This article supports my thesis that the Trump “Federalist Society list” was not the Federalist Society’s at all — there were no proceedings developing or approving the list. Which raises the question: whose list was it?
Which of Leonard Leo’s billionaire puppeteers got to choose Supreme Court justices?
And if it was a list of, by and for right-wing billionaires, does that explain the cessation of hostilities between House of Koch and House of Trump? Was it a trade, Court for truce?
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Justice Thomas is a repeat offender on disclosure issues. In 2011, Thomas’s undisclosed private jet/yacht trips from Republican billionaire Harlan Crow were forwarded to the Judicial Conference’s Financial Disclosure Cmte for review – same step taken recently re: new allegations.
This @nytimes story from 2011 lays out the billionaire-funded perks Justice Thomas was enjoying at that time:
Sure would be nice if the Department of Justice did some due diligence about bringing its own, complementary suit rather than sitting this out. It’s somewhat important.
News: Unreported gifts to Clarence Thomas of private jet and yacht trips from Harlan Crow cause his disclosure failure to be sent for action to the Financial Disclosure Committee of the Judicial Conference!!
Same players, Crow & Thomas; similar gifts, jet & yacht travel; same response, sent to same Financial Disclosure Committee (plus, then, also undisclosed income to Mrs. Thomas from right-wing advocacy groups). Lots of similarities!!
Last week, news broke that Justice Thomas wasn’t disclosing free luxury vacations paid for by Harlan Crow, a GOP megadonor, because he considered it “personal hospitality.”
New reporting from @propublica found that Crow purchased several properties from Justice Thomas in 2014. Justice Thomas did not disclose the sales on his financial disclosure forms as *clearly* required by law.
The Supreme Court has an obvious ethics problem, which is why @RepHankJohnson and I sent a letter last week calling on the Chief Justice to investigate these and other allegations against Justice Thomas.
Here’s just one example. Leonard Leo, featured in the “cigar boys” painting in the story, runs this constellation of front groups:
The “fictitious name” organization Judicial Crisis Network raised anonymous money in checks as big as $17 million to fund political ads for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.
This cries out for the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court — and only the Supreme Court, across the entire government— refuses to perform.
It’s not just the undisclosed gifts of hospitality, it’s the undisclosed company of political operatives — particularly Leonard Leo, the operative who helped the billionaires capture the Court.
Who were Thomas’s companions on these free undisclosed vacations, and what interests did those undisclosed companions have before the Court? The question is obvious.