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Yahoo! News 360

Clarence Thomas’s luxury travel: A threat to the court’s legitimacy?

Mike Bebernes, Senior Editor – April 13, 2023

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What’s happening

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s friendship with a billionaire real estate developer has come under intense scrutiny following a report last week by ProPublica that details luxury vacations Thomas took part in over the past two decades.

According to the report, Thomas and his wife, Ginni, have enjoyed lavish trips funded by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow “virtually every year,” including global travel on Crow’s superyacht and private jet as well as annual visits to his properties in the U.S. The justice did not report any of these trips in his annual financial disclosures.

Thomas, a staunch conservative who has played a critical role in the Supreme Court’s rightward tilt in his more than 30 years on the bench, released a statement asserting that the trips did not need to be disclosed because they fell under an exception that allows for “personal hospitality from close personal friends.” Legal experts disagree over whether Thomas’s failure to report his travels with Crow violated federal disclosure laws, with some arguing that until recently the rules were too ambiguous to clearly assert that he should have disclosed them.

The Supreme Court is generally left to police itself. Unlike officials on lower federal courts, the nine justices are not bound by a formal code of ethics. Because the country’s founders wanted members of the nation’s top court to be shielded from politics, the other branches of government have little power to influence the court — other than the drastic step of impeachment.

Thomas is no stranger to controversy. His confirmation hearings in 1991 became one of the most heated political fights of the era amid accusations he had sexually harassed a colleague named Anita Hill. He has been a key conservative vote in contentious rulings around equal rights, voting access and abortion. More recently, he faced fierce criticism for refusing to recuse himself from cases that related to his wife’s participation in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Why there’s debate

Democrats and liberal commentators have roundly condemned Thomas for failing to disclose the extent of his relationship with Crow as well as his willingness to accept such lavish hospitality in the first place. Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the justice’s relationship with Crow, who has given millions to fund Republicans, represents an “almost cartoonish” level of corruption and called for Thomas to be impeached. Though there’s no direct evidence that Crow’s generosity influenced Thomas’s rulings, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said his actions were “simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a justice on the Supreme Court.”

Most conservatives have rallied to defend Thomas, arguing that he followed ethics rules as they’re written and insisting that even Supreme Court justices are allowed to have close friends. They also sternly reject the implication that a billionaire could alter a justice’s decision making in key cases by taking him on vacation. Many have accused Democrats of using these trips as an excuse to try to discredit Thomas, who has provided a consistent conservative bulwark against their cause for three decades.

But others say Thomas’s actions, whether or not they constitute actual corruption, bolster the view that the Supreme Court has lost its legitimacy. The public’s faith in the court reached an all-time low last year in the months following its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Critics say Thomas’s actions, and the lack of any accountability for them, feed the perception that the conservative justices are merely an extension of the Republican political movement.

What’s next

Durbin said last week that the Senate Judiciary Committee will act in response to the ProPublica report. It’s unclear what steps he and any other members of Congress will take. The scandal has also revived calls for Congress to establish an official ethics code for the Supreme Court, but similar efforts in recent years have fizzled due to lack of bipartisan support.

Perspectives

This is exactly what real corruption looks like

“Corruption is much more than a cartoonish quid pro quo, where cash changes hands and the state is used for private gain. Corruption, more often than not, looks like an ordinary relationship, even a friendship. It is perks and benefits freely given to a powerful friend. It is expensive gifts and tokens of appreciation between those friends, except that one holds office and the other wants to influence its ideological course. It is being enmeshed in networks of patronage that look innocent from the inside but suspect to those who look with clearer eyes from the outside.” — Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

Justices can’t be expected to be lifelong hermits

“Supreme Court justices are allowed to have friends, even if a particular friend is rich and a particular justice is conservative. Clarence Thomas has written a lot of important Supreme Court opinions during his three decades on the bench. I recommend that we spend our time addressing those and leave his personal life to him.” — Scott Douglas Gerber, The Hill

Crow’s money gives him influence that regular people could never imagine

“Crow may not have bought Thomas’s vote, but he sure paid for hundreds of hours of face time. … If you’re a rich Republican friend of the Crows, you had an opportunity to plead your case to the justice. I didn’t. Women … didn’t. Parents of children who were murdered at school because of Thomas’s interpretation of the Second Amendment didn’t. Crow doesn’t invite those parents to his private resort when the justice is around.” — Elie Mystal, The Nation

Democrats want to dismantle the conservative court by any means available

“This non-bombshell has triggered breathless claims that the Court must be investigated, and that Justice Thomas must resign or be impeached. Those demands give away the real political game here.” — Editorial, Wall Street Journal

The country’s most powerful judges shouldn’t have lower ethical standards than regular workers

“While librarians and teachers and FDA inspectors and lawyers turn down water bottles and bagels, Thomas says yes to all this? Are those pesky ethics and rules just for the little people, too? It’s demoralizing, fuels cynicism, and corrodes trust in public institutions.” — Terri Gerstein, Slate

Partisanship makes it impossible to have a real conversation about the issues at play

“There is little doubt that interpretations of Thomas’s ethics fall quite neatly into red and blue camps. … If your guy does something, it’s unprecedented corruption. If my guy does it, it’s a trivial lapse. See: sex scandals of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.” — Mona Charen, The Bulwark

Thomas’s actions represent a lapse in judgment, not a major scandal

“Thomas was wrong not to disclose apparently free, luxurious trips as a guest of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. He should amend the record, apologize for the lack of disclosure, pledge to observe disclosure rules more scrupulously in the future — and then move on. Thomas’s nondisclosures are an ethical lapse. They are not, however, major sins.” — Quin Hillyer, Washington Examiner

The lack of any real guardrails for justices poses a threat to the court’s legitimacy

“Ultimately, what’s even more troubling than his behavior is the fact that the Supreme Court does not have its own code of conduct, even though there is one that applies to other federal judges. And if the high court doesn’t take the steps to adopt one on its own, Congress should act swiftly to pass legislation requiring justices to adhere to ethical standards.” — Julian Zelizer, CNN

The country’s legal system will collapse if the public doesn’t believe it’s legitimate

“The Supreme Court has no army or police department that can enforce its rulings outside its walls. … For the sake of the institution and its legitimacy, the justices need to display respect for the trust that should go with the lifetime appointments they have been given — or they will continue to see an erosion of public faith.” — Editorial, Washington Post

The myth of an independent judiciary is long dead

“The unspoken assumption is that, by definition, Supreme Court justices cannot be unethical, partisan cynics. It is an absurd, self-serving mythos propagated by legal elites who have earned the American people’s abhorrence. Thomas’s ethical quagmire exposes the Supreme Court’s self-mythology for the lie that it is.” — Max Moran, The American Prospect

The most worrying thing is that Republicans see nothing wrong

“One singularly unethical justice might be a containable problem. But Clarence Thomas is not seen by conservatives as an embarrassment they’re stuck with. To the contrary, they celebrate him as their moral beacon.” — Jonathan Chait, New York

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

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HuffPost

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.

Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica

April 13, 2023

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.

The disclosure form Thomas filed for that year also had a space to report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction, such as a real estate deal. That space is blank.

“He needed to report his interest in the sale,” said Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer now at the watchdog group CREW. “Given the role Crow has played in subsidizing the lifestyle of Thomas and his wife, you have to wonder if this was an effort to put cash in their pockets.”

Thomas did not respond to detailed questions for this story.

In a statement, Crow said he purchased Thomas’ mother’s house, where Thomas spent part of his childhood, to preserve it for posterity. “My intention is to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice,” he said. “I approached the Thomas family about my desire to maintain this historic site so future generations could learn about the inspiring life of one of our greatest Americans.”

Crow’s statement did not directly address why he also bought two vacant lots from Thomas down the street. But he wrote that “the other lots were later sold to a vetted builder who was committed to improving the quality of the neighborhood and preserving its historical integrity.”

ProPublica also asked Crow about the additions on Thomas’ mother’s house, like the new carport. “Improvements were also made to the Thomas property to preserve its long-term viability and accessibility to the public,” Crow said.

Ethics law experts said Crow’s intentions had no bearing on Thomas’ legal obligation to disclose the sale.

The justice’s failure to report the transaction suggests “Thomas was hiding a financial relationship with Crow,” said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis who reviewed years of Thomas’ disclosure filings.

There are a handful of carve-outs in the disclosure law. For example, if someone sells “property used solely as a personal residence of the reporting individual or the individual’s spouse,” they don’t need to report it. Experts said the exemptions clearly did not apply to Thomas’ sale.

The revelation of a direct financial transaction between Thomas and Crow casts their relationship in a new light. ProPublica reported last week that Thomas has accepted luxury travel from Crow virtually every year for decades, including private jet flights, international cruises on the businessman’s superyacht and regular stays at his private resort in the Adirondacks. Crow has long been influential in conservative politics and has spent millions on efforts to shape the law and the judiciary. The story prompted outcry and calls for investigations from Democratic lawmakers.

In response to that reporting, both Thomas and Crow released statements downplaying the significance of the gifts. Thomas also maintained that he wasn’t required to disclose the trips.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends,” Thomas wrote. “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips.” Crow told ProPublica that his gifts to Thomas were “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

It’s unclear if Crow paid fair market value for the Thomas properties. Crow also bought several other properties on the street and paid significantly less than his deal with the Thomases. One example: In 2013, he bought a pair of properties on the same block — a vacant lot and a small house — for a total of $40,000.

In his statement, Crow said his company purchased the properties “at market rate based on many factors including the size, quality, and livability of the dwellings.”

He did not respond to requests to provide documentation or details of how he arrived at the price.

Thomas was born in the coastal hamlet of Pin Point, outside Savannah. He later moved to the city, where he spent part of his childhood in his grandfather’s home on East 32nd Street.

“It had hardwood floors, handsome furniture, and an indoor bathroom, and we knew better than to touch anything,” Thomas wrote of the house in his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

He inherited his stake in that house and two other properties on the block following the death of his grandfather in 1983, according to records on file at the Chatham County courthouse. He shared ownership with his brother and his mother, Leola Williams. In the late 1980s, when Thomas was an official in the George H.W. Bush administration, he listed the addresses of the three properties in a disclosure filing. He reported that he had a one-third interest in them.

Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1991. By the early 2000s, he had stopped listing specific addresses of property he owned in his disclosures. But he continued to report holding a one-third interest in what he described as “rental property at ## 1, 2, & 3” in Savannah. He valued his stake in the properties at $15,000 or less.

Two of the houses were torn down around 2010, according to property records and a footnote in Thomas’ annual disclosure archived by Free Law Project.

In 2014, the Thomas family sold the vacant lots and the remaining East 32nd Street house to one of Crow’s companies. The justice signed the paperwork personally. His signature was notarized by an administrator at the Supreme Court, Perry Thompson, who did not respond to a request for comment. (The deed was signed on the 23rd anniversary of Thomas’ Oct. 15 confirmation to the Supreme Court. Crow has a Senate roll call sheet from the confirmation vote in his private library.)

Thomas’ financial disclosure for that year is detailed, listing everything from a “stained glass medallion” he received from Yale to a life insurance policy. But he failed to report his sale to Crow.

Crow purchased the properties through a recently formed Texas company called Savannah Historic Developments LLC. The company shares an address in Dallas with Crow Holdings, the centerpiece of his real estate empire. Its formation documents were signed by Crow Holdings’ general counsel. Business records filed with the Texas secretary of state say Savannah Historic Developments is managed by a Delaware LLC, HRC Family Branch GP, an umbrella company that also covers other Crow assets like his private jet. The Delaware company’s CEO is Harlan Crow.

A Crow Holdings company soon began paying the roughly $1,500 in annual property taxes on Thomas’ mother’s house, according to county tax records. The taxes had previously been paid by Clarence and Ginni Thomas.

Crow still owns Thomas’ mother’s home, which the now-94-year-old continued to live in through at least 2020, according to public records and social media. Two neighbors told ProPublica she still lives there. Crow did not respond to questions about whether he has charged her rent. Soon after Crow purchased the house, an award-winning local architecture firm received permits to begin $36,000 of improvements.

Crow’s purchases seem to have played a role in transforming the block. The billionaire eventually sold most of the other properties he bought to new owners who built upscale modern homes, including the two vacant lots he purchased from Thomas.

Crow also bought the house immediately next door to Thomas’ mother, which was owned by somebody else and had been known for parties and noise, according to property records and W. John Mitchell, former president of a nearby neighborhood association. Soon the house was torn down. “It was an eyesore,” Mitchell said. “One day miraculously all of them were put out of there and they scraped it off the earth.”

“The surrounding properties had fallen into disrepair and needed to be demolished for health and safety reasons,” Crow said in his statement. He added that his company built one new house on the block “and made it available to a local police officer.”

Today, the block is composed of a dwindling number of longtime elderly homeowners and a growing population of young newcomers. The vacant lots that the Thomas family once owned have been replaced by pristine two-story homes. An artisanal coffee shop and a Mediterranean bistro are within walking distance. Down the street, a multicolored pride flag blows in the wind.

Yahoo News 360

In Wisconsin, a big win for liberals and a warning for the GOP

Mike Bebernes – Senior Editor – April 9, 2023

How Wisconsin’s new liberal supreme court could rule on abortion rights, redistricting

What’s happening

On Tuesday night, while most of the political world was still focusing on the indictment of former President Donald Trump, a liberal candidate secured a major win that arguably suggests more about how future national elections may go than anything that happened in that New York City courtroom earlier in the day.

In Wisconsin, a liberal judge, Janet Protasiewicz, decisively defeated her conservative opponent, Daniel Kelly, and secured a seat on the state’s Supreme Court in a race widely considered to be the most important election of 2023. Protasiewicz’s victory will give liberals a majority on the Wisconsin court for the first time in 15 years. This potentially offers them the opportunity to strike down a 19th-century law banning nearly all abortions and to redraw congressional maps that have allowed Republicans to dominate the Wisconsin Legislature, despite the near 50-50 split of voters in the state.

Although the contest was nonpartisan on paper, it had all of the markings of a traditional campaign. Democrats and Republicans rallied intensely behind their preferred candidates, spending a combined $42 million on the race — nearly three times the previous record for any state Supreme Court election. Protasiewicz campaigned heavily on abortion and democracy reform, while Kelly attempted to portray her as “soft on crime.”

In another high-profile race Tuesday night in Chicago, the progressive candidate, Brandon Johnson, beat the conservative Democrat Paul Vallas in the race to become mayor of the nation’s third-largest city. These two victories come five months after Democrats overcame predictions of a “red wave” in last year’s midterm elections by winning key Senate, House and governors’ races across the country.

Why there’s debate

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will probably have a significant impact on politics in the state, but many political observers say it also serves as a strong bellwether of the political dynamics in the country ahead of next year’s critical presidential election cycle.

Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum say the result should be a flashing red warning light for Republicans about the dangers they face in 2024. They argue that Protasiewicz’s win shows that the dynamics that fueled the GOP’s lackluster showing in the midterms — most notably opposition to Trump and backlash to the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning abortion protections established in Roe v. Wade — are still swaying swing voters. Many also make the case that Republicans have little hope of pivoting away from such unpopular positions because of the intensely pro-Trump and anti-abortion views of the party’s core voters.

There are also practical implications of the new liberal majority on Wisconsin’s top court that could benefit Democrats. If the court throws out the state’s gerrymandered district map, which is strongly biased in the Republicans’ favor, that could help Democrats gain a handful of seats in the House of Representatives and tip the balance in the state Legislature in their favor. Some legal experts add that having Protasiewicz on the bench, rather than an ally of Trump, like Kelly, dramatically reduces the chances that a GOP-backed legal effort to challenge the state’s results in the next presidential election would be successful.

Other observers are wary of making too many predictions based on a single, off-year election, with more than 18 months to go before the presidential election. They argue that the types of voters who turn out for a state Supreme Court race don’t necessarily reflect the voters who will turn out next November, especially if Trump himself is on the ballot. It’s also possible, some add, that abortion may not be as potent an issue for Democrats in the future, because the question may largely have been settled in most states by the time voters head to the polls.

What’s next

Protasiewicz is scheduled to be sworn in in August, and the court is expected to quickly take up challenges to both the state’s centuries-old abortion ban and its gerrymandered district map. There has been some speculation that Republicans in the Wisconsin State Senate may attempt to impeach Protasiewicz to prevent her from tipping power in the court, but the party’s leaders have insisted that is not going to happen.

Perspectives

Republicans’ refusal to abandon unpopular positions means the losses will keep coming

“Republicans were, after all, warned. Again and again. On Trump and abortion, but also on guns, moral Grundyism, and their addiction to the crazy. Yet despite all the red blinking lights — and they are flashing everywhere — the GOP simply smacks its lips and says, ‘This is fine.’ More, please.” — Charlie Sykes, Bulwark

The GOP has time to stem its losses on abortion if it’s willing to moderate on the issue

“The Wisconsin results show abortion is still politically potent. … Republicans had better get their abortion position straight, and more in line with where voters are or they will face another disappointment in 2024. A total ban is a loser in swing states. Republicans who insist on that position could soon find that electoral defeats will lead to even more liberal state abortion laws than under Roe.” — Editorial, Wall Street Journal

An obscure, off-year court race can’t tell us much about how national elections will go

“The supreme-court election is a big win for the Left, but it would be foolish to suggest it means Wisconsin won’t be a competitive state in 2024. Turnout in 2023 was significantly higher than in a typical supreme-court election but significantly lower than in the November 2022 midterm elections or the 2020 presidential election.” — John McCormack, National Review

Democratic strength in Midwest swing states narrows the GOP’s path to the White House

“These gains in turn will further energize progressives and elect more Democrats in a virtuous circle. It is hard to imagine any Republican presidential candidate carrying Wisconsin in 2024, and that pattern is likely to hold in other key Midwestern states.” — Robert Kuttner, American Prospect

Unique circumstances made abortion more central in Wisconsin than it will be in most other contests

“The answer seems to be that abortion is a winning issue for Democrats, but only in some circumstances. When a campaign revolves around the subject — as the Wisconsin Supreme Court race did this week and voter referendums in Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan did last year — abortion can win big even in purple or red states. … But there is not yet evidence that abortion can determine the outcome of most political campaigns.” — David Leonhardt, New York Times

The GOP’s MAGA base is driving the party straight toward disaster in 2024

“The GOP nominee will have most likely endorsed a national abortion ban (or at least draconian abortion restrictions in their own state) to make the party’s primary voters happy. … If messaging about defending abortion rights and democracy commanded a sizable majority in this highly polarized, blue collar-heavy swing state, it may well continue constituting Kryptonite to MAGA — all the way through 2024.” — Greg Sargent, Washington Post

The messages that have helped the GOP win in the past may not work today

“Away from the Trump circus, it certainly feels like a shift is happening. The go-to Republican scare tactics – Socialism is coming! Crime is rampant! The family is under attack! – aren’t working. And when the face of your party becomes the first former president ever indicted, the old ‘party of law and order’ line falls a bit flat.” — Rex Huppke, USA Today

The result should inspire Democrats to proudly stand up for progressive policies

“For Democrats, there is a lesson here. When they run on protecting abortion rights, they tend to win. When they shy away from messages that are central to their party’s identity — for instance, by tacking to the center with tough-on-crime policies — their record is much more mixed. … In much of the country, voters don’t want Republican-lite candidates. They want Democrats who act like Democrats.” — Alex Shephard, New Republic

Abortion fights may be largely settled by the time the presidential election comes around

“Abortion might be legal in Wisconsin by the 2024 election. I think that’s actually quite likely. So, you know, abortion as a motivating issue might not be there for some voters.” — Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, FiveThirtyEight

A liberal majority on Wisconsin’s court will counter the GOP’s efforts to subvert democracy

“A redrawn map could put two or three GOP-held seats in Congress in play for Democrats. … The actual winner of the 2024 Wisconsin presidential election will all but certainly receive the state’s electoral votes.” — Christina Cauterucci, Slate

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Photo Credit REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

USA Today

Clarence Thomas accepted luxury gifts from GOP megadonor for decades without disclosing them: report

Sarah Elbeshbishi and Josh Meyer – April 6, 2023

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted luxury gifts from a prominent Republican donor for more than 20 years without disclosing them, possibly violating a law that requires justices, judges and members of Congress to disclose most gifts, according to a new report.

ProPublica reported Thursday on a series of lavish trips Thomas has taken over more than two decades, which have been funded by billionaire and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

This investigation comes as the nation’s high court fends off requests for a code of ethics, which would likely address similar instances.

The disclosures are the latest ethics controversy to dog Thomas, who also has faced tough questions about his incomplete financial disclosure forms and appearances at other political gatherings of wealthy conservative donors and influencers.

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, his wife, also has come under scrutiny for her back-channel efforts to help former President Donald Trump stay in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

Thomas accepted luxury gifts without disclosing them, according to report

Thomas has accepted lavish gifts from the billionaire Dallas businessman nearly every year, which had included vacations on Crow’s superyacht and trips on the billionaire’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet as well as a week each summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks, ProPublica reported, citing flight records, internal documents and interviews with Crow’s employees.

The report also found that flight records from the Federal Aviation Administration and FlightAware suggests that Thomas makes “regular use” of Crow’s jet, noting that Thomas used the private plane for a three-hour trip in 2016.

Thomas’ frequent trips to Crow’s private lakeside report, Camp Topridge, in the Adirondacks in upstate New York has also subjected Thomas to Crow’s extensive guestlist of corporate executives and political activists.

More: Supreme Court justices don’t have a code of ethics. Hundreds of judges say that’s a problem

Thomas vacationed with executives at Verizon and PricewaterhouseCoopers, major GOP donors, a leader of the American Enterprise Institute during a July 2017 trip, according to ProPublica.

What did Thomas, Crow say?

Thomas didn’t respond to ProPublica’s request for comment, but Crow in a statement said he and his wife’s “hospitality” to Thomas and his wife “over the years is no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

Crow, in his statement, also emphasized that he has never asked Thomas about any pending or lower court case, nor has Thomas discussed one, adding that “we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue” nor is aware of “any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence” Thomas.

Renewed calls for code of ethics

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a longtime advocate for more transparency and accountability on the Supreme Court, issued a series of tweets following the ProPublica story saying it underscores why an overhaul of court ethics laws and requirements is urgently needed.

“A picture worth a thousand words,” Whitehouse said, including a painting in his tweet from the ProPublica report that allegedly hangs at Crow’s Adirondacks resort, Camp Topridge. It shows Thomas smoking cigars with Crow and other prominent conservatives.

Whitehouse outlined some of the connections between those in what he calls “the ‘cigar boys’ painting,” saying one of them, Leonard Leo, runs a “constellation of front groups” whose goal is to secretly influence the High Court.

As one example, Whitehouse said that an organization called the Judicial Crisis Network “raised anonymous money in checks as big as $17 million to fund political ads for (Supreme Court justices) Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.”

“The donor(s) who funded ads to help Leo’s Judicial Crisis Network front group pack the Court, and the donor’s(s’) business or interests before the Court, have never been disclosed,” Whitehouse said.

“This secrecy is toxic and wrong,” he added. “The Court should not protect it any longer, and the Judicial Conference should look diligently and with urgency into this mess of front group briefs.”

Whitehouse, a lawyer and former top federal prosecutor, is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees Supreme Court nominations.

The least accountable part of the U.S. government?

Gabe Roth, executive director of the non-partisan group Fix the Court, said the ProPublica story “leads to a conclusion we’ve all come to expect: the Supreme Court is the least accountable part of our government, and nothing is going to change without a wholesale, lawmaker-led reimagining of its responsibilities when it comes to basic measures of oversight.”

Roth said the disclosures in the report underscore that ‘personal hospitality rules’ adopted by the judiciary last month do not go far enough, and that Supreme Court and lower courts need to adopt “the same, if not stricter, gift and travel rules than what members of Congress have.”

“That means a judicial ethics office to pre-approve sponsored trips, no matter who — even a ‘friend’ — is footing the bill, and judges and justices should be required to file a report within 30 days of their return listing the names of other guests and the dollar amounts for every mode of transportation taken, plus lodging and meals.”

Roth also called on Thomas to update his disclosure reports “for every year he took a private plane, as it appears that such luxurious travel has never been included under the ‘personal hospitality exemption.’”

NBC News

What Trump risks if he keeps talking about the judge in his N.Y. criminal case

The former president has suggested Judge Juan Merchan is biased, and referred to District Attorney Alvin Bragg as an “animal.” Could the court limit his ability to speak about the case?

By Laura Jarrett – April 3, 2023

For days, former President Donald Trump has been on a tear on social media, railing against District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money investigation, his former lawyer Michael Cohen, prosecutors and, more recently, the judge presiding over the historic case.

Without evidence, he’s referred to Judge Juan Merchan as “Trump Hating” and suggested that Merchan was “handpicked” by Bragg. In an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, was asked about the attacks and whether he believes the judge harbors any slant.

“No, I don’t believe the judge is biased. I mean, the president is entitled to his own opinion,” Tacopina said.

Trump has referred to Bragg as an “animal” in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. In an earlier Truth Social post, he appears to have shared an article that included an image of him wielding a baseball bat juxtaposed next to an image of Bragg’s head. That post was deleted.

All defendants have a right to vigorously defend their innocence, but Trump can’t threaten the prosecutor without risking other legal charges under New York law. The judge could also issue a gag order to prevent Trump or his attorneys from speaking publicly about the case.

NBC News spoke with former prosecutors about how and when a judge might limit speech about a case.

What’s a “gag order?”

A gag order is a judicially imposed order restricting parties, attorneys and/or witnesses in a pending case from making any public statements about it. The standard courts look to is whether such statements have a “reasonable likelihood” of possibly preventing a fair trial.

Merchan could issue one himself, or do so at the request of either side, but former prosecutors say they are not used frequently in New York. It’s up to the judge to craft the order as narrowly as possible to protect free speech rights, while at the same time preserving the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Often a defendant’s attorney will request that a judge issue one — whereas in this case, it’s Trump own statements that have fueled speculation about whether Merchan will issue one. 

The fact that Trump is running for public office raises the stakes and puts any restriction on his First Amendment rights in sharper view, but Robert C. Gottlieb, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said that shouldn’t matter.

“He’s no different than anyone else,” said Gottlieb of Trump, noting that while one cannot ignore the political implications of the case, “that does not give him [Trump] more rights to influence jurors or to threaten or incite violence. In that courtroom, he is only a defendant.”

Gottlieb also pointed to ethical rules prohibiting Trump’s attorneys from making public statements intended to prejudice the jury pool or influence the outcome of the trial.

What’s the likelihood of the judge imposing one here?

Other former prosecutors are more skeptical that a gag issue will be issued at Tuesday’s arraignment based on Trump’s social media posts thus far.

“I think it would be challenging to do it out of the box,” said Daniel Horwitz, another former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, now in private practice. “There usually has to be a predicate for it.”

Horwitz suggested it’s more likely that Merchan will issue a warning to everyone in court Tuesday and set some “ground rules,” essentially putting Trump on notice that if he talks, “he does it at his peril.”

Gottlieb has appeared before Merchan and agreed that, at minimum, the judge will make a record of what Trump has said about the case thus far, and admonish him against making any statements that could influence the jurors.

“I cannot believe that it won’t be addressed,” said Gottlieb. “You can’t ignore what has happened.”

Even if the judge opts not to impose a gag order, former District Attorney Cy Vance, who immediately preceded Bragg, noted that Trump risks violating other laws if he continues to make statements about the case.

“There is a crime. That’s called obstructing governmental administration under New York law,” Vance said on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” on Sunday, explaining that it would involve efforts to intimidate a public official. “[I]f I were Mr. Trump’s lawyer I would tell him to knock it off because it’s not going to help him with the judge and if it is charged, that’s not going to help him with a jury.”