Fix the Court?

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Since 20 years Supreme court judge Clarence Thomas has received luxury trips from the US billionaire Joh... ehm Harlan Crow for free. The cost of the latest trip to Flores, Indonesia was worth 500.000 $.

As public servant Thomas earns 285000 $.

https://www.propublica.org/article/c...vel-gifts-crow

AOC means on Twitter:

This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking - almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached. Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/16439...7-fe1787f1323b


I agree with her. What is even worse Thomas hasn't even published these gifts on his tax declaration.

Its time for a reform of the Supreme Court. They should be standing about any suspect of corruption. Even better partisanship. What do you think?

[alhoon]

I think that if what you say is true and a justice received a half-million trip as a "gift", he should be investigated for graft and corruption.

[Alastor]

First of all a tweet from AOC can never possibly be beyond partisanship. That she has the temerity to claim that is a red flag in itself. That's one. Second, what is there to fix? Justices can be impeached, there is a mechanism. If impeachment is toothless and why wouldn't it be when in recent years it's increasingly weaponised for petty party politicking that's a Congress problem, not a Supreme Court problem.

[Lord Thesaurian]

First of all a tweet from AOC can never possibly be beyond partisanship. That she has the temerity to claim that is a red flag in itself. That's one. Second, what is there to fix? Justices can be impeached, there is a mechanism. If impeachment is toothless and why wouldn't it be when in recent years it's increasingly weaponised for petty party politicking that's a Congress problem, not a Supreme Court problem.

The Democrats don’t like SCOTUS as an institution, and especially not in its current form. The majority of Democrats want to abolish it entirely. AOC herself has recently called for the impeachment of two other conservative justices because they overturned Roe v Wade, and demanded Democrats pack the court to undo the decision. It’s no surprise, then, that Democrats are seizing upon the prospect that Thomas violated ethics rules by going out on his friend’s yacht without voluntarily disclosing it as a potential conflict of interest, in order to attack the credibility of the Court itself by association.

It’s not immediately clear whether or not he would have been required to disclose the trips under current rules, or even what his friend might have sought to influence him for. Anyway, that’s where the “500,000 USD” figure comes from, and why Democrats are treating this is some kind of smoking gun, rather than a potential case of individual misconduct. They really are that desperate to punish him for leading the Court majority in overturning RvW, and to erode the conservative majority by getting another chance to appoint a left-leaning justice. They know the don’t have the support to make unrestricted abortion access mandatory across the country by legislative means.

[alhoon]

About that 500K$... where does the figure comes from? It is not impossible to be what LT said, vacations on the yaught of his friend. That is not the same as bribery and it is not 500K$. It is money the billionaire paid anyway and his friends were around to enjoy.

However... even if it is not 500K$ bribe, it does lead to influence. When your billionaire buddy takes you with him in vacations that most people can only dream of, that creates a link.

[Lord Thesaurian]

About that 500K$... where does the figure comes from? It is not impossible to be what LT said, vacations on the yaught of his friend. That is not the same as bribery and it is not 500K$. It is money the billionaire paid anyway and his friends were around to enjoy.

However... even if it is not 500K$ bribe, it does lead to influence. When your billionaire buddy takes you with him in vacations that most people can only dream of, that creates a link.

From the OP:

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

As you note, the “Clarence Thomas Bribed with 500k by Republican Megadonor” angle is speculative and confusing, albeit deliberate.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

About that 500K$... where does the figure comes from? It is not impossible to be what LT said, vacations on the yaught of his friend. That is not the same as bribery and it is not 500K$. It is money the billionaire paid anyway and his friends were around to enjoy.

However... even if it is not 500K$ bribe, it does lead to influence. When your billionaire buddy takes you with him in vacations that most people can only dream of, that creates a link.

What some legal laymen are saying is quite irrelevant.

Relevant are the legal facts:

Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet (Bombardier Global 5000 for 16 passengers) headed to Indonesia.

He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a (162-foot) superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

Members of Congress are generally prohibited from taking gifts worth $50 or more and would need pre-approval from an ethics committee to take many of the trips Thomas has accepted from Crow.

Federal judges sit in a unique position of public trust. They have lifetime tenure, a privilege intended to insulate them from the pressures and potential corruption of politics. A code of conduct for federal judges below the Supreme Court requires them to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.” Members of the high court, Chief Justice John Roberts has written, “consult” that code for guidance. The Supreme Court is left almost entirely to police itself.

https://www.propublica.org/article/c...vel-gifts-crow

Even if i travel from Hamburg to Walvis Bay Namibia on a freight ship i pay for 21 days (up to 2990,00 €).

https://www.langsamreisen.de/en/frei...a/south-africa

Thomas has saved a lot of money for a beyond first class trip because of the "hospitality" of his billionaire friend.

You can't say thats legal, even for a Surpreme Court Judge, Alhoon.

Edit:

In Thomas’ public appearances over the years, he has presented himself as an everyman with modest tastes.

“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” Thomas said in a recent interview for a documentary about his life, which Crow helped finance.
“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” Thomas said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”

Thats my favourite part.

[swabian]

The thought of a compromised US supreme court is truly worrisome. Apparently Thomas faces serious accusations now. This cannot be ignored.

[alhoon]

You can't say thats legal, even for a Surpreme Court Judge, Alhoon.

I can say it is unethical and I can say it is suspicious.
I can't say if it is legal or not though.

But I do think the "no gifts without approval" should be expanded to include supreme court members and state governors, state politicians and the like.

[Gaidin]

From the OP:

As you note, the “Clarence Thomas Bribed with 500k by Republican Megadonor” angle is speculative and confusing, albeit deliberate.

Well. There's the time he sold the property he didn't live in for more than a thousand dollars and didn't declare it as required by federal law.

[Roma_Victrix]

It’s not immediately clear whether or not he would have been required to disclose the trips under current rules, or even what his friend might have sought to influence him for.

I guarantee if one of the liberal justices on the SCOTUS were doing this you would be blowing a gasket right now. The criticism Thomas has received is warranted given not only the private jet rides and vacation trips he and his wife Ginni have enjoyed at the expense of Harlan Crow, but the guy literally allows Thomas's elderly mother to live rent-free on his property.

GOP megadonor Harlan Crow isn't charging Clarence Thomas' mother rent. Zillow estimates suggest that would have saved her $155,000 since 2014.

That's on top of everything else. It is corruption in plain sight and AOC's wording of "cartoonish" levels of corruption fit the bill here. Instead of pointing fingers elsewhere, maybe recognize that the person who has tarnished the legacy of the SCOTUS is indeed Thomas (if the Anita Hill hearings weren't bad enough, and admittedly then Senator Joe Biden was there to help Thomas secure his seat amid allegations of sexual impropriety). Crow has been schmoozing with Thomas for decades; it's probably safe to assume he had an influential hand in many of Thomas's rulings, not just one in particular.

[Alastor]

Instead of pointing fingers elsewhere, maybe recognize that the person who has tarnished the legacy of the SCOTUS is indeed Thomas.

That's not the point though. The point is that this is being used to amplify calls to "fix the court" which roughly translates to "rig the court" when it comes from hyper-partisans like AOC. Even if everything you just said about Thomas is true, it still doesn't mean the court needs fixing, it only means Thomas needs to be impeached. There is a mechanism in place for that and it's Congress that has the responsibility to do it. If Congress can't do its job, Congress needs to be fixed, not the Supreme Court.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I guarantee if one of the liberal justices on the SCOTUS were doing this you would be blowing a gasket right now. The criticism Thomas has received is warranted given not only the private jet rides and vacation trips he and his wife Ginni have enjoyed at the expense of Harlan Crow, but the guy literally allows Thomas's elderly mother to live rent-free on his property.

GOP megadonor Harlan Crow isn't charging Clarence Thomas' mother rent. Zillow estimates suggest that would have saved her $155,000 since 2014.

I don’t remember if I specifically complained when left wing groups spent millions in dark money to pressure Senators to oppose Trump’s SCOTUS replacement for Ginsburg, and called for people to harass and attack conservative justices at their homes over Dobbs v Jackson - unlike in Thomas’s case where we don’t even know if any laws were broken or what it was his friend would have been receiving in exchange for his generosity. Even Biden’s White House openly supported the illegal rallies. Muh fiery but mostly peaceful. If I had complained, I probably wouldn’t suggest an individual case of potential failure to disclose a conflict of interest is a reflection on the credibility of SCOTUS, because I’m not interested in abolishing the Court altogether like Democrats are.

That's on top of everything else. It is corruption in plain sight and AOC's wording of "cartoonish" levels of corruption fit the bill here. Instead of pointing fingers elsewhere, maybe recognize that the person who has tarnished the legacy of the SCOTUS is indeed Thomas (if the Anita Hill hearings weren't bad enough, and admittedly then Senator Joe Biden was there to help Thomas secure his seat amid allegations of sexual impropriety). Crow has been schmoozing with Thomas for decades; it's probably safe to assume he had an influential hand in many of Thomas's rulings, not just one in particular.

Just like Trump rigged the election on Putin’s behalf over a pee tape, I’m sure. In the real world, proof of bribery requires establishing corrupt intent to influence a given official in violation of his lawful duty. Thomas may or may not have done something improper; we don’t have intent or even a violation, though Democrats can always try to impeach him since that doesn’t require a legal burden of proof. They’re good at that. Crushing on AOC is fine, she still has a few good years left, to each his own, and so on. That doesn’t lend any credibility to her blatant attempts to eject or neutralize conservative justices on the Court by any means necessary.

[Infidel144]

I don’t remember if I specifically complained when left wing groups spent millions in dark money to pressure Senators to oppose Trump’s SCOTUS replacement for Ginsburg, and called for people to harass and attack conservative justices at their homes over Dobbs v Jackson - unlike in Thomas’s case where we don’t even know if any laws were broken or what it was his friend would have been receiving in exchange for his generosity.

This was written about by the NYT back in 2011:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/u.../19thomas.html

But we all know what the real problem is. Thomas is black. Democrats still think they own blacks. They get all upset when blacks step off their plantation.

[Lord Thesaurian]

This was written about by the NYT back in 2011:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/u.../19thomas.html

But we all know what the real problem is. Thomas is black. Democrats still think they own blacks. They get all upset when blacks step off their plantation.

Lol forgot about that. Apparently AOC and Pro Publica did too.

[Gaidin]

unlike in Thomas’s case where we don’t even know if any laws were broken or what it was his friend would have been receiving in exchange for his generosity.

Clarence Thomas was required by federal law to declare property sales worth more than 1000$ for properties he did not live at. Last I checked he was not living with his mother when Harlan Crow bought that property for above 130,000$ and continued to allow his mother to live there and then upgraded the property for free.