Clarence Thomas’s Billionaire Benefactor Collects Hitler Art

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A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign
by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski and Brett Murphy
Dec. 18, 6 a.m. EST
https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... %20friends.

Interviews and newly unearthed documents reveal that Thomas, facing financial strain, privately pushed for a higher salary and to allow Supreme Court justices to take speaking fees.
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Series:Friends of the Court: SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors
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In early January 2000, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.

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At the resort, Thomas gave a speech at an off-the-record conservative conference. He found himself seated next to a Republican member of Congress on the flight home. The two men talked, and the lawmaker left the conversation worried that Thomas might resign.

Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told him. If lawmakers didn’t act, “one or more justices will leave soon” — maybe in the next year.

At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money. In other private conversations, Thomas repeatedly talked about removing a ban on justices giving paid speeches.

Thomas’ efforts were described in records from the time obtained by ProPublica, including a confidential memo to Chief Justice William Rehnquist from a top judiciary official seeking guidance on what he termed a “delicate matter.”

The documents, as well as interviews, offer insight into how Thomas was talking about his finances in a crucial period in his tenure, just as he was developing his relationships with a set of wealthy benefactors.

Congress never lifted the ban on speaking fees or gave the justices a major raise. But in the years that followed, as ProPublica has reported, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court. Some defrayed living expenses large and small — private school tuition, vehicle batteries, tires. Other gifts from a coterie of ultrarich men supplemented his lifestyle, such as free international vacations on the private jet and superyacht of Dallas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow.

Precisely what led so many people to offer Thomas money and other gifts remains an open question. There’s no evidence the justice ever raised the specter of resigning with Crow or his other wealthy benefactors.

George Priest, a Yale Law School professor who has vacationed with Thomas and Crow, told ProPublica he believes Crow’s generosity was not intended to influence Thomas’ views but rather to make his life more comfortable. “He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary,” Priest said. “So he provides benefits for him.”

Thomas and Crow didn’t respond to questions for this story. Crow, a major Republican donor, has not had cases at the Supreme Court since Thomas joined it and has previously said Thomas is a dear friend. David Sokol, a conservative financier who has taken Thomas on vacation on a private jet, said in a statement that he and Thomas had never discussed the justice’s finances or when he might retire.

Thomas’ comments in 2000 were to Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, a vocal conservative who’d been in Congress for 11 years and occasionally socialized with the justice. They set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill. “His importance as a conservative was paramount,” Stearns said in a recent interview. “We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.”

There’s an often-criticized dynamic surrounding most important jobs in the federal government: The posts pay far less than comparable jobs in the private sector, but officials can cash in once they leave. Ex-regulators sell advice to the regulated. Generals retire to join military contractors. Former senators get jobs lobbying Congress.

But there is no revolving-door payday waiting on the other side of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Justices generally stay on the bench past their 80th birthday, if not until death. In 2000, justices were paid more than cabinet secretaries or members of Congress, and far more than the average American. Still, judges’ salaries were not keeping pace with inflation, a source of ire throughout the federal judiciary. Young associates at top law firms made more than Supreme Court justices, while partners at the firms could earn millions a year.

Table with 2 columns and 4 rows.
Job Salaries in 2022
Median American worker $60,070
Member of Congress $174,000
Associate Supreme Court Justice $274,200
Partner at highest-paying law firm $7,294,000
Note: Median American figure is for full-time, year-round workers. Law partner figure is for the highest-paying of the 100 largest firms. (Sources: U.S. Census Current Population Survey, The American Lawyer)
Some of Thomas’ colleagues were extremely wealthy — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was married to a high-paid tax lawyer and Justice Stephen Breyer to the daughter of a wealthy British lord. Thomas did not come from money. When he was appointed to the court in 1991, he was 43 years old and had spent almost all his adult life working for the government. At the time, he still had student loans from law school, Thomas has said.

The full details of Thomas’ finances over the years remain unclear. He made at least two big purchases around the early ’90s: a Corvette and a house in the Virginia suburbs on 5 acres of land. When Thomas and his wife, Ginni, bought the home for $522,000 a year after he joined the court, they borrowed all but $8,000, less than 2% of the purchase price, property records show.

Public records suggest a degree of financial strain. Throughout the first decade of his tenure, the couple regularly borrowed more money, including a $100,000 credit line on their house and a consumer loan of up to $50,000. Around January 1998, Thomas’ life changed when he took in his 6-year-old grandnephew, becoming his legal guardian and raising him as a son. The Thomases sent the child to a series of private schools.

In early January 2000, Thomas took the trip to the Georgia beach resort. Thomas was there to deliver a keynote speech at Awakening, a “conservative thought weekend” featuring golf, shooting lessons and aromatherapy along with panel discussions with businessmen and elected officials. (A founder and organizer of the annual event, Ernest Taylor, told ProPublica that Thomas’ trip was paid for by the organization. Thomas reported 11 free trips that year on his annual financial disclosure, mostly to colleges and universities, but did not disclose attending the conservative conference, an apparent violation of federal disclosure law.)


Thomas spoke at the Awakening conference in 2000. Credit:Screenshot by ProPublica of Awakening brochure
On a commercial flight back from Awakening, Thomas brought up the prospect of justices resigning to Stearns, the Republican lawmaker. Worried, Stearns wrote a letter to Thomas after the flight promising “to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court.”

“As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted,” Stearns wrote. “We must have the proper incentives here, too.”

Stearns’ office soon sought help from a lobbying firm working on the issue, and he delivered a speech on the House floor about judges’ salaries getting eroded by inflation. Thomas’ warning about resignations was relayed at a meeting of the heads of several judges’ associations. L. Ralph Mecham, then the judiciary’s top administrative official, fired off the memo describing Thomas’ complaints to Rehnquist, his boss.

“I understand that Justice Thomas clearly told him that in his view departures would occur within the next year or so,” Mecham wrote of Thomas’ conversation with Stearns. Mecham worried that “from a tactical point of view,” congressional Democrats might oppose a raise if they sensed “the apparent purpose is to keep Justices [Antonin] Scalia and Thomas on the Court.” (Scalia had nine children and was also one of the less wealthy justices. Scalia, Mecham and Rehnquist have since died.)

It’s not clear if Rehnquist ever responded. Several months later, Rehnquist focused his annual year-end report on what he called “the most pressing issue facing the Judiciary: the need to increase judicial salaries.”


Stearns sent a letter to Thomas after their conversation about pay and possible resignations at the Supreme Court. Credit:George Washington University Special Collections Research Center
Several people close to Thomas told ProPublica they believed that it was implausible the justice would ever retire early, and that he may have exaggerated his concerns to bolster the case for a raise. But around 2000, chatter that Thomas was dissatisfied about money circulated through conservative legal circles and on Capitol Hill, according to interviews with prominent attorneys, former members of Congress and Thomas’ friends. “It was clear he was unhappy with his financial situation and his salary,” one friend said.

Former Sen. Trent Lott, then the Republican Senate majority leader, recalled in a recent interview that there were serious concerns at the time that Thomas or other justices would leave.

The public received hardly a hint that such conversations about Thomas were unfolding in Washington. Thomas did once allude to government salaries, in a 2001 speech praising the value of public service. “The job is not worth doing for what they pay. It’s not worth doing for the grief,” he said. “But it is worth doing for the principle.”


Thomas delivered a speech in 2001 on the value of public service. Credit:Screenshot by ProPublica via C-SPAN
Around that time, Thomas was also pushing to allow justices to make paid speeches — a source of income that had been banned in the 1980s. On several occasions, Thomas discussed lifting the ban with appellate Judge David Hansen, who chaired the judiciary’s committee responsible for lobbying Congress on issues like pay, according to Mecham’s memo.

At Sen. Mitch McConnell’s request, a provision removing the ban for judges was quietly inserted into a spending bill in mid-2000. Why McConnell made the proposal became a subject of scrutiny in the legal press. After the Legal Times reported the measure had been dubbed the “Keep Scalia on the Court” bill, Scalia responded that the “honorarium ban makes no difference to me” and denied that he would ever leave the court for financial reasons. (The ban was never lifted. McConnell did not respond to a request for comment.)

During his second decade on the court, Thomas’ financial situation appears to have markedly improved. In 2003, he received the first payments of a $1.5 million advance for his memoir, a record-breaking sum for justices at the time. Ginni Thomas, who had been a congressional staffer, was by then working at the Heritage Foundation and was paid a salary in the low six figures.

Thomas also received dozens of expensive gifts throughout the 2000s, sometimes coming from people he’d met only shortly before. Thomas met Earl Dixon, the owner of a Florida pest control company, while getting his RV serviced outside Tampa in 2001, according to the Thomas biography “Supreme Discomfort.” The next year, Dixon gave Thomas $5,000 to put toward his grandnephew’s tuition. Thomas reported the payment in his annual disclosure filing.


The Judiciary Has Policed Itself for Decades. It Doesn’t Work.
Larger gifts went undisclosed. Crow paid for two years of private high school, which tuition rates indicate would’ve cost roughly $100,000. In 2008, another wealthy friend forgave “a substantial amount, or even all” of the principal on the loan Thomas had used to buy the quarter-million dollar RV, according to a recent Senate inquiry prompted by The New York Times’ reporting. Much of the Thomases’ leisure time was also paid for by a small set of billionaire businessmen, who brought the justice and his family on free vacations around the world. (Thomas has said he did not need to disclose the gifts of travel and his lawyer has disputed the Senate findings about the RV.)

By 2019, the justices’ pay hadn’t changed beyond keeping up with inflation. But Thomas’ views had apparently transformed from two decades before. That June, during a public appearance, Thomas was asked about salaries at the court. “Oh goodness, I think it’s plenty,” Thomas responded. “My wife and I are doing fine. We don’t live extravagantly, but we are fine.”

A few weeks later, Thomas boarded Crow’s private jet to head to Indonesia. He and his wife were off on vacation, an island cruise on Crow’s 162-foot yacht.

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Dems Makes URGENT DEMAND to Clarence Thomas in Trump Case
MeidasTouch
Jan 7, 2024

Justice Clarence Thomas will obtain more money if Trump is re-elected from his wife’s right wing MAGA consulting and lobbying firms, and that combined with his wife’s key role in organizing the Jan6 insurrection disqualifies Thomas from presiding over Trump-related cases. Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on a new demand by House Democrats that Thomas recuse himself from all things Trump and the ballot banning cases, or else.



Transcript

this is Michael popok legal AF let me
lead off with a quote from a new letter
prepared by leaders of the house
addressed to Clarence Thomas encouraging
Clarence Thomas to abide by the new code
of conduct of the Supreme Court and step
off the bench on anything related to
Donald Trump and especially those cases
like Colorado coming up before him now
on appeal as to whether Donald Trump
should be on the ballot or not and this
is how the letter ends I'm going to
start my hot take with it quote fewer
than half of all Americans trust the
Supreme Court and that number will fall
even lower if you Clarence Thomas rule
in this case that's how the letter ends
I'm going to talk to you about where we
are with it why it's so important
important for us to shine a CLE light on
Clarence Thomas and His ethical his
being ethically challenged and
compromised and how that impacts our
justice system there's no other way to
put this the relationship between
Clarence Thomas and his wife Jenny
Thomas a wife of 36 years
is such that the household of the
Thomases is financially benefited
benefiting from her close relationship
with Donald Trump from her leading Maga
right-wing not for-profit consultancies
and other organizations to support
Donald Trump's uh legal and political
and policy decisions she made tons of
money for her and for her husband when
Donald Trump was in office she's in she
is incentivized to try to get him back
into office in order to help the family
financially that alone is a
disqualifying event for Clarence Thomas
that he's going to benefit from some
business at the court and you also have
the fact that Jenny Thomas is not just a
an accidental witness to the Jan 6th
Insurrection she was the party planner
and wedding planner she was the
organizer for bringing people to the
capital that ultimately led to the riots
that were encouraged by Donald Trump
right her foundations raised money to
bust people in to participate at in what
became the Insurrection so she's not
just a passive drive by hey I wonder
what's going on over there on the on the
mall she knows what was going on in the
mall and then leading up to Jan 6 she
from the from the uh day after the
election all the way up to right before
Jan 6 she was a fervent supporter of
Donald Trump and trying to promote the
stop the steel uh arguments texting
incessantly Mark Meadows the chief of
staff now an indicted co-conspirator
to get him to overturn the will of the
people election officials and elected
officials dozens and dozens of text
messages have been revealed by Jenny
Thomas and she testified to the Jan 6
committee the report of the Jan 6
committee all 300 and something pages is
the foundational evidence for both the
Secretary of State and the Colorado
Supreme Court Justices ultimately
through the trial court level the basis
to find that Donald Trump was an
insurrectionist Andor committed
Rebellion against the Constitution
leading to him being banned on the 14th
Amendment article 3 she's she was she
testified not she testified she tried to
remove Liz Cheney and Adam kininger uh
kininger from being on the
panel in the early stages so jinny
Thomas who's benefiting financially
therefore Clarence Thomas is benefiting
financially who who has uh who is a
witness related to Donald Trump's
insurrectionist and rebellious Behavior
who was the party planner wedding
planner if you will for Jan 6th right
and and the Jan 6 report being this
important of a piece of evidence that's
being used by judges and by Secretary of
States to ban Donald Trump how could how
can Clarence Thomas even think that he
could satisfy the conditions of the new
code of conduct that the Supreme Court
just passed but is self- policing not
only self- policing each judge each
justice has to make the decision for
themselves there's no motion to
disqualify that we can file some people
might be thinking why don't they file a
motion to disqualify like at the trial
court level because there is no
equivalent at the United States Supreme
Court level because they didn't adopt a
policing mechanism within their own code
of conduct to let litigants let alone
average citizens move to disqualify a
Justice it's up to the Justice's own
conscience to make the decision whether
the the um the factors uh apply and he
should be disqualified or accuse himself
good
luck but what do we have we got a new
letter that's right from senior leaders
of the uh Democratic party in the house
led by Hank Johnson these are all
Congress people uh AOC and Dan Goldman
who's one of the managers of Donald
Trump's impeachment along with several
others who've written a very strong and
pointed letter not to Clarence not to
Clarence Thomas's boss not to John
Roberts the chief justice but right to
Clarence Thomas associate
Justice and here's what it says I'm
going to read you the the the really
important
parts uh dear Justice Thomas on December
15 2023 we wrote imploring that you
recuse yourself that means Step Off the
Bench from any participation in the case
of US versus Trump that's the main
underlying Jack Smith special counsel
case in the District of Columbia given
your wife's intimate involvement in Mr
Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the
2020
election um more particularly they refer
to jinny Thomas's substantial
involvement in the events leading up to
Jan 6's Insurrection and the financial
incentive it it preent it presents to
your household if Trump is reelected all
of these things being disqualifying they
then walk through the actual code of
conduct that we're now uh we're now
waiting around for Clarence Thomas to uh
decide whether it applies to him or not
in Canon
3B that provision of the code of conduct
it states that quote a Justice should
disqualify himself or herself in a
proceeding in which the Justice's
impartiality might be reasonably
questioned where that is where an
unbiased and reasonable person who is
aware of all relevant circumstances
would doubt that the Justice could
fairly discharge his or her duties the
code details such instances including
those in which the Justice knows that
the Justice or the Justice's spouse has
a financial interest in the subject
matter in controversy or in a party to
the proceeding Trump or any other
interest that could be affected
substantially by the outcome of the
proceeding and that's the framework and
then they go off and tell Clarence
Thomas exactly how those how those
factors here have been implicated and he
should disqualify himself so they start
with her testimony before the Jan 6
Committee just to remind everybody or
those that didn't know when when Jenny
Thomas was uh summoned to testify before
the house Chan 6 committee your wife
told the committee this is the letter
back to Thomas that she attended the Jan
6 stop the steel rally where Mr Trump
jined up the attendees into a mob
whipped them
up but what she left out is that she was
instrumental in planning it bringing the
insurrectionist to the capital your wife
was one of nine board members for a
conservative political group that helped
lead to stop the steel movement a
movement which culminated in the Jan 6
attack that the Colorado Supreme Court
deemed an Insurrection it is
Unthinkable it is Unthinkable that you
could be impartial in deciding whether
an event your wife personally organized
qualifies as an Insurrection that would
prevent someone from holding the office
of President just think about that for a
minute she not only organized it she was
paid to organize it so there's part of
the financial incentive that we talked
about she's not just a witness to the
Jan 6 um uh Rally or on the ellipse she
organizes it and then it goes on to say
on page two of the letter furthermore
your wife of 36 years Miss Thomas has
shown a fervent interest in or bias in
favor of Mr
Trump um she urged Mr Trump's Chief of
Staff the indicted Mark Meadows to
pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn
the 2020 presidential election with
dozens of text messages starting
immediately after election day and
ending only days after the Jan 6th
attack on the US capital not before
she's still texting him after the
Insurrection she also signed a letter
urging then minority leader McCarthy to
remove Adam K kininger and Liz Cheney
from the Jan 6 committee that is the
foundational basis of having Donald
Trump removed from the ballot Miss
Thomas was a witness due to her intimate
involvement and that committee's report
is integral to the case and now they hit
Clarence and Jenny Thomas where they
live in their pocketbook this is the
same group of people that have taken
millions of dollars of lavish trips from
right-wing Maga uh extremists who have
business before the court who have sold
and participated real estate
transactions with right-wing Maga people
or people who have business before the
court who have accepted Gifts of tuition
for nephews from people who have
business before the court who have filed
Amicus or friends of the court brief or
actually are litigants before the court
so they've never seen a
um a financial incentive that they
haven't ignored they've never seen one
that was worth disqualifying them and
since the Supreme Court back where I the
code of conduct has made this self-
policing there is no way to file a
motion to disqualify or recuse a United
States Supreme Court member you can at
the trial court level there is a process
for the litigants the parties based on
the facts in the law to disqualify a
trial judge you can't do it at the
Supreme Court level even the chief judge
chief justice Roberts can't go to
Clarence Thomas and tap him on the
shoulder and say you're out Clarence
we're going with eight on this one
you're code of conduct has been violated
we have to leave it to the person who
actually is the person charged with um
violating the code of conduct to decide
whether he has violated the code of
conduct how ludicrous um it's not even
self- policing it's it's Justice by
Justice policing with no alternative or
appeal
process so they hit him where they live
financially
finally it is foreseeable on the bottom
of page two of the letter that your
wife's earning capacity will be
positively impacted should the court
Grant the relief sought by the former
president in other words put him back on
the ballot and help him become president
again they then outline that before
Trump was President her consultancy at
an entity called Liberty Consulting made
up to less than $115,000 after he was
elected to try to file briefs and do
lobbying to help his uh Trump's policy
policies like the Muslim ban and things
related to covid it skyrocketed to up to
$250,000 uh Miss Thomas's professional
and financial interests the letter goes
on to say are aligned with Mr Trump
becoming president again and should he
be reelected it is likely that your
wife's income will be favorably impacted
your wife's income benefits your
household Therefore your family and by
extension you personally you Clarence
Thomas have a financial stake in the
outcome of this case which disqualifies
you from any involvement in it to
protect this is how the letter ends to
protect the Court's Integrity whatever's
left of it and the legitimacy of its
decision in this Monumental case you sir
must recuse yourself now we'll have to
sit back and watch it's up to Clarence
Thomas again it can only be where we do
a pressure campaign as led by the
Democrats in the house and the Senate
and by the midest touch network and on
legal AF where we shine the CLE light on
it and we don't let up with a ention or
pressure until he relents and if he
doesn't relent then we can call out the
United States Supreme Court and for the
illegitimate process by which they
render their decisions related to Donald
Trump can't ignore it they want to bury
their heads in the sand we can't we
don't have that luxury when our
constitutional republic and Liberty is
hanging by a thread in the balance
that's why we do hot takes like this
that's why we do legal AF at the
intersection of law politics and justice
to bring it to you to call out justices
that are conflicted to call out Donald
Trump when he takes inconsistent
positions in briefs hoping nobody will
notice we notice Jack Smith notices
prosecutors notices attorney general's
notice and judges notice and the public
at large who's going to make up that
jury notice and we're going to help
bring it to their attention one place on
the mightest touch Network this is uh
the only place exclusively don't turn
that dial as they used to say stay right
here help them get to 2 million they're
about 80,000 people away from turning
the do the odometer over to 2 million
free subscribers help them get there
this is the network you've been waiting
for and without you we're nothing it's
an independent Grassroots social media
platform devoted to this kind of
thinking this kind of analysis we don't
blow smoke or Sunshine especially when
it comes to law and politics so follow
us on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8:00
p.m. eastern time on a show we call
legal AF and then on hot takes like this
one about every day if not every hour at
that same intersection law politics and
Justice give me a thumbs up if you like
what we're doing here helps keep me on
the air till my next hot take till my
next legal AF says Michael popac
reporting thanks so much for watching

******************************

Congress of the United States
Washington, DC 20515

December 15, 2023

The Honorable Clarence Thomas
Associate Justice
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20543

Dear Justice Thomas,

This week, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to decide a key question in the case of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, a case in which Mr. Trump is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, conspiring to obstruct the certification of the electoral vote, and actually obstructing the certification of the electoral vote.1 In this week’s filing, Mr. Smith asked the Supreme Court to grant certiorari to decide “Whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”2 The Supreme Court has directed Mr. Trump to file a response to the request for certiorari.3 For the reasons explained below, we strongly implore you to exercise your discretion and recuse yourself from this and any other decisions in the case of United States v. Trump.

Faith in the Supreme Court has plummeted, and fewer than half of all Americans trust the Supreme Court.4 Public perception is growing that the Supreme Court flouts the rules, in large part due to your recently reported ties to and luxury travel with billionaire Republican donors that you hid for decades.5 The public pressure has grown so intense, that last month the Supreme Court announced a formal—though unenforceable—Code of Conduct.6 You signed the Code, publicly proclaiming that you subscribe to it. In Cannon 3B, the Code states that “A Justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the Justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”7 The Code details such instances, including those in which “The Justice or Justice’s spouse…is known by the Justice:…(iii) to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding; or (iv) likely to be a material witness in the proceeding.”8

We know through public reporting and through Congressional investigations that your wife, Virginia (“Ginni”) Thomas was intimately involved in Mr. Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to obstruct its certification – the very conspiracies at issue in this case. Your wife not only attended the pro-Trump rally that preceded the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, she was one of nine board members for a conservative political group that helped lead the “Stop the Steal” movement.9 She traded at least 29 text messages with Mr. Trump’s Chief of Staff (Mark Meadows) in which she urged him to “pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” starting immediately after Election Day 2020 and ending only days after the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.10 In these text messages, your wife pleaded with Mr. Meadows to continue the fight to overturn the election results, calling the election a “heist” and saying in one message: “Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud. Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”11 Your wife also pressed Arizona and Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory, urging them to set aside President Biden’s popular-vote victory and to choose their own presidential electors, despite state law to the contrary.12 These details about your wife’s activities raise serious questions about your ability to be or even to appear impartial in any cases before the Supreme Court involving the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection.

If you want to show the American people that the Supreme Court’s recent Code of Conduct is worth more than the paper it is written on, you must do the honorable thing and recuse yourself from any decisions in the case of United States v. Trump.

Sincerely,

Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr.
Member of Congress

Jamie Raskin
Member of Congress

Madeleine Dean
Member of Congress
Sheila Jackson Lee
Member of Congress

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Member of Congress

Gerald E. Connolly
Member of Congress

Dan Goldman
Member of Congress

Jasmine Crockett
Member of Congress
_______________

Notes:

1 Indictment, United States v. Trump, (D.D.C. Aug 01, 2023), available at: https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Tr ... cr_257.pdf.
2 Petition for Writ of Certiorari, United States v. Trump, __U.S. __ (2023), available at: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/ ... Donald%20J. %20Trump%20Petition.pdf.
3 ABC News, “Supreme Court will consider special counsel’s request to rule on Trump’s immunity in Jan. 6 case,” Katherine Faulders and Alexander Mallin, December 11, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/special-couns ... limmunity/ story?id=105556211.
4 Gallup, “Approval of U.S. Supreme Court Down to 40%, a New Low,” Jeffrey M. Jones, September 23, 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/354908/app ... w-low.aspx.
5 See collection of 2023 stories at ProPublica, “Friends of the Court: SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships with Billionaire Donors, https://www.propublica.org/series/supreme-court-scotus.
6 ABC News, “Under ethics pressure, Supreme Court announces it’s adopting code of conduct,” Devin Dwyer, November 12, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ethics- ... 104856337; U.S. Supreme Court, Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, available at: https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code ... 3_2023.pdf.
7 Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, Cannon 3B(2).
8 Id. Cannon 3B(2)(d).
9 CNN Politics: “January 6 committee has text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, Ryan Nobles, Annie Grayer, Zachary Cohen, and Jamie Gangel, March 25, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics ... tmessages/ index.html; New York Times, “The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas,” Danny Hakim and Jo Becker, February 22, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/maga ... homas.html.
10 Washington Post, “Virginia Thomas urged White House chief to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, texts show,” Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, March 24, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ows-texts; CBS News, “Ginni Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, exchanged texts with Mark Meadows about efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” March 24, 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ginni-thom ... n-overturn.
11 CNN Politics: “January 6 committee has text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, Ryan Nobles, Annie Grayer, Zachary Cohen, and Jamie Gangel, March 25, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics ... tmessages/ index.html
12 Washington Post, “Ginni Thomas pressed Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory,” Emma Brown, September 1, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investig ... r-tauchen/.

[admin]

John Oliver Offers Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas $1 Million a Year to Resign
by Colby Hall
MediaIte
Feb 19th, 2024, 7:17 am
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/john-oliver ... to-resign/

John Oliver made Justice Clarence Thomas an offer too good to refuse, but he has 30 days to take a cool million a year — plus a sweet bus — or it goes away.

Oliver made the stunning offer at the end of Sunday evening’s Last Week Tonight, referencing numerous reports that Thomas never declared lavish vacations with mega-wealthy Republican donors to luxurious resorts.

As the show ended, Oliver addressed Thomas and said, “Lot on your plate right now. From stripping away women’s rights to hearing January 6th cases, you definitely shouldn’t be hearing two potentially helping rollback decades of federal regulations.”

“And you deserve a break, you know, away from the meanness of Washington so you can be surrounded by the regular folks whose lives you made demonstrably worse for decades. Now. The good news is, I think we can help you with that because since your favorite mode of travel might be in need of an upgrade, we are excited to offer you this brand new top-of-the-line cray boat marathon motor coach!”

Oliver then touted the $2 million touring bus, complete with king-sized bed, fireplace, and four televisions, before returning to address the Supreme Court justice’s inner dialog.

“I think you’re thinking, what would my friend say if I take this offer? Will they judge me as they sit in their boardrooms and mega yachts and Hitler shrines? Will they still treat me to luxury vacations and sing songs about me off their phones?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, that’s the beauty of friendship, Clarence. If they’re real friends, they’ll love you no matter what your job is. So I guess this might be the perfect way to find out who your real friends actually are. ”

“So that’s the offer. $1 million a year, Clarence. And a brand new condo on wheels. And all you have to do to return is sign the contract and get the fuck off the Supreme Court. Talk it over with your totally best friend in the whole world. Because the clock starts now. Thirty days, Clarence,” Oliver concluded.” Let’s do this!”