#Clarence (2013-2018)
Life is just one big adventure for Clarence and his two best friends, Jeff & Sumo.
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The federal courts will NOT refer to the Justice Department, allegations that
Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas may have violated ethics laws .
Thomas has agreed to follow updated requirements on reporting trips and gifts,
including clearer guidelines on hospitality from friends,
the U.S. Judicial Conference wrote to Democratic senators who had called for an investigation into undisclosed acceptance of luxury trips.
Thomas has previously said he wasn’t required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for by wealthy benefactors like Republican megadonor Harlan Crow
-- because they are close personal friends.
The court didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The Supreme Court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023 in the face of sustained criticism -- though the new code still lacks a means of enforcement.
It’s unclear whether the law allows the U.S. Judicial Conference to make a criminal referral regarding a Supreme Court justice,
U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad wrote.
He serves as secretary for the conference, which sets policy for the federal court system and is led by Chief Justice John Roberts.
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-ethics-clarence-thomas-f9c9fee5554e5859e7f6185698fb4f76
Replied in thread
@GottaLaff Ethics lapses, is a new one. Clowns like #Clarence Thomas have absolutely no ethics anywhere to be seen. All three branches of government, avoid ethics like facts.
New ethics inquiry details more trips by #Clarence #Thomas paid for by wealthy benefactors
Investigation by Senate Democrats found that Thomas accepted gifts and travel worth more than $4.75m since 1991
Republicans have said the investigation is a way to undermine the conservative majority court,
and all the Republicans on the committee protested against the subpoenas authorized for Crow and others as part of the investigation.
No Republicans signed on to the final report,
and no formal report from them was expected.
Thomas has said that he was not required to disclose the trips that he and his wife, Ginni, took with Crow
because the big donor is a close friend of the family and disclosure of that type of travel was not previously required.
The new ethics code does explicitly require it, and Thomas has since gone back and reported some travel.
Crow has maintained that he has never spoken with his friend about pending matters before the court.
The report traces back to the late justice Antonin Scalia, saying he “established the practice” of accepting undisclosed gifts and hundreds of trips over his decades on the bench.
The late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired justice Stephen Breyer also took subsided trips when they were on the bench but disclosed them on their annual forms, it said.
The investigation found that Thomas has accepted gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors worth more than $4.75m by some estimates since his 1991 confirmation
and failed to disclose much of it.
“The number, value and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” according to the report.
It also detailed a 2008 luxury trip to Alaska taken by Justice Samuel Alito.
He has said he was exempted from disclosing the trip under previous ethical rules.
Alito also declined calls to withdraw from cases involving Donald Trump or the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol
after flags associated with the riot were seen flying at two of Alito’s homes.
Alito has said the flags were raised by this wife.
Thomas has ignored calls to step aside from cases involving Trump, too.
Ginni Thomas supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/ethics-inquiry-supreme-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The Guardian · New ethics inquiry details more trips by Clarence Thomas paid for by wealthy benefactors
Leonard Leo, an influential conservative lawyer who advised Donald Trump during his first term forcefully pushed back Friday on talk that one or more conservative Supreme Court justices might retire after Trump again takes office in January.
Leo, who helped the president-elect select three Supreme Court picks during his first term, said in a statement that discussions of Justices #Clarence #Thomas, 76, or #Samuel A. #Alito Jr., 74, stepping down are unseemly.
The comment drew a rebuke from #Mike #Davis, a Trump aide who is advising him on potential judicial picks this time around,
while #Leonard #Leo appears to be keeping his distance.
“No one other than Justices Thomas and Alito knows when or if they will retire, and talking about them like meat that has reached its expiration date is unwise, uninformed, and, frankly, just crass,” Leo said in the statement.
“Justices Thomas and Alito have given their lives to our country and our Constitution, and should be treated with more dignity and respect than they are getting from some pundits.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/08/trump-supreme-court-leonard-leo-mike-davis/
The Washington Post · Leonard Leo, Trump aide Mike Davis spar over Supreme Court retirements
The Maga legal networks that could 
topple Planned Parenthood and gut women’s healthcare:
In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency,
a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society,
a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system.
As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, #Matthew #Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker.
“We are blessed to have Judge #Edith #Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced.
Jones, a longtime judge on the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
stepped on stage to introduce the evening’s guest, her friend,
the supreme court justice #Clarence #Thomas.
In her introduction, Jones also hailed the four new conservative judges Trump had appointed to join her on the appeals court.
“They’ve raised the bar for the fifth circuit since I got on,” she said. “And that’s thanks to the #Federalist #Society, to Leonard.”
#Leonard #Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd
as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas.
The justice was the featured speaker
but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room
– a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse
and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that,
in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion.
His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system
– one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood,
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women.
It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges
– from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court
– who are also linked to Leo
Three of the people on the stage at the Federalist Society event in Fort Worth in 2018
– Kacsmaryk, Jones and Leo
– have all played key roles in the case.
Though the stakes in this case couldn’t be higher for one of the nation’s oldest healthcare providers,
it is about more than abortion or healthcare.
The lawsuit is a parable about Leo’s power amid a presidential election season
whose outcome will probably determine to what extent Leo will continue to reshape the makeup and ideology of the nation’s courts.
The case was filed in February 2021 by an anti-abortion activist
who had conducted what he described as an
“extensive undercover investigation” of the organization.
He accuses Planned Parenthood of fraud
– claiming that it owes $1.8bn in fines, fees and reimbursements to the Medicaid program.
It’s an amount that could force the 108-year-old nonprofit healthcare provider to shutter clinics across the country.
The lawsuit is titled
"USA v Planned Parenthood"
because it was filed under a federal whistleblower law
that allows citizens to sue on behalf of the US government
over allegations that federal programs have been defrauded.
It is the latest in a series of legal actions that started in 2015
after Texas’s health officials used footage from the activist’s hidden-camera recordings as a basis to expel Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program.
The activist and his allies claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue and endangering pregnant people’s health.
Planned Parenthood repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Investigations in multiple states triggered by the video resulted in no disciplinary action against the healthcare provider.
The US government
– the source of 90% of the Medicaid funds paid to Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas
– disputes that Planned Parenthood owes the federal government money.
Federal officials say in a court filing that they found no evidence that Planned Parenthood had improperly billed for its services
and that they found no reason Planned Parenthood should have been removed from Medicaid.
Experts in healthcare law expected the case to be dismissed quickly.
Yet none of these facts are as important to understanding the significance of this case as knowing where it was filed:
in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas
– home to zero Planned Parenthood clinics.
This wasn’t an accident.
The US district court in Amarillo is under the purview of the US fifth circuit court of appeals,
making it likely that any upward appeals in Planned Parenthood’s case would be heard in the hard-right appeals court,
including by judges appointed by Trump or other conservative stalwarts like Jones.
And by the time the Planned Parenthood case was filed, Kacsmaryk
– that young attorney on stage making introductions at the Federalist Society event in Texas
– had been serving as the federal district court judge for Amarillo for nearly two years.
The Guardian · The Maga legal networks that could topple Planned Parenthood and gut women’s healthcare
Trump and guns loom large as scandal-hit supreme court gets back to work
The US Supreme Court embarks on its next nine-month term on Monday
with public confidence in the court still reeling
following recent extreme rulings
compounded by the ethically dubious conduct of some justices.
As the new term begins, the dust cloud kicked up by controversial opinions delivered at the end of the last term has barely settled.
In particular, the July decision of the six-to-three rightwing majority to grant Donald Trump substantial #immunity from criminal prosecution for actions he carried out as president astonished even seasoned observers of the country’s top court.
“That ruling was shocking, it was a rip to the constitutional fabric, and it gave vast new power to presidents to break the law,”
Michael Waldman said at a recent webinar by the Brennan Center, the progressive thinktank, of which he is president.
Despite the ructions caused by its actions, the increasingly hard-right court shows no signs of reining itself in.
The first big case of the new term that will be addressed on Tuesday takes the justices back into the vexed area of #gun #controls.
The case, Garland v VanDerStok, concerns “#ghost #guns”,
kits that can be assembled at home that are increasingly used to skirt around basic gun regulations
including serial numbers and federal background checks.
The Biden administration imposed restrictions on ghost guns in 2022 that were promptly blocked by a lower court, sending the case to the supreme court for adjudication.
The case has potentially huge implications for gun control. 
A decision that exempts ghost guns from basic regulations would punch a giant loophole in America’s already lax approach to firearms.
As it is, US courts are wrestling with chaos and confusion in the wake of recent supreme court gun rulings.
In his #Bruen judgment, the hard-right justice
#Clarence #Thomas invented a new rule that any handgun ban must comport with the country’s “history and tradition”
– a phrase which has set federal judges scrambling to try to make sense of it.
The ghost gun case has emerged out of the fifth circuit court of appeals,
which has the distinction of being the #most #rightwing appeals court in the US.
Six out of its 17 active judges were appointed by Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/06/trump-guns-us-supreme-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The Guardian · Trump and guns loom large as scandal-hit supreme court gets back to work
#Leonard #Leo was born on Long Island in the mid-sixties.
When he was only a toddler, he lost his father — a pastry chef — to cancer.
At the age of five, his mother remarried, and the Leos moved to New Jersey, where he attended Monroe Township High School.
Leo was chosen as the “Most Likely to Succeed”
a distinction he shared with classmate #Sally #Schroeder, his future wife.
In the yearbook, the two were shown sitting next to each other, holding wads of cash and with dollar signs painted on their glasses.
He was so effective at raising money for his senior prom that his classmates nicknamed him the “Moneybags Kid.”
Throughout his life, he remained steeped in the deep Catholicism of his grandfather, who had emigrated to the United States from Italy as a teenager;
his grandparents attended Mass daily, and encouraged the young Leonard to follow their lead.
After high school, Leo went to Cornell University, studying under a group of conservative academics in the university’s department of government
and with the wider national backdrop of iconoclastic scholars led by Yale University’s #Robert #Bork and the University of Chicago’s #Antonin #Scalia, who were building the case for a novel legal doctrine known as #originalism.
He got a series of internships in Washington, D.C., during the final years of the Reagan administration,
then returned to Cornell to join the law school, where in 1989 he founded the local chapter of a student organization called the #Federalist #Society.
That group had been set up by three conservative-leaning students from Yale, Harvard, and Chicago seven years earlier as a way of challenging what they saw as the dominance of liberal ideology at the country’s law schools.
After graduating, Leo married Sally, who had been raised as a Protestant but who used to go to Catholic Mass five times every weekend because she played the organ.
She decided to convert not long before her marriage.
The couple moved back to Washington, where Leo clerked for a judge on the court of appeals and became close with another appellate judge who had recently been appointed to the D.C. circuit
— a man from Georgia called #Clarence #Thomas,
who had toyed with becoming a Catholic priest.
Despite being ten years older and from much more humble origins,
Thomas shared Leo’s conservative outlook, and the two soon developed a deep friendship that would endure for many years.
During this period, Leo was asked by the Federalist Society to become its first employee
— although he delayed his start date so that he could help his good friend Thomas through his contentious confirmation process for the Supreme Court.
Despite accusations of sexual harassment hanging over him, Thomas won Senate confirmation by a slim margin.
It would be the first in a series of fights in which Leo would have to put aside the teachings of his Christian faith as he focused on the greater goal of pushing through a conservative revolution of the courts and of society at large.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/opus-dei-leonard-leo-supreme-court-moneybags-kid-1235115538/
Rolling Stone · Opus Dei and the Moneybags Kid
A team of Iranian hackers impersonated #Ginni #Thomas,
the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas,
in an effort to extract information from people close to former President Donald Trump, CNN reported.
An indictment unsealed on Friday alleges that the three Iranian men gained access to the email account of a Trump campaign official this summer,
which allowed them to steal debate-preparation material and information on possible vice presidential candidates.
The practice is known as “spear phishing” among hackers.
Among the people whose accounts were compromised were #Roger #Stone, the veteran Republican dirty trickster previously pardoned by Trump before he left office.
Between April and May 2024, email was used as part of a phishing campaign that targeted, among others, a former security adviser to a former president.
Ginni Thomas was one of a number of identities fraudulently used by the hackers to target the Trump campaign.
The others have not been named but the victims detailed by the Justice Department include a series which appear closely linked to Trump,
suggesting that the use of names such as Ginni Thomas was a successful move by the Iranians.
Among those who fell for the phishing scam were a former deputy director of the CIA,
a former ambassador to Israel,
an ex-State Department adviser who appears to have advised the failed Nikki Haley campaign for president,
and a former presidential homeland security adviser.
Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi face charges of identity theft and wire fraud.
The indictment says they were acting on behalf of Iran’s #Islamic #Revolutionary #Guard Corps.
Although Ginni Thomas is not mentioned by name in the indictment, it says that the hackers created a fake email using the identity of a
“spouse of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice.”
In addition to being the wife of a Supreme Court justice, Thomas is a conservative activist.
She made headlines for sending texts to Donald Trump’s then Chief of Staff #Mark #Meadows, on Jan. 6, 2021, urging him to overturn the election
—as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
One read, “Biden and the Left [are] attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
Thomas, a conservative firebrand, claims that she does not influence her husband.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donald-trump-campaign-got-spearfished-by-fake-ginni-thomas
The Daily Beast · How ‘Spear Phish’ Hackers Used Fake Ginni Thomas to Hit Trump Campaign
David Brock on Clarence Thomas and supreme court hijack: ‘The original sin’
#David #Brock once attacked #Anita #Hill,
who accused #Clarence #Thomas of sexual harassment.
His new book slams Thomas
Thirty years ago, David Brock made his name as a reporter with 
"The Real Anita Hill",
a book attacking the woman who accused Clarence Thomas,
George HW Bush’s second supreme court nominee,
of sexual harassment.
After tempestuous hearings, Thomas was confirmed.
Brock
– who memorably characterized Hill, a law professor, in sexist terms as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”
– was launched as a rightwing media star.
Thirty years on, Thomas still sits on the court, the longest-serving hardliner on a bench tilted 6-3 to the right by three confirmations under Donald Trump.
But Brock switched sides long ago, disillusioned by rightwing lies.
He apologized for smearing Hill and eventually became a prominent Democratic operative, close to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
He founded watchdogs and Super Pacs and kept on writing books.
He dealt with his political conversion 20 years ago in "Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative".
Now, with "Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America",
he has returned to what he calls “the original sin” of the modern supreme court:
“Thomas’s perjury to get on the court”
and his allegedly untruthful answers to questions about his treatment of Hill and other women.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/david-brock-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-stench-book?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The Guardian · David Brock on Clarence Thomas and supreme court hijack: ‘The original sin’
Samuel Alito accepted concert tickets from conservative German aristocrat
#Samuel #Alito, the US supreme court justice, accepted $900 concert tickets from a Catholic German aristocrat known for her unabashed conservative views and ties to rightwing activists, his latest financial disclosure form reveals.
#Princess #Gloria #von #Thurn #und #Taxis reportedly gifted the tickets to Alito and his wife to allow them to attend the Regensburg castle festival,
an annual summer music extravaganza hosted at her 500-room castle in Bavaria.
The princess, a descendant of princes of the Holy Roman empire, is noted for ties with #Steve #Bannon, a key supporter and former aide of #Donald #Trump, and connections to figures in the Catholic hierarchy opposed to Pope Francis.
Her donation to Alito is set out in the justice’s annual financial disclosure report, which he filed late after requesting an extension.
The declaration follows a series of controversies over the ethics of supreme court justices amid revelations that some, including Alito himself and Justice #Clarence #Thomas, have accepted gifts from wealthy benefactors without disclosing on mandatory forms.
Alito has been at the centre of reports that he accepted a private jet free travel gift for a luxury salmon fishing trip from a conservative billionaire who had cases pending before the supreme court.
He previously met von Thurn und Taxis along with fellow justice #Brett #Kavanaugh when she visited the supreme court in 2019 along with #Cardinal #Gerhard #Ludwig #Müller, who was dismissed from his position as head of the Catholic’s church’s doctrinal body by Pope Francis, and #Brian #Brown, a leading anti-LGBTQ+ activist.
Von Thurn und Taxis’s palatial castle in Regensburg – the venue for the concert attended by Alito and his wife – has been mooted by Bannon as a potential venue for a European network of finishing schools for rightwing conservatives.
After her reinvention as a conservative Catholic activist, she drew criticism in 2001 after saying on a television talkshow that the high rate of Aids in Africa was due, not to a lack of safe sex, but because
“the Blacks like to copulate a lot”.
She later tried to amend her remarks, saying Africans had a lot of sex due to the continent’s hot climate.
The Guardian · Samuel Alito accepted concert tickets from conservative German aristocrat
So Justice Juan Merchan is in the pay of #Trump.
US #corruption at the top.
I'd say VERY top but then that #clarence toady takes that position.
BBC NewsDonald Trump criminal sentencing delayed until after electionJustice Merchan to sentence Republican candidate in hush-money trial on 26 November, citing "unique" circumstances.
Replied in thread
Someone has tracked “…All The Ethics Scandals Involving The Supreme Court Justice Amid New Harlan Crow Trips”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/08/05/clarence-thomas-here-are-all-the-ethics-scandals-involving-the-supreme-court-justice-amid-new-harlan-crow-trips/
Forbes · Clarence Thomas: Here Are All The Ethics Scandals Involving The Supreme Court Justice Amid New Harlan Crow Trips
Replied in thread
Since that October post, we found Thomas had still failed to list items, which lead to two Congressfolk asking for a special counsel (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clarence-thomas-special-counsel-senate-democrats-merrick-garland/) and another filing Articles of Impeachment (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/aoc-files-articles-impeachment-supreme-court-justices-clarence-thomas-rcna161121).
Nothing happened.
Today we find Thomas had more gifts he again failed to disclose:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/us/politics/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-jet.html
Meanwhile, Gorsuch busily warning (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/04/gorsuch-biden-supreme-court-proposals-00172574) against, well, any fixes I guess?
Ugh.
Judge #Aileen M. #Cannon’s stunning dismissal this week of the most serious charges faced by Donald Trump put her on shaky legal ground, according to experts,
who say she is on track to be reversed on appeal and could even be removed from the case
— an extraordinary, but not unheard of step.
Because of the political calendar, however, any legal repercussions could be short-lived.
Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified national security records and obstruction of government efforts to retrieve the material may not matter if the former president and current Republican nominee is elected in November.
If he gets back to the White House, Trump could pressure his Justice Department to close the case.
He could also promote Cannon to the very appeals court that will soon examine her decision to toss the case.
Cannon’s finding that special counsel #Jack #Smith was improperly appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump
conflicts with numerous past court decisions and the nation’s long history
— during both Democratic and Republican administrations
— of allowing #independent #prosecutors to handle high-profile instances of alleged wrongdoing.
️Smith has filed notice of his plans to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit,
which reviews decisions from the Florida district where Cannon,
a relatively inexperienced judge appointed by Trump in 2020, sits.
️The court has already rebuked her twice for her handling of other aspects of the classified documents case,
sending what Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar described as a message that her decisions had been “way out of line.”
The question now, Amar said, is how quickly and dramatically the appeals court acts on the latest ruling,
which dismissed the entire indictment for Trump and his two co-defendants.
“They may not want to stick their head in a #buzz #saw if they can just let the case take its slow, deliberative course,” he said.
In her 93-page decision, Cannon said there is no specific statute authorizing the attorney general to appoint a special counsel.
She also said the Constitution requires someone with Smith’s authority to be confirmed by the Senate.
The judge acknowledged the tradition of special-attorney-like figures in moments of political scandal involving high-level government officials,
from #Watergate to #Iran-#contra to Russia’s attempts to #interfere in the 2016 election.
But Cannon said the practice of appointing such independent prosecutors has been inconsistent and based on a “spotty historical backdrop.”
Smith, she wrote, is “a private citizen exercising the full power of a United States Attorney, and with very little oversight or supervision.”
Conservative legal groups have long questioned the constitutionality of special counsel appointments.
Cannon repeatedly cited Justice #Clarence #Thomas, who raised the issue in a solo opinion this month as part of the Supreme Court’s decision granting Trump broad immunity from prosecution for official acts.
That Supreme Court case focused on Smith’s separate election interference prosecution of Trump in D.C.
She also embraced the arguments in a law review article by #Gary #Lawson of Boston University School of Law and #Steven G. #Calabresi, a Northwestern law professor and a co-founder of the Federalist Society, with which Cannon is affiliated.
Other legal experts, however, have joined former Justice Department officials and Smith’s legal team in saying
her ruling ignores the history of special counsel appointments and flouts Supreme Court precedent.
Most notably, the high court in 1974 unanimously required President Richard M. #Nixon to hand over recordings to a special prosecutor as part of the #Watergate investigation.
In that opinion, the justices endorsed the office, citing several statutes under which the attorney general had
“delegated the authority to represent the United States in these particular matters to a Special Prosecutor with unique authority and tenure.”
While lower-court judges are bound to follow the Supreme Court’s lead, Cannon took the unusual step of finding she was not required to abide by that aspect of the high court’s opinion in U.S. v. Nixon, saying the case did not directly address the validity of the office of special counsel.
Michael J. Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who teaches about constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress, said
Cannon cannot just brush aside a unanimous high court ruling.
“For a trial judge to ignore it is judicial malpractice,” he said, describing her most recent decision as
part of a “pattern of bias that leads her to endorse wacky or unfounded arguments,
and that’s a problem if you’re a judge.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/20/cannon-trump-florida-appeal-special-counsel/
The Washington Post · Tossing Trump’s case was risky for Judge Cannon — at least for now
Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamie Raskin
are introducing a new piece of legislation aimed at putting a cap on the number and value of gifts U.S. Supreme Court justices can receive.
The "High Court Gift Ban Act", unveiled Tuesday, would prohibit justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 at a time, or more than $100 total per year.
The bill would also put an $18,000 cap on gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated.
Justice #Clarence #Thomas has been under intense scrutiny after an investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee found that he failed to include luxury vacations paid for by Republican megadonor #Harlan #Crow on his financial disclosure forms.
Thomas has been subject to several other complaints, including that he never paid back a loan on his R.V. and that he cavorted with the #Koch brothers while ruling on cases they’d brought to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, a report from a judicial watchdog found that Supreme Court justices had received close to a total of ️$3 million in gifts️ over the last 20 years
—with 
more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Thomas.
Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years.
Justice #Samuel #Alito has similarly come under fire for accepting lavish gifts from Republican billionaires, including over-the-top, all-expenses-paid vacations.
It seems, however, that little can be done to rein in the court’s high-ranking members over mounting concerns about their ethics.
Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez wrote to Chief Justice #John #Roberts late last week, seeking answers on
what he planned to do about Thomas, as well as Alito, whose recent flag scandal has also called into question whether he has conflicts of interest in cases before the court.
Roberts has not yet responded.“The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land but has the lowest ethical standards, which means pay-to-play billionaires, right-wing dark money groups and carbon-emitting special interests have freedom to purchase the best justice money can buy,” said Raskin in a statement Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez called their bill “a commonsense solution to address the deeply troubling and unethical influence dark money is having on our nation’s highest judicial body.”
“This is not about politics
—it’s about safeguarding the strength and integrity of our democracy,” she said.
It’s unlikely, though, that such a bill would pass in a brutally indifferent Republican-led House.
https://newrepublic.com/post/183099/aoc-raskin-rein-alito-thomas-gifts
https://raskin.house.gov/press-releases?id=243B1819-3D3A-4D6F-B104-C2B5513545F1
The New Republic · AOC and Raskin Move to Finally Rein in Alito and ThomasJustices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have a history of accepting lavish gifts from Republican billionaires.
#Earthquake (#séisme) M2.3 strikes 9 km NE of #Clarence-Rockland (#Canada) 16 min ago. More info: https://m.emsc.eu/?id=1672350
m.emsc.euLastQuakeA unique earthquake detection system: a blend of collaborative work from eyewitnesses and of data collection from seismic institutes. You felt an earthquake and want to add or see testimonies on a specific seismic event? Do you want to know if there are any earthquakes near you, or see the worldwide earthquakes in the last 24 hours?
Billionaire political donor #Harlan #Crow provided at least three previously undisclosed private jet trips to Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas in recent years, an investigation by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats has found.
The flights, which were detailed by Crow’s lawyer in response to inquiries from the committee, took the justice to destinations including the region near Glacier National Park in Montana and Thomas’ hometown in Georgia.
The committee launched its investigation in response to ProPublica reporting last year that revealed numerous undisclosed gifts Crow provided to Thomas,
including private school tuition for a relative and luxury vacations virtually every year for more than two decades.
Democrats on the committee authorized a subpoena for information from Crow last November, but the subpoena was not issued, and the new information came as a result of negotiations between the Senate and Crow’s attorneys.
It’s possible more revelations are yet to come. The office of the panel’s chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said that a report detailing the full findings of committee Democrats’ investigation would be released later in the summer.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-jet-flights-senate-investigation-scotus
ProPublicaHarlan Crow Provided Clarence Thomas at Least 3 Previously Undisclosed Private Jet Trips, Senate Probe FindsThe Supreme Court justice flew to Montana and other destinations on the billionaire GOP donor’s dime. Crow’s lawyer revealed these flights to the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose ongoing investigation was sparked by ProPublica’s reporting.
Supreme Court Justice #Clarence #Thomas acknowledged for the first time in a new financial disclosure filing that he should have publicly reported two free vacations he received from billionaire #Harlan #Crow.
The pair of 2019 trips, one to Indonesia and the other to the Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat in northern California, were first revealed by ProPublica.
Last year, Thomas argued that he did not need to disclose such gifts.
“Justice Thomas’s critics allege that he failed to report gifts from wealthy friends,” his lawyer previously said in a statement issued on the justice’s behalf. “Untrue.”
Legal ethics experts said that Thomas appeared to have violated the law by failing to disclose the trips and gifts.
The Thomas revelations helped plunge the Supreme Court into its biggest ethical crisis in the modern era.
Justice Samuel Alito also failed to disclose a luxury fishing trip that was paid for by wealthy political donors, one of whom had cases before the court.
In recent weeks, Alito has faced criticism for politicized flags that flew at two of his homes.
The public’s approval of the court has plummeted in the last few years, polls show.
In response, the court last year adopted a code of conduct for the first time in its history. The code, however, has no enforcement mechanism.
This is not the first time that Thomas has responded to public controversy about his disclosure practices by amending an old form. At least twice before, Thomas has similarly defended his failure to make required disclosures as an unintentional error or a misunderstanding of the rules.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-gift-disclosures-harlan-crow
ProPublicaJustice Clarence Thomas Acknowledges He Should Have Disclosed Free Trips From Billionaire DonorThe trips include vacations in Indonesia and at the exclusive, men’s-only Bohemian Grove retreat, which were first reported by ProPublica last year.