Saturday, January 22, 2011

Justice Thomas Omitted His Tea Partying Wife’s Income From Financial Disclosure Forms

On Thursday of this past week, I posted a story about how US Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, participated in political strategy sessions with the group Citizens United. Afterward they voted in favor of overturning a century's worth of campaign finance laws which benefited Citizens United. Their (Scalia and Thomas) actions in this case were wrong, clearly unethical and a blatant example of judicial activism which should cause the US Attorney General to look into appointing a special prosecutor.

Now comes word from the website ThinkProgress.org that Justice Clarence Thomas hasn't disclosed his wife's income for the past six year. During which time she has earned over $680,000 from the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing, conservative think tank with ties to the Tea Party movement.

ThinkProgress writes:

"Federal judges and justices are required by law to disclose their spouse’s income — thus preventing persons who wish to influence the judge or justice from funneling money to them through their husband or wife. Yet, as the Los Angeles Times reports, Justice Clarence Thomas has not complied with this requirement for years..."

"This revelation that Justice Thomas failed to comply with his disclosure obligations comes as he is caught up in another ethics scandal regarding his participation in fundraisers for far-right political groups. Thomas once attended a gathering of wealthy corporate activists convened by billionaire Charles Koch to raise money for right-wing political causes, and he also attended at least one fundraiser hosted by the far-right think tank that used to employ his wife...."

I don't know if there is any past precedent that would allow a sitting US Supreme Court Justice to be removed from the bench for conduct unbecoming of a Justice, but do know that there has been lower court judges and justices that have been removed from their benches for similar or lesser offenses.

If these allegations turn out to be true, than I think impeachment and removal from the court is appropriate punishment for Justice Thomas.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This man should never been approved to serve in the first place. Respect of the law is not one of his attributes !