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Clarence Thomas and Corruption in the Supreme Court [1]

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Date: 2023-04-07  

Confidence in the Supreme Court has been in decline for decades, with just 25% of Americans in 2022 having confidence in the nation’s greatest court. ProPublica’s revelations that for over 20 years, Justice Clarence Thomas has enjoyed luxury vacations thanks to billionaire Dallas businessman, Harlan Crow, will have further dented the public’s trust in a once revered body. These revelations have led to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calling for his impeachment , and referring to these gifts as forms of “corruption.”

ProPublica’s Allegations

According to ProPublica, Crow has taken Thomas to “far flung places on his luxury yacht”, flown Thomas on his private Bombardier Global 5000 jet, and hung around with Thomas at his private resorts, the Bohemian Grove in California, and a sprawling ranch in East Texas.

Source: ProPublica

While this may seem fairly innocuous, in financial terms, these gifts are very significant. For example, in late June 2019, Thomas flew to Indonesia and spent nine days there going from island to island and spending time on a 162-foot superyacht staffed with attendants and a private chef. Had Thomas paid for everything himself, he would have had to spend more than $500,000. For a man on a salary of $285,000 a year, this is an enormous figure. This has gone on for over 2à years. Crow has responded by saying that he has extended such “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” and that Thomas did not ask for this hospitality, and that it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

The Power of Incentives

Incentives are a hidden force shaping human behavior. The great investor, Charlie Munger, once said that “Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” Even if Thomas was a saint and Crow meant nothing by his hospitality, these gifts would shape Thomas’ behavior and incline him to rule in ways that aligned with Crow’s views. However, the striking thing is Thomas did not disclose these gifts or the nature of his relationship with Crow, and what this tells us is that this is no innocent friendship between two powerful men, but a deeply corrupt relationship.

Impeachment is Unlikely

Although AOC has called for an impeachment and certainly, some Republicans have been responsive, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), has said that although an investigation will be held, calls for impeachment are “not realistic” . This reflects the nature of the party’s power-driven ethics. What counts for Republicans is not the ethics of what Thomas has done, but the fact that Republicans do not believe ethical violations are sufficient grounds to remove a Supreme Court justice, certainly not when they have a supermajority in the Supreme Court, and are engaged in a culture war and an assault on the rights of ordinary Americans. Having had the first president to be impeached twice, the party does not want to further stain its name by impeaching a Supreme Court justice for the first time in 1805.

Thomas is no stranger to questions about his ethics. This is a man who, last year, was found to have not recused himself from cases involving the 2020 election, despite his wife, Gini Thomas, lobbying lawmakers and the White House , to go against the results of that election.

So, what will likely happen is that there will be a superficial investigation, Thomas will be found to have made errors of judgment that do not rise to the scale of corruption, he will not be impeached, and the most corrupt Supreme Court justice in the history of the court will remain in office, further eroding the public’s trust in this august body

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/7/2162750/-Clarence-Thomas-and-Corruption-in-the-Supreme-Court

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