Earlier than he started receiving costly presents and luxurious holidays from Harlan Crow and different conservative benefactors, Clarence Thomas reportedly expressed important issues about his monetary state of affairs—even prompting issues from a Republican lawmaker greater than 20 years in the past that he would possibly resign from the Supreme Court docket if he couldn’t enhance his wage.
“A number of justices will go away quickly” if justices aren’t given a elevate, Thomas informed then Republican Consultant Cliff Stearns in 2000, as they flew residence from a conservative convention at a Georgia resort, in response to ProPublica.
“I intend to look right into a invoice to lift the salaries of members of The Supreme Court docket,” Stearns wrote to Thomas afterward. “As we agreed, it’s value rather a lot to People to have the Structure correctly interpreted.”
Congress finally didn’t give justices the foremost elevate Thomas had pushed for, nor did it raise the ban on justices accepting talking charges, as he had additionally sought. However a brand new ProPublica report raises questions as to how and why elite conservatives started lavishing the right-wing justice with presents quickly after—presents that always went undisclosed by Thomas, in obvious defiance of federal legislation.
On the time of his dialog with Stearns in 2000, Thomas made $173,600 yearly however was tons of of hundreds of {dollars} in debt. One of many least rich members of the court docket, he was reportedly pissed off as he sought to finance his way of life and lift his younger grandnephew—and, as a justice with a lifetime appointment, he had no non-public sector payday ready for him on the opposite facet of his tenure except he left the bench. This prospect involved Republicans who prized Thomas’s conservative jurisprudence.
“His significance as a conservative was paramount,” Stearns informed ProPublica. “We wished to ensure he felt comfy in his job, and he was being paid correctly.”
Thomas’s state of affairs did enhance, however not by way of official Congressional motion: He acquired presents, journey, and yacht rides from conservative energy gamers like Crow, who additionally paid for Thomas’s grandnephew’s non-public faculty tuition and purchased three properties from the justice and his household. The Supreme Court docket didn’t instantly return Vainness Honest‘s request for remark, and Thomas and Crow have beforehand denied any impropriety. However revelations in regards to the relationship have helped undermine the excessive court docket’s legitimacy, whose conservative majority has at instances appeared overtly political in its strategy—together with within the Dobbs choice Samuel Alito pushed by way of in 2022.
After earlier revelations about Thomas, stress from Democrats, watchdogs, and the general public led John Roberts to implement a proper code of ethics that requires justices to execute their duties “pretty, impartially, and diligently” and to keep away from “political exercise.” However the brand new pointers don’t go practically far sufficient, missing an enforcement mechanism and leaving justices to police themselves—one thing the newest Thomas revelations clarify they will’t be trusted to do.
These questions of judicial integrity are taking over added urgency because the Supreme Court docket considers the immunity protection Donald Trump has put forth in an effort to toss the legal prices he’s dealing with for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss. Democrats, together with Hank Johnson of the Home Judiciary Committee, have referred to as on Thomas to recuse himself from that case, given the involvement of his spouse—the conservative activist Ginni Thomas—in these very election subversion efforts. “Your spouse’s actions elevate critical questions on your means to be and even to seem neutral in any circumstances earlier than the Supreme Court docket involving the 2020 election and the January sixth rebellion,” Johnson and his colleagues wrote to Thomas final week. However as Thomas has not appeared to let moral issues stand in his approach earlier than, he has not given a lot motive to anticipate this time might be any completely different.
