Justice Clarence Thomas, left and Sen. Ted Cruz
Justice Clarence Thomas does not do podcasts, or, really, much media of any kind, said Above the Law journalist and litigator Kathryn Rubino. So, it clearly took something serious to turn up on Texas GOP Sen. Ted. Cruz’ podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz.”
Sure, the sit down was timed with a book launch, but Rubino said it was also fueled by the fact that Thomas is still hurting from getting caught engaging in what looks like horrendous corruption.
“If you’ve followed Supreme Court scandals over the last few years you know, it’s the reporting that revealed Thomas spent two decades accepting luxury travel and other largesse from GOP megadonors and declining to tell anyone about it,” reported Rubino, adding that Thomas marched straight into Cruz’ podcast for some self-soothing over getting busted.
You’re one of the people who actually stands up, particularly at times when others seem to wither, and I appreciate it,” Thomas told Cruz. “And more personally, when we, my wife and I, were under attack for obvious reasons, you and Mike Lee and some of the other friends would stand up,” he said. “So I really appreciate that.”
“It’s fascinating that Thomas refers to it as ‘under attack,’ as though the ProPublica reporters who documented the roughly $500,000 Indonesia vacation aboard Harlan Crow’s superyacht were the ones who’d done something untoward, and not the justice who left all of it off the disclosure forms federal law requires him to file,” said Rubino. “Thomas has been nursing this grievance since the story broke, his first real explanation for the whole thing boiled down to my rich friends told me it was fine.But the gifts kept surfacing, Rubino said. Crow bought three properties from Thomas, including the house where Thomas’s mother lived rent-free, and he paid the private-school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew.
“By our count, the undisclosed benefits ran to something like $5.8 million. When the Senate Finance Committee asked Crow to itemize any of it, his Gibson Dunn lawyers told the Senate to take their chances with contempt, then doubled down. Thomas eventually amended his disclosures (better than before, nowhere near where they need to be) and then reporters just kept finding more vacations,” said Rubino.
Worse, Thomas was a member of a billionaire’s club, with billionaire friends that “lavished him with pricey gifts,” said Rubino. “Even the RV Thomas uses to establish his everyman bona fides was financed by a rich buddy, via a “loan” that was never paid back.”But of course, Thomas’s ethics issues run deeper than money, with his wife, right-wing operative Ginni Thomas, sending her “LOVE” to the January 6th rioters hours before the Capitol was stormed, and firing off nearly 30 texts to Mark Meadows urging him to keep fighting the legitimate election putting Biden in the White House.
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet
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