Senate Democrats have found yet another reason to go after Justice Clarence Thomas, this time by bringing up recusal when it comes to deciding whether former and potentially future President Donald Trump has immunity in cases to do with his handling of classified documents and his actions on and leading up to January 6, 2021. As Spencer covered on Monday, Special Counsel Jack Smith made such a request of the Supreme Court. The Court has agreed to grant an expedited review of the cert petition.
Chief among those Democrats is Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL). "There's been enough information raised about Mr. Thomas and his spouse that he ought to think twice about recusal in this case," Durbin claimed. Another Democrat on the Committee, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), also chimed in, ready to say that Thomas should recuse himself.
Sen. Dick Blumenthal, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, went further and told me he believes that Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from the Trump case. https://t.co/M4x80oY68n
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 11, 2023
Justice Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, has expressed concerns about fraud in the 2020 election, which resulted in President Joe Biden beating Trump.
The Hill had more of the Democrats' reactions, including from Durbin and Blumenthal, as well as others:
“There are so many unanswered questions about the relationship of the justice and his family with the Trump administration that I think in the interests of justice, he should recuse himself,” Durbin said.
Durbin added that “of course” he is concerned that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, to which Trump appointed three justices, could wind up ruling that the former president is immune from prosecution by special counsel Jack Smith or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) over actions he took while president to block the peaceful transfer of power in 2021.
“If we say certain people are above the law, I believe it diminishes values in this country,” he said.
...
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Ginni Thomas’s support for the pro-Trump crowd that demonstrated on the National Mall on Jan. 6, 2021, some of whom later stormed the Capitol, raises serious concerns about the prospect of Justice Thomas ruling on a federal prosecution of Trump.
Blumenthal noted that the special counsel’s case against Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election “concerns Jan. 6, which involved [Thomas’s] wife.”
Blumenthal also said “the argument could be made that anyone” on the Supreme Court “with whom [Thomas] has discussed his wife’s involvement” in efforts to overturn the election “may have an improper interest.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who is on the Committee, was quoted pointing out that Democrats are not the ones to make that decision. "They’re not the ones to make that judgment call, nor am I aware of any standard by which he should be required to recuse himself in such a case. That’s absurd," he pointed out.
Curt Levey, a constitutional law attorney and the president of the Committee for Justice, was not buying Democrats' concerns about Ginni Thomas. "Democrats are once again trotting out their tired line about Justice Thomas being compromised by his wife’s views on whether there was fraud in the 2020 presidential election," he shared with Townhall in a statement, also discussing how Blumenthal "goes even further this time, absurdly suggesting that Justice Thomas’s colleagues on the Supreme Court are also compromised if they discussed his wife’s views or actions with Thomas."
Levey had further strong words against Democrats, as he also laid out what their behavior is really about. "All one needs to know to appreciate the emptiness of Senate Democrats’ latest tirade is that one, the legal issue in the case at hand – whether an ex-president has immunity from prosecution for acts he committed as president – has nothing to do with anything Ginni Thomas said or did. And two, the Supreme Court has not even decided whether to hear this case. So Blumenthal, Durbin and their colleagues are obviously more interested in grandstanding and intimidating conservative justices than inaddressing any real concerns about Justice Thomas," he added.
What such reactions are really about, Levey spoke further about, has to do with Durbin's admitted worries. "Durbin admits that 'of course' he’s concerned that the Court will put a stop to the legal witch hunt against President Trump and that’s what this is really about – the fact that Democrats can no longer rely on the Supreme Court to do their bidding," Levey shared.
"I wonder if Democrats would say the same thing about a liberal justice whose spouse was outspoken about the fairness of the 2020 election," Levey also said in his statement. There has certainly been a one-sided scrutiny of conservative justices, despite liberal justices having their own concerns.
When it comes to Smith's request of the Court, Spencer highlighted a rather telling point. "By asking the Supreme Court to rule on the issue, Smith is preempting what was likely to be a question asked by Trump on appeal if he ended up convicted," Spencer offered. Trump's lawyers have until December 20 to respond in writing to Smith's petition. As Katie covered, the Trump campaign already responded by calling to mind a phrase the former president has used to describe Smith before: "deranged."
This is not the first time that Senate Democrats, especially Durbin, Blumenthal, and others on the Committee, have gone after conservative justices, though Thomas has received particular scrutiny.
Durbin has certainly bristled when it comes to abiding by the separation of powers, especially as he called upon Chief Justice John Roberts in late April to come before his committee, though Roberts declined Durbin's request in a letter he sent the chairman not long after, effectively telling him to stay in his lane.
The request for Roberts to appear before the Committee was a matter of Senate Democrats engaging in a crusade of what they claim to be "ethics reform" as they scrutinize Thomas' friendship with donor Harlan Crowe. Heavily criticized ProPublica reports have also looked to hone in on that connection, something they're still looking to do. Despite how the Court put out their an ethics code last month, that was still not enough for Durbin.
The Committee has even subpoenaed Crowe and The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo. Although Durbin initially backed off from subpoenas he had been threatening for some time, he and other Senate Democrats broke the rules late last month by refusing to let Republicans on the Committee speak, Democrats also voted to subpoena Crowe and Leo as Republicans left the room.
ProPublica isn’t a news organization; they’re a left-wing attack dog doing the bidding of liberal billionaires:
— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) December 11, 2023
"They hate Thomas and want to undermine the American people’s trust in the court, so they spend all their time inventing baseless attacks."https://t.co/6un9MsC4V2
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