America, we have one (another) constitutional crisis on our hands.
Amid all the well-deserved attention paid to Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., who refuses to recuse himself from the January 6 cases despite reasonable doubts about his impartiality, please also dedicate some to his colleague Clarence Thomas, equally questioned by his ethics, who rigid similar recusal demands for more than two years.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
In a few weeks, the Supreme Court will decide two cases related to the failed 2021 insurrection and Donald Trump's role in the events. No matter how the court decides, the results will be widely questioned, due to the contaminating participation of Alito and Thomas, the court's most right-wing members. And that's a problem for a court whose public approval rating is already at historic lows in polls.
We now know that the wives of both justices (flag lover Martha-Ann Alito and “Stop the Steal” foot soldier Ginni Thomas) have amply demonstrated their pro-Trump bias in ways that could not have gone unnoticed, and surely They did not go unnoticed. their husbands. Consequently, the “impartiality of Justices Alito and Thomas could reasonably be questioned” (the standard for recusal under Toothless federal law – in cases involving Trump.
The objectivity of the full court, with its right-wing 6-3 supermajority, is also suspect. In one of the two pending cases, the one involving Trump immunity claim of a criminal trial, the court has dragged out the matter so long that it is almost certain that he will not be tried before the 2024 election for trying to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory.
That makes the court complicit – in appearance and probably in fact – in Trump's unsubtle legal strategy: delay, delay, delay. How much of that delay is due to Alito and Thomas? We cannot know because of the secretive inner workings of the court. But we can reasonably question it.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is doing his part to keep the court opaque. On Thursday the wrote to Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee and its federal courts subcommittee, respectively, rejecting his request to meet on judicial ethics. Roberts cited judicial independence and separation of powers.
The boss can't claim the high ground while his colleagues continue digging from below.
First, consider Alito, the scofflaw of the moment. The New York Times has reported that separate flags associated with groups that attacked the Capitol flew over his home outside Washington and on a beach getaway in New Jersey. Alito blames his wife, leaving more bus tracks on her back every time he broaches the matter, and absolves himself.
“No involvement whatsoever,” he said in a brief email to the New York Times, in his first article about the inverted American flag that flew over his home for days in January 2021, following the attack on the Capitol. Alito did not respond to the newspaper for its second article about a flag favored by pro-Trump Christian nationalists that flew at his beach house last summer. However, he gave friendly Fox News in an interview and claimed that his wife was provoked by a poisonous dispute with an anti-Trump couple on their block, an account the couple contradicted in a third New York Times. history that was partly corroborated by neighbors, contemporary texts and a police report.
when i fly wrote Rejecting Durbin and Whitehouse's request that he recuse himself from the 2020 election cases, he said he had asked his wife for several days to remove the inverted flag, but she refused. He emphasized his wife's autonomy, his co-ownership of her house, and her constitutional rights…and his own helplessness: “I could not have taken any additional steps to have the flag lowered more.” quickly”. Are the judges so used to being served that Alito couldn't write it himself?
Now a brief review of Ginni Thomas' antics, which similarly provoked declarations of disorientation, helplessness, and respect for her independence from her husband.
For weeks after Biden's election, Ginni Thomas sent a text message White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows airing conspiracy theories and supplicant He asked him to continue fighting for Trump: “Don't give in. It takes time for the army that is gathering behind him.” She contacted Arizona Republicans to promote fake voters plan. January 6th she wrote on Facebook, “I LOVE MAGA people!!!!” She United by condemning the House January 6 committee as a “political persecution” of “citizens who have done nothing wrong.” And her condemned then-Vice President Mike Pence for certifying Biden's election.
What did Clarence Thomas do? He participated repeatedly in cases related to January 6 and invariably sided with pro-Trump parties.
Taken together, the Thomas and Alito scandals underscore the court's sickening sense of impunity among its life justices. Most public figures, those who answer to voters, show some humility and remorse in the face of obvious acts of misconduct or embarrassment (at least before). Not these judges.
Part and parcel of their impunity is a petulant refusal to be accountable for the actions of their partners, when those activities call into question the judges' own impartiality. Journalists can throw this stone: Journalists begin their careers accepting that they can't sport political bumper stickers, lapel buttons, signs, or lawn flags, and they certainly can't work for political causes. It's not ethical. If a spouse works in politics, the journalist avoids covering stories in which his or her partner is involved. I still live within the limits, although several years ago I became an opinion columnist. In the decades I reported on Congress, the White House and campaigns, those in my house respected them too.
It's not too much to expect judges to require their spouses to do the same.
Alito and Thomas disagree. And that's why they, along with Roberts, bring misfortune to the court. When the court soon rules on the January 6 cases, its decisions will be historic not only on the merits but also because of the fact that two such conflicted judges participated. I am ashamed of them.
@jackiekcalmes
