because exposing corruption may lead to their corruption also being explosed.

 

[lpetrich]

Thomas Helped Kill Eviction Ban Threatening Benefactor’s Business - "Harlan Crow’s company said tenant protections threatened its profits. Thomas twice voted to end them while Crow lavished him with gifts."

He was bribed.

The Paid Pundits Defending Clarence Thomas And His Billionaire Benefactor - "Right-wing pundits rushed to defend Harlan Crow’s gifts to Clarence Thomas and his Nazi memorabilia collection — without disclosing their ties to the mega-donor. "

While those donations are not for the most part traceable, it’s clear that Crow has been generous to conservative think tanks, legal groups, and media outlets.

Clarence Thomas Reversed Position After Gifts And Family Payments

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines after his wife reportedly accepted secret payments from a shadowy conservative network pushing for the change. Thomas’ shift also came while he was receiving lavish gifts from a billionaire linked to other groups criticizing the same doctrine — which is now headed back to the high court.

The so-called “Chevron deference” doctrine stipulates that the executive branch — not the federal courts — has the power to interpret laws passed by Congress in certain circumstances. Conservatives for years have fought to overturn the doctrine, a move that would empower legal challenges to federal agency regulations on everything from climate policy to workplace safety to overtime pay.

Thomas wrote a landmark Supreme Court opinion upholding the doctrine in 2005, but began questioning it a decade later, before eventually renouncing his past opinion in 2020 and claiming that the doctrine itself might be unconstitutional. Now, Thomas could help overturn the doctrine in a new case the high court just agreed to hear next term.

 

[lpetrich]

Roberts Memo Threatened To Challenge Ethics Rules

A decade before Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a Senate request this week to testify about corruption scandals engulfing the Supreme Court, he threatened to challenge a congressional effort to ensure the high court’s justices abide by federal corruption laws, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.

Now, instead of spearheading an investigation into Justice Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed luxury gifts and real estate transactions, Roberts is punting to a little-known panel of lower court judges whose identities are secret, according to a spokesperson for the judiciary.

Not just Clarence Thomas.

Law firm head bought Gorsuch-owned property - POLITICO - "The Supreme Court justice did not report the identity of the purchaser, whose firm has had numerous cases before the court."

Jane Roberts, Who Is Married to the Supreme Court Chief Justice, Made $10.3 Million in Commissions: Documents

• Jane Roberts was paid more than $10 million by a host of elite law firms, a whistleblower alleges.
• At least one of those firms argued a case before Chief Justice Roberts after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Details of Jane Roberts' work come as Congress struggles to reform the Court's self-policed ethics.

 

[Copernicus]

Roberts Memo Threatened To Challenge Ethics Rules

A decade before Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a Senate request this week to testify about corruption scandals engulfing the Supreme Court, he threatened to challenge a congressional effort to ensure the high court’s justices abide by federal corruption laws, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.

Now, instead of spearheading an investigation into Justice Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed luxury gifts and real estate transactions, Roberts is punting to a little-known panel of lower court judges whose identities are secret, according to a spokesperson for the judiciary.

Not just Clarence Thomas.

Law firm head bought Gorsuch-owned property - POLITICO - "The Supreme Court justice did not report the identity of the purchaser, whose firm has had numerous cases before the court."

Jane Roberts, Who Is Married to the Supreme Court Chief Justice, Made $10.3 Million in Commissions: Documents

• Jane Roberts was paid more than $10 million by a host of elite law firms, a whistleblower alleges.
• At least one of those firms argued a case before Chief Justice Roberts after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Details of Jane Roberts' work come as Congress struggles to reform the Court's self-policed ethics.

The sad, depressing thing is that we can now guess why Roberts was so blasé about tightening up the ethics rules on Supreme Court behavior. It made sense to him that judges in the lower courts might need stricter ethics standards, because they were more prone to being influenced by gifts. Once they reach the exalted position of a Supreme Court justice, people can shower them with gifts, but it doesn't affect the way they rule on cases of concern to their benefactors. Roberts just knows that there is something to be said for the old adage "Happy wife, happy life."

 

[lpetrich]

When this scandal came out,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking - almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached.
Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights." / Twitter


The Washington Post on Twitter: "Exclusive: Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work nearly a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork. (link)" / Twitter
So CT's wife is also in on the corruption.

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "This is corruption. Plain and simple. And each day that passes, the Supreme Court is looking less like a bench and more like an auction house.
Thomas should resign immediately and Roberts should see to it that he does." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Clarence Thomas should resign.
If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment." / Twitter

 

[Shadowy Man]

“It’s not a bribe if I was going to rule that way anyway, right?”

 

[ZiprHead]

Trust in Supreme Court fell to lowest point in 50 years after abortion decision, poll shows

That'll certainly hurt all those Justices chances at getting re-elected.

 

[lpetrich]

Dan Epps on Twitter: "NEW: @adamschilton @kyle_rozema @maya_sen and I ..." / Twitter

NEW: @adamschilton @kyle_rozema @maya_sen and I have made *major* revisions to "The Endgame of Court-Packing," now up on SSRN. Lots of important new findings relevant to folks interested in Court reform, but I'll highlight just one below:

The Endgame of Court-Packing by Adam Chilton, Daniel Epps, Kyle Rozema, Maya Sen :: SSRN

Our paper uses simulations based on assumptions about the results of elections, justice retirement, etc to predict what might happen with the Supreme Court's composition for the next century.

Our findings have a lot of relevance for policymakers interested in Court expansion. But one particularly salient one: without Court expansion, Democrats are unlikely to retain control of the Court until...2065.

Had RBG retired under a D president (or had Garland been confirmed) Democrats would likely have retaken control by 2029, and would control the Court for about half of the next century.

The paper's abstract:

At several points in history, politicians and commentators have proposed adding seats to the Supreme Court to accomplish partisan ends. We explore the incentives for a political party to initiate “court-packing” and what the Supreme Court would look like in a world where political parties engage in repeated partisan court-packing. To do so, we use an Agent-Based Model and different data sources to calibrate the behaviors of Presidents, Congresses, and Supreme Court justices. We then simulate the future composition of the Court in worlds with and without court-packing. The simulations suggest that a political party with an initial minority of seats on the Court would meaningfully increase the share of years it controls the Court if it were to initiate a cycle of repeated court-packing, especially early on. However, although the number of seats would likely quadruple within 100 years, the simulations suggest there would be only a modest expansion during the likely time horizons of politicians who initiate court-packing. By putting structure on what the Supreme Court would look like in a world with and without court- packing, we hope to generate more careful reflection on the incentives to court- pack and the potential consequences of it.

 

[marc]

Frontline documentary on Thomas and his wife

things I learned from it: The fake documentary claiming he prefers traveling around the US in an RV was produced by his friend Crow. Ginni did join a cult, Lifespring, but got out of it quickly, probably because she was already brainwashed by her parents, who were in the John Birch society. Her mother was an activist supporting Phyllis Schlafly

Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court | FRONTLINE

As controversy erupts around Clarence and Ginni Thomas, FRONTLINE tells the inside story of their path to power.

www.pbs.org

 

[lpetrich]

Justice Thomas' billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow donated to Manchin, Sinema, 'Unbreakable Nine'
notes
Harlan and Kathy Crow ramped up political contributions over the decades since meeting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas • OpenSecrets
and
Donor Lookup • OpenSecrets for Harlan Crow
and
Republican Billionaires Are Donating to Manchin and Sinema – Sludge

Thir govtrack.us ideology scores for 2022: KS #49 0.50, JM #53 0.45 -- the extremes: Rick Scott R-FL #1 1.00 and Bernie Sanders I-VT #100 0.00

For the House, Ralph Norman R-SC-05 #1 1.00 and Eleanor Holmes Norton D-DC-01 #436 0.00

The Unbreakable Nine were some House members who insisted on splitting off the infrastructure parts from the Build Back Better bill back in 2021. ETA: how they fared in the 2022 elections

1. Josh Gottheimer NJ-05 -- #192 0.47 -- re-elected
2. Carolyn Bourdeaux GA-07 -- #265 0.24 -- lost primary
3. Filemon Vela TX-34 -- ? -- resigned
4. Jared Golden ME-02 -- #207 0.42 -- re-elected
5. Henry Cuellar TX-28 -- #203 0.43 -- re-elected
6. Vicente Gonzalez TX-15 -- #224 0.32 -- re-elected
7. Ed Case HI-01 -- #244 0.28 -- re-elected
8. Jim Costa CA-16 -- #241 0.28 -- re-elected
9. Kurt Schrader OR-05 -- #237 0.28 -- lost primary

from Carolyn Bourdeaux’s Primary Loss Breaks Off a Third Member of Gottheimer Gang noting No Labels: The Unbreakable Nine - YouTube
Yes, No Labels, that oligarch-supported centrist PAC.

Filemon Vela (Texas U.S. representative) - Ballotpedia - "Vela resigned on April 1, 2022 to accept a position at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a lobbying firm in Washington D.C."

Just like Joe Crowley, after AOC primaried him.

 

[ZiprHead]

Welcome to the club, Samuel Alito.

Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court

In the years after the undisclosed trip to Alaska, Republican megadonor Paul Singer’s hedge fund has repeatedly had business before the Supreme Court. Alito has never recused himself.

www.propublica.org

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You accept one private charted flight to a fishing club in Alaska...

Man, I wish bare acquaintances were as generous to me. The best I can get is skipping ahead one spot in a line at the grocery store.

 

[Gospel]

Corruption infiltrating the apex of our judiciary reduces US law to a dog and pony show.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It depends on what the corruption is and its impact. This particular client whose case was in front of the Court won 7-1. Is this trip to bribe? Is it to curry favor over the long term, was this all part of the package before he got on the court. Sen. Whitehouse had a very compelling talk about this, and how these judicial nominees have so much money behind their appointments.

I'm just confused how Alito could think this wasn't reportable. It clearly is reportable. Unless he usually flies to Alaska to go fishing and this was just "another weekend".

 

[Gospel]

I imagine that serving in the pinnacle of all courts would compel one to go above and beyond in avoiding even the slightest hint of impropriety, even under a consistent 7-1 voting trend.

 

[Elixir]

I imagine that serving in the pinnacle of all courts would compel one to go above and beyond in avoiding even the slightest hint of impropriety, even under a consistent 7-1 voting trend.

^ Such an imagination!

 

[Elixir]

You accept one private charted flight to a fishing club in Alaska...

Man, I wish bare acquaintances were as generous to me. The best I can get is skipping ahead one spot in a line at the grocery store.

Which involves someone making a greater sacrifice than the billionaire dragging a corrupt “justice” along for the ride.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The bothersome trend is that the justification by the Justices isn't that what they did was ethical, but what they thought the rules required. An issue to consider is they aren't even considering reporting that they did this, forget that it was inappropriate to engage in to start with. It is hardly a shock to realize people that are such shitty Supreme Court Justices, also have a low sense of ethics.