Clarence Thomas’ Ethics Scandal

[lakhota]

Justices Have Been Forced To Resign For Doing What Clarence Thomas Has Done

Justice Clarence Thomas is an ethics problem in a black robe. Just eight months after ThinkProgress broke the story of Thomas’ attendance at a Koch-sponsored political fundraiser, we learn that Thomas doesn’t just do unethical favors for wealthy right-wing donors — they also do expensive favors for him.

Leading conservative donor Harlan Crow, whose company often litigates in federal court, provided $500,000 to allow Thomas’s wife to start a Tea Party group and he once gave Thomas a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank which frequently files briefs in Thomas’ Court, also gave Thomas a $15,000 gift.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because America has seen this movie before. Indeed, the Thomas scandal is little more than a remake of the forty year-old gifting scandal that brought down Justice Abe Fortas. Like Thomas, Fortas liked to associate with wealthy individuals with potential business before his Court. And like Thomas, Fortas took inappropriate gifts from his wealthy benefactors.

Fortas’ questionable gifts first came out when President Johnson nominated him for a promotion to Chief Justice of the United States in 1968. Fortas had accepted $15,000 to lead seminars at American University — far more than the university normally paid for such services — and the payments were bankrolled by the leaders of frequent corporate litigants including the vice president of Phillip Morris. Fortas survived this revelation, although his nomination for the Chief Justiceship was filibustered into oblivion.

Just a year later, the country learned that Fortas took another highly questionable gift. In 1966, one year after Fortas joined the Court, stock speculator Louis E. Wolfson’s foundation began paying Fortas an annual retainer of $20,000 per year for consulting services. Fortas’ actions were legal, and he eventually returned the money after Wolfson was convicted of securities violations and recused himself from Wolfson’s case, but the damage to Fortas — and the potential harm to the Supreme Court’s reputation — were too great. Fortas resigned in disgrace.

It is difficult to distinguish Fortas’ scandal from Thomas’. Like Fortas, Thomas accepted several very valuable gifts from parties who are frequently interested in the outcome of federal court cases. One of Thomas’ benefactors has even filed briefs in his Court since giving Thomas a $15,000 gift, and Thomas has not recused himself from each of these cases.

Of course, Thomas is also the least likely Justice to actually follow the command of precedent. Thomas embraces a discredited theory of the Constitution which would return America to a time when federal child labor laws were considered unconstitutional. His fellow justices criticize him for showing “utter disregard for our precedent and Congress’ intent.” Even ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia finds Thomas’ approach to the law too extreme — in Scalia’s words “I am a textualist. I am an originalist. I am not a nut.”

But Thomas’ disregard for what has come before him changes nothing about the precedent he faces. If Abe Fortas had to resign his seat, so too should Clarence Thomas.

thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/19/248151/clarence-thomas-resign/

NOTE: This article has several source links which can only be accessed by clicking on the main link above.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

File under "T" for "Tough Shit".

[lakhota]

UNFORGIVEN: Why is Clarence Thomas so angry?

www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/11/12/071112crbo_books_toobin

This article is probably too sophisticated for most righties...

[ed1066]

Left wing meltdown is indeed in progress...

[Value Buy]

Have you made Clarence Thomas your private campaign?
It must really hurt to continue to post this stuff, and nothing ever comes of it.

[verrip1]

I guess it's time for my new thread:

"Bill Clinton's Ethics Scandal"


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. ;D

[lakhota]

All you righties know if Clarence Thomas were Democrat you'd be wanting him impeached for his unethical behavior. Thomas was never fit to be on the Supreme Court anyway. I watched his confirmation hearings live, and it was obvious he was unfit. He was only confirmed because of his "high-tech lynching" comment, which scared the shit out of some Senators.

According to Mayer and Abramson, soon after Thomas was sworn in, three reporters for The Washington Post “burst into the newsroom almost simultaneously with information confirming that Thomas’ involvement with pornography far exceeded what the public had been led to believe.”[49] These reporters had eyewitness testimony and video rental records showing Thomas’ interest in and use of pornography.[50] However, according to Jeffrey Toobin, because Thomas was already sworn in by the time the video store evidence emerged, the Washington Post dropped the story.[49]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas_Supreme_Court_nomination

[Bluerobin]

Impeach him and get it over with already. There is no room on SCOTUS for the likes of him.

[ugonow]

You better believe republicans would be screaming if he were a dem.And rightfully so.He is a paid political activist.

[Bluerobin]

I have zero tolerance for public officials behaving badly. Impeach him!

[Value Buy]

Lakhota, where are your tirades against Charles Rangel?
I must have missed them?
Let's show some equal opportunity representation.

[swamp]

Jun 21, 2011 10:42:28 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Lakhota, where are your tirades against Charles Rangel?
I must have missed them?
Let's show some equal opportunity representation.

Charlie Rangel can be voted out for his misdeeds, but Supreme Court Justices are there for life.

Clarence Thomas appears to be a mental midget who has no place on the Supreme Court. Scalia, while I disagree with him on just about everything, I recognize and have awesome respect for his intelligence.

[verrip1]

There's no traction to this silly accusation.

Try again later.

[Bluerobin]

Only one justice, Samuel Chase was impeached in 1805. Yes, they can be impeached, but it is rare.

[ugonow]

"In 2001, a conservative, corporate-aligned think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) gave Justice Clarence Thomas the gift of a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln. At the ceremony presenting Thomas with this very expensive gift, AEI president Christopher DeMuth explained that the bust was “cast in 1914 by the great neo-classical sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman.” Watch it:


AEI, however, is not simply in the business of giving luxurious gifts to Supreme Court justices — it is also in the business of litigating before the United States Supreme Court. ThinkProgress uncovered three briefs that AEI filed in Thomas’ Court after Thomas received their $15,000 gift. Thomas recused from none of these three cases, and he either voted in favor of the result AEI favored or took a stance that was even further to the right in each case:

•Riley v. Kennedy : AEI filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision preventing a change in Alabama’s voting law from going into effect. Justice Thomas did not recuse, and he joined the Supreme Court’s decision reversing the lower court.
•Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 : AEI filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decisionupholding a local school district’s desegregation plan. Thomas joined the majority opinion reversing the lower court’s decision, and he filed a lengthy concurrence defending that result.
•Whitman v. American Trucking Association: AEI joined a brief asking the Supreme Court to allow the EPA to consider the costs of implementing new air quality standards before it issued them. Thomas’ concurring opinion went much further than AEI asked him to go, suggesting that the law authorizing EPA to issue these standards is unconstitutional.
Although there is no evidence that AEI gave Thomas the $15,000 gift specifically to buy his vote in a particular case, Thomas’ decision to sit on cases where his benefactor has a demonstrated interest creates a very serious appearance of impropriety. No one would trust a judge to hear their case if they learned that someone on the other side of the case had given that judge a rare and expensive gift."

[ugonow]

A judge getting money from lobbying efforts by his wife should not judge a case she is being paid to lobby . And a judge should not accept expensive gifts from groups involved in his cases. Just as much as politicians should not tweet their weiner to porn stars.

[floridayankee]

Jun 21, 2011 1:04:01 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Have you made Clarence Thomas your private campaign?
It must really hurt to continue to post this stuff, and nothing ever comes of it.

Lak must be racist......

[ed1066]

Jun 21, 2011 15:26:39 GMT -5 floridayankee said:

Jun 21, 2011 1:04:01 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Have you made Clarence Thomas your private campaign?
It must really hurt to continue to post this stuff, and nothing ever comes of it.

Lak must be racist......

Indeed, it seems he has a vendetta against Thomas because he's a black man...

[ed1066]

What's the matter Lakhota, you don't think a black man can be a Supreme Curt justice? Do you think women don't belong on the court either? What about Jews or Catholics?

[ugonow]

lol,thanks , yankee.

[EVT1]

What does race have to do with it? We had no problems with Thurgood Marshall's ethics.

[ed1066]

Jun 21, 2011 15:55:50 GMT -5 EVT1 said:

What does race have to do with it? We had no problems with Thurgood Marshall's ethics.

You mean you can disagree with a black man and not be a racist? Really? Did you tell the Democrats?

[ugonow]

The only reason he got appointed was because he is black. Reagan pushed him through the system because he was black,and Bush appointed him because of his white guilt.