Coop Scoop: The Unbearable Stench of Clarence and Ginni Thomas

The new King and Queen of The Swamp

April 18, 2023

By Marc Cooper

Clarence Thomas should have never been seated on the Supreme Court.  A lackluster jurist, primarily an apparatchik for the Hard Right, Thomas was also clearly revealed as an active misogynist and a low grade sexual predator during his confirmation hearings three decades ago. I mean, at this juncture, is there really anybody operating in good faith who is going to still believe this be-robed fabricator and grifter? Anita Hill had him pinned to the wall but Thomas lucked out.

The Good Old Boys in the Senate, including at the time Senate Judiciary chair Joseph Biden, all rushed in to save his bacon and to push Hill aside.  The Senators decided to just seat the guy and not go through the rigamarole of having to find another candidate and confirm him or her. So what if he made a few jokes about Long John Silver and pubic hairs? Big deal. Most Senators do the same.

Thomas’ tenure has been a disaster and a disgrace.  He’s such a feeble character that he became known for almost never asking a question of any counsel that argued in front of the Supremes.  But be advised:  Clarence Thomas is now the mascot, the undisputed leader of America’s judicial right wing, having replaced Antonin Scalia in that role.  Hard to believe, isn’t it, that so many people can actually look upon this taker as anything but a taker and a faker.

The praise Thomas has won on the right has absolutely nothing to do with any sort of judicial smarts.  I doubt if this guy could even run a small claims court room.  No, Thomas is admired by the Right for his extremist political views. And as the court has evolved, his often mad decisions have moved from being addendums, to minority briefs to what are now majority decisions.  And whenever that majority does speak, you can bet your last dollar that Thomas’ views will be on the ragged edge.

In the infamous abortion ruling this past year, you will remember that Thomas was not satisfied in killing off Roe v. Wade; he also argued in his own brief that many other rights devolved from due process rather than explicit mention in the constitution should also be abridged – singling out birth control and gay marriage. That he has sights fixed on LGBTQ people is a fact.

Clarence Thomas is an ongoing direct threat to democratic rule and civil liberties in the United States.  Never forget that his wife, Ginni, is neck deep in political organizations that are committed to demolishing the administrative state and abridging further constitutional rights.  No accident she was a militant supporter of the January 6 siege of Congress.

He is also an ongoing insult to civil society.  Apart from being the favored lapdog of the richest and most powerful reactionary forces in the country, he also seems to be the domesticated pet puppy dog of billionaire Harlan Row, precisely one of those powerful ultra-reactionaries.  Thanks to the fine reporting of Pro Publica, it appears that Row has more or less “acquired” Thomas and Ginni Thomas as his personal chums and beneficiaries.  For years now, he has been treating them to private, elite and quite expensive vacations, tooling around on Row’s obscene 162 foot yacht.

Thomas has refused to appropriately declare these gifts from Sugar Daddy Row, and they are gifts. His protestations that he was not required to do so are about as convincing as his lies were about Anita Hill.  And let’s be real: if he actually did not understand the provision requiring him to declare such gifts, that’s even better reason to kick his ass off the bench.  You would imagine that the nine members of the highest court in the land would have a highly elevated sense of the law, especially regarding their own personal ethics. So if he couldn’t figure that out, who is gonna trust him to, say, understand the nuances of medical abortion?

Of course, Thomas DID fully understand the disclosure requirement.  He also fully understood that there is almost no oversight of the high court and therefore he cou;ld do anything he god damn pleased.  Like openly wallowing in classic corruption while raking in the favors.

There are still some questions about how much Row paid for the Thomas’ property back in 2014.  There is initial but not yet conclusive evidence that he willfully overpaid in order to put even more cash in Thomas’ pocket. I’m betting that will become conclusive in the coming days.

As soon as Row bought the modest house Thomas’ mother was living in, he immediately began to fix it up, investing about $35,000 in improvements.  His story that he bought the property to eventually build a Clarence Thomas Library does not pass the laugh test.  He sold off the adjoining properties that he would have needed for such a project.  The real project here is Do Favors For Supreme Court Justice Thomas

Those favors not only included the profit Thomas made by selling the house to his rich pal, but Row has also allowed Thomas’ elderly mom to continue living in the house rent free while he picks up the property taxes, maintenance and improvement (One nagging question: Thomas and his wife have an income of about $1 million per year. Why couldn’t they afford to fix up Mom’s house? Or is it just easier to have someone else bail you out?).

But wait… there’s more.  Now that the bandage has been ripped from Thomas seeping’ wound, that seep is turning into a torrent.  The latest news on Thomas is that he also declined to declare his wife’s real income on several years’ worth of financial documents.  Thomas has worked and works for numerous extremist political groups.  One of them was founded with Row’s money and, what a coincidence, Ginni got a job leading the group for $120k a year.

She actually makes closer to $700,000 a year from all her revenue sources but Thomas checked the box on his disclosure forms saying that his spouse’s income was “none.”   Just a slight three-fourths of a  million rounding error, per year.

Thomas now stands before us as a common corrupt lowlife political actor who should not be allowed within 10 miles of a court bench, unless he is a defendant. He belongs in jail.

In my global travels over 50 years of reporting, I have seen numerous cases abroad when a supreme court scandal has broken out in some other country.  Given the power that these high courts hold, they are a highly vulnerable and sensitive point of any government, meaning that if the court goes awry it is usually an immediate national crisis.  Overseas, high court scandals generally result in the collapse of governments, or collapse of the court, or at minimum resignation and jail for the offenders.

The Thomas case is NOT a crisis, unfortunately. Americans have become numb to thi sort of monkey business. Yes, there’s a lot of talk now here at home about doing something about Thomas and about the lax ethics and oversight of SCOTUS. Don’t believe it.

This congress, with insurrectionists holding the House majority, are not going to do anything about this. Zip.  Thomas is their hero not their target.  

As to the court itself, I would expect just as much inaction. Chief Justice Roberts has shown no appetite for reform. And the ridiculous and bogus “investigation” he ordered into the leak of the abortion draft did not meet the standards of a giggle contest and further compromised the court image.  The court will do nothing to reform itself as Roberts, and Thomas and the execrable Sam Alito just prefer to whine a lot in public about how nobody respects them anymore (can you imagine?).

There are remedies available, nevertheless.  Reviewing them, however, we must transition from Republican hypocrisy to Democratic dysfunction.  There are two men in Washington, two Democrats, who are just about the only people in the country who can exert some accountability on the Thomas Grift Family.  First up, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.  As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee it is absolutely in his purview to open an investigative hearing into corruption on the court. Durbin also has subpoena power and could use it to shed more light on this sordid issue.  Should we not hear from Mr. Row let alone Clarence and Ginni? I am not yet counting Durbin out but I suspect it is only a matter of time before he finds some obscure reason to punt.  Or will he gather the moxie to confront a sitting Supreme Court justice?

The other guy who has some direct jurisdiction here is none other than Attorney General Merrick Garland.  DOJ does have a path to look at this case as Thomas blatantly violated at least one if not more federal rules regarding proper disclosure. Well, I don’t think I need to editorialize here about the great shrinking Garland, the AG who seemingly refused to investigate the leadership of the Jan 6 insurrection until he was forced to do so – 18 months late—last summer by the House Select Committee.  Two and a half years after the election of Joe Biden we are still waiting on Garland to address the role of the former president and his flunkies in their attempt to overthrow the US government.  By comparison, what does some dirty dealings by Thomas add up to in Garland’s view?

Never before in recent history has there been a bigger, yawning gap between the governing elite and the people of the United States.  Understandably, millions of Americans tune out all knowledge and interest in politics and the government because they lack trust.  The elite take advantage and they are currently embarked on policies that curtail our rights and that greatly enrich themselves. Even if Thomas was not on the court, SCOTUS would still be a reeking cesspool as it has become a center of reactionary legislation and mandates. The other five reactionary justices are making sure they fully exploit their time on the bench to re-order American society among their Christian Nationalist proclivities.  Thomas just makes things much worse. He’s a bleeding sore that on a daily basis pollutes our political system and that undermines and subverts the highest moral qualities of America.  As long as he on the bench it is impossible to say things are OK.  They aren’t. They stink to high heaven.++

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