Spouses of Judges

Great Debates
41

As you may now know, Ginny Thomas was in continuous contact with Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, in conversations about how to overturn the 2020 election. Being that these were executive-branch communications, it’s possible that some of these texts were included in the body of documents responsive to the J6 committee (the documents that Thomas was the lone justice to vote in favor of slow-rolling).

The broader point is this: We are not judging Clarence Thomas by the due-process standard of criminal matters. This is about judicial ethics. Justices are supposed to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Even if we assume there was zero contact between Clarence Thomas and his wife about the case, he was no doubt aware of her activism and her contacts within the executive branch. The appearance is that he knew she was a likely witness in the case, as well as her own interests in this case, and possibly some criminal exposure. Clarence Thomas was aware of the apparent impropriety stemming from this potential conflict of interest, yet he refused to recuse himself.

Finally, if you read the frankly unhinged and bizarre contents of her text messages, it beggars belief to imagine that she wasn’t shuffling around the house ranting about the cause and her involvement 24x7. Clarence must know she’s in deep (and possibly off the deep end). I mean, look at this:

That nuttery is Virginia Lamp Thomas, wife of SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas. If he ever rules on another J6 case again, he has demonstrated a comical level of corruptness that should result in his impeachment, at a minimum.

42

See above. This statement, while true, is horrifically overused and causes misunderstanding about the proper standard.

I read the articles and the links. Ginny Thomas is no doubt a complete nutter. Unquestionable. But nothing in those communications suggest a crime, nor (assuming a world where Thomas’ preliminary ruling became law and was upheld throughout litigation) in any situation could political statements made days or weeks before January 6 be criminal. Brandenberg is the test.

I go back to what I said before. Under the standard you propose, the wife of a judge must be a good little woman and keep her opinions to herself lest it create a situation where her husband cannot be a judge. Again, Ginny Thomas is not Clarence’s mouthpiece. She is her own person who is allowed to have her own, even if nuttery, political opinions, and she can rant to her husband about them and her husband has no “duty” to correct or chastise her about them.

This is a completely manufactured and nothing issue as there is no hint of any crime here by Ginny Thomas nor was there the suggestion of it previously.

43

But I think the issue is about her actions, her activism, not her opinions.

Framing it as just about opinions removes the entire issue from the context and paints those that have a big problem with this as just trying to shut her up or cancel her opinions.

It makes it easier for you to argue your point, for sure, but it completely erases the entire reason it is an issue. Her actions, not her words.

44

Okay, but we have no evidence of any of her actions–certainly no evidence of anything criminal. We infer that she may have committed actions solely because of her words. Thus, she must remain quiet if Clarence is to do his job under the proposed standard.

45

Nope. I’m not saying that she should remain quiet, I wish you wouldn’t characterize those you disagree with that way. That we just want a woman to be quiet and behave. It’s insulting and certainly doesn’t make reasonable discussion more likely.

Paying for busses to the riot, excuse me, rally (which everyone knew was the beginning event to start the process of overturning the election and overthrowing the government) is not just words. So we know about one action she took to further the seditious goals of her fellow coup planners. Also planning a coup is an action. It is not a simple opinion. We are saying that the wife of a Supreme Court Justice shouldn’t work to overthrow the government, just like nobody else should either. When you keep framing it as about her opinions, you’ve stripped the entire point away.

46

I apologize for insulting you. It was not my intention. However, if you look at what you are saying, you would require her to stifle her activism.

Okay, let’s take what you said. She paid for busses to bring people to a political rally on January 6 to protest what she believed was an improper election. That is America 101. You then make the inference, an unsupported one, that she intended what happened at the Capitol to happen.

So, because of that, a judge’s spouse should, in the future, refrain from activism, lest any third party actions cause the judge not to be able to do his or her job. That is the consequence of your position.

47

No, once again that is not what anyone is saying.

They are saying they should refrain from participating in an insurrection.

48

She was in constant communication with Meadows about the plot to overthrow the government.

We know that. This is not in question that she was imploring the White House to take every effort to make the coup happen.

You can’t ignore that.

49

There is no evidence at all to suggest that she did. Just a hunch by her political opponents. Nobody could get a warrant on her based on the known evidence.

50

Doubling down on the all-or-nothing fallacy doesn’t make it less of an all-or-nothing fallacy.

Shades of grey. Points on a continuum.

51

Not from my reading. Please point to something where she suggested illegal activity. And note that suggesting illegal activity is not a crime under Brandenberg unless the words will tend to incite imminent lawless action.

From my reading she asked Meadows to tell Trump not to concede and to keep fighting this in the courts.

52

It’s amazing how unaware of each other these fellow conspirators were.

Crazy coincidence that so many people just happened to try to stage an auto-coup?

Oops, we tried to overthrow the government?

53

Let’s use a slightly more mundane analogy…

There is a bank robbery, and the robbers are caught. The person who lent them the car for the getaway is the spouse of a judge. We do not know whether or not the spouse knew what her car was going to be used for, but we do know what it did end up getting used for. (and whether or not she knew would be part of the fact finding involved, fact finding that would be influenced by the judge on the case.)

If that case should come before that judge, should they recuse themselves? If so, is that saying that spouses of judges should never lend out their car to anyone? That’s pretty much the claim that you are trying to make here.

Your insistence that this is about something other than what it is actually about is what is causing the confusion that you are claiming to have here. If you would acknowledge that it is not about her opinions or activism, but about the actions she took in furtherance of the insurrection, then we’d possibly get somewhere.

54

Yes, I agree. But I disagree with the analogy. First:

The insurrection case, with Ginny Thomas as a suspect, is not in front of the Supreme Court. This was on a motion for a preliminary injunction related to whether an ex-president could assert executive privilege. There was no evidence or serious suggestion, that the release of those papers would implicate Ginny Thomas in a crime. Zero. None. For all that was known, any Republican could have been named in those papers including me, Mitt Romney, or any guy in Wyoming.

So, to be clear about what Clarence was judging, it was not whether his wife was guilty or not of a crime.

And blending into point #2, the fact that she paid for a bus to bring protestors to an unquestionable political event does not remotely suggest that she planned or otherwise encouraged some or any of them to break the law at the event, anymore than to suggest that because some guy gave $20 to the Trump campaign that he was involved. It is easy to see evil in the other side, but apart from engaging in protected political speech, what evidence is there that Ginny Thomas did this as a pretext or encouragement to ransack the Capitol?

I think posters should be encouraged to think hard before making that leap. Would posters like to be strictly liable if they organize a crowd and some in the crowd commit crimes? Should BLM organizers be held criminally liable for the acts of a few in looting stores without evidence that they encouraged it? Do us on our side say that “we just know” that they “knew” what would happen? It’s nothing short of the death of free speech.

And that is not an “all or nothing” proclamation. The Court has for decades recognized that certain actions by the Government can cause a “chill” on speech. An inference, based on nothing more than that Ginny Thomas felt strongly that the election was stolen and organized a protest in response to it, that she is responsible for the actions of each and every member of that protest, will cause a huge shift in thinking and cause people to not risk their freedom and money and just decide to shut the hell up—which many, not posters here, greet with applause.

I reject this sort of thing. There is no evidence that any of this was planned by the organizers; just a few idiots in the extreme. This was not done by Ginny Thomas or the RNC. If Clarence recused himself, it would be an admission that these theories have value—one which, again not posters here, would greet with applause.

Short version: There must be more evidence than the fact that Ginny Thomas is a far, far right conservative nutter.

55

Nobody is suggesting that Virginia Lamp Thomas, a private citizen, is constrained in any way from speaking in whatever lawful way she pleases. Please stop beating this tiresome strawman. It is Clarence Thomas is (at least theoretically) bound by the judicial ethics that require justices avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Again - I want to restate this point to help you stay honest - nobody’s stating Ginny Thomas actually committed a crime. That’s a matter for the courts to decide, and as it turns out, potentially the court Clarence Thomas sits on.

And again, to help you remain honest - nobody is suggesting that Clarence Thomas should step down because his wife engaged in certain speech. It would be because of what Clarence Thomas himself did (or didn’t do). - failing to recuse himself when close family members are even peripherally involved in matters before the court.

Under the standard you’re proposing, Supreme Court justices are permitted to adjudicate matters in which their close family members have an interest (possibly an interest in avoiding jail). If we’re doing appeals to consequences and all.

And before you even get to “there’s no evidence Ginny Thomas committed a crime” I want you to sit down and form a very clear idea of who has, or may have, the ultimate responsibility to make that determination, or rule on the development of evidence that might support that determination. It’s the court her husband sits on. You’ve indirectly spelled out the conflict of interest at play here.

56

If you imagine a court superior to the Supreme Court (maybe not so terrible an idea, a court to appeal matters concerning the Supreme Court itself), and an appellant asking that court to rule on the propriety of Thomas’ non-recusal on cases involving his wife’s political activities, it’s not too hard to guess how that court would rule.

Of his many blunders, Thomas is perhaps the most egregious of George W. Bush’s term in office.

57

He was old man Bush’s doing.

58

And that’s who I was picturing when I wrote “George W. Bush”!

59

Again, this is a tidy circular argument here. There’s no evidence Ginny committed a crime, which is why it was OK for Clarence to rule that that Trump had the right to withhold any potential evidence of who did or didn’t commit crimes. Funny how that works!

Again, this is all a distraction. Ginny need not have committed a crime to necessitate Clarence’s recusal. She was at the crime scene, palling around with criminals, at the date and time immediately before the commission of the crimes. She openly espoused the same rhetoric that the criminals used to rationalize the crime. And she was in direct communication with an individual who is being questioned and subpoenaed in regards to the crime.

Does that make her a criminal? No. Is she even a suspect? Not automatically. But she was absolutely involved. No question about it. This is why her husband needs to recuse from deciding any cases related to the events of that day. If he doesn’t, it shows an astonishing degree of corruption.

60

The Supreme Court, and appellate courts in general, are not finders of fact. They do not determine that Ms. X or Mr. Y committed a crime. They make rulings about what the law IS.