It Runs Deep

If you want to know how deep the rot in Washington goes, consider the case of Ginni Thomas. James Downie writes:

Since news broke that Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent dozens of text messages to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows promoting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Republicans have pooh-poohed calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from cases related to the election and its aftermath.

Let’s be clear: Ginni Thomas’s texts themselves aren’t the issue. Yes, her argument that “Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History” is deluded. Biden won the 2020 election. But she has a right to her views, same as anyone else.

The problem lies in a late November message to Meadows in which Thomas refers to a reassuring conversation with her “best friend.” It’s hard not to read that as a reference to her husband — who once described their partnership as “equally yoked.”

Ginni is also "yoked" to cases that have appeared before her husband:

As the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported in January, Ginni Thomas received $200,000 in 2017 and 2018 from a group asking the high court to uphold Trump’s “Muslim travel ban,” which Justice Thomas voted to do in June 2018. In 2011, the justice amended his financial declarations after previously failing to disclose $680,000 his wife was paid by the Heritage Foundation several years before. And, Mayer writes, Ginni Thomas “has held leadership positions at conservative pressure groups that have either been involved in cases before the Court or have had members engaged in such cases.”

 The problem does not involve only Thomas:

Part of the problem is that the Supreme Court is composed of the only nine judges in the country who are not subject to a code of ethical conduct. The justices decide for themselves whether to recuse. Back in 2004, Justice Antonin Scalia defended his refusal to recuse himself from a case involving his friend Richard B. Cheney, then the vice president, by citing this unintentionally damning rationale: “A rule that required members of this court to remove themselves from cases in which the official actions of friends were at issue would be utterly disabling.” Some of the most successful Supreme Court litigants either worked for or socialize with the justices, Reuters reported in 2014. Three justices own individual stocks in 40 companies, National Law Journal reported last year, “many of which frequently appear before the court.” (The justices have usually, though not always, recused themselves from cases involving those companies.)

It's pretty clear what must happen:

Only a thorough investigation and complete overhaul of ethics rules for Supreme Court justices would reverse this dispiriting trend. But when waiting for reform at the nation’s highest court, don’t hold your breath.

Don't expect that to happen.

Image: NBC News