Idiot or Liar?
Idiot or Liar? Is not a question that should have to be applied to a Supreme Court Justice. But sometimes there are actions, statements, decisions that lead inevitably to that question. For the sake or argument/discussion let us accept the idea that Supreme Court Justices are supposed to be some of the greatest legal minds in the country. Obviously, that is an uncertain and debatable proposition. Nonetheless, to become a Justice of the highest Court you must be highly intelligent or at least moderately intelligent and well-connected. First, you must attend an elite law school and graduate at the top of your class. Then you must clerk for a Supreme Court Justice, which is the most elite job a newly minted lawyer can find. In the clerkship, you must demonstrate to sitting Supreme Court justices your legal reasoning skills and legal acumen. You may then spend some time working in Big Law making connections. Finally, you might transition into academia or into lower court judicial appointment. Arguably, at each of these stages that lawyer must demonstrate that their grasp of legal principles, argument and reasoning is a cut above the rest. All that is to say, that not just any lawyer can become a Supreme Court Justice. As a practicing attorney, I believe I am qualified to say that high intelligence is not a prerequisite to a successful career in law. Indeed, I know many attorneys of questionable intelligence. But to be a Supreme Court Justice excellent reasoning skills and high intelligence are necessary (or minimally some reasoning skills, moderate intelligence and good connections).
To be clear, there are many Supreme Court Justices with whom I vehemently disagree in almost all areas of law; for example, Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas. Perhaps the best example is the late Antonin Scalia. Of his opinions that I read, I probably disagreed with 80% of his reasoning and conclusions. However, I have never, and would never question his intelligence. True, he was an asshole, but he also possessed an extremely gifted legal mind.
So… Liar or idiot? Last week ProPublica revealed that for 25 years Justice Clarence Thomas has been accepting extravagant gifts from Republican megadonor, Harlan Crow. When I say “extravagant” I mean extremely extravagant. In fact, “extremely extravagant” does not even adequately describe the luxury bestowed upon him. Frankly, the English language does possess words to properly describe the largesse at issue. Justice Thomas participated in at least six trips on Crow’s private jet to destinations across the world. He vacationed in Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks yearly. Justice Thomas used Crows superyacht for luxury vacations. Justice Thomas and his wife Ginni (best known for trying to overthrow our democracy) were gifted a nine-day, island-hopping ultra luxurious vacation to Indonesia. Some analysts have estimated that had the Thomas’ paid for this vacation it may have cost up to a half a million dollars. Let that sink in. That is not a vacation that could be financed on a Supreme Court Justice’s salary (annual salary for Thomas - $285k).
Government ethics laws require that government officials, elected or appointed, disclose such gifts. Inexplicably, the rules for gifts to and disclosures by Judges are much less stringent than those applied to other government officials. Nonetheless, Judges must disclose gifts aggregating more than $415 in value. A “gift” can include “anything of value.” The reason for disclosure laws should be obvious. First, we do not want our officials to be bought and paid for. But let’s be real (or cynical), somewhere between many and most officials are in the pocket of someone. So, second, we at least want to know who is trying to buy and exercise influence. Democracy is supposed to work for the benefit of all citizens, not just those with the resources to buy it. Theoretically anyway…
It is unfathomable that anyone, let alone a Supreme Court Justice, could look at these gifts and conclude that this sort of largesse should not be disclosed to the American public. To decide these gifts are outside the scope of disclosure laws and basic ethical norms requires either 1) an incredible degree of idiocy or 2) desire to conceal. In other words, failure to disclose means Justice Thomas is either a complete idiot or an unrepentant liar.
How did Justice Thomas choose to respond to the bombshell allegations? He chose to argue idiocy: “Early 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,” Apparently, he believed that half a million dollar luxury vacation to Indonesia, yearly vacations to a luxury resort in the Adirondacks and private jet flights across the country were just gifts between friends. His defense is that a GOP megadonor (millions upon millions of donations) showered him and his wife with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts for… friendship? Justice Thomas wants us to believe that he believed that a real estate magnate worth over $2 billion, that donates millions to conservative causes and candidates was interested only in friendship and not political and legal influence. On top of that, Justice Thomas and Crow want us to believe that during their yearly vacations to the Adirondacks and a nine-day luxury cruise around Indonesia they did not talk about work. For real….
Justice Clarence Thomas, idiot or liar? He wants us all to believe he is an idiot (which is disturbing enough). He is not. It is simply not possible to attain a seat on the highest court while being irredeemably dumb. You can be self-obsessed, egomaniacal, a pure ideologue or a purely political hack and a liar and reactionary. But you just won’t make it to the bench without some intelligence and some base common sense. To believe that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts from a GOP megadonor does not need to be reported requires a complete lack of intelligence.
Thus, the verdict is in – Justice Clarence Thomas is a liar. He chose to conceal the gifts from Crow because he knew they were unethical. Justice Thomas knew that accepting such gifts was unethical for any judge, let alone a Supreme Court Justice. Justice Thomas knew that Crow was buying influence for himself and conservative causes. It is entirely irrelevant that Crow has not had business before the Court. Supreme Court decisions have widespread ramifications across all aspects of American life. One cannot overstate how impactful Supreme Court decisions are (just look at Roe v. Wade and Dobbs v. Jackson). Justice Thomas knew that disclosing hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from a GOP megadonor would erase any lingering vestiges of impartiality in his judicial reasoning. He knew, so he concealed and lied.
What makes it all worse, is the certainty that consequences are very unlikely. He will remain on the bench until he retires or dies. The wheels of justice will continue to slow toward a complete halt. Corruption will run rampant behind closed doors. The wealthy will buy their influence, while the rest of us will watch in horror as democracy devolves into oligarchy.
This should be a non-partisan cause. Republicans and Democrats alike should be outraged and demand investigations and, if warranted, impeachment. Everyone should be opposed to corruption in government. Everyone should want our judiciary to be as impartial as possible. If these same allegations came out against Justices Sotomayor or Kagan my anger would be the same (though I’d probably be more surprised). Unfortunately, you can be sure the GOP will pretend this is a witch hunt, and rush to defend plainly unethical, possibly illegal conduct. Prepare for a storm of “whataboutisms.” It is what they do.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-response-trips-legal-experts-harlan-crow
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/6/23672921/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-propublica-luxury-trips-harlan-crow
