Baksheesh
Clarence Thomas found pocketing bribes again.
Justice Clarence Thomas took a previously undisclosed flight on a private jet owned by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow in 2010, a top Senate Democrat said Monday – the latest in a series of revelations that come as the high court is under pressure to strengthen its ethics practices.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden said US Customs and Border Protection records reviewed by the committee showed Thomas and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, flew from Hawaii to New Zealand on Crow’s jet on November 19, 2010, and then returned on the jet a week later.
The flight was not listed on Thomas’ financial disclosure reports and is the most recent example of the conservative justice accepting luxury travel from Crow becoming public. Earlier examples of that travel documented by ProPublica last year – including travel on Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose – prompted widespread calls for ethics reform at the court.
This isn’t some naive newby not understanding about public officials not accepting backhanders, this is a Supreme Court Justice. If he doesn’t get that he shouldn’t be accepting sweeteners he shouldn’t be on the goddam bench.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates on Monday said “today’s news strengthens the case” Biden made for reforms. “The most powerful court in the United States shouldn’t be subject to the lowest ethical standards, and conflicts of interest on the Supreme Court cannot go unchecked,” Bates said.
It seems pretty goddam basic.
I’m flashing on this movie
The Informant!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130080/
It recounts the (true) story of Mark Whitacre, who worked for Archer Daniels Midland and served as an informant to the FBI when the FBI was investigating ADM for price-fixing.
Towards the end of the movie, it develops that Whitacre was also stealing/embezzling on his own behalf. There is a sequence where the amount he stole keeps spiraling up and up and up. It starts with something trivial, like a cup of coffee, and then it’s a hundred dollars, and then a thousand, and then ten thousand, and, and, and, and it finally ends up at something like 10 million dollars.
Thomas’ bribes seem to me to be on a similar trajectory.
I saw a breakdown recently of the value and number of gifts (as well as length of tenure) declared by SCOTUS judges*. On every metric – total value, average value, number of gifts, gifts per year of service – Thomas was leagues ahead of the next highest. Thomas has been reluctant and slow to report, even under pressure. I’m not surprised to see that Thomas, Scalia, and Alito top the list. Also not surprised that most identified gifts, including 50% of Thomas’ $4M+ come since 2004. I am gobsmacked that Thomas is over 20x that of Alito, the next highest currently serving judge.
Enforceable ethics rules now FFS.
* I can’t find the original post, but the data appears to have come via @fixthecourt
https://fixthecourt.com/2024/06/a-staggering-tally-supreme-court-justices-accepted-hundreds-of-gifts-worth-millions-of-dollars/