Leonard Leo's Secret Payments To Clarence Thomas's Wife, Ginni? Nothing To See Here!
Today in 'Grifting with Clarence and Ginni.'
Supreme Court Justice and longtime president of the Long Dong Silver Fan Club Clarence Thomas had yet another grift scandal land on his doorstep on Friday, this one involving his insane wife Ginni and some sacks of cash with comically large dollar signs on them that Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society apparently left on the dresser for her.
According to the Washington Post , in 2012 Leo wanted to pay Ginni for some vague consulting work. But instead of just paying her, he asked Kellyanne Conway, who was then still a d-list GOP pollster and not yet a d-list presidential advisor to Donald Trump, to bill a nonprofit he was involved with and, apparently, give that money to Ginni Thomas:
Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
It’s the “no mention of Ginni, of course” that tells you this was all on the up and up.
All told, Conway’s firm billed Leo’s nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, around $100k between June of 2011 and the end of 2012. The precise nature of the consulting services Ginni provided are unclear. Conway told Fox News on Friday that Ginni Thomas was one of her contractors:
“Kellyanne Conway on Fox News downplays her role in funneling payments to Ginni Thomas, and also portrays the Thomas as victims”
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1683294593
“At Polling Company, we did public opinion research and data analytics. We had no business before the Court.”
Conway is doing her usual bullshit disingenuousness here. No one is suggesting Leonard Leo secretly paid off Ginni Thomas on behalf of Conway. The payoff was apparently on behalf of Leo and his nonprofit the JEP, that was (coincidentally, we’re sure) filing an amicus brief in the landmark voting rights case Shelby County v. Holder in December 2012, two months before Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case.
Somewhere in the months leading up to the filing of that brief, Leo slipped Ginni Thomas that extra $25,000 and enlisted Conway’s help in keeping it hidden. None of this proves beyond a doubt that Leo was somehow trying to buy influence with a Supreme Court justice. But Leo trying to hide it would indicate that he certainly was aware of the appearance that that was what he was up to. At best, this is yet another example of the incestuous but legally dispersed web of money that keeps the right wing moving.
Leo, as multiple Thomas defenders have done in recent days , has cast himself as a martyred warrior trying to protect the Thomases from the perfidious Left:
Of the effort to keep Thomas’s name off paperwork, Leo said: “Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni.”
Oh sure, much better for this kind of thing to be uncovered by reporters years later.
Leo added:
"Anybody who thinks that Justice Thomas is influenced in his work by what others say or do, including his wife Ginni, is completely ignorant of who this man is and what he stands for. And anybody who thinks Ginni Thomas would seek to influence the Supreme Court’s work is completely ignorant of the respect she has for her husband and the important role that he and his colleagues play in our society.”
It’s too bad Caesar and his wife weren’t members of the GOP in the twenty-first century. Instead of “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion,” we’d have gotten, “Go to hell, my wife can fuck Clodius all she wants."
Beyond all that, this is how the Post describes the Judicial EducationProfitProject:
As the Judicial Education Project pushed for a conservative court, the group grew into a financial juggernaut and was rebranded as the 85 Fund. Between 2020 and 2021, its revenue nearly doubled from about $66 million to more than $117 million, tax forms show.
Even so, the group has never had more than a handful of employees, tax filings show. It has listed its main office address as a UPS Store situated amid rowhouses and retail stores in the Georgetown neighborhood of D.C.
Nope, nothing about this screams “shady” or “unscrupulous influence buying” or “our political system is rife with enough graft to make Tammany Hall look like a Cub Scout troop” at all.
[ Washington Post ]
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The wife of the Chief Justice has grifted even more money than Ginni. Which is probably why he doesn’t want any ethics rules, or any investigation of Ginni. He’s just as guilty of the exact same corruption.
Someday Roberts Court will have the same historical meaning as Taney. Remember when Roberts mouthed “not true” when Obama called out the corrupting influence of big money?
Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He knew a slippery slope of corruption when he saw it.
When I worked in state gov we had serious ethics rules we had to follow and training every year. One of them was we could not advocate for any political candidate or party at work -- no signs, literature, posters, brochures, fliers, email, conversation, contributions solicitations, etc. This did not stop the department Asst. Director from turning her office into campaign headquarters for the Republican gov candidate -- signs, literature, posters, brochures, etc. etc.
It also didn't stop the department Director from sending a dept-wide email urging (actually blatantly telling) us all to vote for the Republican gov candidate because he was such a nice guy, and had done a such great job in his first term, and we owed him our jobs because he didn't cut our budget.