From an LA Timescolumn by Jonathan Turley: “Clarence Thomas insisted that his wife was being attacked because she believes in the same things he does and because they were ‘focused on defending liberty.'” Wow. I like liberty. Why all the brouhaha?
Thomas reported “none” in answering specific questions about “spousal non-investment income” on annual forms. … In truth she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from conservative organizations.
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A justice is expressly required by federal law to recuse himself … when he knows that “his spouse … has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”
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Thomas simply wrote a brief letter to the court saying that the information was “inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”
The Thomas’s has a history of strange responses to criticism. Now he says that any attack on him as an attack on the Court:
“You all are going to be, unfortunately, the recipients of the fallout from that — that there’s going to be a day when you need these institutions to be credible and to be fully functioning to protect your liberties.”
Is Thomas a stalwart defender of liberty or just a corrupt sleazy bastard? Who can say? But I don’t think Virginia ever did get that apology from Anita.