Clarence Thomas: More Money, Or I'll Quit

Due to the tremendous investigative journalism of ProPublica, we've learned over the past year of far right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' affinity for expensive gifts from Republican oligarchs. From loans for a hyper-expensive RV to trips to Tahiti and elsewhere, Thomas' extensive grifting has led to calls for ethics rules for the Supreme Court. Today, ProPublica reports on an incident where Thomas' threatened to quit the Supreme Court if his salary wasn't increased from $173,600 per year:

"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.

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.'"  [snip]

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."  (our emphasis)

Over the years, Thomas has grown accustomed to five-star beach resorts and trips on private yachts and jets supplied by his right-wing benefactors. His champagne tastes weren't supported by his humble Supreme Court salary, so he started taking what in any other universe would be considered bribes or payoffs. The greedy jurist must feel that his usually silent presence on the Supreme Court warranted a big boost in pay to live a life of luxury, screw the optics. We've had some execrable Justices (Roger Taney for example), and corrupt grifter Clarence Thomas is right there with them at the nadir.

(photo: A smug Clarence Thomas. Eric Lee via Getty Images)

 

More Billionaire-Funded Vacations For Clarence Thomas Uncovered

 

 

What a corrupt, grubbing little plutocrat gofer:

During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.

Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:

At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.

This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.

While some of the hospitality, such as stays in personal homes, may not have required disclosure, Thomas appears to have violated the law by failing to disclose flights, yacht cruises and expensive sports tickets, according to ethics experts.

Perhaps even more significant, the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties, told ProPublica. “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.”... (our emphasis)

Thomas, his coup- friendly wife Ginni, and their ideological soulmate "Justice" Alito believe they're not accountable.  As long as there's no ethics code for the Court, no penalties for ethics violations, and no ability for Democrats to impeach, they're right.

(Photo:  The laugh's on us -- Thomas, his wife, and the man who wrecked the Court/ Drew Angerer, Getty Images)

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

... For the better part of an hour Saturday, dozens of teenagers and their parents snaked around the towering stacks of tomes inside Kutztown’s Firefly Books and sometimes spilled onto the sidewalks of this quaint Berks County college town — most of them clutching the book that conservatives on the local school board didn’t want them to read.

Calliope Price, 14 and in the eighth grade, came out to meet Alan Gratz — author of the “banned” young-adult novel about climate change, Two Degrees — after hearing about the controversy and realizing that Gratz had also written her favorite book, which is called, ironically, Ban This Book. Holding her now-signed copy, she weighed in on Kutztown Area Middle School canceling a planned “One School, One Book” program amid conservative complaints a climate book would somehow scare or indoctrinate adolescents.

“I think it’s really stupid,” she said.

Price has a good point. Right-wingers who thought they’d scored a victory by canceling the middle school program only ensured that more young folks in Berks County would actually read Two Degrees — a tale of teens dramatically fighting catastrophes brought on by climate change. They were helped by the progressive grassroots organization Red Wine & Blue, which raised money to buy 200 copies to give away to Kutztown youth. Gratz, who’d long planned to come to Kutztown University for its annual conference on children’s literature, arranged to hold both afternoon and evening book signings to meet as many young fans as possible.

Saturday was the day that the book banners lost in Kutztown...

They're going to go down all over the country, because people are standing up and speaking out.

The bad:

Over the last two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial disclosure forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership.

But that company — a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives — has not existed since 2006.

That year, the family real estate company was shut down and a separate firm was created, state incorporation records show. The similarly named firm assumed control of the shuttered company’s land leasing business, according to property records.

Since that time, however, Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company — between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years — and there is no mention of the newer firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, on the forms.

The previously unreported misstatement might be dismissed as a paperwork error. But it is among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades, a review of those records shows. Together, they have raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public...

"Missstatement"??  Sounds more like it could be a money laundering scheme to hide income from the Harlan Crows of the world. 

The ugly:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s new debt limit negotiating proposal set to be unveiled Monday morning will include broad moves to restrict food assistance for millions of low-income Americans. His GOP colleagues in the Senate aren’t optimistic any of those measures will survive.

McCarthy’s initial list calls for expanding the age bracket for people who must meet work requirements in order to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Food Assistance Program or SNAP, while closing what Republicans say are “loopholes” in existing restrictions, according to two people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Cutting spending on federal food assistance programs is a perennial Republican target, and House conservatives are eager to make it part of any agreement to raise the debt ceiling, which the country must do later this year to avoid a default crisis. But Senate Democrats have said such measures are dead on arrival in the upper chamber, and with the help of key Senate Republicans, they have killed off a series of similar House GOP efforts over the years — including a 2018 push involving McCarthy and his current top debt limit lieutenant Rep. Garret Graves (La.). The early response from Senate Republicans this time around does not bode well for a different outcome in 2023...

Let's say it together:  Afflict the afflicted, and comfort the comfortable.  That's the eternal Republican ethos. 

No Justice

Think Progress has a good article on the ethics problems of Justice Clarence "Long Dong Silver"* Thomas, which include some unseemly acceptance of favors from right-wing sugar daddies. In the latest revelation, the Justice's flaky wingnut wife, Ginnie, received $500,000 from Dallas real estate mogul Harlan Crow (of the Trammel Crow fortune) for her tea party organization, in addition to a bible once belonging to civil rights pioneer Frederick Douglass valued at $19,000.

Think Long Dong will recuse himself from matters involving the teatards or Harlan Crow? Riiiiight. You would be wrong, because hizzoner will always see himself the victim of a left-wing "lynch mob" because he chose to cash in with the Strom Thurmonds and Trent Lotts of the Rethuglican movement. And perish the thought that he would resign. He's a bitter ender if there ever was one.
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* Lest we forget, here's the context for his nickname.