House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday took congressional Democrats’ demands for Justice Clarence Thomas’ recusal from Jan. 6-related cases up a notch, following revelations of his wife’s pro-coup texts.
Knowing Pelosi, I am awed, interested and cheering.
“They have no code of ethics and — really? It’s the Supreme Court of the United States,” Pelosi said. “They’re making judgments about the air we breathe and we don’t even know what their ethical standard is?”
“I hear people say from time to time, ‘well, it’s a personal decision of a judge as to whether he should recuse himself,” Pelosi said. “Well if your wife is an admitted and proud contributor to a coup of our country, maybe you should weigh that in your ethical standards.”
She’s not wrong.
Glad to see Dem leadership call out Robert’s Ethics-optional approach to Supreme Court management.
Now up the pressure - state now that if Thomas does not recuse himself on the next Jan 6th case in front of the SCOTUS, that will be grounds for impeachment.
Excellent call Madam Speaker!
Keep speaking truth to the traitors and to America’s enemies.
“I don’t think he should’ve ever been appointed,” Pelosi said …
… stating the obvious.
And why hasn’t he suffered any consequences for attempting to hide the millions his looney wife “made” from lobbyists?
Please, everyone, remember this before you compose your next post about the profound naiveté of the Democrats, believing as you suppose they do in the possibility of bipartisanship with today’s GOP. Also the fecklessness of the OIdz. Nancy just said the SOB shouldn’t have been appointed in the first place and asked where the FUCK the SC’s ethical standards are. She’s a warrior queen and she’d be the first one to stab a Nazgul right in his goddamn face. “I am no man!” BOOM
Oh, I hear exploding Gooper heads all the way across the Atlantic!
“I don’t think he should’ve ever been appointed…”
Well, no argument there. But. But. But… Where is she going with that? Will watch with interest.
Just a wild guess but maybe his glaring unfitness is an argument for pulling the lever for the Ds later this year.
+1000 for LOTR. 
Glad you like it. I feel a little dirty myself. Also nerdy.
The main issue there is that it’s a toothless threat. Thomas would only risk having his dignity gummed a little since there’s zero chance that McConnell and his motley crew would permit his removal. He would end up sharing that indignity with the infamous Justice Samuel Chase–wait, who?
Which isn’t to say that it oughtn’t to be pursued as an option. If we need to protest his conduct, we need to protest his conduct by whatever means we have at our disposal. We just have to manage expectations as to the actual result of such a pursuit.
I trust she was holding back a bit.
“Why should they have lower standards than members of Congress?”
That’s a pretty low bar, I gotta say.
Before we forget, Andrew Breitbart engineered outing Anthony Wiener’s online sexting after Wiener made repeated public statements about Clarence Thomas’ failure to disclose his actual and apparent conflicts of interest in literally dozens of Supreme Court cases caused by his wife’s job and political activism. Federal Court of Appeals and Supreme Court litigants are required to fill out detailed forms disclosing related corporate and other parties in interest so that Justices can review their own stock holdings, investments and political affiliations.
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas routinely blew this whole conflict of interest issue off and refused to recuse themselves because they don’t care about no stinkin’ conflicts of interest when there are blatant partisan rulings to be made.
Legally yes. The the Majority of the GQP in the Senate will never vote to convict the POS.
But politically it would be very useful to show the majority of the Country that does not back sedition just what these bast*rd’s were willing to excuse just to maintain power.
It has always been up to Congress to define the ethical standards of the Supreme Court, which was never meant to police itself. (Think of the checks and balances of the Constitution here.) Pelosi is right that Congress needs to act, but the blame for nonexistence of a Supreme Court ethics code lies on previous Congresses, not SCOTUS.
I’ll probably catch flak for this, but Pelosi’s (not really ever great) ability to message has been really slipping lately. Leaving aside the tone-deaf way she handled the progressives pressure on banning stock trading by Congress, she’s unnecessarily muddying the waters here.
Much like Josh (and others on the left) have noted. This is very simple. You can’t have a sitting Supreme Court Justice connected to efforts to thwart Constitutional rule.
Don’t make this about Anita Hill, or codes of ethics. Keep it simple and concise.
You’re a constitutional officer, the highest (and least accountable) in the country. When your wife (and probably if we dug a little deeper, you as well) is openly colluding in a coup to derail a democratic election, you gotta go.
Absolutely! Aren’t folks always complaining that Dems don’t push hard enough or repeat messages often enough.
I love the way she presented ‘he shouldn’t have been nominated’ as an aside.
Nancy SMASH. The weird thing is, she’s not wrong. He never belonged in that seat, but neither does Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barret. Hell, I’ll throw in Alito, as well. Roberts does seem to have genuine concerns about his position and the reputation of the Court, but he has no real control over the Dominionist wing of the bench.