(Headline USA) The federal courts on Thursday rejected Democrat-led efforts to refer allegations of ethics crimes against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Justice Department.
Thomas, along with his eight colleagues on the court, has agreed to follow updated requirements on reporting trips and gifts, including clearer guidelines on hospitality from friends, the U.S. Judicial Conference wrote in a letter to Democratic senators who had targeted Thomas over the luxury trips.
Thomas has previously said he wasn’t required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for by wealthy GOP donor Harlan Crow and other benefactors because they are close personal friends. The court didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Thomas was not alone in facing criticism for unreported perks that blurred the line on potential conflicts of interest. Liberal justices including the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Obama appointee Sonia Sotomayor and Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson have been accused of failing to report outside influences including lucrative awards and book deals.
It’s unclear whether the law allows the U.S. Judicial Conference to make a criminal referral regarding a Supreme Court justice, U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad wrote.
He serves as secretary for the conference, which sets policy for the federal court system and is led by Chief Justice John Roberts.
A referral in Thomas’s case isn’t necessary, Conrad said, because the two Democrat senators called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel over the summer. No such appointment has been publicly made.
Conrad sent a similar response to a separate complaint from a conservative legal group, the Center for Renewing America, in regard to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s reports on the source of her husband’s consulting income.
Jackson has since amended her disclosures and also agreed to updated reporting requirements, Conrad wrote.
Focus on Thomas and fellow conservative Samuel Alito began after a leftist billionaire-funded foundation targeted them as part of a selective outrage campaign, deploying the activist ProPublica outlet to wage its smear campaign.
The activist attack led partisan Democrat Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dick Durbin of Illinois to use the issue in order to score cheap talking points on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It was part of a broader reffort to delegitimize the conservative-majority court, with President Joe Biden having gone so far as forming a blue-ribbon committee to study issues including of court-packing and term limits—in possible violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The leftist groups also may have hoped to pressure Thomas and Alito to resign—or else be impeached—during Biden’s presidency, giving him the opportunity to flip a conservative seat.
The Supreme Court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023 in the face of sustained criticism, though the new code still lacks a means of enforcement.
The activist group Fix the Court said the financial disclosure law was clear and should apply to justices.
“The Conference’s letters further underscore the need for Congress to create a new and transparent mechanism to investigate the justices for ethics violations since the Conference is unwilling to act upon the one method we had presumed existed to do that,” said a statement from Executive Director Gabe Roth, whose salary absorbs 96% of the organization’s revenue.
Congressional oversight and regulation of the court could potentially do more to politicize the judicial branch, which was designed to be free of political influence under the Constitution.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
