ProPublica continues its investigation of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas today. It unearthed some records from around 2000 suggesting that, following his appearance at a "conservative thought weekend" on Sea Island, Thomas had threatened to quit the court unless he got a pay raise:
After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.
....He found himself seated next to a Republican member of Congress [Cliff Stearns] on the flight home. The two men talked, and the lawmaker left the conversation worried that Thomas might resign. Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told him. If lawmakers didn’t act, “one or more justices will leave soon” — maybe in the next year.
....Stearns wrote a letter to Thomas after the flight promising “to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court.”
“As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted,” Stearns wrote. “We must have the proper incentives here, too.”
Needless to say, conservatives didn't want to risk the departure of either Thomas or Antonin Scalia (the other justice who was unhappy), and thus began decades of big donors making sure that Thomas remained "comfortable" despite his pittance of a salary. He only made the equivalent of $300,000, you see, and now he had a child to raise. How could he possibly make ends meet?
I get that law is a lucrative profession at the top, and $300,000 is nothing compared to, say, being partner at a top firm. Still, it's $300,000! That's a lot of money.
But not enough to support a lifestyle of constant travel to five-star resorts, which is apparently what Thomas wanted. In the end, he had to get that another way.
remember the house post office scandal?
i'm sure thomas, scalia, and alito would have been just fine if rostenkowski had just ask his rich buddies to supplement his income via creative lending agreements
It was the House bank.
wikipedia:
Rostenkowski was indicted on corruption charges for his role in the House Post Office scandal...In 1996, he pleaded guilty to reduced charges of mail fraud. He was fined and sentenced to 17 months in prison, of which he served 15 at the Oxford Federal Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, and the remaining two months at a halfway house in Chicago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rostenkowski#Felony_conviction
I just got paid 7268 Dollars Working off my Laptop this month. And if you think that’s cool, My Divorced friend has twin toddlers and made 0ver $ 13892 her first m0nth. It feels so good making so much money when other people vc-10 have to work for so much less.
This is what I do....................> > > https://dailyincome74.blogspot.com/
So now we have a clear image of what rich conservative donors were buying. Not particular decisions, obviously - but a conservative judge with a penchant for living beyond his means.
Exactly. The grift is to keep him from quitting.
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority?
thomas is the costco of SCOTUS corruption. why buy a single decision when you can buy in bulk and save. all you need us a "billionaire's club" membership card.
You'd think wrecking the constitutional order would be enough to satisfy him, but he wants to live in luxury too, truly one of the great villains of the last 30+ years of American history.
I don't think he gives a rats ass about what he does, he just wants to live the life of luxury that he feels he's owed for doing basically fuckall nothing.
Oh, I wouldn't underestimate him. He's been a very busy beaver seeding his clerks all through the judiciary and legal education system and important law firms. John Eastman is just one among dozens, probably several dozen by now. And an entire couple of generations have learned from his dissents as well as his institution-building just how far constitutional interpretation can be bent. He's been very determined about shifting the Overton window, and pretty effective.
I still think most, if not all, of that is performative in nature. It's what he needs to do to get his goodies, so he does it.
Don't mistake me - I do think he's a grade-A asshole as well, so I'm sure some of it is sincere. I just think the sincerity is merely coincidental.
Have to agree to disagree on this one. He's the very model of a dyed-in-the-wool ideologue, in my book, right up there with Vermeule, and far more influential.
It's too bad there's no way to get rid of this corrupt grifter. Impeachment? Too many Republicans in the Senate. Ethics violations? Too bad the Supreme Court has no ethics regulation. Or ethics. And of course, one assumes that the Justice Department has informal guidelines, which have greater force than actual law, that sitting supremes cannot ever be prosecuted, for anything.
Amirite?
I think what we’ve been learning about the conservative justices (and particularly about Thomas) does tend to clarify the reasoning underlying their recent series of decisions gutting laws against public corruption. There’s no quid-pro-quo such as a briefcase full of money in return for a specific decision on a specific case. Just a steady stream of money in return for ideological commitment.
Aside from the moral considerations, they appear to not have studied history and one of the primary reasons an empire fails is due to rampant corruption that becomes more and more overt and causes the citizens to lose faith in the governance.
An obviously bought SCOTUS is not only unfair, it's a very bad indicator of a weakening state.
more bad news for trump (at least until clarence thomas saves his bacon... in return for a small consideration of course)
wapo:
ATLANTA — A federal appeals court on Monday unanimously rejected an effort by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move the Georgia election interference case against him from state to federal court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower-court ruling from September that found Meadows had not proved his alleged conduct charged as part of the sweeping criminal racketeering case was related to his official duties as former president Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff.
every time you hear a bell ring, it's clarence taking a bribe ...
I think bribe is a strong word. My reading suggests it's more a matter of "Hey, I could be pulling in seven figures in the private sector and have my own show on Fox. I'm passing up millions of dollars here" and the billionaires of the GOP donor base respond by making him very comfortable so he can keep issuing rulings that align with their interests. They like him right where he is and he would like to be wealthy. He's being accommodated for not pursuing more lucrative opportunities.
Not unlike the contract negotiations for a major entertainment star who has to pass up bigger and more interesting opportunities to keep the franchise propped up.
SCOTUS is a franchise that delivers very well for a lot of big donors and they want their star right where he's sitting.
Oh, good grief!
We have serious problems in the world. Very serious, and lots of them.
We have serious problems in the USA. Very serious, and lots of them.
We even have some serious problems in our Supreme Court.
But salaries? Give me a BREAK! Relative to inflation, salaries of Supreme Court Justices are DOWN in the past 23 years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/12/18/clarence-thomas-pushed-for-supreme-court-raises-report-says-and-threatened-to-quit-if-they-didnt-happen/amp/
Shouldn't salary be tied to performance? Do these people deserve more than minimum wage?
Do they take tips?
Only from billionaire friends . . .
But they ARE tied to performance. Performance of billionaire business interests. Robert Reich has a great piece on the "market for stars" in his Wealth & Poverty series.
SCOTUS decisions are worth trillions of dollars to certain people, Thomas just wants some of the scratch that's on the table.
Still, a few of us find it hard to believe a guy with no kids whose wife is a big wheel lobbyist feeling deprived because he only pulls down around $300K per year. Plus generous speaking fees.
Generous speaking fees? Salamander, you might want to check that last.
Check the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. No federal judge, whether a district judge or a Supreme Court Justice, may accept a speaking fee.
Are you saying the SCOTUS should have a COLA? How about one for minimum wage workers? Federal minimum for tipped workers? $2.17.
Which again highlights the curious disappearance of Bluto Blutarsky's (aka Kavanaugh) debt.
But Hilary's emails!
Politicians are very affordable, especially when you consider that the normal return on buying one is over 1000%.
$300K is the salary. What is the total compensation including health insurance, life insurance, and retirement/pension funding? Does "cannot be fired" count as compensation?
Presumably, justices are expected to capitalize on their brand through books and speaking engagements.
But, yeah, I'd expect Supreme Court Justices compensation to be in the top 5% of earnings...
And it is.
According to the US Census Bureau's 2020 Survey, the percentage of American households with incomes of $300,000 or more is about 3.8%.
No, they should not be EXPECTED to capitalize on their brand. They shouldn't have a damn brand! They're EXPECTED to be public servants, full stop.
Curious to know what others think is the reason that voters do not give a shit about this. Or Jared's 2B from the Saudis. Or Ivanka's Chinese patents. Or Republican corruption in general.
Hunter Biden is a constant story.
Republicans don’t promise to be good people. So they get a free pass on failing to be good people. Democrats though promise to be good people. So when it turns out they’re only human and have some minor bad qualities, they get crucified.
Christians do this too. “Oh I’m a sinner” gets everyone to forgive and forget your past sins… and future ones.
Party allegiance uber alles. Republicans, when it's about Javanka or Thomas: "Oh, they all do it. Jared? Ivanka? Clarence? Everybody does it, these Dems will dig up anything to attack trump and right-thinking judges. And besides, it's what anybody smart would do in cases like that."
When it's about Hunter: "They all do it! Every damn last one of them! That son of a Democrat should be hanged!"
Mote, meet beam.
Plus, there really is a Right Wing Noise Machine that's always tuned to the same stories and booming them out. Hunter is one of the ones getting major play now, and has been for a while. Dems really have nothing like that, nor do they have politicians or spokes-entities who will assert and repeat common attack points so at least they will have to be quoted. Things don't come to most voters' attention without that kind of repetition.
+1
What I really love about this is the way he's managed to eat his cake and have it too. Ambitious early-career legal eagles have a fundamental choice to make-- go for the bucks, or go for the influence. You don't get both unless it was in the family already. That's pretty much how it's been since professionalization in the early 20C. (Or, like Roberts and more recently, you could have a spouse who rakes in the bucks.)
Thomas couldn't get on the bucks track right off because the big firms wouldn't hire him, as he apparently says in his memoir. (Maybe something about an early affirmative-action recruit with a record of racially radical positions?) So he went for influence instead, starting in Reagan's EEOC and parlaying that into a lifetime appointment that would be the ideal perch for his long game of reviving John C. Calhoun's constitution through institutions and people of influence.
The beauty part is then turning around and shaking the money tree by getting the right people all worried about his itchy feet.
So now he's managed to square the circle here-- he takes the influence track, which everybody knows won't make you rich, and through the largesse of dear, dear friends like Harlan Crowe, lifelong friends he can depend on-- who he happened to meet just after he bemoaned his penury, how about that-- he lives the life of the managing name partner in a big-time political law firm. All at the same time! And it doesn't cost him a penny!
A brilliant grift, I have to say. A kept man, who at the same time laughs at them behind their backs because it was so easy to play them. No wonder the penniless kid from a tiny town in rural Georgia so enjoys his time with them.
Like +50! Our Clarence is a double plus good grifting engine! And he's preyed upon all those racist white dudes! In private, he must smile a lot.
"Pearls before Swine" lays this out well: https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/10/08
Bingo! Remember, Mr Pastis is also a trained lawyer.
The underlying problem is that too much authority is in the hands of very few people whoa re appointed for life. That is just broken.
The right solution is to enlarge the SCOTUS to several tens of jugdes, so the significance of each one of them is much smaller. These judges would also be senior judges in appeal courts. The hearings would be done by some small subset of them (different for each case), and then they all vote.