The controversy, scandal, and corruption surrounding Bush-appointed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are plentiful, to say the very least, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that it will be neverending, until or unless someone steps in and makes this stop.
According to a damning new analysis from legal scholar and Harvard University professor emeritus Laurence Tribe, the already highly controversial and scandal-ridden US Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas may have just blatantly broken the very law he is supposed to uphold after he outright refused to recuse himself from a very high-profile Supreme Court case.
Tribe’s brutal professional analysis came during a recent appearance on MSNBC with host Lawrence O’Donnell, where Tribe told the network anchor that Clarence Thomas may have directly violated 28 U.S. Code § 455 due to his continued refusal to recuse himself from the Moore v. Harper case — a highly controversial case that takes on the topic of the power to draw and strike down electoral maps.
28 U.S. Code § 455, cited by Tribe in his analysis, pertains to rules and regulations that require federal judges to disqualify themselves from certain cases. The Harvard legal expert said that Thomas violated this US Code because of “two provisions that almost any lawyer would say require Clarence Thomas not to participate at all.”
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“One of them says that a justice—and it specifically applies to Supreme Court justices—may not participate if somebody could reasonably question that justice’s impartiality,” Tribe explained.
“Clearly that’s the case here,” he said, going on to further cite a section that clearly states US SCOTUS justices should not have any involvement in any cases in which their spouse may have a special interest — something Clarence Thomas is frankly infamous for ignoring.
“It’s obvious that Ginni Thomas has an interest,” Tribe went on to add. “She was an active participant in the attempt to use something like the independent state legislature theory that was before the court on the argument on Wednesday and Clarence Thomas happily participated anyway.”
The Moore v. Harper case is a crucial one, to say the least, as the final outcome of the case could ultimately have a staggering effect on elections in the United States. The Brennan Center for Justice has previously called this case “an appeal advocating for extreme interpretation of the Constitution that could make it easier for state legislatures to suppress the vote, draw unfair election districts, enable partisan interference in ballot counting.”
To be frank, it sounds as though it’s yet another instance of the United States Supreme Court attempting to inadvertently do Donald Trump’s bidding, especially once you consider the fact that Clarence’s wife, Ginni Thomas, has already been proven to have been deeply involved in the efforts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and essentially enact a literal coup, which is now under intense scrutiny and investigation by multiple entities, including the US Department of Justice.
Tribe noted in the MSNBC segment that Thomas’ questions had been “pointed” and that he “tried to trap the defenders of a democratic approach to this” throughout his line of questioning.
However, at the end of the day, it looks as though Thomas may get off scot-free yet again, as Tribe did note that the statute on recusal is very difficult to enforce in real-life practice, and he frankly just doesn’t see the DOJ doing anything about it in the end.
But nevertheless, the legal expert noted that 28 U.S. Code § 455 “says it shall be unlawful for a justice to do what it seems that Clarence Thomas, as a Supreme Court justice, has done.”
“People who think these rules don’t apply to justices are wrong,” Tribe said. “They apply. That law applies—it uses the word ‘justice’ and the only judges in the federal system who are justices are the nine that we see all the time sitting in the marble palace.”
Watch the clip from MSNBC here:
Featured image via screen capture
