Senate Committee Subpoenaing Justice Thomas' Cronies

 

Senate Democrats are ramping up plans to get to the bottom of the connections between Republican billionaire Harlan Crow, far- right Christofascist judicial "activist" and Federalist Society board co- chair Leonard Leo, and ethically challenged Justice Clarence "RV" Thomas: 

Senate Democrats announced plans Monday to vote to subpoena a pair of wealthy conservatives and a judicial activist who have underwritten or organized lavish travel for some Supreme Court justices, a move that adds to the pressure on the high court to strengthen its ethics policies.

Senate Judiciary Committee leaders said they would vote as soon as Nov. 9 to authorize subpoenas for information from Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, a close friend and benefactor of Justice Clarence Thomas, and from Leonard Leo, the conservative judicial activist. Senate Democrats do not need the vote of any Republican on the committee to authorize the subpoenas. No separate vote by the full Senate is necessary.

Democratic lawmakers are seeking detailed information about the full extent of Crow’s gifts to Thomas. News reports about the justice’s failure over many years to report private jet travel, real estate deals and other gifts from Crow have prompted calls for the court to strengthen its ethics rules and for greater transparency about the justices’ potential conflicts and recusal decisions.

“By accepting these lavish, undisclosed gifts, the justices have enabled their wealthy benefactors and other individuals with business before the Court to gain private access to the justices while preventing public scrutiny of this conduct,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in the joint announcement. “It is imperative that we understand the full extent of how people with interests before the Court are able to use undisclosed gifts to gain private access to the justices.”

Senate Democrats have backed legislation that would impose disclosure rules on the court that are as strict as those that apply to members of the House and the Senate. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has suggested the court would act on its own as an independent branch of government to demonstrate to the public that it adheres to the “highest standards of conduct.”  (our emphasis)

Yeah, how's that been working out?  A reason why it's taken so long to get this hearing underway is Roberts' foot- dragging on establishing SCOTUS' own ethics rules.  It was time to force the issue for Senate Dems.

Not surprisingly, Christofascist judicial activist/ rat Leo has indicated he won't cooperate with the Committee, because he would have some 'splaining to do should he ever show up.  We know he believes in democratic institutions, ethics, and the rule of law, of course.

(Image:  Leo, second from left, Thomas and Crow on the right, at Crow's vacation resort / painting by Sharif Tarabay)

Christofascist Judicial Activist Secretly Paid Ginni Thomas For "Consulting Work"

The stench grows:

Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.

Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”

Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, sent the Judicial Education Project a $25,000 bill that day. Per Leo’s instructions, it listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting,” the documents show.

In all, according to the documents, the Polling Company paid Thomas’s firm, Liberty Consulting, $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, and it expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. The documents reviewed by The Post do not indicate the precise nature of any work Thomas did for the Judicial Education Project or the Polling Company.

The arrangement reveals that Leo, a longtime Federalist Society leader and friend of the Thomases, has functioned not only as an ideological ally of Clarence Thomas’s but also has worked to provide financial remuneration to his family. And it shows Leo arranging for the money to be drawn from a nonprofit that soon would have an interest before the court... (our emphasis)

There's more at the link, but you get the general idea. This report follows on the heels of ProPublica's latest blockbuster story about billionaire sugar daddy Harlan Crow paying the pricey private boarding school costs for the great-nephew of Clarence Thomas, a favor Thomas somehow neglected to report.

Devout Catholic Republican Leo, as the article points out, has been instrumental in salting right- wing Republicans into the federal judiciary for years, including all 6 Catholic forced- birth Republicans currently serving on the Republican Supreme Court.  That he would be making payments under the table to the loony, seditious wife of Thomas is shocking but not surprising. That professional liar Kellyanne Conway would be involved in the money laundering scheme is also shocking but not surprising.  These people are all about money and power, and they believe they're above the law (and so far, they are), and that the ends justify the means.  We just see them as the corrupt ideologues that they are.

BONUS:  In a nutshell --

 

Creating false invoices to conceal the improper use of tax-deductible charitable contributions is ... serious.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 5, 2023

 

"No mention of Ginni, obviously." pic.twitter.com/BFEHUaIQFE

— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 5, 2023

 

(Image:  he's also a sugar daddy to you/ via Accountable.US Facebook)