{"id":1407864,"date":"2022-03-29T15:44:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T19:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1407864"},"modified":"2022-03-29T15:44:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T19:44:47","slug":"former-clarence-thomas-clerk-judges-are-never-asked-to-recuse-themselves-over-political-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-clarence-thomas-clerk-judges-are-never-asked-to-recuse-themselves-over-political-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Clarence Thomas Clerk: Judges Are Never Asked To Recuse Themselves Over Political Views"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-clarence-thomas-clerk-judges-are-never-asked-to-recuse-themselves-over-political-views%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1407864&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Screen-Shot-2022-03-29-at-2.31.06-PM-1024x638-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s so predictable. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has now threatened Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign or else face impeachment.<\/p>\n<p>Leftists in Congress and the media hyperventilate over every tidbit showing that Justice Thomas\u2019s wife, Ginni, is involved in national conservative politics \u2013 most recently, that she pushed for integrity in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t news, and it has nothing to do with Justice Thomas\u2019s ability to be a fair and impartial jurist.\u00a0Yet the Left breathlessly deploys false and double standards because they are desperate to attack the justice who has been faithful to the United States Constitution they are constantly trying to hijack for their own political agenda.<\/p>\n<p>In a country based on self-government, citizens must be informed about what their government is doing.\u00a0Because the media won\u2019t report this nonstory accurately, here are the facts.<\/p>\n<h2>1. Judicial Recusal is About\u00a0Financial, Legal, Personal, and Professional\u00a0Interests.<\/h2>\n<p>A federal statute governs when judges, including Supreme Court Justices, should recuse themselves:\u00a028 U.S.C. Sec. 455.\u00a0You can read it in just a couple of minutes on the internet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The statute recites various circumstances in which a judge \u201cshall disqualify himself\u201d from a case, mainly\u00a0<em>financial, legal, personal, or professional<\/em>\u00a0interests of the Justice or a family member.\u00a0The Wall Street Journal\u00a0recently reported the big issue is that judges often fail to recuse themselves when they have a financial stake in the outcome of a case.\u00a0There is not a word in the statute about a judge needing to recuse himself because he \u2013 much less a family member \u2013 has taken a public position on a\u00a0<em>political<\/em>\u00a0matter.<\/p>\n<h2>2. Political Views Do Not Require Recusal<\/h2>\n<p>Judges avoid wading into partisan politics out of prudence, not because of any legal obligation.\u00a0They do so out of respect for the judicial role, which is nonpolitical:\u00a0cases are decided on the law and the facts, even if the judge or a family member has a strong opinion about the matter at hand.\u00a0A judge symbolically dons a black robe to reinforce that when he decides a case, he puts personal views aside.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All nine Supreme Court Justices have political views.\u00a0It\u2019s a good guess that each voted for the president who appointed them and for presidents and legislators of their own parties.\u00a0If holding views about the 2020 election meant a justice couldn\u2019t decide legal issues arising from it, then all nine would have to recuse themselves.\u00a0It\u2019s even more absurd when the political views at issue are those of a justice\u2019s spouse.<\/p>\n<p>The recusal statute also says a judge shall not sit on a case \u201cin which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.\u201d\u00a0This is the catch-all provision that the left-wing activists and news media claim requires Justice Thomas\u2019s recusal.<\/p>\n<p>The standard of reasonableness applies equally to all justices.\u00a0Ruth Bader Ginsburg (not her husband, but the justice\u00a0<em>herself<\/em>) was well known for her involvement at the ACLU on politically charged issues, including abortion.\u00a0No one ever claimed she should recuse herself from deciding abortion cases.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ed Rendell was head of the DNC, making many controversial political statements, while his wife was a sitting judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.\u00a0Judge Alice Batchelder\u2019s husband was Speaker of the House of Ohio, making many partisan and controversial statements while she was the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.\u00a0No one ever claimed any of these judges had a basis to recuse themselves, much less to be impeached.<\/p>\n<h2>3. Recusal Standards Are Tied to the Constitution\u2019s Lifetime Appointment of Judges<\/h2>\n<p>Article III of our Constitution provides that Supreme Court Justices serve for life.\u00a0This is to protect judges from politics, not to protect politics from judges.\u00a0It does not mean that jurists have to recuse themselves if they or a family member act upon their political views.<\/p>\n<p>When a case presents a purely political rather than a legal question, the Court declines to adjudicate it, leaving it to the political branches of government, which under our Constitution are accountable to citizens.\u00a0\u00a0A case teeing up a purely\u00a0<em>political question<\/em>\u00a0won\u2019t be decided by the Court.\u00a0It turns the principle of a nonpolitical judiciary on its head to say that a political tempest on which most American citizens have opinions could force a Justice to recuse himself, much less be impeached.<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine if CNN had chased Justice Ginsburg into her garage to confront her about her abortion advocacy when she was coming home from the hospital after being treated for cancer? It\u2019s unthinkable. Yet, CNN feels perfectly entitled to confront Justice and Mrs. Thomas as they arrive home from the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>If the lazy and dishonest news media reported on real news stories, such as the corruption revealed on Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop, we might have a different president now. But then they wouldn\u2019t have the phony Ginni Thomas story to lie about, and Ocasio-Cortez wouldn\u2019t have another excuse to attack one of the greatest Supreme Court Justices of all time, who has always kept his oath to uphold our Constitution.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Wendy Long is a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s so predictable. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has now threatened Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign or else face impeachment. Leftists in Congress and the media hyperventilate over every tidbit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":560,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/560"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}