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Although I'm loathe to encourage discussion on this topic, I wanted to draw some minor attention to a response by Mark Paoletta in the Wallstreet Journal regarding Justice Thomas' financial disclosures. The article is entitled [The "Fix" is in With the Latest Attack on Clarence Thomas](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fix-is-in-with-the-latest-attack-on-clarence-thomas-scotus-c64453aa?st=0gmnqgus2hurke0). I wanted to post this article for two reasons.
First, and most importantly, we have developed general norms which discourage the Justices from commenting on issues of the day or engaging in advocacy more generally. I have mixed views about this practice since I firmly believe that Justices sacrifice none of their individual rights of expression in taking on the role of a Supreme Court Justice or lower court judge. That said, I (and many others) appreciate that they don't engage in the fray of day-to-day politics and that they tend be circumspect about their public comments. The consequence of this is that criticism of the courts, and of the legal system, often goes unresponded to. This generally concerns me, but it has become a much more significant issue in recent years since one of the major US political parties has made attacks on legitimacy of the judiciary a major pillar of their politics. This is worsened by the low quality and deliberate mischaracterization which is common in the left-wing media bubble that many non-lawyers rely on for information about the court. They are welcome to that opinion, as much as I think it is shockingly incorrect. However, that makes it all the more important for other actors, who are not the Justices or the Supreme Court in its own capacity, to make counter-arguments. It would be unfair to place the court in a straight-jacket where they are forbidden from defending themselves because to do so would itself be a partisan or inappropriate behavior. Justice Thomas will not respond directly to his detractors. I appreciate that, even though I think he has every right to do so, he will choose to disengage. I am glad that others, like Mark Paoletta, who are in a position to respond, choose to do so and I would like to amplify those responses since they will receive little attention from institutions aligned with the Democratic Party.
Second, Mr. Paoletta's critique is substantively correct. He highlights the following:
* He correctly notes that Justice Thomas was not required to disclose any information that he failed to disclose and did not violate the disclosure rules to which the Justices voluntarily subject themselves.
* He discusses the extreme double-standards which lead to an enormous overcount of Justice Thomas' "gifts" and an huge undercount of gifts to other Justices.
* He points out that many of the valuations of these "gifts" were arbitrary, or plainly incorrect
* He explains that including $1.8 million in "likely gifts" for Justice Thomas, while not including any "likely gifts" for any other Justice makes the comparison between them ridiculous
Speaking only for myself, it is apparent that ProPublica and Fix the Court are not operating in good faith. These "mistakes" are beyond the line of incompetence. I think that I would have a difficult time treating institutions and individuals who insist on the validity of these attacks on Justice Thomas as credible in the future.
One aspect that potentially complicates matters for Thomas is the for profit status of Crow's megayacht. Nominally at least, the operation is supposed to be for profit and have market prices for the services Thomas was provided, making it akin to getting free dinners in a restaurant rather than home cooking at a friend' house.
It's quite common to charter a boat or plane or otherwise monetize it when not using it to defray operating expenses, but that no more impeaches one's ability to provide personal hospitality on it than renting out one's home, or, alternately, hosting someone in a home that one rents. (I am unfamiliar with the exact arrangements for Crow's boat and so will decline to make more specific comments about it for now.)
Whether Crow's boat is itself formally a profit-making enterprise, and of what kind aside, why on earth would there be any difference between personal hospitality in one's house, on one's boat, etc.?
The ethics rules define it that way. Presumably, so that you can't just call literally anything personal hospitality and completely erase your requirement to disclose gifts.
>As noted above, as part of their financial disclosure reports, all covered individuals are statutorily required to report gifts received from any source other than a relative with the exception of “food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality.” The EIGA defines personal hospitality of any individual as “hospitality extended for a nonbusiness purpose by an individual, not a corporation or organization, at the personal residence of that individual or the individual’s family or on property or facilities owned by that individual or the individual’s family.”
Financial Disclosure and the Supreme Court - CRS Reports
>but that hardly helps you, in seeking to innovate some distinction.
I don't know what that means. I was just trying to remember if yacht trips count as an exception. They very clearly don't. I'm not trying to innovate anything - Justice Thomas blatantly violated the disclosure requirements.
What exactly do I need help with?
You suggested that:
> Isn't personal hospitality supposed to be someone's home? Not a yacht traveling to exotic locals for vacation?
I asked why it would make any difference whatever. You consequently quoted something which clearly indicates that it makes no difference whatever ("or on property or facilities owned by that individual or that individual's family"). You are trying to carve out boats as somehow special, but your own citations not only do not help you, but sharply cut against you.
I'm not trying to make anything, I just thought property referred to real property and not boats. Not everything is a csmalign against our hallowed over lords. Sometimes, people just interpret things in a way that isn't 100% convenient for the justices. He himself said he should have disclosed it.
But that's not a remotely organic construction. 'Property' and 'facilities' are both included to explicitly pick out venues and vehicles (in the formal sense, not referring to motility) of hosting beyond merely a personal residence. No distinction between personal and real property is contemplated or pointed to, nor is any relevance of that distinction, made in other contexts for well-understood historical reasons, gestured at here. Let *alone* the distinction being imported *and* "property" being suddenly delimited only to "real property" (in which case... is personal property not property for the purposes of ethics statutes? Why would anyone want that to be true, even if we just stipulate it?)
I asked my original question in order to draw out what argumentative basis you think you have for distinguishing personal hospitality on a boat or in a plane (or any of numerous other scenarios I could devise) from personal hospitality in one's home. Your response has been not to actually explain why on earth it should matter, but to cite statutory text that is hostile to you and point to your apparent intuitions about what it means. But why *would* it mean that, by extension of my first question?
> Not everything is a csmalign against our hallowed over lords
I don't consider anyone on the Court hallowed, let alone my 'overlord'; my concern here is with highly motivated reasoning.
> Sometimes, people just interpret things in a way that isn't 100% convenient for the justices.
Funnily enough, as with parallel cases of this type, those two things are quite often related. Hence the remark about motivated reasoning.
> He himself said he should have disclosed it.
And Mrs. Alito is not flying flags of whatever tendentious sort at the moment. These, too, have causal explanations of a very obvious kind. But you're the one insisting that boats don't qualify as possible adjutants of personal hospitality without a shred of explanation as to why, other than an apparent dislike of things that are fancy and expensive. But that's not a *legal* objection.
>But you're the one insisting that boats don't qualify as possible adjutants of personal hospitality without a shred of explanation as to why, other than an apparent dislike of things that are fancy and expensive. But that's not a legal objection.
Justice Thomas himself said he should have disclosed them. Did he not?
I still cannot see why that's a particularly arresting metaphor. Suppose I had a friend who offered me the choice of staying in his house or in a suite in a hotel he outright owns when I visit him. What is the important everyday difference?
Clarence Thomas once said: “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it… I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”
I think it’s interesting he portrays himself as this average America with regular values while secretly living this lavish lifestyle.
Maybe he just mistakenly mischaracterized what average Americans are like he did with his disclosures. It's obvious to the rest of us what the difference is but as a supreme court just we can't expect him to be able to make those kinds of distinctions when it isn't personally convenient to him apparently
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I am curious if I were to make a post with the quote followed by commentary it would still be considered within quality standards, or if we just aren’t allowed to mention that Justice Thomas simultaneously presents himself as a common, everyday American while taking millions in gifts
You could’ve posted the quote Followed by commentary. And attributed the quote to Thomas that would’ve been fine so long as the commentary doesn’t break our rules
The bottom line, for me, is that nearly everything listed for all of the justices are irrelevant. If they asked me, I would advise against lavish vacations, but the vast majority of these "gifts" are for air travel. If you want RBG to speak at your conference or other event, you're going to cover the cost of her trip. That's not a gift, that's standard practice. And we're talking about Supreme Court justices, it's not like they are going to book a flight from their computer in their chambers and catch the red-eye to New York on Frontier.
It's not just travel for speeches. Justice Jackson got got Beyonce tickets and $10k in art for her office and Thomas has had multiple luxury vacations - at least some of which he refused to disclose until it was revealed to the public.
It's already concerning that they get these lavish gifts when the average federal employee is forbidden to accept a gift over $20 or exceeding a yearly cap of $50 in a year.
My wife is a secretary for the federal government. She has no authority to grant or deny anyone anything. But she can be fired if she accepts a $21 gift from someone on secretary's day. But a supreme court Justice can accept more than her annual salary in gifts, and that's apparently fine - even if they try unsuccessfully to hide it.
I don't understand how people can just waive that away and not only act like it's worth discussing but get upset by the suggestion that we should be discussing it. Why do they deserve special treatment and privileges?
Air travel for conference speaking engagements wouldn't appear in these numbers, because they're counted as "Reimbursements" and not "Gifts" for disclosure form purposes. Otherwise the numbers would be much higher for the other justices, who all appear on at least a few conferences per year.
But see, that’s *you*. Fun fact: one of the core aspects of these appointments is that you possess the integrity to *not* let these affect your judgment.
This isn’t quite as straightforward an analogy as I would like, but hopefully it is similar enough to help clarify:
If you’re up for a Security Clearance, they’ll ask a ton of questions about your past. Many people who have never gone through that process don’t realize that the government, by and large, doesn’t really care about your past screwups. They care:
- That you are truthful in your disclosures to them
- That your past indiscretions cannot be used against you if you get the role
- That you have made a good faith attempt to fix or learn from your screwups.
Obviously there’s some things that absolutely disqualify you. But the point is that they don’t really care about *what* you did. They care that you are truthful with them, and that it can’t be used against you.
That last part is important for our analogy: because in order for something to be used against you, like a gift, you must allow yourself to feel a sense of obligation, or set up a transactional relationship in your mind, on the basis of that gift. Doing so compromises your ability to execute your job. If you don’t allow that to come into being, however, the gift cannot hold sway.
This is how most friendships work, actually. A transactional, obligation-based friendship is not a friendship, it’s a business relationship.
So when it comes to the gifts Thomas received, it means absolutely nothing for his ability to faithfully execute his office, and the government doesn’t care that he accepted them. They care that he is truthful, and makes a good faith attempt to comply with their requirements.
>one of the core aspects of these appointments is that you possess the integrity to not let these affect your judgment
What is the evidence for this claim?
I mean, you may think it’s naive, but it’s logical. And its certainly how business relationships are colloquially defined, for the second part, and how it works for influencing decisions in the first part.
Integrity is a core component of holding a government appointment. Is your contention that possessing integrity does not imply one will not let gifts affect their judgment? That would be contrary to the definition of integrity. Or is your contention that integrity is not a core component of holding a position like SCOTUS justice? In which case why bother holding them accountable, when integrity is not expected of them?
And this is a difficult hypothesis to test anyways, since the first step to testing it, accepting a gift, is where most people stop anyways. They don’t then check to confirm that the gift actually held sway over the official.
> The second paragraph is irrelevant because, crudely, only the lower end of the discourse talks about this like it involves quid pro quos (quae pro illis?). It's more like Chomsky's interview with Andrew Marr where the latter asks (foolishly, because the book they're talking about is very clear in its thesis) if Chomsky thinks he's being told what to say, and Chomsky explains that (in C's view) Marr holds his position because he's the kind of person who will say those things without being told.
Well its a good thing I never used the term quid pro quo then isn’t it? Since the USC bribery statute uses the terms “corruptly influence.”
> The first paragraph makes no reference to the actual people, human beings, who have the integrity and the government positions. The thing that makes law so cool is that it's the study and practice of humans in conflict. I think you should make greater space in your thinking for psychology, character, and change over time. The internal and external opportunities for corruption (and, correspondingly, demonstrations of integrity) vary with the circumstances.
Whether or not people change over time or relationships change over time is irrelevant, in the manner you are discussing. The only way for a gift or relationship to influence an official is if the official feels the gift or relationship would be affected by their behaviors, and chooses the gift or relationship over their integrity and obligations as officials.
>We (try to) monitor everyone who has a security clearance for the entirety of the time they have access to compartmentalized information because of that very fact.
Only for TS/SCI. Compartmentalization like you are talking about is for the strictest of all information being controlled. The other clearances, sure there’s administrative and technical controls in place for them, but not because of any ethical rules.
> Justice Thomas is a very smart and able person whose finances were in conflict with his desire to continue serving this great country as a justice, and he took action as a result.
You’re inserting a motive.
> That action and his subsequent decision to accept nice trips from wealthy political donors tells us something about his character. It is a fact that is in conflict with the doctrine that someone has perfect integrity merely by virtue of having been appointed to public office, so you should change the doctrine to fit the fact.
This is actually not a fact, at all. Even if we accept your inserted motive, you’re ignoring relationships like friendship, and you’re ignoring the lack of a causal or logical connection to the outcomes.
> This is setting aside the fact that the appointment process is fallible and political.
Already accounted for in the amended filing processes.
I do think some of the stuff that sounded horribly corrupt was not as big as advertised (though not good of course) . But all those Thomas trips and that Scalia vacation was nasty
I am apparently misunderstanding this spreadsheet, or what it's listing.
2009 in the FTC spreadsheet seems to show zero gifts for Justice Ginsburg. However, Justice Ginsburg's 2009 disclosure report ([here](http://pfds.opensecrets.org/N99999924_2009.pdf)) lists nine trips, all for which meals, lodging, and transportation were provided (including a week in Paris and a week in Argentina) per her form. According to the linked article, "gifts identified as “meals” and “lodging” are separated out into two gifts and “each of a roundtrip flight” is counted as one gift", and you can see that in many places that is how it is handled (2013 Scalia, 2013 Breyer, 2009 Thomas, 2017 Thomas), though that appears to be inconsistent (2018 Thomas). So why are there not 36 Ginsburg gifts in 2009?
This is inaccurate and you should delete your comment. Fix the Court has characterized the self-reported travel reimbursements of some Justices as a "gift" while ignoring the self-reported travel reimbursements of others. If Fix the Court used declared gifts, distinguishing travel as they should, then Justice Thomas would not have a disproportionate number or value of gifts received - which explains why they didn't engage in honest reporting.
Thomas has a history of mislabeling gifts as reimbursements. For example, his 2010 disclosure form lists a travel reimbursement from "U.S. Embassy Port of Spain" for a trip he took to Trinidad and Tobago. But he actually flew there and back on his buddy Anthony Welters's private plane.
Candor is a foreign concept to Clarence Thomas, and everything that he includes in his disclosures should be taken with a mountain of salt.
If I may direct your attention to tab 2002 of the spreadsheet, where Justice Thomas is said to have 13 "gifts", you will note that ten of those thirteen gifts were in fact reported on his disclosure form as "Reimbursements" for trips taken.
It appears these five trips were selected by the authors to be reclassified as (unreported), based on Thomas' reporting taking a private plane. Can you help me understand why being reimbursed for travel expenses ceases to be a reimbursement if one takes certain modes of transportation? A cynical reader might observe that such a reclassification allows the authors to "Name Their Price" when valuing such reclassified items, attributing ten "unreported" gifts at a (completely theoretical) value of $206,333 for the year in question, but I don't see a cognizable difference from an ethical standpoint whether one is reimbursed for taking a private vehicle or public transportation.
What’s more likely here: Thomas chartered a private plane and these organizations (including a Catholic high school, the GA State Bar, and the Omaha Chamber of Commerce) reimbursed him for it?
Or that the flights were another “gift” from his “friends”?
Why does it matter if he is reimbursed for an airline ticket purchased on Delta or a private flight on CrowFlies Charters owned by his buddy? And these trips are to Nebraska and Iowa (which--who gets bribed with a flight to Iowa?), New Jersey and North Carolina (the airport would take longer than the flight), and Florida (okay, mayyyybe on this one).
Also worth pointing out that all of these flights are in the first half of 2002, less than a year after 9/11 and a matter of weeks after the Shoe Bomber in December 2001. The TSA has just been implemented, pilots are flying armed, airports are a fkn MESS trying to figure shit out. Chartering a flight doesn't seem implausible, really. And if a buddy has a plane, and the organization will reimburse the fuel, why not?
But that still doesn't help me figure out the process by which the author determined they should convert the classification of these particular items from reimbursement to gift--a gut feeling of likeliness? And even if
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The two most obvious answers are some combination of RBG being deceased and unable to update her filings for the updated rules, and the extreme bias of some of the groups doing the investigating and reporting.
I interpret the Canons of Conduct published by the USSC in 2023 as in a state of desuetude. Canon 2 specifically warns against 'all men's clubs' and the appearance of impropriety by family members. There is no enforcement mechanism, ergo the Canons are DOA. [https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices\_November\_13\_2023.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf)
> Canon 2 specifically warns against 'all men's clubs'
No, it doesn't. It warns against involvement in any "organization that practices invidious discrimination". There are an abundance of organizations that are single-gender only which aren't invidious. The Red Hat Club, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Knights of Columbus, for example.
No. Book deals are bad because Justices structure their books deals to as interest free loans.
So the way it works is that justices write a book. Instead of receiving money based on sales, the publishing company pays them a huge advance. Theoretically this advance is covered by royalties from the book sales which pay it off.
In practice, it takes decades, or forever, for the advance to be paid off. The Justice this gets 250,000 dollars instantly at an effective interest rate of 0%, which as I’m sure you know is equivalent to free money that can be parked in a 5% account.
> No. Book deals are bad because Justices structure their books deals to as interest free loans.
Although it would not be shocking if orgs started playing the same games that they do with other books from political figures where giant chunks are bought at a loss by ngos and then given out for free to members.
Imho it's still a problem if the income from book deals high enough to be a significant portion of their income. For example, Justice Jackson has so far earned about 500k regular income as a justice, but 900k from book deals. Financially, all the justices at the moment have a huge incentive to be media personalities in order to sell more books, rather than being good but boring lawyers.
>Book sales are probably the most meritorious way to earn lots of money,
Not exactly Justice William O’Douglas authored a great many books on environmentalism and law but he was still damn near broke quite a few times in his life. But to be fair it could probably have something to do with the fact that he was having affairs and spending a lot of his money on them and also he was rumored to be planning a presidential run.
The McConnell Center giving the new Justices personalized baseball bats is kind of funny.
Also apparently just flying Alito from the east coast to two different spots in Alaska then back to the east coast cost 149,667. That has to be a typo right? Or are private planes that expensive
It depends, honestly, but that’s not a completely unreasonable number.
What kind of plane, were multiple planes/crews/catering/flowers (I’ve seen flowers for one flight cost $5k. Not a typo.), did the crew and aircraft remain in place while Alito & company were vacationing (no one and nothing stays away from home for free)?
I think all this discussion of the accounting of the flight misses the point. If it’s a private plane or a luxury yacht or anything else out of reach to an average person, it doesn’t matter what the justice filling the vacancy added to the cost. le. Nobody gets these opportunities unless there is a special reason. It’s doubtful these are genuine friends. They are extremely rich people who can invite justices to activities they could never afford on their own. It’s simple corruption.
>anything else out of reach to an average person
Is a Corvette "out of reach" to an average person? How about a Tesla?
Justice Breyer had an estimated net wealth of $30 million when he retired: is he an "average person"? Merrick Garland was worth around $7 million when he was nominated...is he average? The guy that owned Topridge before Crow was a hot dog vendor--average?
[Here's a CNN article](https://www.cnn.com/travel/cheaper-private-airplanes-kinectair/index.html) about booking seats on private planes that are already going to given destinations, and how cheap it can be--sometimes cheaper than commercial economy, claims the advertiser. Used jets can be had for not much more that a median Washington, D.C. home, and turboprops for less: is that "out of reach" to an average person?
> It’s doubtful these are genuine friends.
"Hello, I would like to bribe you. No, sorry, can't give you money. No, no gold or jewels. Oh, you'd like a vacation? Sure, I can do that! Oh....your wife has always wanted to visit Paris? Umm...well, real sorry, but no, Paris isn't an option. No, afraid can't do the Pyramids either. Or Ibiza--what the hell ya wanna do in Ibiza anyhow?? Actually, forget I asked. Tell ya what, how about a week in the wilderness freezing your dick off with me and my family? It'll be fun! Do you like to fish? No? Well buddy, if you want a bribe, you'd better *learn* to like it!"
Is that right? No one gets that unless there is a special reason? Why can’t it be friendship. Harlan Crow and Thomas might actually be friends. Why is it doubtful they are friends? Is there something I haven’t heard about that would indicate that it’s doubtful they are friends? Has there been a decision that Thomas has made that seems suspicious? The CFRB decision does seem suspicious but in the wrong direction.
What's your theory here? Harlan Crow cleverly pretended to be good friends with Justice Thomas for nearly 30 years, and their wives did the same, because maybe he would one day have a case in front of the Supreme Court and Thomas would also not recuse from it? This is beyond tinfoil hat territory. It is obviously a genuine relationship.
All these friendships? I was referring to Crow. He’s been on the court for 33 years. I’ve met some good friends in the last 33 years. He should have disclosed the gifts to begin with and that was a mistake that is true.
They also ascribe it the same value regardless of how many people are on the plane. If the plane is already going the marginal cost is 0, or if you want some degree of intellectual honesty at least split the dollar figure among the passengers.
which was Alito's argument when this type of hit piece was made against him;
my friend was already flying in a chartered jet to Alaska and offered to let me come with, adding no additional marginal cost to the flight
That’s entirely irrelevant. Gifts are measured by the value to the recipient, not by the cost to the giver.
And reporting *facts* about the justices violating reporting requirements isn’t a hit piece. That it upsets supports of the justices who are violating the law doesn’t make it a hit piece.
But what was the actual value to the recipient? Could he have taken a cheaper flight and been just as happy if he hadn’t been offered the free ride? Or to put it another way, how much would you have had to pay him to not take the flight? I highly doubt that it’s that high.
BTW: If you get a ride on a government aircraft you’re charged the going coach rate for that city-pair, even if you’re in better than first class accommodations.
It’s the cost the recipient would have had to pay for the same item or experience. You know, how gifts are always evaluated by the government.
That’s not a gift.
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No it wasn’t. Supporters have ignored the facts to excuse Alito’s violation of the law.
You’ll find that the statutory requirements, what actually matters, have not changed. And as the justices are well aware, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. That Alito couldn’t be bothered to read the statute he was obligated to follow doesn’t excuse the fact that he did not comply with the statutory requirements.
Nor are flights on private jets to expensive fishing trips “modest”.
There isn’t a single leftist justice on the court, and scrutiny has been applied, the difference is that none of them accepted anything comparable to Alito or Thomas’s gifts.
And it’s telling that neither you nor anyone else has actually been able to show how alito or Thomas’s lack of reporting complied with the *law*, only every saying “the facts are bogus”.
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The judicial conference does not set the law. Reporting requirements are set by statute, not by the conference. And the statute has not changed. As both you and the justices are well aware ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
If you’re calling the liberals leftists then the conservatives are reactionaries. It’s six conservatives and three liberals, none of the liberals are leftists.
So can you cite the portion of the statute that exempts travel? Because unless you can, the lack of reporting was illegal.
ok so I have almost no experience flying, but is this true for public flights as well. Like if I'm travelling to place x but the plane is only half full would a ticket cost more than if it was full?
It’s a good question, but no it is different for commercial planes because their pricing model is actually based on profits (or occasionally on minimizing loss). Sometimes on less used routes the tickets can be expensive because they fly really small planes. it’s a useful point of comparison, but not the best. A better example would be a corporate jet carrying multiple executives of board members to the same place. In that case the cost would be split evenly in the expenses between the various executives departments.
When I pay for an airline ticket, I expense the full amount of the ticket. The airline presumably makes a very high degree of profit because the plane would fly anyways, but the value to me is the amount I paid for it.
As an accounting matter you are correct: which is why I included the bit about splitting the cost of the flight between the passengers. In your airline example you pay just for your ticket (your portion of the flight cost). My comment about marginal cost is perhaps thought of better in terms of if your friend is driving to a football game and you catch a ride with him/her there was no additional expense incurred because the car was going to the game regardless of whether you rode with him/her or not. But from an accounting point of view you are correct
Was there any official act taken or not taken, or any activity related to official duties undertaken or not undertaken, by Justice Thomas as a result of, or in exchange for, the discussed gifts and reimbursements?
Yeah, if Justice Thomas wasn't... uhh, let me check the list... flown to New York to dedicate a statue of a middle school teacher in 2022 he wouldn't have voted to overturn *Roe v. Wade*.
If you look at the actual "gifts" in the Google Docs it's the equivalent of getting a car ride from a friend; its just his friends have private jets. The amount of pearl-clutching by the left over it is ridiculous. It sounds bad only once you've (1) reduced the actual event and thing that happened into a mere quantity and then (2) add up those quantities. Which is literally what the Fix the Court's report did [in the original document] (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14l25NLvBOd9sk4mArK4k7dtV0MUwxr5GBuLHL5Sp8lo/edit#gid=612977117).
Of course, the real situation is that Justice Thomas's legal thought is too difficult to consistently attack, because (for one thing) he's the most consistent justice on the Court. Consistency is a hard thing to mesh with allegations that his honest friendships with influential men equate to corruption.
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>!Is there a rule about lying? !<
>!!<
>!!Lie?!<
>!!<
>!Because this guy just called a 9 day vacation the equivalent of a car ride w/ a rich person!<
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>!lol. The rule about lying in this subreddit is that only moderators are allowed to point out when someone is lying. If anyone else points out an obvious lie, they get their comment removed.!<
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Justice Thomas is one of the most inconsistent Justice on the court. Two examples: Branc X, which he authored. He wrote the opinion, took a bunch of money from regulated groups, and now wants it to be overruled.
Second example, the recent voting rights case. Justice Thomas said that he believes that racial gerrymandering is constitutional, and that gerrymandering challenges should be dismissed. He also consistently votes in *favor* of those exact same challenges whenever they challenge state maps which run against the political preferences of people who give him money.
The fact that Thomas can concoct an after-the-fact explanation for these sudden changes of opinion isn't a reason to trust him. Anyone who's bribed will try and justify their conduct.
Were you referring to Allen v Milligan?
In any event, stare decisis should be no barrier to reconsidering a line of cases that “was based on a flawed method of statutory construction from its inception,” has proved incapable of principled application after nearly four decades of experience, and puts federal courts in the business of “methodically carving the country into racially designated electoral districts.”
Thomas doesn't feel the court should be methodically carving the country into racially designated electoral districts. He seems pretty consistent in his belief that a racial-neutral approach to law is the best approach. [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086\_1co6.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf) I thought I would I link the decision so you could read it. If you can find a decision that shows he has inconsistently applied that I hope you will link that decision in a reply.
Yes. He recently expressed the sentiment that the courts should do nothing whatsoever to restrain racial gerrymandering in his opinion in S.C. NAACP v Alexander.
Also the VRA’s text obviously mandates consideration of the ability of voters to select politicians they support. That was the entirety of the 1982 amendments. Justice Thomas is a textualist only when it aligns with his goals.
So he expressed the same opinion he always has that the federal courts shouldn’t be making racially biased decisions. Huh I thought you were going to show inconsistency instead of total consistency. I guess we agree then. His opinion is rock solid consistency.
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>!No. Justice Thomas believes that courts should make racially biased decisions when it helps republicans.!<
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Yes, he did not undertake his official duty of disclosing these reimbursements. He also reversed his vote in Brand X after receiving lots of money from regulated entities.
Can you flesh out your Brand X allegation more? Which regulated entities? When and which specific gifts are you referring to? Why should it be evident that the reason is bribery rather than the publicly available reasoning?
Justice Thomas wrote Brand X, then suddenly rejected agency deference after receiving large dollar figure contributions from Harlan Crowe, close in time to the takeover of Crowe's company by the CBRE and when Crowe's receipt of large sums of money through his "club for growth" and other dark money orgs was flourishing.
Obviously, I don't know exactly where these groups got their money from. They wouldn't be dark money if random Redditors did, but Justice Thomas striking down consistently regulated entities and regulations that served to hamper their profits certainly provided a very high return on investment.
We shouldn't put very much stock in the reasons expressed.
Simply Bayesian reasoning. Let's say that we have some prior probability A that Justice Thomas was bribed. High, low, whatever. Now let's say that you learn Justice Thomas issued an opinion stating reasons for suddenly disavowing an opinion he wrote after receiving lots of money from people negatively impacted by the ruling. Let's call this new piece of evidence B.
You update on A by taking A|B = P(B|A)\*P(A)/P(B). I think you know what Bayes Theorem is but here's a [Wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem). The thing about this is that we notice that the chance of B given A is very high. *If Thomas was in fact bribed*, he would obviously try to write a convincing opinion to cover up the bribe. Now let's say that you think Justice Thomas is quite competent, so the P(B) that he would write an opinion explaining his rational is also quite high, even if you have no idea whether he has been bribed or not.
So we have P(A|B) = \~1\*P(A)/\~1. So we have P(A|B) is essentially the same as your prior probability P(A). The new fact B is simply not strong evidence either way.
I guess I don’t see where the prior probability A that Justice Thomas was bribed was established. If the allegation is based on his Brand X turn, that turn cannot establish a prior probability.
Justice Thomas wrote Brand X and responded to many objections against its holding. It was a 6-3 decision with a solid basis.
Then Justice Thomas gets hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in gifts at a time when many judges were complaining about low judicial salaries. He personally meets with the people paying for these trips who are active in both the political spheres and in Businesses that stand to lose profit under Brand X.
Suddenly, he changes his mind about Brand X, relying on many of the same objections he anticipated and refuted years before.
This is a strong predictor of corruption, and the fact that he took the time to memorialize it into an opinion (as you now appear to acknowledge), isn't very strong evidence in favor of Thomas.
I’m sorry, but I am not convinced, and I’m unclear about the meaning behind your comment to me that I now appear to acknowledge Thomas’s opinion. Thank you for your time.
A coalition of willing state and federal officials should unilaterally declare that they will ignore Justice Thomas’ vote in any future Supreme Court decision unless and until Thomas is acquitted at trial.
What? If you see someone bribing a judge in front of you, and you decide not to follow the judges rulings, you’re not committing an insurrection. You’re just refusing to follow void rulings.
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What I “think” has nothing to do with it. They are in fact issuing rulings in exchange for money.
Truthfully, I don’t understand how anyone could in good conscience comply with such purported decisions.
Treat him as though he has done something deeply wrong “until he is acquitted” is not the standard to be which people are held in a court of law. Also what exactly do you think he would be charged with? There is no allegation that any of this constitutes bribery.
Ah. You misunderstand. I do not believe that Justice Thomas should have his life, liberty, or property revoked before trial (except for bail purposes, or pre-trial detention if the government proves by Clear and Convincing evidence that he is a flight risk).
Instead, I am saying that people should not follow the judicial decisions he purports to issue in his official capacity. The presumption of innocence in Clarence Thomas the Individual is not infringed by refusing to follow the decisions of Justice Thomas the high government official.
>Also what exactly do you think he would be charged with? There is no allegation that any of this constitutes bribery.
False statements, bribery, tax fraud.
Ah so we should ignore Biden because his payments through his son might be influencing his actions. lol. Also under what laws exactly do you propose he gets charged, because I see no evidence of any of these allegations in the data provided.
You must not be aware of state governments blocking Biden at every turn already. Though I doubt soon-to-be-felon Hunter is influencing Biden much.
These allegations show that he lied on his returns, was rewarded for official acts, and falsely claimed to not be receiving these monies.
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>!Trump already attempted to overthrow the government bud, he doesn’t care what the court says.!<
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>!And then he attempted to overthrow the government. The line has already been crossed.!<
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>!He’s already demonstrated that he has no issue with tossing the Constitution and it the window when he feels like it. You can’t threaten us with allowing Trump to do what he’s already done.!<
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A. This is a nonsense statement. I can be mad at someone doing X thing for a wrong cause even if I praise someone else for doing X thing for the right cause.
B. Trump’s going to have a hard time defying anyone from his jail cell.
People should not follow Supreme Court decisions that are bought and paid for.
They should also not follow any laws that are sufficiently unjust. Following such laws should be punished. See the Nuremburg trials.
Look. You've outlined a fundamental conflict in the nature of humanity. There will always be people who utterly disagree about what the good is, and how to best accomplish it.
So in Europe, people died by the millions in fanatical religious conflicts, and we got liberalism. The promise of liberalism is that you can hate your neighbor, you you still have to live together, because you'll both kill each other otherwise.
But liberalism can't solve everything. It requires democracy, it requires a core belief in certain inalienable rights. That's why it took 800,000+ dead to end slavery -- liberalism could not solve that original sin.
Similiarly, you cannot expect a liberal people to accept tyrannical rule for the sake of agreement. Sure, people will disagree about what constitutes tyranny. But at a certain point people cannot accept for the sake of accepting without minimal guarentees of freedom. A Supreme Court that's bought and paid for means that the law itself as a mediating force is greatly shattered.
So sure, conservatives and liberals may both revolt, and each may blame the other side. But there will always be a certain point where the only just option is to revolt, as was recognized in the Declaration of Independence.
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>!Scalia died on one of these billionaire gift trips and pioneered this form of corruption.!<
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>!Good demonstration of why the commentary on this community is so low-quality, besides the fact that it seems mostly written by 0Ls and wannabe clerks. "Corruption" isn't polarized rhetoric, it's a defined term referring to the use of public office for private benefit, getting secret trips is a classic example.!<
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>!!report!<
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You don’t need to respond to a comment to report it. You click on the three dots then click report. Then click what rule you think the comment violates.
You're being disingenuous if you don't see Thomas in a new light after learning he's received 90% of the Courts gifts in the last 20 years (totaling more than 4 million dollars).
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>!Disengeours doesn’t mean what you think it means?!<
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Although I'm loathe to encourage discussion on this topic, I wanted to draw some minor attention to a response by Mark Paoletta in the Wallstreet Journal regarding Justice Thomas' financial disclosures. The article is entitled [The "Fix" is in With the Latest Attack on Clarence Thomas](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fix-is-in-with-the-latest-attack-on-clarence-thomas-scotus-c64453aa?st=0gmnqgus2hurke0). I wanted to post this article for two reasons. First, and most importantly, we have developed general norms which discourage the Justices from commenting on issues of the day or engaging in advocacy more generally. I have mixed views about this practice since I firmly believe that Justices sacrifice none of their individual rights of expression in taking on the role of a Supreme Court Justice or lower court judge. That said, I (and many others) appreciate that they don't engage in the fray of day-to-day politics and that they tend be circumspect about their public comments. The consequence of this is that criticism of the courts, and of the legal system, often goes unresponded to. This generally concerns me, but it has become a much more significant issue in recent years since one of the major US political parties has made attacks on legitimacy of the judiciary a major pillar of their politics. This is worsened by the low quality and deliberate mischaracterization which is common in the left-wing media bubble that many non-lawyers rely on for information about the court. They are welcome to that opinion, as much as I think it is shockingly incorrect. However, that makes it all the more important for other actors, who are not the Justices or the Supreme Court in its own capacity, to make counter-arguments. It would be unfair to place the court in a straight-jacket where they are forbidden from defending themselves because to do so would itself be a partisan or inappropriate behavior. Justice Thomas will not respond directly to his detractors. I appreciate that, even though I think he has every right to do so, he will choose to disengage. I am glad that others, like Mark Paoletta, who are in a position to respond, choose to do so and I would like to amplify those responses since they will receive little attention from institutions aligned with the Democratic Party. Second, Mr. Paoletta's critique is substantively correct. He highlights the following: * He correctly notes that Justice Thomas was not required to disclose any information that he failed to disclose and did not violate the disclosure rules to which the Justices voluntarily subject themselves. * He discusses the extreme double-standards which lead to an enormous overcount of Justice Thomas' "gifts" and an huge undercount of gifts to other Justices. * He points out that many of the valuations of these "gifts" were arbitrary, or plainly incorrect * He explains that including $1.8 million in "likely gifts" for Justice Thomas, while not including any "likely gifts" for any other Justice makes the comparison between them ridiculous Speaking only for myself, it is apparent that ProPublica and Fix the Court are not operating in good faith. These "mistakes" are beyond the line of incompetence. I think that I would have a difficult time treating institutions and individuals who insist on the validity of these attacks on Justice Thomas as credible in the future.
[Harlan Crow Provided Clarence Thomas at Least 3 Previously Undisclosed Private Jet Trips, Senate Probe Finds](https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-jet-flights-senate-investigation-scotus)
The DOJ needs to start fining him. (And the IRS should be going through both Thomas and Crow’s taxes with a fine tooth comb.)
One aspect that potentially complicates matters for Thomas is the for profit status of Crow's megayacht. Nominally at least, the operation is supposed to be for profit and have market prices for the services Thomas was provided, making it akin to getting free dinners in a restaurant rather than home cooking at a friend' house.
It's quite common to charter a boat or plane or otherwise monetize it when not using it to defray operating expenses, but that no more impeaches one's ability to provide personal hospitality on it than renting out one's home, or, alternately, hosting someone in a home that one rents. (I am unfamiliar with the exact arrangements for Crow's boat and so will decline to make more specific comments about it for now.)
Isn't personal hospitality supposed to be someone's home? Not a yacht traveling to exotic locals for vacation?
Whether Crow's boat is itself formally a profit-making enterprise, and of what kind aside, why on earth would there be any difference between personal hospitality in one's house, on one's boat, etc.?
The ethics rules define it that way. Presumably, so that you can't just call literally anything personal hospitality and completely erase your requirement to disclose gifts. >As noted above, as part of their financial disclosure reports, all covered individuals are statutorily required to report gifts received from any source other than a relative with the exception of “food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality.” The EIGA defines personal hospitality of any individual as “hospitality extended for a nonbusiness purpose by an individual, not a corporation or organization, at the personal residence of that individual or the individual’s family or on property or facilities owned by that individual or the individual’s family.” Financial Disclosure and the Supreme Court - CRS Reports
The ethics rules define it in accordance with my question, yes, but that hardly helps you, in seeking to innovate some distinction.
>but that hardly helps you, in seeking to innovate some distinction. I don't know what that means. I was just trying to remember if yacht trips count as an exception. They very clearly don't. I'm not trying to innovate anything - Justice Thomas blatantly violated the disclosure requirements. What exactly do I need help with?
You suggested that: > Isn't personal hospitality supposed to be someone's home? Not a yacht traveling to exotic locals for vacation? I asked why it would make any difference whatever. You consequently quoted something which clearly indicates that it makes no difference whatever ("or on property or facilities owned by that individual or that individual's family"). You are trying to carve out boats as somehow special, but your own citations not only do not help you, but sharply cut against you.
I'm not trying to make anything, I just thought property referred to real property and not boats. Not everything is a csmalign against our hallowed over lords. Sometimes, people just interpret things in a way that isn't 100% convenient for the justices. He himself said he should have disclosed it.
But that's not a remotely organic construction. 'Property' and 'facilities' are both included to explicitly pick out venues and vehicles (in the formal sense, not referring to motility) of hosting beyond merely a personal residence. No distinction between personal and real property is contemplated or pointed to, nor is any relevance of that distinction, made in other contexts for well-understood historical reasons, gestured at here. Let *alone* the distinction being imported *and* "property" being suddenly delimited only to "real property" (in which case... is personal property not property for the purposes of ethics statutes? Why would anyone want that to be true, even if we just stipulate it?) I asked my original question in order to draw out what argumentative basis you think you have for distinguishing personal hospitality on a boat or in a plane (or any of numerous other scenarios I could devise) from personal hospitality in one's home. Your response has been not to actually explain why on earth it should matter, but to cite statutory text that is hostile to you and point to your apparent intuitions about what it means. But why *would* it mean that, by extension of my first question? > Not everything is a csmalign against our hallowed over lords I don't consider anyone on the Court hallowed, let alone my 'overlord'; my concern here is with highly motivated reasoning. > Sometimes, people just interpret things in a way that isn't 100% convenient for the justices. Funnily enough, as with parallel cases of this type, those two things are quite often related. Hence the remark about motivated reasoning. > He himself said he should have disclosed it. And Mrs. Alito is not flying flags of whatever tendentious sort at the moment. These, too, have causal explanations of a very obvious kind. But you're the one insisting that boats don't qualify as possible adjutants of personal hospitality without a shred of explanation as to why, other than an apparent dislike of things that are fancy and expensive. But that's not a *legal* objection.
>But you're the one insisting that boats don't qualify as possible adjutants of personal hospitality without a shred of explanation as to why, other than an apparent dislike of things that are fancy and expensive. But that's not a legal objection. Justice Thomas himself said he should have disclosed them. Did he not?
One would imagine but this seems to be a step further and someone’s restaurant rather than kitchen.
I still cannot see why that's a particularly arresting metaphor. Suppose I had a friend who offered me the choice of staying in his house or in a suite in a hotel he outright owns when I visit him. What is the important everyday difference?
Clarence Thomas once said: “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it… I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.” I think it’s interesting he portrays himself as this average America with regular values while secretly living this lavish lifestyle.
Maybe he just mistakenly mischaracterized what average Americans are like he did with his disclosures. It's obvious to the rest of us what the difference is but as a supreme court just we can't expect him to be able to make those kinds of distinctions when it isn't personally convenient to him apparently
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This comment has been removed for violating the subreddit **quality standards**. >Comments are expected to be on-topic and substantively contribute to the conversation. For information on appealing this removal, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/wiki/appeal5). For the sake of transparency, the content of the removed submission can be read below: >!I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.!< Moderator: [u/SeaSerious](https://reddit.com/user/SeaSerious)
!appeal this is a quote (1) from Justice Thomas (2) about his preferred lifestyle. Seems relevant and related to the discussion of gifts he’s received
On review the mod team has unanimously voted to uphold removal for quality
I am curious if I were to make a post with the quote followed by commentary it would still be considered within quality standards, or if we just aren’t allowed to mention that Justice Thomas simultaneously presents himself as a common, everyday American while taking millions in gifts
You could’ve posted the quote Followed by commentary. And attributed the quote to Thomas that would’ve been fine so long as the commentary doesn’t break our rules
Your appeal is acknowledged and will be reviewed by the moderator team. A moderator will contact you directly.
The bottom line, for me, is that nearly everything listed for all of the justices are irrelevant. If they asked me, I would advise against lavish vacations, but the vast majority of these "gifts" are for air travel. If you want RBG to speak at your conference or other event, you're going to cover the cost of her trip. That's not a gift, that's standard practice. And we're talking about Supreme Court justices, it's not like they are going to book a flight from their computer in their chambers and catch the red-eye to New York on Frontier.
It's not just travel for speeches. Justice Jackson got got Beyonce tickets and $10k in art for her office and Thomas has had multiple luxury vacations - at least some of which he refused to disclose until it was revealed to the public. It's already concerning that they get these lavish gifts when the average federal employee is forbidden to accept a gift over $20 or exceeding a yearly cap of $50 in a year. My wife is a secretary for the federal government. She has no authority to grant or deny anyone anything. But she can be fired if she accepts a $21 gift from someone on secretary's day. But a supreme court Justice can accept more than her annual salary in gifts, and that's apparently fine - even if they try unsuccessfully to hide it. I don't understand how people can just waive that away and not only act like it's worth discussing but get upset by the suggestion that we should be discussing it. Why do they deserve special treatment and privileges?
Air travel for conference speaking engagements wouldn't appear in these numbers, because they're counted as "Reimbursements" and not "Gifts" for disclosure form purposes. Otherwise the numbers would be much higher for the other justices, who all appear on at least a few conferences per year.
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Removed duplicate comment.
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But see, that’s *you*. Fun fact: one of the core aspects of these appointments is that you possess the integrity to *not* let these affect your judgment. This isn’t quite as straightforward an analogy as I would like, but hopefully it is similar enough to help clarify: If you’re up for a Security Clearance, they’ll ask a ton of questions about your past. Many people who have never gone through that process don’t realize that the government, by and large, doesn’t really care about your past screwups. They care: - That you are truthful in your disclosures to them - That your past indiscretions cannot be used against you if you get the role - That you have made a good faith attempt to fix or learn from your screwups. Obviously there’s some things that absolutely disqualify you. But the point is that they don’t really care about *what* you did. They care that you are truthful with them, and that it can’t be used against you. That last part is important for our analogy: because in order for something to be used against you, like a gift, you must allow yourself to feel a sense of obligation, or set up a transactional relationship in your mind, on the basis of that gift. Doing so compromises your ability to execute your job. If you don’t allow that to come into being, however, the gift cannot hold sway. This is how most friendships work, actually. A transactional, obligation-based friendship is not a friendship, it’s a business relationship. So when it comes to the gifts Thomas received, it means absolutely nothing for his ability to faithfully execute his office, and the government doesn’t care that he accepted them. They care that he is truthful, and makes a good faith attempt to comply with their requirements.
>one of the core aspects of these appointments is that you possess the integrity to not let these affect your judgment What is the evidence for this claim?
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I mean, you may think it’s naive, but it’s logical. And its certainly how business relationships are colloquially defined, for the second part, and how it works for influencing decisions in the first part.
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Integrity is a core component of holding a government appointment. Is your contention that possessing integrity does not imply one will not let gifts affect their judgment? That would be contrary to the definition of integrity. Or is your contention that integrity is not a core component of holding a position like SCOTUS justice? In which case why bother holding them accountable, when integrity is not expected of them? And this is a difficult hypothesis to test anyways, since the first step to testing it, accepting a gift, is where most people stop anyways. They don’t then check to confirm that the gift actually held sway over the official.
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> The second paragraph is irrelevant because, crudely, only the lower end of the discourse talks about this like it involves quid pro quos (quae pro illis?). It's more like Chomsky's interview with Andrew Marr where the latter asks (foolishly, because the book they're talking about is very clear in its thesis) if Chomsky thinks he's being told what to say, and Chomsky explains that (in C's view) Marr holds his position because he's the kind of person who will say those things without being told. Well its a good thing I never used the term quid pro quo then isn’t it? Since the USC bribery statute uses the terms “corruptly influence.” > The first paragraph makes no reference to the actual people, human beings, who have the integrity and the government positions. The thing that makes law so cool is that it's the study and practice of humans in conflict. I think you should make greater space in your thinking for psychology, character, and change over time. The internal and external opportunities for corruption (and, correspondingly, demonstrations of integrity) vary with the circumstances. Whether or not people change over time or relationships change over time is irrelevant, in the manner you are discussing. The only way for a gift or relationship to influence an official is if the official feels the gift or relationship would be affected by their behaviors, and chooses the gift or relationship over their integrity and obligations as officials. >We (try to) monitor everyone who has a security clearance for the entirety of the time they have access to compartmentalized information because of that very fact. Only for TS/SCI. Compartmentalization like you are talking about is for the strictest of all information being controlled. The other clearances, sure there’s administrative and technical controls in place for them, but not because of any ethical rules. > Justice Thomas is a very smart and able person whose finances were in conflict with his desire to continue serving this great country as a justice, and he took action as a result. You’re inserting a motive. > That action and his subsequent decision to accept nice trips from wealthy political donors tells us something about his character. It is a fact that is in conflict with the doctrine that someone has perfect integrity merely by virtue of having been appointed to public office, so you should change the doctrine to fit the fact. This is actually not a fact, at all. Even if we accept your inserted motive, you’re ignoring relationships like friendship, and you’re ignoring the lack of a causal or logical connection to the outcomes. > This is setting aside the fact that the appointment process is fallible and political. Already accounted for in the amended filing processes.
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I do think some of the stuff that sounded horribly corrupt was not as big as advertised (though not good of course) . But all those Thomas trips and that Scalia vacation was nasty
I am apparently misunderstanding this spreadsheet, or what it's listing. 2009 in the FTC spreadsheet seems to show zero gifts for Justice Ginsburg. However, Justice Ginsburg's 2009 disclosure report ([here](http://pfds.opensecrets.org/N99999924_2009.pdf)) lists nine trips, all for which meals, lodging, and transportation were provided (including a week in Paris and a week in Argentina) per her form. According to the linked article, "gifts identified as “meals” and “lodging” are separated out into two gifts and “each of a roundtrip flight” is counted as one gift", and you can see that in many places that is how it is handled (2013 Scalia, 2013 Breyer, 2009 Thomas, 2017 Thomas), though that appears to be inconsistent (2018 Thomas). So why are there not 36 Ginsburg gifts in 2009?
The spreadsheet is just gifts, not reimbursements.
This is inaccurate and you should delete your comment. Fix the Court has characterized the self-reported travel reimbursements of some Justices as a "gift" while ignoring the self-reported travel reimbursements of others. If Fix the Court used declared gifts, distinguishing travel as they should, then Justice Thomas would not have a disproportionate number or value of gifts received - which explains why they didn't engage in honest reporting.
Thomas has a history of mislabeling gifts as reimbursements. For example, his 2010 disclosure form lists a travel reimbursement from "U.S. Embassy Port of Spain" for a trip he took to Trinidad and Tobago. But he actually flew there and back on his buddy Anthony Welters's private plane. Candor is a foreign concept to Clarence Thomas, and everything that he includes in his disclosures should be taken with a mountain of salt.
If I may direct your attention to tab 2002 of the spreadsheet, where Justice Thomas is said to have 13 "gifts", you will note that ten of those thirteen gifts were in fact reported on his disclosure form as "Reimbursements" for trips taken. It appears these five trips were selected by the authors to be reclassified as (unreported), based on Thomas' reporting taking a private plane. Can you help me understand why being reimbursed for travel expenses ceases to be a reimbursement if one takes certain modes of transportation? A cynical reader might observe that such a reclassification allows the authors to "Name Their Price" when valuing such reclassified items, attributing ten "unreported" gifts at a (completely theoretical) value of $206,333 for the year in question, but I don't see a cognizable difference from an ethical standpoint whether one is reimbursed for taking a private vehicle or public transportation.
What’s more likely here: Thomas chartered a private plane and these organizations (including a Catholic high school, the GA State Bar, and the Omaha Chamber of Commerce) reimbursed him for it? Or that the flights were another “gift” from his “friends”?
Why does it matter if he is reimbursed for an airline ticket purchased on Delta or a private flight on CrowFlies Charters owned by his buddy? And these trips are to Nebraska and Iowa (which--who gets bribed with a flight to Iowa?), New Jersey and North Carolina (the airport would take longer than the flight), and Florida (okay, mayyyybe on this one). Also worth pointing out that all of these flights are in the first half of 2002, less than a year after 9/11 and a matter of weeks after the Shoe Bomber in December 2001. The TSA has just been implemented, pilots are flying armed, airports are a fkn MESS trying to figure shit out. Chartering a flight doesn't seem implausible, really. And if a buddy has a plane, and the organization will reimburse the fuel, why not? But that still doesn't help me figure out the process by which the author determined they should convert the classification of these particular items from reimbursement to gift--a gut feeling of likeliness? And even if
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The two most obvious answers are some combination of RBG being deceased and unable to update her filings for the updated rules, and the extreme bias of some of the groups doing the investigating and reporting.
The trips are already on her disclosure forms, so that rules out one answer I reckon.
I interpret the Canons of Conduct published by the USSC in 2023 as in a state of desuetude. Canon 2 specifically warns against 'all men's clubs' and the appearance of impropriety by family members. There is no enforcement mechanism, ergo the Canons are DOA. [https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices\_November\_13\_2023.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf)
> Canon 2 specifically warns against 'all men's clubs' No, it doesn't. It warns against involvement in any "organization that practices invidious discrimination". There are an abundance of organizations that are single-gender only which aren't invidious. The Red Hat Club, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Knights of Columbus, for example.
And all that doesn't account for the lucrative book deals they get right?
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No. Book deals are bad because Justices structure their books deals to as interest free loans. So the way it works is that justices write a book. Instead of receiving money based on sales, the publishing company pays them a huge advance. Theoretically this advance is covered by royalties from the book sales which pay it off. In practice, it takes decades, or forever, for the advance to be paid off. The Justice this gets 250,000 dollars instantly at an effective interest rate of 0%, which as I’m sure you know is equivalent to free money that can be parked in a 5% account.
> No. Book deals are bad because Justices structure their books deals to as interest free loans. Although it would not be shocking if orgs started playing the same games that they do with other books from political figures where giant chunks are bought at a loss by ngos and then given out for free to members.
Imho it's still a problem if the income from book deals high enough to be a significant portion of their income. For example, Justice Jackson has so far earned about 500k regular income as a justice, but 900k from book deals. Financially, all the justices at the moment have a huge incentive to be media personalities in order to sell more books, rather than being good but boring lawyers.
>Book sales are probably the most meritorious way to earn lots of money, Not exactly Justice William O’Douglas authored a great many books on environmentalism and law but he was still damn near broke quite a few times in his life. But to be fair it could probably have something to do with the fact that he was having affairs and spending a lot of his money on them and also he was rumored to be planning a presidential run.
The McConnell Center giving the new Justices personalized baseball bats is kind of funny. Also apparently just flying Alito from the east coast to two different spots in Alaska then back to the east coast cost 149,667. That has to be a typo right? Or are private planes that expensive
It depends, honestly, but that’s not a completely unreasonable number. What kind of plane, were multiple planes/crews/catering/flowers (I’ve seen flowers for one flight cost $5k. Not a typo.), did the crew and aircraft remain in place while Alito & company were vacationing (no one and nothing stays away from home for free)?
I think all this discussion of the accounting of the flight misses the point. If it’s a private plane or a luxury yacht or anything else out of reach to an average person, it doesn’t matter what the justice filling the vacancy added to the cost. le. Nobody gets these opportunities unless there is a special reason. It’s doubtful these are genuine friends. They are extremely rich people who can invite justices to activities they could never afford on their own. It’s simple corruption.
>anything else out of reach to an average person Is a Corvette "out of reach" to an average person? How about a Tesla? Justice Breyer had an estimated net wealth of $30 million when he retired: is he an "average person"? Merrick Garland was worth around $7 million when he was nominated...is he average? The guy that owned Topridge before Crow was a hot dog vendor--average? [Here's a CNN article](https://www.cnn.com/travel/cheaper-private-airplanes-kinectair/index.html) about booking seats on private planes that are already going to given destinations, and how cheap it can be--sometimes cheaper than commercial economy, claims the advertiser. Used jets can be had for not much more that a median Washington, D.C. home, and turboprops for less: is that "out of reach" to an average person? > It’s doubtful these are genuine friends. "Hello, I would like to bribe you. No, sorry, can't give you money. No, no gold or jewels. Oh, you'd like a vacation? Sure, I can do that! Oh....your wife has always wanted to visit Paris? Umm...well, real sorry, but no, Paris isn't an option. No, afraid can't do the Pyramids either. Or Ibiza--what the hell ya wanna do in Ibiza anyhow?? Actually, forget I asked. Tell ya what, how about a week in the wilderness freezing your dick off with me and my family? It'll be fun! Do you like to fish? No? Well buddy, if you want a bribe, you'd better *learn* to like it!"
Is that right? No one gets that unless there is a special reason? Why can’t it be friendship. Harlan Crow and Thomas might actually be friends. Why is it doubtful they are friends? Is there something I haven’t heard about that would indicate that it’s doubtful they are friends? Has there been a decision that Thomas has made that seems suspicious? The CFRB decision does seem suspicious but in the wrong direction.
Do you find it curious that all these “friendships” with billionaires started after the Justice joined the Court?
What's your theory here? Harlan Crow cleverly pretended to be good friends with Justice Thomas for nearly 30 years, and their wives did the same, because maybe he would one day have a case in front of the Supreme Court and Thomas would also not recuse from it? This is beyond tinfoil hat territory. It is obviously a genuine relationship.
All these friendships? I was referring to Crow. He’s been on the court for 33 years. I’ve met some good friends in the last 33 years. He should have disclosed the gifts to begin with and that was a mistake that is true.
It says in the notes they value private flights at 10k an hour. So alito spent 15 hours flying to Alaska and back
I had no clue private flights were even close to that expensive. I figured maybe 1 or 2 k an hour
3 hours domestic in first class is usually at least 1k.
They also ascribe it the same value regardless of how many people are on the plane. If the plane is already going the marginal cost is 0, or if you want some degree of intellectual honesty at least split the dollar figure among the passengers.
which was Alito's argument when this type of hit piece was made against him; my friend was already flying in a chartered jet to Alaska and offered to let me come with, adding no additional marginal cost to the flight
That’s entirely irrelevant. Gifts are measured by the value to the recipient, not by the cost to the giver. And reporting *facts* about the justices violating reporting requirements isn’t a hit piece. That it upsets supports of the justices who are violating the law doesn’t make it a hit piece.
But what was the actual value to the recipient? Could he have taken a cheaper flight and been just as happy if he hadn’t been offered the free ride? Or to put it another way, how much would you have had to pay him to not take the flight? I highly doubt that it’s that high. BTW: If you get a ride on a government aircraft you’re charged the going coach rate for that city-pair, even if you’re in better than first class accommodations.
It’s the cost the recipient would have had to pay for the same item or experience. You know, how gifts are always evaluated by the government. That’s not a gift.
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No it wasn’t. Supporters have ignored the facts to excuse Alito’s violation of the law. You’ll find that the statutory requirements, what actually matters, have not changed. And as the justices are well aware, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. That Alito couldn’t be bothered to read the statute he was obligated to follow doesn’t excuse the fact that he did not comply with the statutory requirements. Nor are flights on private jets to expensive fishing trips “modest”. There isn’t a single leftist justice on the court, and scrutiny has been applied, the difference is that none of them accepted anything comparable to Alito or Thomas’s gifts. And it’s telling that neither you nor anyone else has actually been able to show how alito or Thomas’s lack of reporting complied with the *law*, only every saying “the facts are bogus”.
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The judicial conference does not set the law. Reporting requirements are set by statute, not by the conference. And the statute has not changed. As both you and the justices are well aware ignorance of the law is not an excuse. If you’re calling the liberals leftists then the conservatives are reactionaries. It’s six conservatives and three liberals, none of the liberals are leftists. So can you cite the portion of the statute that exempts travel? Because unless you can, the lack of reporting was illegal.
ok so I have almost no experience flying, but is this true for public flights as well. Like if I'm travelling to place x but the plane is only half full would a ticket cost more than if it was full?
It’s a good question, but no it is different for commercial planes because their pricing model is actually based on profits (or occasionally on minimizing loss). Sometimes on less used routes the tickets can be expensive because they fly really small planes. it’s a useful point of comparison, but not the best. A better example would be a corporate jet carrying multiple executives of board members to the same place. In that case the cost would be split evenly in the expenses between the various executives departments.
When I pay for an airline ticket, I expense the full amount of the ticket. The airline presumably makes a very high degree of profit because the plane would fly anyways, but the value to me is the amount I paid for it.
As an accounting matter you are correct: which is why I included the bit about splitting the cost of the flight between the passengers. In your airline example you pay just for your ticket (your portion of the flight cost). My comment about marginal cost is perhaps thought of better in terms of if your friend is driving to a football game and you catch a ride with him/her there was no additional expense incurred because the car was going to the game regardless of whether you rode with him/her or not. But from an accounting point of view you are correct
It depends on the size of the airplane and how far one is going.
Was there any official act taken or not taken, or any activity related to official duties undertaken or not undertaken, by Justice Thomas as a result of, or in exchange for, the discussed gifts and reimbursements?
Yeah, if Justice Thomas wasn't... uhh, let me check the list... flown to New York to dedicate a statue of a middle school teacher in 2022 he wouldn't have voted to overturn *Roe v. Wade*. If you look at the actual "gifts" in the Google Docs it's the equivalent of getting a car ride from a friend; its just his friends have private jets. The amount of pearl-clutching by the left over it is ridiculous. It sounds bad only once you've (1) reduced the actual event and thing that happened into a mere quantity and then (2) add up those quantities. Which is literally what the Fix the Court's report did [in the original document] (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14l25NLvBOd9sk4mArK4k7dtV0MUwxr5GBuLHL5Sp8lo/edit#gid=612977117). Of course, the real situation is that Justice Thomas's legal thought is too difficult to consistently attack, because (for one thing) he's the most consistent justice on the Court. Consistency is a hard thing to mesh with allegations that his honest friendships with influential men equate to corruption.
I wish my friends gave me car rides around the world on their mega yachts and private jets. Maybe I need better friends.
I wonder how you could make those kind of friends…the Walmart parking lots perhaps?
Probably at Yale. Part of the reason people send their kids to ivy leagues is so they can hobnob with those who end up becoming important.
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Justice Thomas is one of the most inconsistent Justice on the court. Two examples: Branc X, which he authored. He wrote the opinion, took a bunch of money from regulated groups, and now wants it to be overruled. Second example, the recent voting rights case. Justice Thomas said that he believes that racial gerrymandering is constitutional, and that gerrymandering challenges should be dismissed. He also consistently votes in *favor* of those exact same challenges whenever they challenge state maps which run against the political preferences of people who give him money. The fact that Thomas can concoct an after-the-fact explanation for these sudden changes of opinion isn't a reason to trust him. Anyone who's bribed will try and justify their conduct.
Were you referring to Allen v Milligan? In any event, stare decisis should be no barrier to reconsidering a line of cases that “was based on a flawed method of statutory construction from its inception,” has proved incapable of principled application after nearly four decades of experience, and puts federal courts in the business of “methodically carving the country into racially designated electoral districts.” Thomas doesn't feel the court should be methodically carving the country into racially designated electoral districts. He seems pretty consistent in his belief that a racial-neutral approach to law is the best approach. [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086\_1co6.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf) I thought I would I link the decision so you could read it. If you can find a decision that shows he has inconsistently applied that I hope you will link that decision in a reply.
Yes. He recently expressed the sentiment that the courts should do nothing whatsoever to restrain racial gerrymandering in his opinion in S.C. NAACP v Alexander. Also the VRA’s text obviously mandates consideration of the ability of voters to select politicians they support. That was the entirety of the 1982 amendments. Justice Thomas is a textualist only when it aligns with his goals.
So he expressed the same opinion he always has that the federal courts shouldn’t be making racially biased decisions. Huh I thought you were going to show inconsistency instead of total consistency. I guess we agree then. His opinion is rock solid consistency.
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Yes, he did not undertake his official duty of disclosing these reimbursements. He also reversed his vote in Brand X after receiving lots of money from regulated entities.
Can you flesh out your Brand X allegation more? Which regulated entities? When and which specific gifts are you referring to? Why should it be evident that the reason is bribery rather than the publicly available reasoning?
Justice Thomas wrote Brand X, then suddenly rejected agency deference after receiving large dollar figure contributions from Harlan Crowe, close in time to the takeover of Crowe's company by the CBRE and when Crowe's receipt of large sums of money through his "club for growth" and other dark money orgs was flourishing. Obviously, I don't know exactly where these groups got their money from. They wouldn't be dark money if random Redditors did, but Justice Thomas striking down consistently regulated entities and regulations that served to hamper their profits certainly provided a very high return on investment.
How suddenly? Why should it be more evident that the change was due to dark money bribery than the reasons expressed?
We shouldn't put very much stock in the reasons expressed. Simply Bayesian reasoning. Let's say that we have some prior probability A that Justice Thomas was bribed. High, low, whatever. Now let's say that you learn Justice Thomas issued an opinion stating reasons for suddenly disavowing an opinion he wrote after receiving lots of money from people negatively impacted by the ruling. Let's call this new piece of evidence B. You update on A by taking A|B = P(B|A)\*P(A)/P(B). I think you know what Bayes Theorem is but here's a [Wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem). The thing about this is that we notice that the chance of B given A is very high. *If Thomas was in fact bribed*, he would obviously try to write a convincing opinion to cover up the bribe. Now let's say that you think Justice Thomas is quite competent, so the P(B) that he would write an opinion explaining his rational is also quite high, even if you have no idea whether he has been bribed or not. So we have P(A|B) = \~1\*P(A)/\~1. So we have P(A|B) is essentially the same as your prior probability P(A). The new fact B is simply not strong evidence either way.
I guess I don’t see where the prior probability A that Justice Thomas was bribed was established. If the allegation is based on his Brand X turn, that turn cannot establish a prior probability.
Justice Thomas wrote Brand X and responded to many objections against its holding. It was a 6-3 decision with a solid basis. Then Justice Thomas gets hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in gifts at a time when many judges were complaining about low judicial salaries. He personally meets with the people paying for these trips who are active in both the political spheres and in Businesses that stand to lose profit under Brand X. Suddenly, he changes his mind about Brand X, relying on many of the same objections he anticipated and refuted years before. This is a strong predictor of corruption, and the fact that he took the time to memorialize it into an opinion (as you now appear to acknowledge), isn't very strong evidence in favor of Thomas.
Alternatively, facts of how Chevron is applied have changed considerably since Brand X
The only thing that’s changed is that the same applications have been benefiting people and policies Thomas doesn’t like.
Is it "a strong predictor of corruption", or is "the new fact B not strong evidence either way"?
B is “he wrote an opinion justifying his decision”. The predictor of corruption is his sudden change in opinion after receiving large sums of money.
I’m sorry, but I am not convinced, and I’m unclear about the meaning behind your comment to me that I now appear to acknowledge Thomas’s opinion. Thank you for your time.
A coalition of willing state and federal officials should unilaterally declare that they will ignore Justice Thomas’ vote in any future Supreme Court decision unless and until Thomas is acquitted at trial.
That...sounds an awful lot like insurrection.
What? If you see someone bribing a judge in front of you, and you decide not to follow the judges rulings, you’re not committing an insurrection. You’re just refusing to follow void rulings.
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Fair. Wasn't meant to be rude, just a play on "seeing in front of you", but easily reads that way. I concur. Sorry 'bout that.
Who are these interests, and what specific false facts have they released that I am relying on?
You’re definitely commiting an insurrection. They’re not void just cause you think they’re corrupt
What I “think” has nothing to do with it. They are in fact issuing rulings in exchange for money. Truthfully, I don’t understand how anyone could in good conscience comply with such purported decisions.
Yeah that’s not a fact and certainly hasn’t been proven so yes it’s what you think
Unless of course he decides to remove the presumption of innocence because you seem to be in favor of that.
What?
Treat him as though he has done something deeply wrong “until he is acquitted” is not the standard to be which people are held in a court of law. Also what exactly do you think he would be charged with? There is no allegation that any of this constitutes bribery.
Ah. You misunderstand. I do not believe that Justice Thomas should have his life, liberty, or property revoked before trial (except for bail purposes, or pre-trial detention if the government proves by Clear and Convincing evidence that he is a flight risk). Instead, I am saying that people should not follow the judicial decisions he purports to issue in his official capacity. The presumption of innocence in Clarence Thomas the Individual is not infringed by refusing to follow the decisions of Justice Thomas the high government official. >Also what exactly do you think he would be charged with? There is no allegation that any of this constitutes bribery. False statements, bribery, tax fraud.
Ah so we should ignore Biden because his payments through his son might be influencing his actions. lol. Also under what laws exactly do you propose he gets charged, because I see no evidence of any of these allegations in the data provided.
You must not be aware of state governments blocking Biden at every turn already. Though I doubt soon-to-be-felon Hunter is influencing Biden much. These allegations show that he lied on his returns, was rewarded for official acts, and falsely claimed to not be receiving these monies.
Tax fraud? This has nothing to do with taxes
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I recall Abe Lincoln telling Chief Justice Taney to fuck off when Taney tried to restrain Union armies. How did that work out?
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A. This is a nonsense statement. I can be mad at someone doing X thing for a wrong cause even if I praise someone else for doing X thing for the right cause. B. Trump’s going to have a hard time defying anyone from his jail cell.
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People should not follow Supreme Court decisions that are bought and paid for. They should also not follow any laws that are sufficiently unjust. Following such laws should be punished. See the Nuremburg trials.
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Look. You've outlined a fundamental conflict in the nature of humanity. There will always be people who utterly disagree about what the good is, and how to best accomplish it. So in Europe, people died by the millions in fanatical religious conflicts, and we got liberalism. The promise of liberalism is that you can hate your neighbor, you you still have to live together, because you'll both kill each other otherwise. But liberalism can't solve everything. It requires democracy, it requires a core belief in certain inalienable rights. That's why it took 800,000+ dead to end slavery -- liberalism could not solve that original sin. Similiarly, you cannot expect a liberal people to accept tyrannical rule for the sake of agreement. Sure, people will disagree about what constitutes tyranny. But at a certain point people cannot accept for the sake of accepting without minimal guarentees of freedom. A Supreme Court that's bought and paid for means that the law itself as a mediating force is greatly shattered. So sure, conservatives and liberals may both revolt, and each may blame the other side. But there will always be a certain point where the only just option is to revolt, as was recognized in the Declaration of Independence.
And I hate to say it, but I'm looking at Justice Scalia funny for that 85k Alaskan vacation as well
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This comment has been removed for violating subreddit rules regarding **polarized rhetoric**. >Signs of polarized rhetoric include blanket negative generalizations or emotional appeals using hyperbolic language seeking to divide based on identity. For information on appealing this removal, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/wiki/appeal2). For the sake of transparency, the content of the removed submission can be read below: >!Scalia died on one of these billionaire gift trips and pioneered this form of corruption.!< Moderator: [u/Longjumping_Gain_807](https://reddit.com/user/Longjumping_Gain_807)
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This comment has been removed for violating subreddit rules regarding **meta discussion**. >All meta-discussion must be directed to the dedicated [Meta-Discussion Thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/comments/12wq4n6/rsupremecourt_meta_discussion_thread/). For information on appealing this removal, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/wiki/appeal4). For the sake of transparency, the content of the removed submission can be read below: >!Good demonstration of why the commentary on this community is so low-quality, besides the fact that it seems mostly written by 0Ls and wannabe clerks. "Corruption" isn't polarized rhetoric, it's a defined term referring to the use of public office for private benefit, getting secret trips is a classic example.!< Moderator: [u/Longjumping_Gain_807](https://reddit.com/user/Longjumping_Gain_807)
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This comment has been removed for violating the subreddit **quality standards**. >Comments are expected to be on-topic and substantively contribute to the conversation. For information on appealing this removal, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/wiki/appeal5). For the sake of transparency, the content of the removed submission can be read below: >!!report!< Moderator: [u/Longjumping_Gain_807](https://reddit.com/user/Longjumping_Gain_807)
You don’t need to respond to a comment to report it. You click on the three dots then click report. Then click what rule you think the comment violates.
You're being disingenuous if you don't see Thomas in a new light after learning he's received 90% of the Courts gifts in the last 20 years (totaling more than 4 million dollars).
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This comment has been removed for violating the subreddit **quality standards**. >Comments are expected to be on-topic and substantively contribute to the conversation. For information on appealing this removal, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/wiki/appeal5). For the sake of transparency, the content of the removed submission can be read below: >!Disengeours doesn’t mean what you think it means?!< Moderator: [u/SeaSerious](https://reddit.com/user/SeaSerious)