Justice Clarence Thomas stays on the lobbying stroll

Get the Point!

I know that it seems as if I am beating a dead horse, but I feel compelled to ask how much longer will Clarence Thomas, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, be allowed to openly thumb his nose at the judicial rules that govern how judges are supposed to relate to the outside world?

From six figure vacations, to an assortment of gifts big and small, to voting in cases involving former President Donald Trump when he knew that his wife, Virginia, had direct involvement, Justice Thomas has clearly shown that he doesn't give a damn about U.S. Judicial Canon 2, which proscribes that, “A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities.” Section B of that canon provides in pertinent part:

Outside Influence. A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment.

The rarely speaking, but constantly grinning and grifting Clarence Thomas…

Oh, the irony, that a profession that drafts and interprets rules which are designed to govern the many, has leaders who flaut those very rules with seeming impunity when it suits their personal whims!

The latest revelation is that Rajan Vasisht, Justice Thomas’s personal aide from 2019 to 2021, was paid cash by lawyers who had business before the Supreme Court. In true “you can't make this crap up” form, the payments were tendered via Venmo—and traced to the very last cent before the accounts were deactivated.

Among the unethical gift giving lawyers was Patrick Strawbridge, a partner at the Consovoy McCarthy Firm who led the recent litigation that ended with Thomas and his conservative colleagues agreeing that affirmative action was unconstitutional.

Other unethical gift giving lawyers included Kate Todd, President Trump's former deputy general counsel at the time payment was tendered to Vasisht; attorneys Elbert Lin, Brian Schmalzbach, Manuel Valle, Liam Hardy, and the late Will Consovoy, a former clerk for Justice Thomas who parlayed his time as an understudy into a lucrative career that found him apparently returning lucre to Thomas’s assigns.

The late attorney William Consovoy

My issue is not the conservative nature of Justice Thomas's judicial philosophy—do know that I would be equally aghast if news broke that one of the Supreme Court's liberal members was accepting trips, gifts, and payoffs from lawyers with active business before the Court.

Rather, my sincere concern is that the legal system has an uncanny knack for disciplining lower court judges and lawyers rather harshly for ethical lapses great and small, but often turns a blind eye when the lapses are committed by the powerful or powerfully connected on the bench or among the legal rank and file. Such hypocrisy does very little to inspire confidence in a judicial system that is supposed to be free from political or financial influence; here's hoping that a special counsel is engaged to investigate Justice Thomas and, in time, that impeachment proceedings are launched to hold him to the same account that judges and lawyers further down the food chain are held each and every day of the year.