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Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

Justice Alito's transgressions are fewer but less defensible than Justice Thomas's. Alito's failure to disclose the fishing trip is a clear violation. His attempt to get out in front of it by writing a "prebuttal" to the Wall Street Journal seems to me like pure spin-doctoring. It sounds like he knew he was going to get justly skewered over this and wanted to try making the first impression. For a court that says they just call balls and strikes without political posturing, this sure sounds like posturing. How can you call a ball before the pitcher even takes the mound?

The excuses being offered up by the Right are pathetic and embarrassing. Or rather, they would be embarrassing if the Right could be embarrassed.

Paul Singer's name never appeared in filings before the Court? What an obvious straw man. My company is involved in litigation all the time over ordinary business dealings. My name never shows up in those court filings because the company is the party. The Right typically wants to evaluate allegations of corruption by absurdly narrow standards. "Paul Singer didn't walk into Justice Alito's office with a giant bag of money (with the nominal dollar-sign on it) and say, 'I will give you this bag of money if you rule in my favor,' so there can't have been any quid pro quo." That's pretty much the legal standard these days, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

No one who is reasonable, unbiased, and well informed would look askance at this? That's pure nonsense. Other judges don't accept such gifts from anyone—disclosed or otherwise—because the margin for corruption in the judiciary (except for SCOTUS) is set very wide by enforceable standards. The goal is for anyone accusing a judge who confirms to that standard of being influenced by emoluments from interested parties to have a very tall burden of proof. I'm a reasonable, well-informed, probably-somewhat-biased person who is absolutely livid that a billionaire with business before the court is treating an unreviewable justice sitting on his cases to lavish personal emoluments.

They never discussed the business of the court or Singer's business? First, I doubt that's true. Two people with prominent jobs aren't going to talk about what they do all day? Second, they don't have to. As I said, the Right's concept of what has to rise to the level of corruption is comically narrow and absurd. Corruption is far more along the lines of wink-wink-nudge-nudge. This is why the actual standard for federal judges is so very strict and the margin so very broad. They want to cover as much potential for wink-wink-nudge-nudge as possible. In lower federal courts, the rule is "No winking or nudging." In the U.S. Supreme Court it's, "If any billionaires call about luxury fishing trips, just fit it into my calendar somewhere."

If he hadn't gone on the trip, the seat on the plane would have been empty? I don't even know where to begin with this one. This just illustrates how the justices on the Supreme Court—and the political elite in the U.S.—are just so very out of touch with how 99 percent of the population is forced to live.
 
It is utterly pathetic who the highest Judges in the Land try to argue that they could not possibly have understood the text and spirit of the disclosure requirements.

New Rule: if you are too stupid to fill out a Disclosure Form, you are too stupid to sit on a Court - any Court.
 
Neither Thomas nor Alito give a flying ******* **** what we or anyone else think about them. The only thing that can be done is impeachment and conviction, and that is never going to happen.

Edit to add: Only one Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Chase, has ever been impeached, in 1804, and the Senate acquitted him. In 1969, Abe Fortas resigned before he could be impeached.
 
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Of course Roberts is not going to require a SCOTUS ethics rule, Robert's wife laundered millions into his pocket. He was supposed to report his wife's income and he didn't.
 
JayUtah said:
Justice Alito's transgressions are fewer but less defensible than Justice Thomas's. Alito's failure to disclose the fishing trip is a clear violation. His attempt to get out in front of it by writing a "prebuttal" to the Wall Street Journal seems to me like pure spin-doctoring. It sounds like he knew he was going to get justly skewered over this and wanted to try making the first impression. For a court that says they just call balls and strikes without political posturing, this sure sounds like posturing. How can you call a ball before the pitcher even takes the mound?

The excuses being offered up by the Right are pathetic and embarrassing. Or rather, they would be embarrassing if the Right could be embarrassed.

Paul Singer's name never appeared in filings before the Court? What an obvious straw man. My company is involved in litigation all the time over ordinary business dealings. My name never shows up in those court filings because the company is the party. The Right typically wants to evaluate allegations of corruption by absurdly narrow standards. "Paul Singer didn't walk into Justice Alito's office with a giant bag of money (with the nominal dollar-sign on it) and say, 'I will give you this bag of money if you rule in my favor,' so there can't have been any quid pro quo." That's pretty much the legal standard these days, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

No one who is reasonable, unbiased, and well informed would look askance at this? That's pure nonsense. Other judges don't accept such gifts from anyone—disclosed or otherwise—because the margin for corruption in the judiciary (except for SCOTUS) is set very wide by enforceable standards. The goal is for anyone accusing a judge who confirms to that standard of being influenced by emoluments from interested parties to have a very tall burden of proof. I'm a reasonable, well-informed, probably-somewhat-biased person who is absolutely livid that a billionaire with business before the court is treating an unreviewable justice sitting on his cases to lavish personal emoluments.

They never discussed the business of the court or Singer's business? First, I doubt that's true. Two people with prominent jobs aren't going to talk about what they do all day? Second, they don't have to. As I said, the Right's concept of what has to rise to the level of corruption is comically narrow and absurd. Corruption is far more along the lines of wink-wink-nudge-nudge. This is why the actual standard for federal judges is so very strict and the margin so very broad. They want to cover as much potential for wink-wink-nudge-nudge as possible. In lower federal courts, the rule is "No winking or nudging." In the U.S. Supreme Court it's, "If any billionaires call about luxury fishing trips, just fit it into my calendar somewhere."

If he hadn't gone on the trip, the seat on the plane would have been empty? I don't even know where to begin with this one. This just illustrates how the justices on the Supreme Court—and the political elite in the U.S.—are just so very out of touch with how 99 percent of the population is forced to live.
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What Alito and Thomas did should be considered treasonous. The both of them individually sold out their country and it's highest laws for a couple of cheap baubles.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Of course Roberts is not going to require a SCOTUS ethics rule, Robert's wife laundered millions into his pocket. He was supposed to report his wife's income and he didn't.
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And the problem with an ethics rule passed by Congress is that the Supreme Court can simply declare it unconstitutional as a violation of the separation of powers. The Constitution gives Congress power over "inferior" federal courts, but little power over the Supreme Court.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
What Alito and Thomas did should be considered treasonous. The both of them individually sold out their country and it's highest laws for a couple of cheap baubles.
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We can informally and individually consider it treason, but the law specifically defines treason as levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies or giving them aid and comfort. While we can certainly construct a line of reasoning defining oligarchical billionaires as enemies of the United States, it's fairly clear that treason refers to people engaged in actual traditional armed conflict. Since the justices' partners in corruption are U.S. citizens ostensibly working for the greater benefit of the U.S., you couldn't actually charge them for treason.

But I think it's clear they're willingly and deceptively participating in a program of ongoing corruption in which wealthy parties are currying favor with the justices. Whether they have business before the court or may eventually have some is irrelevant. We place clear, draconian restrictions on lesser judges aimed at convincing even skeptics that those judges' power hasn't been bought, or even look like it's been bought. That our highest justices are willfully concealing such emoluments is pretty convincing evidence that they knew it would look suspicious but were determined to do it anyway.

I should add that the excuse they didn't understand the nuances of the disclosure laws falls loudly flat. When holding ordinary citizens, lower judges, and attorneys to account, the Supreme Court is merciless in its standard of care. Even ordinary people with minimal education are supposed to understand enough nuance to understand fully their rights and responsibilities under the law. The double standard being displayed here is frankly patronizing.
 
JayUtah said:
We can informally and individually consider it treason, but the law specifically defines treason as levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies or giving them aid and comfort. While we can certainly construct a line of reasoning defining oligarchical billionaires as enemies of the United States, it's fairly clear that treason refers to people engaged in actual traditional armed conflict. Since the justices' partners in corruption are U.S. citizens ostensibly working for the greater benefit of the U.S., you couldn't actually charge them for treason.

But I think it's clear they're willingly and deceptively participating in a program of ongoing corruption in which wealthy parties are currying favor with the justices. Whether they have business before the court or may eventually have some is irrelevant. We place clear, draconian restrictions on lesser judges aimed at convincing even skeptics that those judges' power hasn't been bought, or even look like it's been bought. That our highest justices are willfully concealing such emoluments is pretty convincing evidence that they knew it would look suspicious but were determined to do it anyway.

I should add that the excuse they didn't understand the nuances of the disclosure laws falls loudly flat. When holding ordinary citizens, lower judges, and attorneys to account, the Supreme Court is merciless in its standard of care. Even ordinary people with minimal education are supposed to understand enough nuance to understand fully their rights and responsibilities under the law. The double standard being displayed here is frankly patronizing.
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Well said.
 
We need to get back to the days of Federal Judges on Horses to get these people out of the Ivory towers their sugar daddiea are buying for them.
 
Not many news sources are bringing it up yet but it needs to be: besides showering these scumbags with bribes, guess whose money is behind the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell getting them on the SCOTUS in the first place?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Not many news sources are bringing it up yet but it needs to be: besides showering these scumbags with bribes, guess whose money is behind the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell getting them on the SCOTUS in the first place?
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Leonard Leo?

Leonard Leo used Federalist Society contact to obtain $1.6B donation

Leonard Leo, who helped to choose judicial nominees for former President Donald Trump, obtained a historic $1.6 billion gift for his conservative legal network via an introduction through the Federalist Society, whose tax status forbids political activism.
Leo first met Barre Seid, the now 91-year-old manufacturing magnate turned donor, through an introduction arranged by Eugene Meyer, the longtime director of the Federalist Society. At the time, Leo was the society’s executive vice president, and he is currently its co-chair. Meyer envisioned Seid as a contributor to the society, according to a person familiar with the introduction. Instead, Leo cultivated Seid as a funder of his own dark money network. The result was a $1.6 billion gift announced last year — which is believed to be the largest political donation ever.
The unusual arrangement in which Leo met his top donor through the prestigious Federalist Society — which describes itself as a nonpartisan educational organization — suggests closer ties between the society and Leo’s activist network than previously known. Leo has used the dark money network to donate millions of dollars to the society and to pay at least $1.54 million to one Federalist Society employee and $775,000 to an entity run by another, according to federal disclosure forms.
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This kind of rank, in-your-face corruption is a prime example of the particular form of toxic capitalism America practices. The system is set up to make accountability an uphill battle. The deep burrowing into politics by dark money would seem to be an intractable problem, given for how long it's been exposed to no corrective outcome.
 
Lurch said:
This kind of rank, in-your-face corruption is a prime example of the particular form of toxic capitalism America practices. The system is set up to make accountability an uphill battle. The deep burrowing into politics by dark money would seem to be an intractable problem, given for how long it's been exposed to no corrective outcome.
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I'm sure no such thing exists in Canada, right?
 
Lurch said:
This kind of rank, in-your-face corruption is a prime example of the particular form of toxic capitalism America practices. The system is set up to make accountability an uphill battle. The deep burrowing into politics by dark money would seem to be an intractable problem, given for how long it's been exposed to no corrective outcome.
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I think the problem is human nature not capitalism per se. And it's just as much the political system as the economic system.

The US Constitution can slow the creep of dark money into government. We might be sliding in a bad direction but we have every likelihood to move the country back. That has happened in the past.



On a side note and not to derail the thread, maybe it needs to be widened.

Amy Coney Barrett Faces Scrutiny Over Real Estate Deal With Religious Group
Barrett had personal ties with the University of Notre Dame's Religious Liberty Initiative, according to a CNN report. The group, "informed by the Catholic tradition" of the college says it aims to "promote religious freedom for all people," according to its website. ...

The group has been found to forge ties with justices to gain favor with the court, including paying for Justice Samuel Alito to travel to Rome to deliver a speech after the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year. The group's legal clinic has filed a series of "friend-of-the-court" briefs in religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court since it was founded in 2020—many of which Alito supported. ...

With the sale of her home in South Bend, Indiana, to Wilson for $905,000, Barrett can be considered the third Supreme Court justice to have made money from property transactions with conservative figures who are members of legal advocacy groups tied to the high court, per CNN's report. ...

Duffy and his wife closed on the home located on the plot of land for $1.825 million. Given that he had a 20% stake in the property, Gorsuch secured a profit between $250,001 and $500,000 from the sale.

Politico reported that Gorsuch failed to identify the buyer on his federal disclosure forms and, since the purchase,
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It was profitable and the timing was suspicious. But I'm having trouble finding out how much of that was profit and if the purchase price was over the estimated value. Hard to believe the buyer was just a coincidence but it's possible the news media was making a scandal where there wasn't one.

And it wasn't just Barrett:
Salon: "Shady and corrupt": Watchdog group sounds the alarm over Amy Coney Barrett real estate deal
Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a vacation home to the CEO of a major law firm who has argued before the court and did not disclose the buyer's name. Justice Clarence Thomas also came under fire earlier this year when ProPublica revealed a 2014 real estate deal he made with GOP megadonor and billionaire Harlan Crow and failed to disclose. The outlet also revealed that Crow had financed decades of lavish travel and gifts for Thomas and paid the tuition of Thomas' grandnephew for two years in the 2000s.
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Salon: Neil Gorsuch caught selling property to head of law firm “involved in at least 22” SCOTUS cases
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch found a buyer for a 40-acre property he had been trying to sell for nearly two years, only nine days after being confirmed for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, according to Politico.
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Can't report on one without mentioning the others. Think they are all telling each other or maybe that comes from the Federalist Society?
Thomas took another public hit — the conservative justice repeatedly claimed rental income from a real estate firm that has been out of business since the early 2000s, according to a report from The Washington Post. For the past two decades, Thomas reported income that his family received from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership — a Nebraska real estate firm started by his wife, Ginni, and her family in 1982 — though the company shuttered in 2006, and was ultimately rolled into a new, separate firm called Ginger Holdings, LLC.

However, since then, Thomas has allegedly continued to claim income — reported as "rent" — from Ginger, Ltd., Partnership,
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Was this posted already? Sorry for not looking, I'm in this rabbit hole at the moment.
Salon: Clarence Thomas caught reporting up to $750,000 in income from company that doesn't exist: report


Sweetheart real estate deals and book advances are a common theme in laundering under the table bribes.
 
and the problem IS capitalism, as is implies a causal link between being Rich and being Good: the superrich would not be superrich if they weren't guided by the divine invisible hand of the market.
Their success proves that what is good for them is good for society as a whole.

Therefore, a judge in a capitalist society might feel the obligation to treat a rich person very differently than a poor one, not because they commit fewer crimes, but because their crimes, by definition, must be for the good of society, or they would not be so rich.
 
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