Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?

[George K]

@Jolly yeah, that might be the case, but he's dead.

[Jolly]

Fact: Senators, Presidents and Justices move in different circles than most of us. They have different friends.

For the Justices, I do worry about influence on rulings, which is why I like strict Constitutionalists. The politicians? You ain't stopping that stuff and access does affect politics.

Welcome to the real world.

[Jolly]

@George-K said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

@Jolly yeah, that might be the case, but he's dead.

True. Can't pick on him anymore.

Although the guys down here still laugh about the Secret Service...Ain't room in a duck blind for anything more than Scalia, his friend, the guide and the dog.

The Secret Service had to stand on the bank, freeze and watch, while they were swinging shotguns in the blind and busting ducks left and right.

[Doctor Phibes]

They're supposed to work for us, not the other way round.

[Mik]

He has rich friends. Big deal.

If you can show that it has affected anything judicial, bring it on.

But how far do we take this? What’s the scale? Would you be outraged if he attended a BBQ with Waygu steaks and good liquor? Or is it only that the trips are at a level most of us cannot afford, so it has to be crooked?

I see no reason he should live a spartan life because he’s a public servant.

[Axtremus]

@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

I see no reason he should live a spartan life because he’s a public servant.

Perhaps a life commensurate with his $300k a year salary (or one commensurate with the spouse's fortune) would be just fine.

After all, a police officer or an industry regulator regularly living a life 10x his salary would likely be investigated, no?

[George K]

@Axtremus said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

After all, a police officer or an industry regulator regularly living a life 10x his salary would likely be investigated, no?

It's how they, ultimately, got Aldrich Ames.

Now, do Pelosi, McCOnnell, Scott, Schumer, and a host of others.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

I see no reason he should live a spartan life because he’s a public servant.

I'm not expecting him to cut all his hair off and walk naked on hot coals.

Like I said, if I accepted this from one of my customers, I'd be fired. Obviously, I'm just one of the little people, but if the rules apply to me, why shouldn't they apply to everybody?

The very least he could, and indeed should, have done was disclose the gift.

[Mik]

I read all this avoid all appearance, but what I hear is eat the rich.

Ginny Thomas’ net worth is around 78 million. These are the circles they run in. Class envy does not change that.

[xenon]

New guidelines for judicial conduct came into place last month.

It seems like under the new rules, judge Thomas would be in violation for accepting travel and accommodations - but entertainment (food, etc.) is permitted without disclosure.

Some journalists probably applied the new rules retroactively to make hay. Just guessing.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-justices-get-stiffer-rules-reporting-free-trips-gifts-2023-03-29/

[Axtremus]

@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

Ginny Thomas’ net worth is around 78 million.

OK, the rich wife changes everything. With that $78M fortune I do not believe a few “luxury” trips would mean much to the Thomases.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

I read all this avoid all appearance, but what I hear is eat the rich.

Ginny Thomas’ net worth is around 78 million. These are the circles they run in.

Right, it's my jealousy, not his lack of openness that's the problem.

I'm not saying he should be tarred and feathered. But he should have disclosed the gift.

Class envy does not change that.

You Americans always confuse money with class. It's very vulgar.

Link to video

[Mik]

Phibes, the guy’s a top lawyer and judge. He knows when he has to report something and when he doesn’t.

Let’s see the actual rules when these things took place. If he was required to report them that stands on its own merit. But I’m willing to bet that either it was not required or it is an open secret that no one does.

As Jolly said, ProPublica is not an unbiased organization.

[Jolly]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

I see no reason he should live a spartan life because he’s a public servant.

I'm not expecting him to cut all his hair off and walk naked on hot coals.

Like I said, if I accepted this from one of my customers, I'd be fired. Obviously, I'm just one of the little people, but if the rules apply to me, why shouldn't they apply to everybody?

The very least he could, and indeed should, have done was disclose the gift.

Chances are, you wouldn't.

I used to think like that, and then I had a chance to run around a bit with several of the docs at MCLNO. Ho-lee Shit! When two companies rent out an entire New Orleans restaurant, with an open free bar...Well, you're living the high life, my friend.

Those guys didn't even think diddle about it. You need to get up in more rarified air.

I bet if Jon had a chance to take a couple of influential congress critters to dinner in Washington, he wouldn't bat an eyelash at a $500 supper for the three of them (I'm probably on the low side).

[Doctor Phibes]

@Jolly said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

I see no reason he should live a spartan life because he’s a public servant.

I'm not expecting him to cut all his hair off and walk naked on hot coals.

Like I said, if I accepted this from one of my customers, I'd be fired. Obviously, I'm just one of the little people, but if the rules apply to me, why shouldn't they apply to everybody?

The very least he could, and indeed should, have done was disclose the gift.

Chances are, you wouldn't.

I used to think like that, and then I had a chance to run around a bit with several of the docs at MCLNO. Ho-lee Shit! When two companies rent out an entire New Orleans restaurant, with an open free bar...Well, you're living the high life, my friend.

Those guys didn't even think diddle about it. You need to get up in more rarified air.

I bet if Jon had a chance to take a couple of influential congress critters to dinner in Washington, he wouldn't bat an eyelash at a $500 supper for the three of them (I'm probably on the low side).

I'd be willing to bet that I've partied considerably harder on the company dime than most people here. In fact, I'm going to Boca Raton just next week. But there are rules. Accepting free personal stuff from potential customers is a real no-no for us.

And we always need to disclose everything. Once again, that's the point.

[Jolly]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/aoc-vows-to-file-articles-of-impeachment-on-clarence-thomas-over-explosive-report/ar-AA19AM91?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W129&cvid=6a2c16fd56e44719859d37e8c1ea4bbc&ei=42

[Horace]

@Jolly said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/aoc-vows-to-file-articles-of-impeachment-on-clarence-thomas-over-explosive-report/ar-AA19AM91?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W129&cvid=6a2c16fd56e44719859d37e8c1ea4bbc&ei=42

I love the smell of the new normal in the morning.

[George K]

@Jolly said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/aoc-vows-to-file-articles-of-impeachment-on-clarence-thomas-over-explosive-report/ar-AA19AM91?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W129&cvid=6a2c16fd56e44719859d37e8c1ea4bbc&ei=42

What a shrill little harpy.

Meanwhile, at the RWEC....

"Sorry, but if it’s not to an island owned by a pedophile who gets suicided in prison and whose client list is shrouded in secrecy surpassed only by the Las Vegas mass shooting footage and Obama’s college transcript, I refuse to care. After all, ProPublica doesn’t."

[George K]

Ed Whelan at NRO Comments:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

ProPublica yesterday published a long article on gifts of luxury trips that Justice Thomas has received from a billionaire friend, Dallas businessman Harlan Crow. The article raises lots of interesting questions, including about what a justice’s obligations to disclose gifts should be. But its claim that has gotten the most attention—that Justice Thomas “appears to have violated” longstanding disclosure obligations by not reporting gifts of airplane travel—rests on a much more contested account of those obligations than ProPublica acknowledges. ProPublica’s three reporters appear to have cherry-picked little-known and unnamed “experts” to present a false and damning clarity on the matter.

Let’s take a closer look:

1. ProPublica asserts that “[e]thics experts said the law clearly requires disclosure for private jet flights.” According to these experts, an exemption in the rules “never applied to transportation, such as private jet flights,” and the “fact” that the exemption didn’t apply to private jet flights “was made explicit in recently updated filing instructions for the judiciary.”

It appears that Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center is one of the “ethics experts” who offered to ProPublica such a crystalline view of the disclosure obligations. I’m not discerning who the other experts might be.

2. On March 29, just eight days before ProPublica published its article, the New York Times published an article titled “Justices Must Disclose Travel and Gifts Under New Rules.” The article begins:

Supreme Court justices will be required to disclose more of their activities, including some free trips, air travel and other types of gifts, according to rules adopted earlier this month.

Under the new rules, justices and other federal judges must report travel by private jet, as well as stays at commercial properties, such as hotels, resorts or hunting lodges.

According to the article, leading legal ethicist Stephen Gillers described the new rules as a major change—a “giant step” away from rules that were “little more than a joke” and that “were very lax and tolerated circumvention”:

“In my world of transparency and judicial ethics, what we had until now was little more than a joke,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor emeritus at the New York University School of Law who specializes in legal ethics. “The rules were very lax and tolerated circumvention, and now we’ve taken a giant step away from that.”

3. The Washington Post published a similar article on March 28. According to the article, the new rules “clarify that judges must report travel by private jet.” The previous rules “had not clearly defined the exemption for gifts considered ‘personal hospitality,’” and the “revised rules address that ambiguity.” The article quotes Gabe Roth, executive director of the liberal group Fix the Court, as acknowledging “the very clear loopholes in the judicial gift and travel reporting rules” that had existed under the old rules and that the new rules would “restrict.”

4. An NBC News article yesterday about the ProPublica story begins:

For many years, a loophole that allowed Supreme Court justices to avoid disclosing certain gifts — including travel — funded by their friends was apparently big enough to fly a private jet through.

The federal judiciary just last month announced in a letter to lawmakers that it had tightened its rules for what judges and justices need to include in annual financial disclosure statements.

The article quotes Professor Gillers:

“In my view, before the recent amendments, the situation was sufficiently vague to give Thomas a basis to claim that reporting was not required,” said Stephen Gillers, an expert on judicial ethics at New York University School of Law. “I think that such an interpretation would be a stretch … but the interpretation is plausible.” [Ellipsis in original.]

5. In sum, the claim by ProPublica’s “ethics experts” that the longstanding rules “clearly require[d] disclosure for private jet flights” and that the recent revision to the rules merely “made explicit” what was already clear is hotly contested.

Professor Gillers is probably the most widely cited legal-ethics expert of our age. That doesn’t mean that he’s always right, of course. But it does mean that any journalist exploring what legal-ethics rules mean would be interested in learning his views. And it’s especially strange that ProPublica’s reporters wouldn’t even acknowledge his conflicting account of the pre-existing disclosure obligations set forth in the New York Times article.

It’s possible, I suppose, that none of ProPublica’s three reporters ran across the New York Times article or the Washington Post article on the very topic they were writing about. But it sure seems that they sought out the ethics advice they wanted.

[Mik]

As I said.