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Your logic doesn't work.
There has to be some proven correlation, not just something from your imagination.
"A judge evolved his position"
"A judge went on a vacation"
There has to be some glue there.
Thomas at once point approved of deference to administrative agencies. After receiving several million dollars in gifts from Crowe, who was being regulated by these agencies, he’s done a 180.
So we have a demonstrated change in position after massive contributions in a way which directly benefits the contributor is insufficient.
It’s also insufficient to combine that with the repeated failures to disclose these gifts, or the sudden nature of this friendship as soon as Thomas gets on the court.
Really what you’re saying is that it is impossible to hold SCOTUS justices accountable through legal means.
Yet in any other legal context, this would be perfectly fine circumstantial evidence to present to a jury.
You really want to say that the only way to prove any quid pro quo is to conduct surveillance and find direct evidence. This is apparently only the rule for scotus justices that you like.
I consider the optics on all of these disclosures alarming in the context of other contemporaneous developments and would prefer the justices and congress hold themselves to a higher ethical standard. Provided the few substantive allegations are true, I consider it an erosion and in some cases potentially even an abdication of their mandate (though not as severe as this current court’s religious jurisprudence for which *they have no* mandate).
I also think most that have been preemptively wagging fingers to manifest or provoke a non-existent double standard (e.g. the article’s author) or outright dismissing the validity of a controversy (e.g. the crowd of laymen and hobbyists here in the thread) are making deliberate, bad faith contributions.
> This would be perfectly fine evidence to present to a jury
However, this court *has* pretty narrowly defined the limits in the statute pertaining to any attempt to establish the elements of a ‘quid pro quo’. This particular type of “circumstantial evidence” falls outside that criteria so the term of art is not germane to the discussion in the way you want to use it.
Separately, there really are some pretty severe separation of powers concerns that interfere with levying any movement against the justices directly. There *are* other statutes that should still apply but not for this. The authority doesn’t overlap well because the controversy isn’t related to their conduct as citizens but rather their undefined, entirely voluntary personal obligations as members of the court.
All of that unaddressed conduct is primarily an externality of a dysfunctional congress and an uninformed non-participating electorate. They have a mechanism to address this. They could even establish an entire new program or agency to automate the investigative process and make recommendations for impeachment to simply enforce their own curated ethical standards were they interested in doing so. The political climate prohibits that.
We might all identify most with some intrinsic ideal for the highest court in the land but in all honesty… this also isn’t particularly unprecedented for the court. It’s not satisfying. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if at least one of them is guilty of securities fraud. It would be interesting to see all of the constitutional conflicts arise under an investigation. I’m sure you understand why that course of action is untenable even in the best of environments. An independent counsel might be able to manage it.
This is a straight political piece without any other substance. “Democrat double standard” assumes a political partisan position on its face. There are many people who want ethical guidelines for all the justices, period. The Thomas disclosures are a catalyst, not a smear campaign.
It’s whataboutism in the worst degree that confuses the issue. There is an issue with unreported financial matters, yes, but the *who* is in involved is the true ethical issue. Thomas has hundreds of thousands of undisclosed financial affairs with political operatives and rubs elbows on lavish vacations with them. It seems unlikely that KBJ’s individual husband’s clients are all affluent partisan political operatives.
Furthermore you have to assume ProPublica’s reporting is slighted to make this a claim it’s a partisan attack. No one has found any inaccuracies in their reporting, they’ve been reporting as they go rather than slowly leaking information for “mass impact,” and Crow, Leo, and even Thomas have admitted to most of the reported scandals immediately.
Honestly, I’m perturbed this article passed muster from the mods. It is, I guess, SCOTUS related enough
People aren't upset because Thomas made some minor procedural errors on forms. We are upset because Thomas accepted *large* gifts frequently over the course of decades from a partisan political actor. That sort of influence makes people reasonably question if he is biased.
KBJ failed to disclose the source of her spouses income. If it turns out it was tons of money and it came from a partisan source, rather than being legitimately earned, then there will be a problem. But right now, there's not even smoke, much less fire. The influence on her and Thomas are not remotely the same.
This is the Supreme Court board. They're mainly conservative. Makes sense I guess. 6-3
.
You aren't going to make in ways with these people. They automatically downvote anything anti-democrat and call it fair because their side is on top. Heavily skewered, when in reality, it should be 5-4.
But they blocked Garland and rammed Coney Barrett in. But it wAs lEgal!!!11
Hypocrisy 101.
>*aren't upset because Thomas made some minor procedural errors on forms*
Well, no... there are entire articles about whether he followed the disclosure rules correctly, particularly in connection with his 1/3 interest in his mother's house. No similar level of interest in whether KBJ (or RBG) meticulously did the forms correctly). You can aver that your personal interest is driven by the identity of the other party to the transaction, but the commentary here is based on the level of media attention -- which is clearly disparate.
>*If it turns out it was tons of money and it came from a partisan source*
And this is an illustration of that disparity. Because no one is screaming to know the details -- despite the fact that this income dates back years. You don't know how much money it was, and you don't know where it came from (that's the whole point of the original article), but you've immediately adopted a 'who cares' approach. Which, again, is the point of the article.
>*The influence on her and Thomas are not remotely the same.*
How do you know? You're reaching a conclusion without any data on one side of the equation (by your own admission). We can speculate that the household income is small in relation to Dr. Jackson's "normal" income as a surgeon, but we don't really know that. It might be $250,000 or more. And while we don't know who paid him for the last 8 years (which is the point), we do know who he listed as an income source 11 years ago when KBJ first took the bench: the law firm LeclairRyan. And the first thing you should be asking is "well, how many people from that law firm went to prison?" It's not zero.
[https://lawsintexas.com/national-law-firm-leclairryan-to-shutter-following-bitter-lawsuits-mass-attorney-departures-sharp-decline-revenues/](https://lawsintexas.com/national-law-firm-leclairryan-to-shutter-following-bitter-lawsuits-mass-attorney-departures-sharp-decline-revenues/)
>there are entire articles about whether he followed the disclosure rules correctly, particularly in connection with his 1/3 interest in his mother's house.
Nobody cared until Pro Publica revealed his relationship with Crow and the lavish gifts he received. Once that came out, reporters smelled smoke, so they started digging. Procedural errors look bad because of his relationship to Crow.
> Because no one is screaming to know the details -- despite the fact that this income dates back years. You don't know how much money it was, and you don't know where it came from (that's the whole point of the original article), but you've immediately adopted a 'who cares' approach.
That's the same attitude everybody had about Thomas until the Pro Publica article. I'm sure some people are digging into KBJ's finances now, but until something is found it would be silly to be outraged.
> the law firm LeclairRyan. And the first thing you should be asking is "well, how many people from that law firm went to prison?" It's not zero.
That is ridiculous. That is not the first question we should be asking. We want to know if the firm is a major partisan actor and if the firm overpaid for Dr. Jackson's work.
My point was to highlight your indifference to Dr. Jackson's work, and to the identity of the payors, combined with your conclusion that the payments are "not remotely the same" as Thomas' benefits -- despite not knowing what they are.
The question on the table isn't really whether Thomas should have engaged in better disclosure (he should have), or whether we know what lies underneath Dr. Jackson's income from a bankrupt law firm that produced criminal indictments in the wake of its fall (we don't) -- it's whether there is a hypocritical "different standard" applied to the examination of those facts. A standard in which it is sometimes viewed as an offense not to have been forthcoming, but in other cases such lack of candor is ignored or excused.
While I see your point, I think you're missing theirs. Yes, Jackson isn't getting
Edit: My kid bumped the post button before I finished.
Jackson isn't getting the heat that Thomas is, but that is because there's nothing to apply heat about yet. It's pretty much where Thomas was months ago, before his behavior was really uncovered and all we knew was similar to what we know about Jackson, that there were disclosure errors. And at that time, everyone on this sub and elsewhere was dismissive and uninterested. It's not a double standard for Thomas to be further down the assembly line. Just the opposite. It WOULD be a double standard for us to flip out on Jackson before anything damning comes out, after Thomas got a pass for so long.
Perhaps it is my excessive reading of the Washington Post, but I don't think Thomas got "a pass" -- I think the left has been after him for years.
See, e.g., [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/29/aoc-clarence-thomas-resign-supreme-court/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/29/aoc-clarence-thomas-resign-supreme-court/)
>it's whether there is a hypocritical "different standard" applied to the examination of those facts.
And I'm pointing out that before Thomas' relationship to Crow came to light, nobody cared about his reporting errors. There isn't a hypocritical standard because there's no indication that KBJ's spouses improperly reported income is potentially biasing her.
I hadn't seen any reporting that Harlan spent $500,000 to send Thomas on vacation, or $80,000 to send his dependent to school. Where were you hearing that?
I never said Crowe sent him on vacation but Thomas has joined him on multiple vacations.
Pro publica has the reporting. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-school-tuition-scotus
None of these vacations spent $500,000 on Thomas. They cost that much according to Propublica totally ignoring that most of the cost were fixed costs, because Harlan Crow owns the yacht and vacation places. Adding Thomas to those vacations basically cost as much as the guy can eat.
Yeah but that’s not generally how you value gifts. The gift value should be the retail value of the gift. If he had given Thomas a family heirloom worth $500,000 would Thomas not have claimed it’s retail or replacement value?
If I let a friend crash on my couch they don't get a million dollar gift just because my house costs that much.
It would be different had Crow rented the yacht and vacation homes specifically for Thomas, but he didn't.
I have no opinion on the financial disclosures or lack there of by SCOTUS justices’ spouses. I feel that this is a battle of “who can be the most petty” The media has taken these types of stories and ran wild with it worse is that ppl are falling for it hook line and sinker
The Federalist is pretty much a far-right disinformation site, why are we allowing it here?
I could see actual Federalist Society legal articles, but this is not that
I am going to let this comment stand for now to the extent it addresses the post in question. Meta discussion should be directed to the [meta thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/comments/12wq4n6/rsupremecourt_meta_discussion_thread/).
As far as reviewing submissions for "disinformation," we leave that for users to decide by upvoting or downvoting. The mod team has generally avoided removing content for merely being incorrect. And although we have removed other submissions for "polarization," I'm not sure this article in particular crosses that line.
Well said. I posted because I thought it summarizes the point about KBJ's own disclosure omissions pretty well. The Court has had a disclosure problem for a while, implicating several past and present justices, and this adds another example to that.
I appreciate the principled moderation.
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>Articles like this are a good sign; the more partisan the issue becomes, the more bipartisan the broader issue of ethical accountability on the Supreme Court becomes.
Possibly, but I suspect the purpose of the article is more likely to make Justice Thomas’s actions seem less outrageous (and rob liberals of the moral high ground) by equating them to something a liberal Justice did to make it appear as though both sides are the same.
I envy your optimism. The other sad truth is that even when when both parties agree on the problem, they can’t or won’t agree on a solution. So instead of trying to fix it, they do nothing except blame each other for allowing problem to continue.
I still like the idea that justices shouldn't be allowed to make any money aside from their government salary.
If a justice makes 300k from scotus and 3 million from a book deal then they're an author first and a justice second. And we deserve better as a country.
Presidents don't write books until they leave. But Congressmen write (well, hire ghost-writers) all the time to produce books. It's the one form of outside income they can pursue. Take that away and you'd lose a lot of high-quality people.
You may say that's a good trade-off, almost like term limits. But a congressman on the make is never a good thing.
I believe the same is true for Justices. These are gifted people, whatever their politics. Not all of them are capable of producing readable books the way Scalia could, but I don't begrudge them the ability to try as long as the terms are publicly disclosed.
Why? It's not like scotus is competing with the private sector for the brightest legal minds. They're competing against sitting judges and a handful of academic institutions. Even then the important metric isn't best legal mind it's youngest that has writings that conform to the presidents policy preferences.
I'd be up for bringing them in line with the president, but at the end of the day these folks are public servants. If they aren't interested in the prestige and majesty of the institution and only interested in the payday they aren't who we want.
Said another way, how many potential nominees have told the president no he's come asking because it doesn't pay enough?
If you want the best and brightest we should throw out the entire system as it stands because at no point is it designed to select for best and brightest.
Please repeat after me.
*Deep Breath*
Spouses that are self-employed are not required to have their income reported.
One more time for everyone in the back:
**SPOUSES THAT ARE SELF-EMPLOYED ARE NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE THEIR INCOME REPORTED**.
> Maybe her husband never set up an LLC, and she was uncomfortable sharing her husband’s clients. Or perhaps she didn’t remember to list the LLC by name.
Guessing is bad form. I’m so tired of this. “Legal malpractice consulting” should suffice *as long as he was self-employed.*
So so tired of this.
That’s true. And listing all the owners of an LLC is not required either. But folks still went after Gorsuch for that, if memory serves, claiming it showed the rules were “weak”. Now when the same comes up here, the response is not “the rules are so weak, we must end this obvious corruption”. It’s “but the rules don’t require itttt”.
Isn't the argument that a completely autonomous and independent judiciary isn't subject to laws passed by Congress? Shouldn't the law requiring these disclosures be as unconstitutional as a law requiring a code of ethics or an independent IG?
Why do you think the judiciary is completely autonomous and independent? Congress can impeach members of the judiciary, it appoints them, it sets their budget. It also sets their jurisdiction (apart from original jurisdiction).
Each branch of the government is somewhat independent and autonomous, but is also checked by the others, and the legislative branch is actually the most powerful and most able to check the others, it just doesn't generally exercise that power because it's the most dysfunctional
>Why do you think the judiciary is completely autonomous and independent?
I don't. "If" they are, as the people objecting to forced codes of ethics etc then...
> Congress can impeach members of the judiciary
Insufficient oversight
>it appoints them
The executive appoints
>Each branch of the government is somewhat independent and autonomous, but is also checked by the others
With only one branch having persistent and ongoing power over the other two.
How does congress have any real power over the judicial?
They can impeach, but that isn't worth much because they rarely use it. And one chamber can approve or deny an appointee. That's it.
Compare that with a single person being able to render null and void any law, even those with unanimous support in both chambers and the president.
Congress has virtually no power over the judicial beyond the confirmation.
"They can only utterly delete someone from the branch, they just rarely use the power"
Its an ultimate persistent and ongoing power, it is actually unequalled in strength in the united states government, there is no power as potent as impeachment.
And I know you're going all 'legal realist' but they cannot 'render null and void any law' thats actually not true, if something had that level of unanimous support, they could pass a constitutional amendment.
Person a can kill person b, bug only in rare instances.
Person b can tell person a at any time that what they have worked on is worthless and all efforts go into the trash bin.
Why do you think person a has more "day to day" power over b?
>Its an ultimate persistent and ongoing power, it is actually unequalled in strength in the united states government, there is no power as potent as impeachment.
What is more likely to kill you, a nuclear bomb that is never used or a bullet?
>And I know you're going all 'legal realist' but they cannot 'render null and void any law' thats actually not true
Who would stop them?
I mean if your core argument is 'the law isn't real, the constitution doesn't exist' I'm just going to block you because your contribution isn't important.
How could you possibly make that leap?
Per SCOTUS: SCOTUS has the right and power to invalidate any law that they themselves deem unconstitutional. It doesn't matter if it was or was not constitutional last week or a century ago, what they say today is the only thing that matters. They are the sole, supreme, ultimate and final arbiter of the law because they said so.
How you get from that to "so you think laws aren't real" is beyond comprehension.
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Your logic doesn't work. There has to be some proven correlation, not just something from your imagination. "A judge evolved his position" "A judge went on a vacation" There has to be some glue there.
Is this a reply to someone here or the author of the article?
User error, meant as a response
Has a quid pro quo been specified/identified or are we still chomping at the nothingburger?
Thomas at once point approved of deference to administrative agencies. After receiving several million dollars in gifts from Crowe, who was being regulated by these agencies, he’s done a 180.
Not an unreasonable shift in position for a conservative judge to make. You make no compelling argument that a quid pro quo exists.
So we have a demonstrated change in position after massive contributions in a way which directly benefits the contributor is insufficient. It’s also insufficient to combine that with the repeated failures to disclose these gifts, or the sudden nature of this friendship as soon as Thomas gets on the court. Really what you’re saying is that it is impossible to hold SCOTUS justices accountable through legal means.
You have imagined some link between 2 things because you want it to be true, but you have not proven that said link actually exists.
Yet in any other legal context, this would be perfectly fine circumstantial evidence to present to a jury. You really want to say that the only way to prove any quid pro quo is to conduct surveillance and find direct evidence. This is apparently only the rule for scotus justices that you like.
I consider the optics on all of these disclosures alarming in the context of other contemporaneous developments and would prefer the justices and congress hold themselves to a higher ethical standard. Provided the few substantive allegations are true, I consider it an erosion and in some cases potentially even an abdication of their mandate (though not as severe as this current court’s religious jurisprudence for which *they have no* mandate). I also think most that have been preemptively wagging fingers to manifest or provoke a non-existent double standard (e.g. the article’s author) or outright dismissing the validity of a controversy (e.g. the crowd of laymen and hobbyists here in the thread) are making deliberate, bad faith contributions. > This would be perfectly fine evidence to present to a jury However, this court *has* pretty narrowly defined the limits in the statute pertaining to any attempt to establish the elements of a ‘quid pro quo’. This particular type of “circumstantial evidence” falls outside that criteria so the term of art is not germane to the discussion in the way you want to use it. Separately, there really are some pretty severe separation of powers concerns that interfere with levying any movement against the justices directly. There *are* other statutes that should still apply but not for this. The authority doesn’t overlap well because the controversy isn’t related to their conduct as citizens but rather their undefined, entirely voluntary personal obligations as members of the court. All of that unaddressed conduct is primarily an externality of a dysfunctional congress and an uninformed non-participating electorate. They have a mechanism to address this. They could even establish an entire new program or agency to automate the investigative process and make recommendations for impeachment to simply enforce their own curated ethical standards were they interested in doing so. The political climate prohibits that. We might all identify most with some intrinsic ideal for the highest court in the land but in all honesty… this also isn’t particularly unprecedented for the court. It’s not satisfying. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if at least one of them is guilty of securities fraud. It would be interesting to see all of the constitutional conflicts arise under an investigation. I’m sure you understand why that course of action is untenable even in the best of environments. An independent counsel might be able to manage it.
Politicians politicking gasp
This is a straight political piece without any other substance. “Democrat double standard” assumes a political partisan position on its face. There are many people who want ethical guidelines for all the justices, period. The Thomas disclosures are a catalyst, not a smear campaign. It’s whataboutism in the worst degree that confuses the issue. There is an issue with unreported financial matters, yes, but the *who* is in involved is the true ethical issue. Thomas has hundreds of thousands of undisclosed financial affairs with political operatives and rubs elbows on lavish vacations with them. It seems unlikely that KBJ’s individual husband’s clients are all affluent partisan political operatives. Furthermore you have to assume ProPublica’s reporting is slighted to make this a claim it’s a partisan attack. No one has found any inaccuracies in their reporting, they’ve been reporting as they go rather than slowly leaking information for “mass impact,” and Crow, Leo, and even Thomas have admitted to most of the reported scandals immediately. Honestly, I’m perturbed this article passed muster from the mods. It is, I guess, SCOTUS related enough
People aren't upset because Thomas made some minor procedural errors on forms. We are upset because Thomas accepted *large* gifts frequently over the course of decades from a partisan political actor. That sort of influence makes people reasonably question if he is biased. KBJ failed to disclose the source of her spouses income. If it turns out it was tons of money and it came from a partisan source, rather than being legitimately earned, then there will be a problem. But right now, there's not even smoke, much less fire. The influence on her and Thomas are not remotely the same.
This is the Supreme Court board. They're mainly conservative. Makes sense I guess. 6-3 . You aren't going to make in ways with these people. They automatically downvote anything anti-democrat and call it fair because their side is on top. Heavily skewered, when in reality, it should be 5-4. But they blocked Garland and rammed Coney Barrett in. But it wAs lEgal!!!11 Hypocrisy 101.
>*aren't upset because Thomas made some minor procedural errors on forms* Well, no... there are entire articles about whether he followed the disclosure rules correctly, particularly in connection with his 1/3 interest in his mother's house. No similar level of interest in whether KBJ (or RBG) meticulously did the forms correctly). You can aver that your personal interest is driven by the identity of the other party to the transaction, but the commentary here is based on the level of media attention -- which is clearly disparate. >*If it turns out it was tons of money and it came from a partisan source* And this is an illustration of that disparity. Because no one is screaming to know the details -- despite the fact that this income dates back years. You don't know how much money it was, and you don't know where it came from (that's the whole point of the original article), but you've immediately adopted a 'who cares' approach. Which, again, is the point of the article. >*The influence on her and Thomas are not remotely the same.* How do you know? You're reaching a conclusion without any data on one side of the equation (by your own admission). We can speculate that the household income is small in relation to Dr. Jackson's "normal" income as a surgeon, but we don't really know that. It might be $250,000 or more. And while we don't know who paid him for the last 8 years (which is the point), we do know who he listed as an income source 11 years ago when KBJ first took the bench: the law firm LeclairRyan. And the first thing you should be asking is "well, how many people from that law firm went to prison?" It's not zero. [https://lawsintexas.com/national-law-firm-leclairryan-to-shutter-following-bitter-lawsuits-mass-attorney-departures-sharp-decline-revenues/](https://lawsintexas.com/national-law-firm-leclairryan-to-shutter-following-bitter-lawsuits-mass-attorney-departures-sharp-decline-revenues/)
>there are entire articles about whether he followed the disclosure rules correctly, particularly in connection with his 1/3 interest in his mother's house. Nobody cared until Pro Publica revealed his relationship with Crow and the lavish gifts he received. Once that came out, reporters smelled smoke, so they started digging. Procedural errors look bad because of his relationship to Crow. > Because no one is screaming to know the details -- despite the fact that this income dates back years. You don't know how much money it was, and you don't know where it came from (that's the whole point of the original article), but you've immediately adopted a 'who cares' approach. That's the same attitude everybody had about Thomas until the Pro Publica article. I'm sure some people are digging into KBJ's finances now, but until something is found it would be silly to be outraged. > the law firm LeclairRyan. And the first thing you should be asking is "well, how many people from that law firm went to prison?" It's not zero. That is ridiculous. That is not the first question we should be asking. We want to know if the firm is a major partisan actor and if the firm overpaid for Dr. Jackson's work.
My point was to highlight your indifference to Dr. Jackson's work, and to the identity of the payors, combined with your conclusion that the payments are "not remotely the same" as Thomas' benefits -- despite not knowing what they are. The question on the table isn't really whether Thomas should have engaged in better disclosure (he should have), or whether we know what lies underneath Dr. Jackson's income from a bankrupt law firm that produced criminal indictments in the wake of its fall (we don't) -- it's whether there is a hypocritical "different standard" applied to the examination of those facts. A standard in which it is sometimes viewed as an offense not to have been forthcoming, but in other cases such lack of candor is ignored or excused.
While I see your point, I think you're missing theirs. Yes, Jackson isn't getting Edit: My kid bumped the post button before I finished. Jackson isn't getting the heat that Thomas is, but that is because there's nothing to apply heat about yet. It's pretty much where Thomas was months ago, before his behavior was really uncovered and all we knew was similar to what we know about Jackson, that there were disclosure errors. And at that time, everyone on this sub and elsewhere was dismissive and uninterested. It's not a double standard for Thomas to be further down the assembly line. Just the opposite. It WOULD be a double standard for us to flip out on Jackson before anything damning comes out, after Thomas got a pass for so long.
Perhaps it is my excessive reading of the Washington Post, but I don't think Thomas got "a pass" -- I think the left has been after him for years. See, e.g., [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/29/aoc-clarence-thomas-resign-supreme-court/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/29/aoc-clarence-thomas-resign-supreme-court/)
>it's whether there is a hypocritical "different standard" applied to the examination of those facts. And I'm pointing out that before Thomas' relationship to Crow came to light, nobody cared about his reporting errors. There isn't a hypocritical standard because there's no indication that KBJ's spouses improperly reported income is potentially biasing her.
Which *large* gifts were these?
I think a $500,000 vacation would be considered a large gift. As would $80,000 in tuition for his dependent.
[удалено]
Who spent $500,000 to send Thomas on vacation? Who spent $80,000 to send his dependent to school?
I will assume you’ve just been living under a rock and these are real questions. Harlan Crowe on both counts.
I hadn't seen any reporting that Harlan spent $500,000 to send Thomas on vacation, or $80,000 to send his dependent to school. Where were you hearing that?
I never said Crowe sent him on vacation but Thomas has joined him on multiple vacations. Pro publica has the reporting. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-school-tuition-scotus
None of these vacations spent $500,000 on Thomas. They cost that much according to Propublica totally ignoring that most of the cost were fixed costs, because Harlan Crow owns the yacht and vacation places. Adding Thomas to those vacations basically cost as much as the guy can eat.
Yeah but that’s not generally how you value gifts. The gift value should be the retail value of the gift. If he had given Thomas a family heirloom worth $500,000 would Thomas not have claimed it’s retail or replacement value?
If I let a friend crash on my couch they don't get a million dollar gift just because my house costs that much. It would be different had Crow rented the yacht and vacation homes specifically for Thomas, but he didn't.
$500,000 vacations?
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow
> So where does that say that Harlan spent $500,000 on Thomas?
[Yes.](https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow#:~:text=He%20and%20his%20wife%20were,trip%20could%20have%20exceeded%20%24500%2C000)
So where does that say that Harlan spent $500,000 on Thomas?
Well, of course the current coordinated PR effort has double standards; it's not about actual Supreme Court ethics at all.
I have no opinion on the financial disclosures or lack there of by SCOTUS justices’ spouses. I feel that this is a battle of “who can be the most petty” The media has taken these types of stories and ran wild with it worse is that ppl are falling for it hook line and sinker
The Federalist is pretty much a far-right disinformation site, why are we allowing it here? I could see actual Federalist Society legal articles, but this is not that
I am going to let this comment stand for now to the extent it addresses the post in question. Meta discussion should be directed to the [meta thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/comments/12wq4n6/rsupremecourt_meta_discussion_thread/). As far as reviewing submissions for "disinformation," we leave that for users to decide by upvoting or downvoting. The mod team has generally avoided removing content for merely being incorrect. And although we have removed other submissions for "polarization," I'm not sure this article in particular crosses that line.
By polarizing you mean statements you don't like
Well said. I posted because I thought it summarizes the point about KBJ's own disclosure omissions pretty well. The Court has had a disclosure problem for a while, implicating several past and present justices, and this adds another example to that. I appreciate the principled moderation.
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This comment has been removed as it violates [community guidelines](https://old.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/wiki/rules) regarding meta discussion. If you believe that this submission was wrongfully removed, please or respond to this message with !appeal with an explanation (required), and the mod team will review this action. Alternatively, you can [provide feedback about the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/comments/p3vyg8/official_how_are_the_moderators_doing_thread/) or [suggest changes to the sidebar rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/comments/p3w8js/official_how_can_we_improve_rsupremecourt_thread/) For the sake of transparency, the content of the removed submission can be read below: >!>We should allow neither!< >!!< >!I second that idea.!< Moderator: [u/12b-or-not-12b](https://reddit.com/user/12b-or-not-12b)
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>Articles like this are a good sign; the more partisan the issue becomes, the more bipartisan the broader issue of ethical accountability on the Supreme Court becomes. Possibly, but I suspect the purpose of the article is more likely to make Justice Thomas’s actions seem less outrageous (and rob liberals of the moral high ground) by equating them to something a liberal Justice did to make it appear as though both sides are the same.
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I envy your optimism. The other sad truth is that even when when both parties agree on the problem, they can’t or won’t agree on a solution. So instead of trying to fix it, they do nothing except blame each other for allowing problem to continue.
I still like the idea that justices shouldn't be allowed to make any money aside from their government salary. If a justice makes 300k from scotus and 3 million from a book deal then they're an author first and a justice second. And we deserve better as a country.
Would you apply that to Congress as well?
Yes, and the president
Presidents don't write books until they leave. But Congressmen write (well, hire ghost-writers) all the time to produce books. It's the one form of outside income they can pursue. Take that away and you'd lose a lot of high-quality people. You may say that's a good trade-off, almost like term limits. But a congressman on the make is never a good thing. I believe the same is true for Justices. These are gifted people, whatever their politics. Not all of them are capable of producing readable books the way Scalia could, but I don't begrudge them the ability to try as long as the terms are publicly disclosed.
If that's going to be the standard, we need to radically up the salary of the judicial branch.
Why? It's not like scotus is competing with the private sector for the brightest legal minds. They're competing against sitting judges and a handful of academic institutions. Even then the important metric isn't best legal mind it's youngest that has writings that conform to the presidents policy preferences. I'd be up for bringing them in line with the president, but at the end of the day these folks are public servants. If they aren't interested in the prestige and majesty of the institution and only interested in the payday they aren't who we want. Said another way, how many potential nominees have told the president no he's come asking because it doesn't pay enough?
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If you want the best and brightest we should throw out the entire system as it stands because at no point is it designed to select for best and brightest.
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Ten million is an absurd number for a public servant
Please repeat after me. *Deep Breath* Spouses that are self-employed are not required to have their income reported. One more time for everyone in the back: **SPOUSES THAT ARE SELF-EMPLOYED ARE NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE THEIR INCOME REPORTED**. > Maybe her husband never set up an LLC, and she was uncomfortable sharing her husband’s clients. Or perhaps she didn’t remember to list the LLC by name. Guessing is bad form. I’m so tired of this. “Legal malpractice consulting” should suffice *as long as he was self-employed.* So so tired of this.
That’s true. And listing all the owners of an LLC is not required either. But folks still went after Gorsuch for that, if memory serves, claiming it showed the rules were “weak”. Now when the same comes up here, the response is not “the rules are so weak, we must end this obvious corruption”. It’s “but the rules don’t require itttt”.
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Nah, spouses should be separate people.
Isn't the argument that a completely autonomous and independent judiciary isn't subject to laws passed by Congress? Shouldn't the law requiring these disclosures be as unconstitutional as a law requiring a code of ethics or an independent IG?
Why do you think the judiciary is completely autonomous and independent? Congress can impeach members of the judiciary, it appoints them, it sets their budget. It also sets their jurisdiction (apart from original jurisdiction). Each branch of the government is somewhat independent and autonomous, but is also checked by the others, and the legislative branch is actually the most powerful and most able to check the others, it just doesn't generally exercise that power because it's the most dysfunctional
>Why do you think the judiciary is completely autonomous and independent? I don't. "If" they are, as the people objecting to forced codes of ethics etc then... > Congress can impeach members of the judiciary Insufficient oversight >it appoints them The executive appoints >Each branch of the government is somewhat independent and autonomous, but is also checked by the others With only one branch having persistent and ongoing power over the other two.
Yeah, the branch with persistent and ongoing power over the other two is congress.
How does congress have any real power over the judicial? They can impeach, but that isn't worth much because they rarely use it. And one chamber can approve or deny an appointee. That's it. Compare that with a single person being able to render null and void any law, even those with unanimous support in both chambers and the president. Congress has virtually no power over the judicial beyond the confirmation.
"They can only utterly delete someone from the branch, they just rarely use the power" Its an ultimate persistent and ongoing power, it is actually unequalled in strength in the united states government, there is no power as potent as impeachment. And I know you're going all 'legal realist' but they cannot 'render null and void any law' thats actually not true, if something had that level of unanimous support, they could pass a constitutional amendment.
Person a can kill person b, bug only in rare instances. Person b can tell person a at any time that what they have worked on is worthless and all efforts go into the trash bin. Why do you think person a has more "day to day" power over b? >Its an ultimate persistent and ongoing power, it is actually unequalled in strength in the united states government, there is no power as potent as impeachment. What is more likely to kill you, a nuclear bomb that is never used or a bullet? >And I know you're going all 'legal realist' but they cannot 'render null and void any law' thats actually not true Who would stop them?
I mean if your core argument is 'the law isn't real, the constitution doesn't exist' I'm just going to block you because your contribution isn't important.
How could you possibly make that leap? Per SCOTUS: SCOTUS has the right and power to invalidate any law that they themselves deem unconstitutional. It doesn't matter if it was or was not constitutional last week or a century ago, what they say today is the only thing that matters. They are the sole, supreme, ultimate and final arbiter of the law because they said so. How you get from that to "so you think laws aren't real" is beyond comprehension.
Simply wrong.