The Bottomless Corruption of Ginni and Clarence Thomas

[Botany]

1. So Thomas was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.

The Thomases are a moral disgrace.

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In other words: Groundswell, made up of major right-wing players like Thomas and Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, is exactly the kind of group that Eastman, Bannon, and others might have been plotting with. In addition to that, Thomas is also on the board of the action arm of the Center for National Policy, the secretive, right-wing outfit that coordinates all manner of political activism on the right. CNP Action “helped advance,” as the Times put it, the “Stop the Steal” movement. So Thomas was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.

The Washington Post’s big scoop was based on 21 text messages Thomas sent to Meadows (along with eight that Meadows wrote back in response). Are we to assume that those 21 messages constitute the beginning and the end of her importuning? From November 7 (the day Joe Biden was declared the winner) to January 6, nearly 60 days passed. She likely wrote dozens or even hundreds of text messages and emails to key players. Was she in touch with Bannon and Eastman and other key conspirators? This is obviously a legitimate line of inquiry for the committee, with respect not only to Thomas but Fitton and other Groundswellers as well.

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He obviously should. Thomas’s defenders always point to the fact that Supreme Court justices aren’t subject to the ethical rules that bind other federal judges. However, as Jane Mayer reported last week in The New Yorker, justices are bound to a federal law that bars them from hearing cases in which their spouses have “an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.” That statute also stipulates that they recuse themselves in cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Thomas, as Mayer notes, has already ruled on two cases related to the 2020 election. A third, which Eastman has filed against select committee Chair Bennie Thompson arguing that attorney-client privilege should shield his records from the committee’s reach, may yet reach the court.