{"id":5169,"date":"2011-06-21T01:46:27","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5169"},"modified":"2011-06-21T01:46:27","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:46:27","slug":"clarence-thomas-what-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/21\/clarence-thomas-what-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarence Thomas: What ethics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ethics of Clarence Thomas have been under question for a long  time, going all the way back to his confirmation hearings.  He should have never been confirmed then, and continues to prove that he is unfit for the office now.  Over the weekend more revelations came out reminiscent of Abe Fortis, who resigned from the Court, disgraced.  What he had done is far less than what Thomas has.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"SCOTUS3\"The New York Times’<\/em><\/span> report this weekend highlighted just one of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s problems with ethics<\/a><\/font>. <\/font><\/p>\n

[Justice Clarence Thomas and real estate magnate Harlan Crow] met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Ms. Thomas to start a Tea Party-related group… <\/font><\/p>\n

…This is just one in a growing list<\/a><\/font> of ethical problems for Thomas:<\/font><\/p>\n

Unethical Fundraising:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> The Code of Conduct<\/a><\/font> does not allow judges to \u201cpersonally participate in fund-raising  activities,  solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the  use of the  prestige of judicial office for that purpose,\u201d except in  very limited circumstances. Yet Justice Thomas attended a Koch-sponsored political fundraiser<\/a><\/font> intended to fund the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks and media outlets. This attendance is technically legal, because of the justices exemption from the Code of Conduct, but the justices claim that they have long followed a policy of \u201clook[ing] to the Code of Conduct for guidance<\/a><\/font>\u201d  in determining when they may participate in fundraising activities. <\/font><\/p>\n

Failure to Disclose:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> Federal judges and justices are required by law<\/a><\/font> to disclose their spouse\u2019s income \u2014 thus preventing persons who wish to   influence the judge or justice from funneling money to them through   their husband or wife. Nevertheless, Thomas falsely claimed that his  wife Ginni \u2014 a lobbyist and high-earning member of the professional right<\/a><\/font> \u2014 earned no non-investment income whatsoever while she was working at  the right-wing Heritage Foundation. When asked to explain this error,  Thomas \u2014 who is one of the nine people responsible for issuing binding  interpretations of the nation\u2019s founding document \u2014 claimed that he \u201cmisunderst[ood] the filing instructions<\/a><\/font>.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Potential Conflict of Interest:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> Ginni Thomas used to lead an organization that vigorously opposes the Affordable Care Act<\/a><\/font>, and she even briefly signed a memo calling that Act unconstitutional<\/a><\/font>. Ginni also may be earning lobbying fees for working to have this Act repealed<\/a><\/font>. A team of conservative lawyers recently argued that such activities by a judge\u2019s spouse requires the judge to recuse from the lawsuits challenging the ACA<\/a><\/font>, but a defiant speech Thomas gave to the conservative Federalist Society leaves little doubt that he will not recuse<\/a><\/font>.<\/font><\/p>\n

A Financial Stake in His Own Decisions?:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> Ginni Thomas may also be getting rich off of her husband\u2019s vote in the infamous Citizens United decision<\/a><\/font> \u2014 which freed corporations to spend billions of dollars to buy U.S.  elections. Ginni\u2019s new lobbying firm \u201coffers advice on optimizing  political investments for charitable giving in the non-profit world or political causes,\u201d a line of work which has obviously become much more  lucrative since Citizens United<\/em><\/span>.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

Never before has a sitting Supreme Court justice compiled such an extensive record of ethical misconduct.  <\/font>Ed Schultz provides details and interviews law professor Marjorie Cohn. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow also covered this with Lawyer Ian Millhiser.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the bottom line.  We\u2019re stuck with him for now.  As long as Republicans control the House, they would never start impeachment proceedings against him.  He always goose-steps to do their bidding, Constitution be damned!<\/font><\/p>\n

What we can do, however, is to make him a poster child for the need to keep Republicans out of power, and especially, out of the White House.  If we have another Republican President, we will get more Supreme Court Justices, just like Clarence Thomas.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ethics of Clarence Thomas have been under question for a long  time, going all the way back to his confirmation hearings.  He should have never been confirmed then, and continues to prove that he is unfit for the office now.  Over the weekend more revelations came out reminiscent of Abe Fortis, who resigned from […]<\/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-5169","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\/5169","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=5169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}