WASHINGTON (CN) — A hearing to discuss forcing all of the Supreme Court justices to adhere to ethical standards on Wednesday was diverted by partisan disagreements over criticism of the actions of one justice: Clarence Thomas.
Thomas has come under scrutiny after the Washington Post uncovered dozens of texts that his wife sent to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging him to pursue efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion when the court rejected election challenges filed by former President Donald Trump calling the refusal “inexplicable” and was the lone dissent when Trump asked the court to keep his White House records from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Legal experts across the spectrum have condemned Thomas’ refusal to recuse himself in cases related to the 2020 election and have said it provides a prime example of why the high court needs to be held to ethical standards.
However, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee chastised criticism against Thomas as racist and compared it to a high-tech lynching.
“Justice Thomas knows what all of my very conservative dear Black friends know, is nobody is treated more brutally in this country than a conservative Black,” Texas Representative Louie Gohmert said. “And it's just like Justice Thomas said at his hearing, he was the victim of a high-tech lynching, and I would submit anyone that continues that abuse is further contributing to the same high-tech lynching.”
Mark Paoletta, a partner at Schaerr Jaffe who was previously general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, testified before the committee and made similar claims. Paoletta claimed that the Supreme Court was not being undermined by ethics issues and instead by coordinated campaigns by the media and Democrats to smear conservative justices.
“The left hates Justice Thomas because he is a Black conservative who has never bowed to those who demand that he must think a certain way because of the color of his skin,” Paoletta said. “The racist attacks have repeatedly sought to portray Justice Thomas as dependent on white people.”
Democrats on the committee said they were not singling out Thomas because of his skin color or beliefs but instead for how he has acted on the court.
“This notion that Clarence Thomas is being singled out because he's a Black conservative — whatever that means — I think it's belied by the fact that if you look at example after example, there seem to be troubling instances where he's making rulings in cases where his wife has a clear interest,” New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries said.
Other witnesses brought before the committee emphasized that while they thought Thomas made ethical lapses, they also believed every justice on the court did so as well which is why the court needs an ethics code.
“It is important to note that the crisis of ethics in our government is the result of decades of benign neglect by leaders in all three branches of government, not the misconduct of one or even a few people,” said Donald Sherman, senior vice president and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Ethics is not a partisan issue.”
Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, listed half a dozen ethical lapses by justices who were not Thomas during his testimony.
“These are just a handful of examples of Supreme Court justices flouting basic ethics rules in the handful of years in my organization fixed the court has existed," Roth said. “I have dozens more in my written statements.”
However, while all of the justices have made questionable ethical decisions, witnesses say Thomas’ was most egregious.
“One of the more egregious examples in recent memory arises from a spousal conflict,” Sherman said. “Earlier this year, Justice Clarence Thomas failed to recuse from a case, Trump v. Thompson, where he was the lone dissent from the court's decision to reject former President Trump's attempt to block the release of documents requested by the January 6 Committee … By deciding to hear this case, Justice Thomas has undermined public trust in the court's impartiality.”
The current recusal standard for the justices says they should recuse if their impartiality could be questioned.
“I'm a reasonable person and I questioned Justice Thomas's impartiality in each of the examples I just mentioned and sadly in many more," Roth said.
While some Republican members of the committee argued implementing an ethics code was solely retaliation against Thomas, Democratic members said they’ve been working on the issue long before the reporting about Thomas came to light. Georgia Representative Hank Johnson said he introduced the bill two years ago after he took up legislation that was first introduced in 2013.
Witnesses before the committee said the court’s lack of an ethics code is contributing to a crisis of confidence in the judiciary.
“The Supreme Court's unwritten honor system is clearly broken,” Sherman said. “Public confidence in the third branch is at or near all-time lows, with 53% of Americans having an unfavorable view of the high court. For an institution whose currency is credibility, this is an abject failure.”
Earlier in the day, the House passed legislation to expand financial disclosure requirements for federal judges, including Supreme Court justices.
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