Senate Republicans are blocking an investigation of the Clarence Thomas scandal

Even a longtime Thomas friend is shocked by the Supreme Court justice's undisclosed ties to a GOP megadonor

It’s getting hard to keep up with the latest Clarence Thomas scandal; new shoes keep dropping every day.

First we learned Thomas has for decades taken gifts of lavish vacations from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow — and failed to list the gifts on his financial disclosure forms. Then we learned Crow bought real estate from Thomas at what appears to be well above market value — and, again, Thomas failed to disclose the transaction. Then we learned Thomas’s mother is still living rent-free in the house Thomas sold to Crow. It’s textbook corruption, and it demands an immediate investigation.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL) has called on Chief Justice John Roberts to “immediately open” an investigation into “how such conduct could take place at the Court under your watch” and to ensure “that such conduct does not happen again.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) & Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) have asked the Judicial Conference “to refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Attorney General for potential violations of the Ethics in Government Act 1978.”

Durbin, Whitehouse, and Johnson are right: As Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts has a responsibility to ensure the Supreme Court’s ethical house is in order. He has failed to do so, repeatedly, and by staying silent about the latest Thomas revelations he is tacitly approving of them. Roberts should take action — but he probably won’t. (And the Roberts-led “investigation” into the leaked Dobbs opinion is any indication, we certainly can’t have confidence in any Roberts investigation of Thomas’s unethical financial relationship with Harlan Crow.)

Congress can’t leave investigating the Supreme Court up to the Supreme Court. We know how that will end. Congress has oversight responsibility for a reason. It must conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of Thomas’s undisclosed financial relationship with a Republican donor.

Unfortunately, congressional Republicans seem eager to help Thomas get away with his transparently unethical behavior. House Republicans, led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, are doing everything they can to harass the District Attorney who indicted Donald Trump, but have shown no signs of concern about a sitting Supreme Court justice taking undisclosed gifts from a billionaire political activist.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have settled on a talking point: John Cornyn, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said in response to the Thomas revelations: “The judiciary is an independent branch of government and they have their own rules. And I trust that that will be handled by the Supreme Court and by the judiciary.” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell echoed Cornyn: “The Supreme Court and the court system is a whole separate part of our Constitution … I have total confidence in the chief justice of the United States to deal with his court’s internal issues.”

This is insincere nonsense. The executive branch is “a whole separate part of our Constitution,” too, but Republicans have never hesitated to investigate the Biden, Obama, or Clinton Administrations. The truth is that Senate Republicans don’t want to investigate Clarence Thomas because and his fellow right-wing Supreme Court justices are basically just the legal department of the Republican National Committee. He’s on their team, and they don’t care if he’s corrupt as long as he helps them ban abortion and prevent Black people from voting.

Indeed, they seem prepared to go to great lengths to protect Thomas from the scrutiny his actions deserve. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) recently asked to be temporarily replaced on the Judiciary Committee because illness prevents her from participating in committee business. But replacing Feinstein would require a vote of the Committee — and Republicans have made clear they will block any replacement of Feinstein. And by blocking a Feinstein replacement, Republicans are blocking a subpoena of Thomas:

Durbin said he has “a number of things in mind” that he's discussing with committee members, but he was pessimistic about getting Thomas to testify.

“Of course, I would like to, but I don’t think it’s going to happen,” he said, when asked if he'd like to hear from Thomas directly. “We’re going to discuss the agenda and the program.”

A Democratic aide noted that issuing a subpoena would require a majority vote by the committee, which the party doesn’t have with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., out indefinitely on medical leave. “So that option is out of the question,” the aide said.

Clarence Thomas’s undisclosed financial ties to Harlan Crow are so outrageous even FOX News political analyst Juan Williams, who has been friends with Thomas for decades, is demanding accountability:

Thomas’s rulings have been in line with a rich, reclusive Republican donor, who ingratiated himself to Thomas by purchasing property from the justice, by giving him free travel on private jets and ritzy vacations on private yachts.

[…]

So far, Thomas has avoided being punished for bringing disgrace on himself.

An even bigger issue is whether he will go unpunished for harming the reputation of the court, a pillar of American life, the basis of our claim to be a nation of laws, not men.

[…]

But if these recent stories are true about how he allowed himself to become captive of a far-right legal coterie, he must be sanctioned for the sake of the court’s reputation and, yes, for the good of the country.

There is an old Latin saying that translates into English as “Corruption of the best is worst of all.”

That’s how I feel about my old friend.

Congress has a responsibility to investigate, as Clarence Thomas’s friend put it, “how he allowed himself to become captive of a far-right legal coterie.” Senate Republicans are doing everything they can to block that kind of accountability — even refusing to allow the replacement of a Senator who is unable to serve on the Judiciary Committee for health reasons. They must be absolutely terrified of what an investigation of Thomas would reveal.