ProPublica has been reporting on the extravagant free vacations that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been enjoying during his three decades on the bench, underwritten by industry leaders and wealthy executives. They included at least 38 destination vacations, including a voyage around the Bahamas on a yacht; 26 private jet flights, some on private 737s; eight helicopter flights; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an “uber-exclusive golf club” overlooking the Atlantic.
Stays at personal homes may not have required disclosure, but ethics experts say the financial disclosure law requires the reporting of the flights, yacht cruises, and expensive sports tickets that he received from others. Other Supreme Court members who have accepted travel underwritten by wealthy businessmen and universities where they had speaking engagements have disclosed those gifts. Stephen Breyer accepted a flight to a Nantucket wedding from a Democratic megadonor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg took a tour of Israel and Jordan paid for by an Israeli billionaire, but they both disclosed the trips.
The matter would be worse if the benefactors had cases before the court, but ProPublica has not identified any legal cases that billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga, David Sokol, or Paul “Tony” Novelly had at the Supreme Court — although they all work in industries significantly impacted by the court’s decisions. Thomas has acknowledged discussing some of Huizenga’s companies with him, but said their relationship was never transactional.
Sokol made a direct reference to a pending Supreme Court case last October, criticizing President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan and predicting that the Supreme Court would overturn it. This summer, the court struck down the plan, with Thomas voting in the majority. That does not make it a quid-pro-quo.
Those revelations are harming the reputation of the Supreme Court, but the justices have resisted adopting the ethics rules that govern every other court in the nation. Now five House Democrats have asked U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland to demand a federal investigation into Thomas’ acceptance of undeclared gifts.
Republicans are correct, however, in pointing out that Democrats who were determined to investigate and hold accountable anyone performing illegal acts and displaying corruption while Donald Trump was in office seem to have become less vigilant during the Biden presidency. It’s not just the Democrats; the news media have been just as negligent in reporting on corruption from the left.
There was the attempt to downplay the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop. While it turns out that the laptop provided no “smoking gun” to prove corruption, other obvious avenues of inquiry have been ignored, allowing the right to exploit a theory of cover-up involving Biden’s business dealings and how the president may have benefitted from them.
It is painfully obvious that Hunter Biden did benefit from his father’s role as vice-president under Barack Obama. The amount of money he was able to collect from foreign interests was clearly the result of his family connections, and it is hard to believe that Joe Biden was unaware of those deals. They are now getting the attention they deserve. The investigations are likely to show that Joe Biden did not directly benefit from the transactions — there goes the only impeachment argument that can be made — but there clearly were benefits to his family.
Clarence Thomas and Hunter Biden may be on a par in their levels of corruption, but neither of them reaches the level of Donald Trump’s criminality. His narcissism has developed into an authoritarianism that is indistinguishable from fascism. It is all about him and his reality-TV view of life. He is willing to end democracy and destroy the United States to “win” and rule the country, making “MAGA” actually mean “Make The Donald Great Again”.
To give him his due, Donald Trump may not have become so deranged if not for the Never Trumpers and a media that unrelenting went after him from the beginning of his presidency. He was always off-base, but if he had been left alone, he may not have done as much damage to the country or developed such a cult following. Instead, he was able to rally people behind his persecution and the press bias against him.
Or maybe Trump still would turn into the tyrant he is. We’ll never know because we have to deal with the present reality: millions of people following a fascist madman. Can America survive?
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