Clarence Thomas: Come Clean

Once again, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is in the news, and once again, it’s for all the wrong reasons. The Ethics in Government Act, passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, requires thousands of federal officials – including Supreme Court justices – to file financial disclosures every year, so the public can know who’s influencing our government’s leaders. But Clarence Thomas has developed a pattern of failing to follow this law, choosing to pal around with right-wing financiers and not bothering to report private plane trips, yacht rides, and his wife’s $120,000-a-year paycheck from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Has Clarence Thomas broken the law by wilfully failing to disclose these trips? We just don’t know, because he flatly refuses to answer basic questions about his relationships with some of the wealthiest and most powerful right-wing figures in America. That’s why we’re calling on the Judicial Conference – the independent agency tasked with investigating ethical wrongdoing in the federal judiciary – to look into Clarence Thomas’ incomplete financial disclosures. The New York Times recently reported on Justice Thomas’s ethically questionable relationship with Harlan Crow, a wealthy Texas real estate developer and financier of Republican politics and conservative causes. At Justice Thomas’s request, Crow spent millions of dollars on a restoration project that included a tribute to Clarence Thomas. Mr. Crow also apparently provided Justice Thomas with use of his yacht and private jets on several occasions. Although these trips would qualify as gifts or reimbursements under the Ethics Act, and be subject to disclosure, Justice Thomas has not reported receiving a gift since 2004 and does not appear to have listed the trips as reimbursements. If the Judicial Conference fails to investigate these apparent lapses and omissions, we may never know if one of this country’s top jurists has broken the law. For every day that Clarence Thomas sits on the bench under a cloud of suspicion, Americans’ faith in our judicial system is weakened. The public has the right to know whether the judges on its highest court are flaunting decades-old ethics laws. We need you to help us make sure the Judicial Conference does its job, and pursues an investigation into Justice Thomas. Clarence Thomas has famously not spoken in court for over five years, but he can’t remain silent about his ethical lapses. He needs to come clean, and live up to the high standards we expect of our Supreme Court. Thank you, Alliance for Justice PS. For the more on Clarence Thomas' ethical problems, check out AFJ President Nan Aron's column in the Huffington Post.