{"id":1912122,"date":"2023-04-09T06:58:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-09T10:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/justice-clarence-thomas-denies-wrongdoing-after-propublica-hit-piece\/"},"modified":"2023-04-09T07:01:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T11:01:00","slug":"justice-clarence-thomas-denies-wrongdoing-after-propublica-hit-piece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/justice-clarence-thomas-denies-wrongdoing-after-propublica-hit-piece\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Clarence Thomas Denies Wrongdoing After ProPublica Hit Piece"},"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\">18<\/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%2Fjustice-clarence-thomas-denies-wrongdoing-after-propublica-hit-piece%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=1912122&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--><p>Thomas says he had been advised hospitality from close friends &#8216;was not reportable&#8217;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>After a news report highlighted luxurious vacations Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly accepted from a wealthy friend, Thomas said he was advised he didn\u2019t have to report the trips. In a new statement, Thomas denied any wrongdoing and vowed to follow new reporting requirements imposed on the federal judiciary.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas\u2019s critics in Congress promptly seized on the report last week of the vacations, suggesting it raised the appearance of impropriety.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanded that the justice be impeached, saying his actions evidenced an \u201calmost cartoonish\u201d level of corruption. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee\u2019s panel on federal courts, called for an independent investigation of the justice, who has long been a target of the left.<\/p>\n<p>Whitehouse and other critics also say that justices whose spouses are involved in political activism, like Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, is active in conservative politics, should have to recuse themselves from involvement in cases related to that activism. Despite pressure, the justice declined to recuse himself from the various challenges to the disputed 2020 presidential election that made it to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4540159\"><figcaption> Ginni Thomas, center, speaks to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during an event in Washington on Oct. 21, 2021. (Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Billionaire businessman and Republican Party donor Harlan Crow, who made the gifts to Thomas, has reportedly not had any business before the Supreme Court, so any allegation of a conflict of interest rests on weak grounds.<\/p>\n<p>Nor is it clear if Thomas violated the judicial ethics code by not declaring the vacations. Legal experts say the code does not apply to the Supreme Court. The court has said in the past that the justices voluntarily adhere to the ethics guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>Crow reportedly said the trips with Thomas and his wife were \u201cno different from the hospitality that we have extended to many other dear friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJustice Thomas and Ginni never asked for any of this hospitality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Details of the vacations appeared in an April 6 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">article<\/a> published by ProPublica, a left-wing nonprofit funded by the preeminent Democratic Party donor, financier George Soros, through his Foundation to Promote Open Society. Soros has been criticized by conservatives for funding the election campaigns of various district attorneys who are soft on crime.<\/p>\n<p>The ProPublica article says that Thomas has accepted luxury trips almost every year over the past two decades without publicly disclosing them. \u201cThe extent and frequency of Crow\u2019s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court,\u201d according to the article.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas said in a statement released by the Supreme Court\u2019s public information office on April 7 that Harlan Crow, and his wife, Kathy Crow, have been friends with Thomas and his wife \u201cfor over twenty-five years.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5179783\"><figcaption> The Supreme Court held a special sitting on September 30, 2022, for the formal investiture ceremony of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAs friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,\u201d the justice said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEarly 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n<p>The justice\u2019s comments came a week after it was reported that a committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body for the federal courts, issued new regulations requiring members of the federal judiciary to provide more information about hospitality, gifts, and benefits they receive from outside sources.<\/p>\n<p>Supreme Court justices have said they voluntarily comply with the official code of conduct, but it is not clear that they are required to do so. Although they are members of the federal judiciary, they enjoy a level of independence that the rest of the federal judiciary does not. This is because the Supreme Court enjoys a special status because it was created by the U.S. Constitution, as opposed to Congress. Legal experts say this means that only the Supreme Court can regulate the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4350255\"><figcaption> Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks during an event in Washington on Oct. 21, 2021. (Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It is a problem that the Judicial Conference was created by Congress, not the Supreme Court, legal experts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/lawyers-say-supreme-court-justices-not-subject-to-new-gift-reporting-rules_5157162.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">previously told<\/a> The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation\u00a0(PILF), said he doubts the new ethics regulations apply to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there is a fair chance they are unconstitutional,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Constitution does not give Congress the power to regulate the Supreme Court\u2019s behavior,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Veteran Supreme Court observer Curt Levey, president of the conservative Committee for Justice, also questioned the ability of the Judicial Conference to regulate the conduct of Supreme Court justices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Supreme Court can voluntarily follow this, but they certainly don\u2019t have the right to impose it on them,\u201d Levey said.<\/p>\n<p>The Epoch Times has reached out to Whitehouse\u2019s communications director, Meaghan McCabe, for comment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas says he had been advised hospitality from close friends &#8216;was not reportable&#8217; After a news report highlighted luxurious vacations Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly accepted from a wealthy friend, Thomas said he was advised he didn\u2019t have to report the trips. In a new statement, Thomas denied any wrongdoing and vowed to follow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1912123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[8680,10217,4775,9025,4901,4299,10759,10215],"class_list":["post-1912122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-wrongdoing","tag-clarence","tag-denies","tag-hit","tag-justice","tag-piece","tag-propublica","tag-thomas"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912122","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1912123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}