This article first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. A Washington ethics watchdog is calling for the Department of Justice…
What “mega donor” does not have issues in front of SCOTUS everyday? Mega donors push issues with their dark money that may not be attached to their name and not members of the the litigating parties but they are deeply involved in the outcome of the Courts rulings.
No, there is no “Crow vs Whatever” in front of the Court. But Crow has a vested interest in much of the Court’s work.
“This high-profile ethics matter has historic implications far beyond one Supreme Court justice,” attorneys for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center wrote in a detailed letter on Tuesday to the Judicial Conference, the principal policymaking body for federal courts.
Keep 'em coming.
The Judicial Conference could trigger an investigation by referring the case to the Justice Department.
Speaking empirically, it won’t. We’re not there yet. But keep 'em coming.
The question is will the “weaponized” Justice Department pay any attention to this. Gym Jordon will be watching 
.
While they are at it, they should investigate the rest of the GOP gang of 6 too; Thomas should go, but then again, so should Kavanaugh, and Barrett at a minimum; and of course all of this goes on right under the nose of the worst chief justice in recent times. He is either BLIND, in which case I don’t see how he could have ever said he would call balls and strikes, or he is a blatant partisan who allows corruption as long as Leonard Leo tells him to.
Have been amazed that the Abe Fortas story has gotten very little mention in the general media.
Glad to see it here.
The comparisons between the gross ongoing enrichment that Thomas has been doing and the acceptance of “consultation retainer fees” have similarities … but clearly Thomas has gone far far beyond what caused Fortas to resign.
My guess is Thomas won’t resign and suffer a diminished lifestyle. There is no way the current Senate would convict an impeachment. Since nobody can stop him, he will continue living the life of a fat rat.
Have always wanted to know if Thomas is capable of original thought.
Is he intelligent or just a follower repeating what he is told?
I have worked in DC in various capacities over the decades in both the Executive and Legislative Branches. There are so many good people in DC who want to do the right thing and feel, quite frankly, honored to be a public servant, especially in a leadership role. And then, there are the Clarence types, who think they are special, above it all, and deserving of gifts and adoration. He might be one of the worst examples I have seen (not withstanding half the members of the House right now).
In case this wasn’t clear:
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/governance-judicial-conference/about-judicial-conference
ETA: I assume the group of judges would loath investigating their own this way.
If the judges don’t want to be investigated, then they shouldn’t do things that require investigation.
I hope someone goes back and looks at EVERY friend of the court brief filed by the half-dozen superpacs Harlan Crow has funded and lays out how many times Clarence voted to uphold the views of his friend.
Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years.” He said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”
Friendship is usually to two way street. How many times has Clarence and Ginni hosted Harlan and others in this friendship circle?
More important, who cares that he’s supposedly treating Thomas the same as his billionaire cronies. Try explaining that you give the same gifts to the local police commissioner as you give to your totally legitimate business associates, or how it’s OK for your friend the general to appear at your political rally in their daily work clothing, same as your friend the car dealer. Thomas has a different status with respect to conflict of interest, so the same acts do not have the same result.
Ethics?
PFFTTTT!!!@#22!!@3!!
Ethics are for democrats. Fancy trips (half million a pop), fancy gifts, dishonesty, law breaking and excessive grifting are for republicans.
You know, when I became a faculty member and when my brother was promoted to Battalion Chief in his fire department our dad had the same talk with both of us. It boiled down to this: “You’re in a different role now. You need to be careful about your friendships and your social activities.”
In my case, it was to be careful to keep my relationships with students (and especially graduate students) appropriate. In my brother’s case, it was be careful to create and maintain some distance from the captains and engineers he had been through initial training and later professional training with. You have to be able to keep personal relationship issues out of your professional evaluations.
I got the same advice from my mentor on the faculty I joined. (He got my name from my dissertation advisor and had specifically recruited me to join the department.) Very early on, he said, “I’m glad you’ve joined us. I want to help you advance your career: you’re good, and I enjoy working with you. But you need to understand that I’m not your friend. I have to do professional evaluation of your work, and I don’t do professional evaluation of my friends.”
It seems to me that someone should have taught those lessons to our Supreme Court justices…really, to judges up and down the line. Being a judge should be a pretty monastic existence. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have friends or hobbies, but they should probably keep those circles fairly small.
Very sensible mentor you had. More honest than mine was.
Yeah, Scott was really good. What I didn’t understand (and it almost tripped me up) was that he was a polarizing figure in the department. A couple of the senior people didn’t like him at all, and when the stars aligned (he was offered a position heading up a government lab, and the university offered to purchase time in the retirement system and some cash to buy out his tenure contract) he left before I was promoted. The two who disliked Scott strongly decided to see if they could take me out and fire me. I survived, but only because the college’s P&T committee had another candidate in my department with a packet pretty indistinguishable from mine. (As one of the people who wanted to keep me put it, “There ain’t a c*** hair’s difference between you two.” He was a pretty earthy guy.) They chose to ignore the minority vote against me and we both got through the system.
Thomas is getting revenge against any number of people in his life…
Sadly, the reputation of the SCOTUS has already taken quite a beating, ever since the
decision that allows corporations the ability to “invest” as much as they want in political races. Then came the Roe decision. It is incumbent on Chief Justice Roberts to sit Clarence down and tell him his time to go is now! This will save the embarrassment of a DOJ investigation, and be a big first step to begin clawing back the reputation of the Court. Hopefully Roberts feelings for the Court will allow him to separate out the politics of a new Democrat appointed member, since the conservatives will still hold a 5 to 4 majority.
Considering I managed to get decent grants and published enough they let this hippy alone to chase cancer in ovaries. I got to play with seriously expensive gear too. Even built a high pressure liquid chromatograph from spare bits which became an important piece of gear to my lab.
A DIY HPLC is seriously impressive, Darr…