Two views of Justice Clarence Thomas emerged along party lines during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on ethics in the Supreme Court. Democrats framed the court’s longest-serving justice as a lackey of right-wing “dark money,” attacks Republicans countered are based on racist tropes.
Democrats held the hearing before the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet on Wednesday following calls for the highest court to adopt an ethics code. Thomas came under scrutiny after texts between his wife Ginni Thomas and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about overturning the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump came to light earlier this month, highlighting her involvement with conservative causes throughout her career.
DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS PUSH SUPREME COURT CODE OF ETHICS AFTER GINNI THOMAS TEXTS
Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said in his opening statement that “the actions or beliefs or views of a spouse of a member of the court cannot or should not, and will not ever, be grounds for impeachment of a judge.” No justice should be admonished “because they had the audacity decades ago to marry somebody with an opinion,” Issa added.
Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz asked expert witness Mark Paoletta if the suggestion that Thomas’s decisions were influenced by the political activities of his wife were an “attempt to try to invoke a racist trope that black people are not as intelligent and are more persuadable,” with Paoletta agreeing that it was.
Democrats on the subcommittee said that Thomas is a model example of the corruption of conservatives’ Supreme Court appointees.
“We have a Republican majority on the Supreme Court that is more corrupt than ever before,” said New York Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones. “And none of those Republican justices is more corrupt than Justice Clarence Thomas, make no mistake about that.”
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“Clarence Thomas attended a Koch Industries retreat in Palm Springs, California, in a time when Koch was bankrolling several litigants with cases before the Supreme Court,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat. “This isn’t even the appearance of dark money. This is Justice Thomas going into the eye of the hurricane of dark money.”
Members of the Supreme Court are not subject to a code of ethics in the same way as the other two branches of government, and Democrats have said that the close ties between Thomas and his wife’s connection to the Jan. 6 riot mean the actions of the justices need more oversight. Republicans have mostly dismissed their attacks as a hit job on one of the court’s most prolific conservative members, who has sat on the Supreme Court since 1991.
