More about Clarence Thomas and his seemingly endless stream of gifts from Harlan Crow:
“This is way outside the norm. This is way in excess of anything I’ve seen,” said Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, referring to the cascade of gifts over the years.
The ethics lawyer for George W. Bush thinks this is bad. But wait!
Justices also must report many gifts to their spouses and dependent children. The law’s definition of dependent child is narrow, however, and likely would not apply to Martin since Thomas was his legal guardian, not his parent. The best case for not disclosing Crow’s tuition payments would be to argue the gifts were to Martin, not Thomas, experts said.
Thomas was just his legal guardian, so it's all good.
This is obviously ridiculous. The money was plainly a gift to Thomas, since he's the one who normally would have paid the tuition fees. And it's not like he couldn't afford it:
Thomas has long been one of the less wealthy members of the Supreme Court. Still, when Martin was in high school, he and Ginni Thomas had income that put them comfortably in the top echelon of Americans.
In 2006 for example, the Thomases brought in more than $500,000 in income. The following year, they made more than $850,000 from Clarence Thomas’ salary from the court, Ginni Thomas’ pay from the Heritage Foundation and book payments for the justice’s memoir.
This really should be the last straw. Believe it or not, I've been a little bit on the fence until now about this whole affair, but not any longer. Even if it was all legal, Thomas should have reported it. The fact that he didn't means nothing good.
But Thomas doesn't give a shit. Only impeachment can force him out of office, and that's not going to happen. He could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he'd still be secure in his job.
What is Clarence Thomas - a parasite or a symbiot? His defenders say he is a parasite. Most of us think he is a symbiot.
Google paid 99 dollars an hour on the internet. Everything I did was basic Οnline w0rk from comfort at hΟme for 5-7 hours per day that I g0t from this office I f0und over the web and they paid me 100 dollars each hour. For more details visit
this article... https://createmaxwealth.blogspot.com
You know, I used to think of Clarence Thomas as a know-nothing Uncle Tom. But he's kind of a lot worse than that. Or maybe that's still accurate, but turned up to thirteen.
If someone gave me a solid gold hat crusted with diamonds and taped on money and I didn't report it on my taxes they'd probably take my hat away.
Painter is actually a notably honest Republican and has always been anti-Trump. It doesn't really merit the way you're using it.
"Even if it was all legal, Thomas should have reported it. The fact that he didn't means nothing good."
Yeah, if he had disclosed everything, I wouldn't like that he's getting all these gifts from a billionaire, but at least we'd know, and we could conceivably determine if anything fishy were happening in his rulings. But if SCOTUS justices are hiding things like this, it's really, really bad. There's no oversight, no way to ensure they aren't being bribed. And it's not just Thomas. And Scalia was apparently getting intermediaries to solicit free trips, which is really awful. Clearly, they need some oversight, and Thomas should be impeached (though he won't.)
At what point can the Supreme Court be targeted using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act? Seems like they are pushing hard to find that line.
If RICO applies to law enforcement, why not the judiciary as well?
https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1327&context=lr
While the Republicans will do nothing on this obvious bribery scheme with plenty of evidence they have concocted one involving Biden with no evidence but are demanding his impeachment. They are beyond disgusting.
People should start looking for any state laws that Thomas has violated, preferably in a blue state to fend off tampering with the case as it winds through the state court system.
SCOTUS generally can't* overturn state criminal convictions. And generally, most states tax gifts like these too, as well as deem tax fraud a jailable offense if blatant enough. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Uncle Tom and his wife Insurrectionist Karen have cheated for years on their tax returns.
*Well, until the current SCOTUS rules 5**-3 that sitting Justices can't be tried or convicted by state courts for anything they do.
**Or more likely 6-3, as if Uncle Thomas would recuse himself from his own appeal to SCOTUS to overturn his state criminal conviction.
We blew it when we let Jason Miyares win the AG race in Virginia in 2021 :-(. You betcha stuff like that is subject to taxes in Virginia where he lives.
Excellent point/suggestion. Thomas is as corrupt as anyone on earth, not to mention married to someone who was 100% actively committed to overthrow of our democracy. They both actually deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison, but in fact they are never actually likely to suffer even the slightest consequences. But your suggestion is a good way to at least make them suffer a little well-deserved discomfort.
And generally, most states tax gifts like these too, as well as deem tax fraud a jailable offense if blatant enough.
Gift taxes are paid by the giver, not the receiver, so Thomas doesn't have any exposure to tax fraud for those. That's on Harlan Crowe. The money funneled to Ginni would show up on either a W-2 or a 1099, depending upon her employment status, so it's likely that the taxes were paid on it.
There are so many objectionable things here, but tax fraud isn't one of them.
Report it? This is the sort of thing that Judges should never accept in the first place.
It is not normal for a "friend" to pay for the tuition of your family member. And certainly not at such a high dollar amount. This really cannot be viewed as anything other than an attempt to gain favor.
He won't be impeached in this House of R's. Biden should "effectively" impeach him by packing the court with two additional liberal justices.
Court packing would also require the acquiescence of the House. Plus, there's no way that Sinema and Manchin would vote to do away with the filibuster on this question.
Hey everyone, to be fair, if it came out that one of the court's liberal justices had been accepting undeclared gifts, trips, and comp'd private school tuition for years from George Soros or some other billionaire Democratic donor, Republicans certainly would understand that hey, friends give stuff to friends -- even those who, you know, coincidentally happen to be major political activists -- and it's no biggie, right? I'm sure the reaction would be perfectly reasonable and subdued and not at all result in threats to bomb the SCOTUS building or anything! Really!
????????????
The blue checkmark dweebs on Twitter are already whining about Sotomayor's book contract and not recusing herself in a case involving the publisher.
Has it occurred to any reporter to ask if there was quid pro quo involved, thereby making all of these ostensible gifts not gifts?
I think that is how people should be framing it.
If it's not a gift then the logical conclusion for not reporting it is that there was quid pro quo involved.
The justices have no formal oversight, not do they sit for press interviews and answer such questions as these.
They surely can try, then report that they asked Thomas whether it was a gift or quid pro quo was involved, but did not get a response.
They can then follow up with Roberts. Create a binary choice: Gift or quid pro quo.
That in turn, changes the narrative. Put conservative jurists on the spot to clearly identify these as gifts.
Good idea! Would probably be good politics and policy for a few D politicos to set it up this way too.
Coincidentally, hmm, didn't this court say pretty recently that bribery and corruption have to be very specifically quid pro quo in order to be chargeable? Nice predication.
Clarence Thomas wouldn't need to declare any gifts received on his taxes. Gift taxes are the responsibility of the giver, not the receiver. If there's any tax fraud there, it's Crow that's exposed, not Thomas.
I think you're missing the target. We don't know if Harlan reported it as gifts. Perhaps he reported them as business expenses? Maybe he didn't report them at all?
What I'm asking for, is to nail down both men on how they treated these monies, and how Thomas' mother's living expenses were treated -- did she pay a market level rent or was that all gifts?
There is so much more below the surface of whether or not Thomas and his allies believe the "personal hospitality" exception of the Ethics and Government Act of 1978, applies.
I’ve come around to the idea that the Supreme Court as specific judges with essentially unchecked power shouldn’t exist, expanding it or adding term limits doesn’t fix the issue.
Instead have a panel of circuit court judges appointed at random on a case by case basis to decide cases that go to the Supreme Court.
Nice idea, but the Supreme Court is in the Constitution. It will require an amendment to change the eliminate it. Better to increase its numbers and put 4 more justices on it now.
Nice idea, but the Supreme Court is in the Constitution. It will require an amendment to change the eliminate it.
The Supreme Court would still exist under the "panel of circuit judges" idea that many have floated. No amendment needed. There are no specific instructions how the Supreme Court is to be structured or composed. That's up to Congress, which has the power to change it:
The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
I think the "case by case" idea isn't tenable, given the court's central importance and its workload. But there's no reason we couldn't divide the circuit court judges into, say, ten "classes" randomly, and each class (1-10) would take a turn (perhaps 2-3 year terms) as justices sitting on the nation's highest court. When the term is up the next class of judges become justices. And so on. And eventually we arrive back at class #1.
Lifetime judicial tenure, of course, would survive intact. Last time I looked there were approximately 150 circuit court judges, so the idea I've outlined above implies an increase in the size of the Supreme Court to fifteen justices (or perhaps 13 with two alternates). I'd be open to an even numbered-bench, also (it might place a greater premium on compromise). And while we're at it, I'd like so see judicial review narrowed: properly enacted legislation should require a supermajority to alter or overturn, in keeping with Marbury v Madison.
What Article III, Section 1 says is:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
The use of the word "one" suggests that it was not intended to be a rotating panel.
Tell me, I'm amused: why does the word "one" suggest that?
it really doesn't. the fact that the members rotate in no way means there wouldn't be "one" court.
I kind of agree that "one" sort of leans this way, and some court could rule this way.
But it doesn't matter. A rotating panel would probably be worse. Because one panel would quite likely be eager to overturn rulings made by other panels. And we would have an even bigger mess.
One of the core purposes and values of rule of law is predictability. People need to be able to tell if what they are doing, or want to do, is legal.
Yeah, Circuit courts have panels. But they also allow for "en banc" appeals and appeals to the Supreme Court. And it's because of this issue, though perhaps there are others.
Increase is the right idea, but not by four. The actual number of judges should be more than 30, to reduce the impact of individuals. The actual hearing would be involed only some subset of these, and in the end they write it out and the whole court votes.
The actual judges would be also senior judges in the appeal courts, soit will not actually require more judges overall.
Thomas's defenders are furiously denouncing his critics for wanting to deprive a child of a decent education. They thought liberals wanted wealthy men to help the poor!
Some of them are no doubt being deliberately obtuse, but I suspect lots of them simply don't grasp why anyone would be upset about a failure by a public official to disclose gifts. They've never understood the concept of a conflict of interest; that's why they are genuinely puzzled by criticism of Trump running a global business empire from the White House. "Where's your evidence Thomas ever favored Crow in a decision/Trump ever let his business affairs influence his presidency?" they snarl.
I'm less charitable; I definitely think they're simulating obtuseness when it comes to burden of proof standards. TL;DR: "You con't make me say I'm wrong", they snarl.
I don't know, they all seemed pretty upset when they thought Clinton got some benefit from a real estate deal or that Biden was "receiving payoffs" from Hunter.
It’s not about specific cases that the gift-giver might be buying his vote on. It’s that if Thomas didn’t vote consistently right wing, all these gifts, and yacht trips, and private flights and all the rest would dry up tout de suite. And he knows it and Ginni knows it.
These billionaires are after bigger game, and for the few hundred $K this cost them, they’re getting a bargain.
That's one of the things that really gets me about this-- the Thomas duo are such damn pikers. All it takes to make them into a kept man and kept woman is no more than pocket lint for the givers. Not even table scraps, and what are they getting for themselves?
If they really want to milk his position as one of the 9 most powerful individuals in the richest nation in the history of the known universe, they should be setting up multiple 8-figure pseudonymous accounts in Cyprus and all over the Caribbean, and laundering the money into real estate and yachts along with the Russian oligarchs and drug barons who exemplify their moral principles.
Unless maybe they already are.
He won't be impeached, but he can be prosecuted as a garden variety criminal.
On what basis?
Please tell me which law it is that you have evidence that he has broken. 18 U.S. Code § 201, which covers bribery, says that there must be a specific quid pro quo. It does not have to be explicit (at least, it doesn't have to be explicit under some Supreme Courts), but a prosecutor must be able to prove that there was at least an implicitly agreed trade of value for a specific act.
I am highly skeptical that there was ever any such agreement. An unspoken understanding that Thomas would rule in general in ways that Harlan Crow agrees with does not meet the legal requirements for bribery. That's especially true given all of the ways that the Court has, over the last fifteen years, narrowed the definition of what constitutes public corruption.
5a USC §§ 101-104.
Covers who is required to file a financial disclosure report, what is to be disclosed in the report, and what the criminal penalties are for knowingly and willfully filing a false report.
Not a slam dunk, but Thomas' argument would essentially be that (a) he considered gifts of personal travel accommodations to be covered under the "food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual" exception, which I think a majority of legal experts disagree with, and (b) that his great nephew for whom he was legal guardian and whom he said he was raising as a son did not count as his child for purposes of the disclosures.
And at least one person has been disbarred for relying on a very technical understanding of what the definition of "is" is ... which seems to me to be less hinky than the weaseling Thomas would be relying on.
Granted, disbarment isn't the same as criminal conviction, but it's pretty close.
It would be lovely if he shared a double with t-Rump in America’s finest public housing…..jail .
But wait! There's more: (WaPo)
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.
You know, for all that they're "dear friends" and such, it really looks remarkably one-sided.
Well, we don't know if the Thomas' took the Crows RVing -- with stays at the RV parks and WalMart parking lots that Clarence prefers -- so let's not jump to conclusions.
You're right, I'm being hasty. Just call me a victim of the lamestream media campaign against our salt-of-the-earth betters. I'll go over to Fox and soak up their coverage of those tailgating weekends and Elvis sightings.
Wait till you read the WaPo tonight - Leonard Leo grifted $$$ to Ginni Thomas in bogus fee payments, using Kellyanne Conway as cutout - right around the time of Citizens United, no less.
No need to impeach him. If he’s the justification for expanding the court with 6 (more?) new justices chosen by Biden, you want him there to enjoy the fruits of his labors.
I would expect that all Harlan Crow wanted from all those expenditures was for Thomas to think of him as his good friend who was so generous. That's enough.
That describes an influence campaign. That sort of attitude targeting is common in advertising. Remember all those commercials that aren't actually selling anything?
Under our current legal structure, this probably can't be prosecuted. The only solution is political. Rule of Law only exists if the politics supports it. We need to support it. I will sign on to "the most corrupt and nakedly political Court we've ever had in this country" as a characterization, which is political by nature.
Sorta like the guy who was detailed to slime up to Alito? Makes me again wonder how likely it is that Crow thought this up all by himself, or just who's in that circle of friends he might be a frontman for. And who the designated handlers are for Barrett and Kavanaugh and Roberts and Gorsuch-- the ones whose job is to make life sweet for them, as, you know, "dear friends." Or as The Associates used to advertise, "nice people, with money."
You're right, though, this self-same court decided that the only bad gifting for people who exercise authority granted them by and for the public is gifting that's done to get a highly specific result. Who might have guessed they were covering their own contemptible asses when they came up with that one? Gift, grift, potaytoe, potahto, isn't it all the same.
As bad as this sounds, I think Justice Roberts;s scandal is worse. Launder $10 million through your wife's recruiting company as fees. Seems a ridiculous way to pretend to pay someone. Yeah, sure I hired someone from you. Here's 100k.
https://www.businessinsider.com/jane-roberts-chief-justice-wife-10-million-commissions-2023-4
Actually, there is no way Thomas could have afforded the roughly $80k/year for that boarding school in N. Georgia on his SCOTUS salary.
How do you figure? Associate SCOTUS justices make $268,000 per year. Are you really insinuating that $180,000 per year is an unlivable amount of money?