Justice Thomas Had Another Oopsies In His Financial Disclosures? SHOOK!

Well, there's a surprise.

Let's be clear about two things.

ONE: If Justice Sonya Sotomayor's mother was living rent-free in a house bought by a billionaire, Republicans in Congress would impeach her tonight .

TWO: Not a damn thing is going to happen to Justice Clarence Thomas. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. But there is no universe in which Republicans are going to impeach this asshole. He could shoot a whole convent of nuns feeding the homeless on Fifth Avenue — they will never give President Joe Biden another Supreme Court seat. And Merrick Garland went out on a political limb to prosecute Donald Trump (God willing!), so he's probably not going to head the advice of our pals at Fix the Court (FTC), who suggests that the attorney general appoint a special counsel to investigate recent revelations about the senior justice's multiple failures to disclose gifts and real estate transactions.

On April 6, ProPublica released a blockbuster story about the vacations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars Clarence and Ginni take every year courtesy of rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow. None of these trips were mentioned in the justice's annual financial disclosures.

So much for the guy who claimed, "I don’t have any problem going to Europe, but I prefer the United States and prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States. I prefer going across the rural areas. I prefer the R.V. parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There is something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that."

Thanks to Mediaite for the clip. It's from a documentary called "Created Equal: Justice Thomas In His Own Words." And if think Barack Obama's election is proof that there's no more racism in the US of A, then you are going to love this movie.

Well, no wonder Crow is constantly throwing money at institutions to honor this great man! He also funds Mrs. T's employer, which is convenient! And last week, Pro Publica was back to tell us that the billionaire bought Justice Thomas's mother's house and lets her live there rent-free, a fact the jurist somehow failed to disclose, when he was forgetting to disclose all the luxury vacations he took on Crow's dime.

In 2014, the Thomas family sold the vacant lots and the remaining East 32nd Street house to one of Crow’s companies. The justice signed the paperwork personally. His signature was notarized by an administrator at the Supreme Court, Perry Thompson, who did not respond to a request for comment. (The deed was signed on the 23rd anniversary of Thomas’ Oct. 15 confirmation to the Supreme Court. Crow has a Senate roll call sheet from the confirmation vote in his private library.)

Thomas’ financial disclosure for that year is detailed, listing everything from a “stained glass medallion” he received from Yale to a life insurance policy. But he failed to report his sale to Crow.

Justice Thomas has offered various defenses of his failure to report these gifts.

"Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court was not reportable," he wrote in response to the first story, adding that he had "always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines" and vowing that it was his "intent to follow" the new rules propounded by the Judicial Conference.

As to the second story, CNN reports that Thomas believed he didn't have to disclose the sale because he had no capital gain on it. Which is ... not how any of this works. (Try this scenario: Say you bought Tesla stock at $400 back in 2021. Today it's worth about $185. If a billionaire buys yours for $399.99, you got a huge windfall because you were saved from the $114.99/share loss. But by Thomas's logic, you had no gain, so no one needs to be the wiser.)

Then this weekend the Washington Post reported that Thomas has been reporting income from a defunct entity associated with his wife's family for years. And, yes, this does appear to be a clerical error, since the money was reported, just under the wrong name. But it hardly bespeaks an attention to detail in his disclosures, particularly coming on the heels of the ProPublica revelations.

Democrats in Congress have called for the legislative branch to step in, and FTC's executive director Gabe Roth demands action by the executive branch, where the AG could institute a civil action for failure to report mandatory disclosures under 5 U.S. Code § 13106 . Although Roth concedes that Justice Thomas would be unlikely to comply with any subpoena, he says that's no reason to let the trail go cold:

[T]here are two people who are not justices who Congress should subpoena immediately: Harlan Crow, for obvious reasons, and Perry Thompson, the Supreme Court administrator who served not only as the notary for the Thomas-Crow real estate transaction but also was a conduit between Rev. Schenck and Supreme Court justices during Schenck’s infamous ‘ Operation HigherCourt .’ Additional subpoenas could follow.

That last is a reference to an influence operation directed at the Supreme Court's conservative justices which allegedly resulted in the leaking of the court's decision in 2014's  Burwell v. Hobby Lobby    case, which knocked down the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate for "religious" corporations. That one targeted Justice Sam Alito — because Clarence Thomas isn't the only one being bought off cheap.

So, if nothing happens, why bother talking about it?

 Well ... 

For a long time, the Supreme Court has shielded itself from criticism by claiming that it's simply a non-partisan arbiter of the nation's laws, holding itself above the fray, a neutral referee, calling balls and strikes, etc. And it's always been bullshit in some sense — these are judges appointed by politicians, after all. But the average American hasn't understood the extent to which the Supreme Court as it stands today is a conservative battleship constructed by activists like Leonard Leo, who reshaped American life and got fabulously rich along the way. And now, thanks in no small part to Thomas's self-dealing, we can all see it . If we're ever going to wrest back this entity and stop Republicans using it as a weapon to maintain their own power and stop the majority from governing itself as it wishes, the public has to stop seeing nine holy monks in robes.

So, keep banging those pots and calling this shit out. And then ... pack the fucking court .

[ CNN / Fix the Court / Pro Publica ]

Catch Liz Dye on Opening Arguments podcast.

Click the widget to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you're ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons .