For years, Democrats have attacked Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, for being involved in conservative politics. The goal has always been the same: to discredit the justice and force him out of the Supreme Court.

In 2010, they railed against Ginni Thomas’s decision to form a Tea Party-linked group and argued the Tea Party had “infiltrated” the Supreme Court. A few years later, they slammed her for opposing Obamacare and demanded that Clarence Thomas recuse himself from hearing a challenge to the healthcare law. In both cases, ethical experts and Thomas’s own colleagues, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer, made it clear that Ginni Thomas’s beliefs and involvement in Republican politics had no bearing on Clarence Thomas’s ability to do his job.