Pipedream: Impeach Clarence Thomas
Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the most corrupt high court judge in U.S. history and he should be impeached but there is little to no chance that will ever happen.
Other justices have accepted gifts but nowhere near the magnitude of the many millions of dollars Thomas has received in lavish handouts from billionaire Republicans who have a stake in Thomas’s vote on rulings. He also ought to be impeached because he has voted on matters that related to the work of his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, particularly her involvement in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. defeat President Joe Biden and return trump to power.
Democrats and Republicans have for years called for justices to be impeached. One justice has been impeached in the 19th century and none have been convicted.
In the 1950s, “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards were common in the South after the court’s desegregation rulings. Two impeachment attempts against Justice William O. Douglas also failed, one because he granted a brief stay of execution in the Rosenburg spy case and another for alleged financial improprieties.
For months, Thomas has faced down calls to resign or recuse himself from cases related to the Capitol riot due to the efforts of his wife, who had documented conversations with trump allies in pushing to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory. It is highly unlikely that Thomas will resign or be impeached and then be convicted by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Many lawmakers fear an impeachment would further politicize the court.
Most recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called for Thomas to be impeached for his refusal to recuse himself from cases regarding the 2020 election and 2021 insurrection. Two years ago, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Thomas should “show good judgment” and recuse himself from cases involving the Capitol riot by trump supporters. But Durbin said removal of Thomas was very unlikely.
“I don’t think it’s realistic,” said Durbin who is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I can tell you, there is, in my mind, a clear conflict of interest when it comes to Justice Thomas and issues related to the January 6 insurrection.”
Durban said that Ginnie Thomas “is actively involved politically. Going so far as to give direct advice to the president’s chief of staff during this crisis.”
Durban pointed to a vote in January 2022, when Thomas was the sole dissenting justice as the court ruled that trump couldn’t prevent the release of documents requested by the House committee investigating the January 6 riot.
Thomas should follow the lead of former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. He was the only justice to resign from the bench in 1969 under threat of impeachment after he accepted a mere $20,000 retainer from the family foundation of Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson, a friend and former client, in January 1966.
Fortas was named to the court by President Lyndon Johnson. He was forced to step down after he accepted an offer from Wolfson to pay him $20,000 a year for the rest of Fortas’s life and then pay his widow for the rest of her life. To avoid apparent impropriety, Fortas returned the money the same year and received no further payments.
At the time, Wolfson was under investigation for securities violations and was later convicted of violating federal securities and spent time in prison. The financier allegedly expected that in return for the payment, Fortas would help stave off criminal charges or help Wolfson secure a presidential pardon. Fortas claimed that he did not ask Johnson to pardon Wolfson. Fortas recused himself from Wolfson’s case when it came before the Court.
Wolfson, a self-made millionaire by 28, is credited with creating the modern hostile tender offer, which laid the technical framework to the leveraged buyout. In 1957, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ordered a ten-day suspension of trading in stock in a company Wolfson held “To prevent fraudulent and manipulative practices.” In 1967, Wolfson was convicted of selling unregistered shares and obstruction of justice, for which he served nine months in a federal prison.
Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice Hugo Black urged Fortas to resign to protect the reputation of the Court and avoid impeachment. Fortas said resigning would “kill” his wife and Black changed his mind as he realized that President Richard Nixon wanted Fortas off the Court for political reasons.
Fortas resigned after Attorney General John N. Mitchell threatened to prosecute him, and potentially investigate his wife for tax evasion. Fortas later said he “resigned to save Douglas,” another justice who was being investigated for a similar scandal at the same time.
Associate Justice Samuel Chase was the only Supreme Court justice ever impeached. In a partisan vote, in 1805 the Senate found Chase not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Chase, who was appointed by President George Washington, was accused of allowing his political views to interfere with his decisions and “tending to prostitute” the court and his position. The House of Representatives passed Articles of Impeachment against him, but Chase was acquitted by the Senate and served another six years.
Vice President Aaron Burr was presiding officer of the trial even though he had outstanding murder charges pending against him in two states resulting from his fatal shooting of Alexander Hamilton during the Burr–Hamilton duel.
Chase, a Federalist who opposed President Thomas Jefferson, was viewed as the most partisan justice on the Supreme Court. He had campaigned for Federalist incumbent John Adams during the 1800 presidential election.
Impeachment advocates were emboldened in 1803 when Federal District Judge John Pickering, whose mental state had declined, was impeached and removed on charges of habitual drunkenness. Pickering was only the second official to be impeached by the House and was the first to be convicted at a trial in the Senate. The vote to adopt the impeachment resolution against Chase came only one hour after the Senate voted to convict Pickering in Pickering’s impeachment trial.
Chase’s acquittal was considered a vote to ensure the independence of the judiciary. All impeachments of federal judges since Chase have been based on allegations of legal or ethical misconduct, not on judicial performance and require more than just a disagreement between a justice and the Congress.
The first article of impeachment charged that Chase acted improperly during the circuit court treason trial of John Fries in 1800, accusing Chase of having failed to act as an impartial judge and instead having acted, “in a manner high arbitrary, oppressive, and unjust.”
The eighth and final article dealt with Chase’s conduct at a Baltimore grand jury and accused Chase of being, “highly indecent, extra-judicial,” and “tending to prostitute the high judicial character with which he was invested, to the low purpose of an electioneering partizan.”
Thomas has been at the center of controversy before, notably during bitter confirmation hearings over accusations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill, a subordinate at the Department of Education. Hill claimed that Thomas made multiple inappropriate sexual and romantic overtures to her. He was confirmed by the Senate, 52–48, the closest vote in a century.
Thomas, 75, was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1991. Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018. He is considered the most conservative member of the court and also is the Court’s oldest member.
Thomas’s major benefactor has been Harlan Crow, a billionaire Dallas-based real estate investor and prominent Republican donor. Crow is the former chairman and CEO of the Trammell Crow Company, which was founded by his father, Trammell Crow. His father was described as the “largest landlord in the United States” by Forbes magazine.
The most recent revelations came last week in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. According to the committee’s subpoena of Crow, Thomas accepted private jet travel from St. Louis, Mo., to Kalispell, Mont., and a flight to Dallas in May 2017. In March 2019, the justice took a roundtrip flight on a jet between Washington D.C. and Savannah, Ga. Thomas also took a trip from Washington D.C. to San Jose, Calif., and back.
“The documents also showed private jet travel for the recently-disclosed July 2019 trip to Indonesia; an eight-day yacht excursion for the recently-disclosed July 2019 trip to Indonesia; and private jet travel for the recently-disclosed July 2019 trip to Santa Rosa, Calif., all of which Thomas failed to disclose in his amendment to his 2019 financial disclosure report last week,” Durbin said. “Additionally, Crow’s documents show different dates for the July 2019 Indonesia trip, further calling into question the accuracy of the details Justice Thomas decides to disclose.”
The results of the subpoena were disclosed after Thomas reported that he took three private trips in 2022, including one to attend a speech in Texas and another to go on vacation at Crow’s New York estate, in his annual financial disclosure report. ProPublica first reported that Thomas had failed to disclose luxury vacations, private jet travel, megayacht adventures, and real estate deals he accepted from Crow. The justice previously responded to the report, saying he didn’t think he had to disclose “personal hospitality” from a friend.
Crow is the cofounder of Club for Growth and has served on the board of the American Enterprise Institute since 1996. Both are leading right wing policy groups. Crow has donated almost $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups.
In 2003 through 2004, the Club for Growth was the largest single funder for Republican House and Senate candidates, outside of the Republican Party itself. The group has opposed government action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and called on trump to exit the Paris Climate Agreement.
The Guardian reported that the Club for Growth was “one of the biggest backers” of Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election, having spent around $20 million on their campaigns in 2018 and 2020.
In 2009, Crow provided $500,000 to Liberty Central, a non-profit conservative political advocacy group which was established by Thomas’s wife, Virginia and Leonard Leo. Virginia Thomas was the president and CEO before the group ceased operations in 2012. In 2011 and 2012, Leo arranged for Liberty Consulting, owned by Ginni Thomas, to be paid $80,000 by The Polling Company, which was owned by Kellyanne Conway and billed through the Judicial Education Project.
Leo assisted Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and led campaigns to support the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Crow is a member of the exclusive, all-male Bohemian Club, and as early as 1997 he had hosted Justice Thomas as a guest at the group’s annual Bohemian Grove summer gathering.
Justice Thomas has received gifts from Crow including a Bible, valued at $19,000, that once belonged to abolitionist Frederick Douglass; a bust of Abraham Lincoln valued at $15,000; a portrait of the justice and his wife; and $105,000 to Yale Law School, Thomas’s alma mater, for the “Justice Thomas Portrait Fund.”
In 2011, Politico reported that Crow gave $500,000 to a Tea Party group founded by Thomas’s wife and that Thomas had failed to report her income on his disclosure for more than a decade. Also that year, the advocacy group Common Cause reported that between 2003 and 2007, Thomas failed to disclose $686,589 in income his wife earned from The Heritage Foundation, instead reporting “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be reported on his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms.
In May 2023, ProPublica reported that Crow had paid for private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew, Mark Martin, of whom Thomas had legal custody. Thomas did not report the payments on his financial disclosure forms, while ethics law experts said that they were required to be disclosed as gifts.
In 2023, The New York Times reported that a friend had paid for Thomas’s Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon RV, purchased for $267,230 in 1999 (roughly equivalent to $489,000 in 2023). Anthony Welters, a former UnitedHealthcare executive and a close friend, lent Thomas the purchase price. When the loan was forgiven, Thomas was required to disclose the money as a gift.
In June 2024, the non-profit organization, “Fix the Court,” released an analysis showing that, between 2004 and 2023, Thomas had accepted at least 103 gifts worth more than $2.4 million. “Fix the Court” also identified an additional 101 “likely gifts” Thomas received worth an additional $1.7 million, based on reporting by ProPublica and others.
In June 2024, Thomas filed an amendment to his financial disclosure report for 2019 to report information that he had “inadvertently omitted” in previous reports. The amendment disclosed that he had received food and lodging at a hotel in Bali and a private club in California from Harlan Crow in July 2019. He did not report travel to and from the destinations on private jets or the nine-day cruise on Crow’s superyacht.