Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?
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I must admit I own a couple of her books, but I only bought them for the sex scenes.
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Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian wants her readers to think she has unearthed a real scandal:
Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court . . . paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party. The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas . . . and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.
Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials. [Emphasis added.]
However, it remains unclear what the funds were for.
A real Sherlock Holmes case, this one. Maybe they were for a Christmas party? Who were these lawyers? Let’s look at the list of attendees:
The lawyers who made the Venmo transactions were: Patrick Strawbridge, a partner at Consovoy McCarthy who recently successfully argued that affirmative action violated the US constitution; Kate Todd, who served as White House deputy counsel under Donald Trump at the time of the payment and is now a managing party of Ellis George Cipollone’s law office; Elbert Lin, the former solicitor general of West Virginia who played a key role in a supreme court case that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; and Brian Schmalzbach, a partner at McGuire Woods who has argued multiple cases before the supreme court. Other lawyers who made payments include Manuel Valle, a graduate of Hillsdale College and the University of Chicago Law School who clerked for Thomas last year and is currently working as a managing associate at Sidley, and Liam Hardy, who was working at the Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel at the time the payment was made and now serves as an appeals court judge for the armed forces. Will Consovoy, who died earlier this year, also made a payment. [Emphasis added.]
A simple Google search of the bios of the named lawyers would confirm that all of them clerked for Thomas — a fact that ought to be front and center in any honest effort to tell this story, yet they’re headlined as “Lawyers with supreme court business,” and a casual reader scanning it might not immediately pick up that this is simply a list of his former clerks. An email promoting the story headlined it with “Guardian Exclusive: Clarence Thomas Ethics Investigation Finds Suspect Payments.” The notion that it’s improper for a Supreme Court justice to socialize with his former clerks is preposterous, notwithstanding the fact that most Supreme Court arguments in today’s world are made by attorneys who previously clerked for the Court — often for the currently sitting justices. Lawyers typically treat the judges they clerked for as mentors, with many remaining in close contact for years. Judges at any level rarely recuse themselves simply because the lawyers in a case are their former clerks.
If you read further down in the article, the quoted “ethics experts” at least seem to grasp that this is a story about a party with Thomas’s former clerks. However, one of them tries to invent a distinction in which it’s appropriate to charge lawyers to pay for the cost of their own attendance at a party only if they are junior lawyers not making the big money yet, which is a weird idea with no basis in any ethics rules:
Richard Painter…said it was “not appropriate” for former Thomas law clerks who were established in private practice to – in effect – send money to the supreme court via Venmo. “There is no excuse for it. Thomas could invite them to his Christmas party and he could attend Christmas parties, as long as they are not discussing any cases. His Christmas party should not be paid for by lawyers,” Painter said. “A federal government employee collecting money from lawyers for any reason … I don’t see how that works.” Painter said he would possibly make an exception if recent law clerks were paying their own way for a party. But almost all of the lawyers who made the payments are senior litigators at big law firms.
Kedric Payne…said that – based on available information – it was possible that the former clerks were paying their own party expenses, and not expenses for Thomas, which he believed was different than random lawyers in effect paying admission to an exclusive event to influence the judge. [Emphasis added.]
Notably, Kirchgaessner makes no effort to claim that anybody paid anything more than the cost of attending a party.
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When the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted a $1 million prize from a liberal billionaire’s foundation, she pledged to pass the money to a list of designated charities. Four years later, it is unclear where Ginsburg sent that money—an ambiguity that experts say raises conflict of interest concerns.
The Berggruen Institute, a private foundation founded by billionaire investor Nicolas Berggruen, awarded Ginsburg its annual $1 million Philosophy & Culture award during a swanky star-studded event in December 2019. At the time, ethics experts raised red flags over Ginsburg’s acceptance of the prize, noting that the bounty far exceeded the $2,000 limit placed on honoraria by Judicial Conference regulations. But Ginsburg temporarily assuaged those concerns when she pledged to donate the prize money to more than 60 charities that reflected her personal causes, including the American Bar Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and the Metropolitan Opera.
What Ginsburg failed to mention was that she also directed the Berggruen Institute to conceal the full list of her designated charities from the public, a spokeswoman for the institute told the Washington Free Beacon. The Berggruen Institute even engaged in some creative accounting in its Form 990 tax return to ensure the recipients remain shrouded in secrecy.
"That list, per her wishes, is not for publication," Berggruen Institute spokeswoman Rachel Bauch told the Free Beacon.
Experts say the lack of transparency surrounding Ginsburg’s $1 million prize raises the possibility that some of the recipients could have had business before the court prior to Ginsburg’s death. One of the few known recipients, the American Bar Foundation, is affiliated with the American Bar Association, which filed several amicus briefs before the Supreme Court in 2020 before Ginsburg’s death. There is no evidence that Ginsburg recused herself from those cases.
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From a lefty's perspective, it's difficult to even wrap one's mind around the damage RBG did by not retiring. She traded a tiny bit of ego gratification to stay on for a couple more years, for an unbalanced court that's ruling against everything her side fought for. She had one job, there at the end. And for all her alleged qualities as a human being, she failed a really simple test of character. It's nearly dispositive of the woman being anything other than a narcissistic social climber. Then again, she was old and perhaps senile. The higher qualities of the mind are the first to go.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Or perhaps she simply thought SCOTUS retirements and appointments ought not be subject to such political chicanery.
I don’t think any reasonable person would have considered her retirement to be chicanery.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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I think you are right if you only view it from the perspective of the political and judicial power of her tribe. As I stated above, there are other ways to look at it and she perhaps subscribed to one or the other. In my view to have done so would have been declaring an alignment with the Democratic party as opposed to being a jurist supposedly above that bipartisan fray. I think it would have been unseemly for a SCOTUS justice.
We've had enough mixed opinions on this court to determine that it is difficult to predict which way they might rule. Isn't that what we want, or do we want a rubberstamp court?
"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
I think you are right if you only view it from the perspective of the political and judicial power of her tribe. As I stated above, there are other ways to look at it and she perhaps subscribed to one or the other. In my view to have done so would have been declaring an alignment with the Democratic party as opposed to being a jurist supposedly above that bipartisan fray. I think it would have been unseemly for a SCOTUS justice.
Justices are aligned with the social values of the party that nominated them. That's why they were nominated. Our most recent nomination couldn't define what a woman was. That's because she is well aware of why she was nominated, and what she was expected to say. She knew the culture she represented.
We've had enough mixed opinions on this court to determine that it is difficult to predict which way they might rule. Isn't that what we want, or do we want a rubberstamp court?
It wasn't difficult to predict which way they'd rule on the culture war issues, such as affirmative action, gay marriage custom websites, and school debt. It was right down ideological lines in all three cases.
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I think you are confusing the obviously partisan nomination and confirmation process with actually serving as a justice. Take for instance John Roberts, who has regularly infuriated conservatives through his opinions. The initial process is how you get there. Once you are there you are free to rule as you see fit, as it should be.
"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
I think you are confusing the obviously partisan nomination and confirmation process with actually serving as a justice. Take for instance John Roberts, who has regularly infuriated conservatives through his opinions. The initial process is how you get there. Once you are there you are free to rule as you see fit, as it should be.
I'm watching the actual process, where the three progressive judges toed the culture war line. I am sure they all believe they are doing their jobs as free thinking individuals. That doesn't make them less predictable.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Perhaps. But that does not obligate them to retire when there is a Democrat in the White House.
No, being a moderately selfless person is never about following enforced obligations. All she needed to be was moderately selfless, and she could have made the obviously pro-social choice, from her perspective.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
But see, you are still looking at it from your perspective. Hers may have been very different.
“From her perspective” was in my post. I get that she may have had reasons. Those reasons have not been articulated. I am comfortable with my opinion that her decision not to retire, when she was already long past her expiration date, was self interest over public interest.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
As am I with mine.
We agree then.
I've listened to a few conversations among liberal followers of the court, and they are disappointed that she did not retire. At those moments in the conversation, the subject quickly changes. Those would be good times to bring up reasons that would convince everybody that she was doing what she thought was for the best, for the country. But those possible reasons are never mentioned. Probably because there are no reasons that seem plausible.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/fix-the-court-should-fix-itself-788170d8?mod=e2two
‘Fix the Court’ Should Fix Itself
It would be nice if the progressives attacking Supreme Court Justices for alleged ethical lapses practiced what that they preach. Consider the outfit Fix the Court, which is working with Democrats to pass ethics and disclosure rules for Justices while ignoring a requirement to disclose its own lobbying.
Fix the Court is leading the campaign targeting Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito for the supposed offense of associating with billionaires. The nonprofit is an offshoot of the New Venture Fund, which is among a web of progressive groups backed by the left-wing for-profit Arabella Advisors.
“We’re the only group in the nation working to open up the most powerful, least accountable part of government—the Supreme Court—by advocating for a few simple ‘fixes,’” Fix the Court’s website says. By “fix,” it means diminish conservative influence on the Court.
One such fix is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act. Last month Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth appeared on Mr. Whitehouse’s podcast to “discuss ways to strengthen ethical guardrails at the Court” via legislation.
Yet Fix the Court hasn’t followed the disclosure rules it is supposed to adhere to, as the Washington Examiner recently reported. As a 501(c)(3) public charity, the outfit can shield the names of its donors. Donations are also tax deductible. But charities must abide by limits on political activities.
The Internal Revenue Service website states that “no organization may qualify for section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying),” which includes urging “the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body” and advocating “the adoption or rejection of legislation.” The IRS defines a “substantial part” as more than 20% of spending.
Charities are required to disclose whether they engage in political lobbying on their tax return Form 990. Fix the Court claimed it didn’t lobby on its 2022 public disclosure. Yet its website includes a long list of judicial bills that it has supported or opposed.
It also says it’s working with Members “in the 118th Congress to urge the judiciary to adopt the same exacting travel, gift and personal hospitality rules that members of Congress and top executive branch officials must follow” and that it supports Congress using its statutory authority “to compel acceptance of the [ethics] code.” This sure looks like political lobbying under the IRS definition.
