{"id":4017,"date":"2011-02-05T09:35:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-05T17:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4017"},"modified":"2011-02-05T09:35:55","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T17:35:55","slug":"clarence-thomas-must-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/05\/clarence-thomas-must-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarence Thomas Must Resign!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost a year ago I started talking about the conflicts created for Clarence Thomas, because of his wife\u2019s extremist political activity in Teabuggery Reaches the Extreme Court<\/a>.  Since then it came out that Clarence Thomas \u201cforgot to disclose\u201d that his wife\u2019s activities provide a significant part of his family income.  But Virginia Thomas\u2019 new job makes the previous conflict charges pale by comparison.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"teabag-thomas\"Do you ever have the sense when you read news that there’s an orchestrated effort for the right wing to raise their middle finger high in the face of the Constitution while extolling it<\/strong>? If you don’t, prepare to experience it now. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Virginia Thomas. You remember her? The wife of Clarence Thomas, head cheerleader at Liberty Central, foam crown and all? The one whose income <\/font><\/font>Justice Thomas "forgot" to disclose<\/font><\/a><\/font>? That One.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

After leaving her gig with Tea Party front group Liberty Central, Virginia Thomas has moved on to start up her own lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, Inc<\/strong> (catchy name, that). According to that <\/font><\/font>raving liberal site (NOT) The Politico<\/font><\/a><\/font>, Ginni Thomas is on to the next venture:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Now, Virginia \u201cGinni\u201d Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her \u201cexperience and connections<\/strong>\u201d to help clients \u201cwith \u201cgovernmental affairs efforts\u201d and political donation strategies.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Thomas already has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an e-mail she sent last week to congressional chiefs of staff, in which she branded herself \u201ca self-appointed, ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement<\/strong>."<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Interesting that these very same freshmen aren’t admitting to it or had no idea what Politico was talking about when asked if they had met with her.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

An interesting thing, though — Politico had a hard time finding a freshman who has actually met with Ginni Thomas. "This is the spouse of Justice Thomas?" said a seemingly surprised Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ). "No, I’ve never met her. It’s not something I’ve heard about. And I hang out with a lot of freshman," he said.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I sought info from some high-ranking GOP aides, who also have no idea what this is about. In addition, I have left a message with Ginni Thomas, but I doubt I’ll be any more successful than Politico’s efforts on that front:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Thomas said she was having trouble with the signal, telling a POLITICO reporter: "I would be happy to talk with you, but I really can’t understand clearly what you’re asking, so maybe this is not a good time to talk."<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

A visit to the website for Thomas’ new venture reveals things I never knew about her. Like how she’s connected to the "center-right movement." If the Tea Party is "center right", we’re all screwed. Just emigrate now.<\/strong> The endorsement page includes glowing reviews from Steve King, Donald Rumsfeld, Morton Blackwell, and the ever-annoying Rick Berman. Yeah. Center right. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Is it just me, or is there something deeply unethical about the spouse of a Supreme Court justice being paid by conservatives to lobby against things like health care reform, and financial regulatory reform<\/strong>, and just about anything that might be called progress? In some ways, this is even more blatant than Liberty Central was<\/strong>. Liberty Central was astroturf advocacy aimed at ordinary people. This is another hack lobbying firm aimed at shaping legislation toward conservatives corporate persons, not citizens. You know, those people Justice Thomas legitimized in the Citizens United decision?<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Dave Weigel thinks <\/font><\/font>her situation is a mess<\/font><\/a><\/font>. I’m not so sure, but I’d like to think so. He puts it this way:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

So you can hire Ginni Thomas to help determine whether a bill will pass constitutional muster if it comes before, you know, her husband<\/strong>.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars<\/a>><\/p>\n

With a hat-tip to a wonderful reader I call Nameless, because he posted this link in comments to another article a while back, US law is clear.  According to, 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 455 : US Code<\/a> a judge must recuse himself if:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

(4) He knows that he, individually or as a fiduciary, or his
spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a financial
interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to
the proceeding<\/font><\/strong>, or any other interest that could be substantially
affected by the outcome of the proceeding<\/strong><\/font>;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Clarence Thomas has a conflict of interest in any case involving any organization his wife\u2019s firm represents.  However, if is wife is professionally the ambassador to the tea party movement, Clarence Thomas has a conflict of interest in any case where the tea party movement has taken a stand on any of the issues involved.  For all intents and purposes, this includes virtually every case that will come before the Supreme Court.  The only legal, let alone ethical thing Clarence Thomas can do is resign from the Court.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost a year ago I started talking about the conflicts created for Clarence Thomas, because of his wife\u2019s extremist political activity in Teabuggery Reaches the Extreme Court.  Since then it came out that Clarence Thomas \u201cforgot to disclose\u201d that his wife\u2019s activities provide a significant part of his family income.  But Virginia Thomas\u2019 new job […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}