Senate Republicans remain silent on the recent allegations against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, while Democrats are calling for reforms within the Supreme Court.
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans Silent on Allegations Against Justice Clarence Thomas
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans are staying silent in the wake of a report alleging Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted more luxury vacations and other lavish gifts than had been previously known.
Democrats on the committee, meanwhile, are reiterating their calls for the Supreme Court to implement an ethics code, either by Chief Justice John Roberts or an act of Congress.
Report Reveals Extensive Gifts and Ties to Billionaire Benefactors
The ProPublica report, published Thursday, claims that the associate justice has accepted at least 38 vacations, 26 international private jet flights (plus an additional eight by helicopter), 12 VIP passes to sporting events, and two resort stays during his time on the court. The report also revealed his ties to a number of billionaire benefactors.
Ethics experts interviewed for the report said the failure to disclose the travel and sports perks could amount to a legal violation.
Thomas has yet to comment on the story.
The Washington Examiner requested comment from every member of the Judiciary Committee, which oversees Supreme Court nominations and any judicial reform bill that goes through the chamber, about the report.
Every Republican on the panel declined.
On the Democratic side, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) said in a statement, “The latest ProPublica revelation of unreported lavish gifts to Justice Clarence Thomas makes it clear: these are not merely ethical lapses. This is a shameless lifestyle underwritten for years by a gaggle of fawning billionaires.”
“Justices Thomas and Alito have made it clear that they are oblivious to the embarrassment they have visited on the highest court in the land,” the statement continued. “Now, it is up to Chief Justice Roberts and the other Justices to act on ethics reform to save their own reputations and the integrity of the Court. If the Court will not act, then Congress must continue to.”
Durbin pushed Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act through the committee on a party-line vote last month. He moved forward on the legislation in the wake of a series of reports this year on Supreme Court justices allegedly accepting luxury gifts and making money through their offices.
He has also held committee hearings on Supreme Court ethics.
Whitehouse called on the full Senate to pass his bill in a Thursday statement on the latest Thomas news, noting, “There may have been a time when the honor system worked well enough for the American people to trust in the ethics of the justices, but that trust has been squandered.”
“Clearly there is a lot more we still don’t know about the extent to which right-wing billionaires have underwritten Justice Thomas’s billionaire-like lifestyle over the years,” the Rhode Island senator said. “From fossil fuels to hedge funds, these billionaires’ fortunes were made in industries regularly affected by the Court’s rulings.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the allegations “the height of hypocrisy” in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“This unprecedented flow of luxuries — flights, yacht cruises, expensive sporting tickets — flouts the independence of our judiciary,” he wrote. “We need accountability & a SCOTUS code of ethics.”
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) noted in a post on X, “With every new scandal, the Supreme Court shows it isn’t policing itself.”
In addition to the Thursday story, ProPublica reported earlier this year that Thomas accepted luxury trips and gifts from billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow, which he did not include in financial disclosure forms. The outlet also published an article detailing a luxury fishing trip Justice Samuel Alito accepted in 2008. News of Thomas’s undisclosed gifts largely sparked outrage among Democrats, with few Republican defections.
Most GOP senators on the committee had withheld judgment on the idea of an ethics code until Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s team was accused in a July Associated Press report of pressuring public institutions that have hosted her to buy hundreds, sometimes thousands, of her books.
Judiciary Republicans told the Washington Examiner in response to the Sotomayor news that they would support Roberts initiating an ethics code for the court, but none were behind Congress establishing those rules.
While Senate Republicans stayed silent on the latest developments, one prominent conservative defended Thomas amid the onslaught of Democratic criticism.
Cassie Severino, who leads the Judicial Crisis Network and who once clerked for Thomas, wrote on X, “If you had a team of journalists constantly digging for supposed ‘ethics’ violations involving Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, or Ginsburg and Breyer when they were on the Court. You would find the same and more.”
“But left-wing dark money backed ProPublica is singularly interested in targeting the conservatives on the Court, and Justice Thomas is their number #1 target because the Left hates him the most,” she added.
“The thing about Justice Thomas is that he doesn’t scare easily. They have been after him for 32 years, and he has yet to back down.”
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