For the same reason red-state legislatures are disenfranchising voters and expelling lawfully-elected representatives from their legislative bodies: to ensure that they keep control, and that they’ll never have to face a close vote on any issue of substance.
Republicans are pursuing a program of permanent minority rule. Precedent is out the window.
Because the goal is not several years, the goal is forever.
And if they can’t have it forever, they won’t want anyone else to have it.
Then he’s fucking incompetent, can’t read a document and understand simple directions and should be removed for that reason.
see here
That would seem to suggest that he had a conscious understanding that what he was doing was wrong and that it needed to be hidden. Mens rea seems like the place where things go, fairly clearly, from an oversight due to the specifics of the rules and over to possible criminal behavior.
The relevant law for a purposeful failure to disclose.
I would, personally, recommend that Garland kick off another special counsel.
If there’s an investigation I sure as he*l hope there’s no corrupt “good” judges.
The Senate is calling for an investigation, and if the Supreme Court doesn’t do it, the Senate will take action.
Democratic senators are calling for the Supreme Court to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose reported luxury trips funded by a billionaire Republican donor.
The Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats have announced they will hold a hearing on Supreme Court ethics.
The panel also warned of legislation, if the court does not resolve this issue on its own.
Now, as far as legislation goes I expect that the Senate would need cooperation from the House, and the Republicans in the House would likely just declare this another witch hunt, so I don’t know that it would actually go anywhere.
Of course, when a democrat justice was involved republicans wanted him out for arguably less egregious actions (dems wanted him out too).
Justice Abe Fortas’s departure from the court in 1969 is both a blueprint for how lawmakers could respond today and a benchmark of how far we have fallen.
Fortas, a Democratic appointee, got caught up in a scandal that involved much smaller dollar amounts than the lavish trips Justice Thomas took, even factoring in inflation. Fortas accepted $20,000 to consult for a foundation working on civil rights and religious freedom.
< snip >
These Democrats called for Fortas to step down even though President Richard Nixon, a Republican, would appoint his successor, which would help to flip the court from a liberal majority to a conservative one. They made clear that they were more concerned with the court and the country than with their ideology or their party. “The confidence of our citizenry in the federal judiciary must be preserved,” Tydings declared.
I both salute those Democrats’ sense of ethics and shake my head at their stupidity in calling for his resignation.
Nixon replaced Fortas with Harry Blackmun; one of the most liberal justices to sit on the court. It was a different time.
That, I didn’t know. Still……
Blackmun was a republican when he was appointed.
I think after Blackmun and Souter being conservatives who went liberal the likes of the Federalist Society have become MUCH more careful in being certain a conservative nominee will be a reliable conservative for their whole tenure.
‘Tricky’ Dick Nixon was a flaming Marxist by modern GOP standards, and too honest by half.
Stranger
So, the LA Times reported on gifts to Clarence Thomas 20 years ago, Thomas quit disclosing those gifts, and nobody thought to follow up on that since then?
Or, they assumed he stopped accepting them.
I wonder how many decisions CT sided with that Harlan Crow disagrees with?
Crow also bought property off him and planned to build Thomas a museum in his honor. Clarence Thomas Didn’t Disclose Harlan Crow Real Estate Deal — ProPublica
“Both sides!”
Hey Thomas, I’ll buy those properties you’re selling, and I’ll give you quite the fair price.
Crow sure knows how to flow money to his friends.
It looks like that’s a pretty clear legal violation–but it’s a violation of civil law.
I may be misreading this, but if not, I would at least love to see a civil action brought against him.