Democrats lash out at Justice Clarence Thomas but their plans to investigate ethics allegations are unclear

CNN
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Senate Democrats railed against Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday amid reports that the conservative Supreme Court undisclosed Luxury travel, gifts and real estate transactions involve a major GOP donor, but their plans to investigate the conservative jurist remain unclear.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin has promised that his committee will hold a hearing on the alleged ethics violations in the coming weeks, but shared no details when pressed by CNN about the alleged misconduct. whether lawmakers are seeking testimony from Thomas or others who may be aware of his ties to the donor, Texas-based billionaire Harlan Crow.

When asked if a subpoena was on the table, Durbin said there had been no decision on that yet. He said it was “too early” to share more information about what his committee’s hearing on the ethics of the Supreme Court would look like. He and other Justice Democrats sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts last week urging him to open an investigation into Thomas’ allegations.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that “the American people deserve all of the facts surrounding illegal conduct. the blatant law of Justice Thomas.”

“I hope that [Thomas] will appear voluntarily, and if not, we should consider subpoenas for him and others, like Harlan Crow, who have information,” Blumenthal said.

Other Democrats on the committee said Tuesday they were holding off with Durbin, who gathered with Democrats Monday night to discuss their strategy for Thomas.

Meanwhile, Republicans seem mostly united in Thomas’ defense, suggesting the court can do its own thing.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked Democrats for criticizing the court and said he trusted Roberts “to deal with the internal affairs of this court.”

McConnell told reporters on Tuesday: “It seems to me that the Democrats have spent a lot of time criticizing each member of the court and pursuing the court as an institution.

Bringing more transparency to the high court has previously received some partisan support, but the court’s tilt to the right – especially with the three judges that former President Donald Trump has brought up bench – has increased the partisan risk around the issue. In recent years, the conservative majority has handled major rulings repealing abortion rights, deregulating gun laws and controlling the power of the executive branch – all of which make the Party Democrats vehemently oppose it.

Even as Senate Democrats have yet to work out their own plan of response to Thomas’ allegations, they have sought to highlight the issue and frame it in a broad effort. their superiority to the Supreme Court’s code of conduct, which is excluded from much of the code of ethics applicable to lower ranks of the federal judiciary.

Senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said at a Judiciary Committee hearing for three lower court candidates on Tuesday: “I am concerned by the recent reports. here details potentially unethical – even potentially illegal – behavior at the highest levels of our judiciary. “It goes without saying that judges at all levels are subject to strict and enforceable ethical standards.”

Durbin said in a statement that Congress does not need to wait for the courts to act.

“The Supreme Court does not need to wait for Congress to clean up its actions; the judges can act today if they want, and if the courts don’t act, then Congress must act,” Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said in the Senate Tuesday.

Consecutive reports on ProPublica this month detailed how luxury travels and gifts for Thomas from Crow — and even a real estate transaction — went unreported in the disclosures. Thomas’s annual financials.

Thomas has said that Crows-sponsored trips and gifts for him and his family went unreported because he had been advised he was not required to do so, under the exemptions in court disclosure rules for so-called “personal hospitality”. .” After legislators scrutinized those rules, the Judiciary Conference – which acts as a policymaking body for the federal judiciary – recently closed a gap in the law. the rules seem to have covered up some of the hospitality Thomas received. Thomas said he plans to follow that updated guidance in the future, and a source close to justice also told CNN in recent days that he plans to revise his declaration form to report it. real estate transaction, the sale of his mother’s house to Crow.

Sen. Mitt Romney said Monday night, in a rare comment from a Republican criticizing Thomas’s lack of transparency: “If the reports are accurate, it’s lousy.

Other Republicans have lined up to defend justice – who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George HW Bush in 1991 – and say Congress is not the place to push for a code of ethics. Germany to the high court.

Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, suggested that the charges against Thomas were part of a “decade-long effort to target Clarence Thomas by liberal groups” This”.

This is not the first time Thomas has been at the center of an ethical controversy. Last year, CNN reported that his wife, Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, texted Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, about the former president’s efforts to overturn the failure. in his 2020 election and her political lobbying has long raised questions about the timing of the judges’ mandate. to withdraw from the case.

However, Republicans showed little interest in joining Democrats in using the law to impose a code of ethics on judges.

South Dakota Senator John Thune, GOP Senate, said: “The court has, in historical fashion, controlled itself, who said Thomas has been a ‘solid justice on the court for many years and pardoned himself.” there.”

“Let’s see what the courts do,” South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told CNN Tuesday. “I prefer them to do it internally.”