The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Virginia “Ginni’ Thomas, will cause him to retire in utter disgrace. This is unavoidable now. Because, in the days following the 2020 presidential election, she sent then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows a flurry of text messages, some of which The Washington Post published last week. And they make clear that both she and Thomas were complicit in efforts to overturn the results of that election.
More to the point, these messages clearly portend greater professional jeopardy and personal disgrace for him, as he ends his career on the Court, than the infamous allegations of sexual harassment did, which nearly derailed his career before it began.
Of course, Thomas made history when he joined the court in 1991 under the dark cloud of those allegations. This, after they had a full, televised hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The irony is that the only argument this Supreme Court nominee could muster in his defense was to decry the hearing as a “high tech lynching.” After all, Thomas had always prided himself as a Black conservative who was above the racial politics he claimed other Blacks exploited for affirmative benefits.
Yet there he was, on the biggest stage in the biggest moment of his life, playing the race card. Here is how I framed that moment for posterity in “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks…?” October 1, 2007:
_________
Thomas’s professional legacy was sealed even before he assumed his seat on the Court.
Because as much as he’s bound to earn the merit of honor for most dubious service, he is also destined to be remembered for having the most scandalous, if not pornographic, confirmation hearing in the history of Supreme Court nominations.
________
But little did I know back then that his conservative enablers were lying in wait to exact revenge. Because only that explains the way Republican senators effectively sexually harassed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson about child pornography during her confirmation hearing last week.
In any event, playing that race card worked for Thomas. The Senate confirmed him in 1991 by a 52-48 vote, making him only the second Black justice in US history. Unfortunately, Thomas has spent the past 30 years doing all he can from that judicial perch to exact supreme revenge on his perceived enemies, namely white liberals … and Black people. I refer you to the aforementioned commentary, in which I address many of his Black-man-scorned rulings.
For now, suffice it to know that Thomas has always seemed possessed by a pathological need to show white people that he is not like most Black people. And he has shown no compunction about handing down rulings on everything from affirmative action to healthcare and criminal justice that are inimical to the interest and welfare of Blacks.
I suppose it helped that he built a mythology around himself as the only self-reliant Black man in America. But, in doing so, he continually projected his self-loathing onto other Blacks. This is self-evident, even if unwittingly so, throughout the 2020 hagiography, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words. But the promotional trailer featuring him saying the following about Blacks says it all:
[Black critics say] you’re not really black because you’re not doing what we expect Black people to do.
Now bear in mind that over 90 percent of Black Americans probably qualify as critics in this context. Moreover, I’d bet my life savings that the only Black people who have ever said that to Thomas are the imaginary foes he has carried in his head all these years.
Because most Blacks just pity Thomas. The reason Ketanji Brown Jackson and the rest of us don’t understand him is quite simple. Thomas benefited more than most Blacks from affirmative action. Therefore, it’s incomprehensible that he not only decries that program with self-righteous indignation but denies its benefits to other Blacks with judicial contempt.
The point is that his antic disposition and temperament have been such that nobody should be surprised that he ended up being complicit in this 2020 election scandal – as reported in the May 25 edition of The New Yorker:
________
Several of the country’s most respected legal scholars say that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas must immediately recuse himself from any cases relating to the 2020 election and its aftermath, now that it has been revealed that his wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, colluded extensively with a top White House adviser about overturning Joe Biden’s victory over then President Donald Trump.
On March 24th, the Washington Post and CBS News revealed that they had obtained copies of twenty-nine text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, the Trump White House chief of staff, in which she militated relentlessly for invalidating the results of the Presidential election, which she described as an ‘obvious fraud.’ It was necessary, she told Meadows, to ‘release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.’…
Justice Thomas has already participated in two cases related to the 2020 election and its aftermath, despite his wife’s direct involvement in the so-called Stop the Steal efforts. … This January, Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter in a proceeding in which Trump asked the Court to stop the House investigative committee from obtaining records of his communications relating to efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.
_________
In other words, the evidence shows that Thomas’s wife was more committed to helping Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election than his own chief of staff. Further, that Thomas himself defied all judicial reasoning and ethics to give judicial cover to his wife’s insurrectionist machinations.
But I am convinced that fear of the Post and CBS breaking news of his wife’s treasonous text messages is what caused Thomas to end up in hospital. He was reportedly released on Friday after a week’s stay.
I suspect he’s yucking it up with his (white) conservative friends about how exaggerated rumors of his death had his critics already dancing on his grave. But those same conservatives are probably snickering behind his back about how he has allowed his wife to pussy-whip him into undermining the independence, honor, and integrity of the Court.
This country is premised on the rule of law, and prides itself on the declaration that no man is above the law. Therefore, it reeks of hypocrisy that the justices of the highest court in the land have exempted themselves from the code of conduct all other members of the federal judiciary are subjected to.
Accordingly, Justice Thomas can willfully say rules for thee and not for me when it comes to ignoring conflicts of interest that would get any judge not sitting on the Supreme Court impeached. But his obvious complicity in his wife’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election has caused reputational harm to the Court that is beyond repair.
This is why it is not enough for Thomas to recuse himself from future cases – as many politicians and legal scholars are demanding.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar says Justice Clarence Thomas needs to recuse himself from election cases over his wife’s texts. ‘This is a textbook case for removing him, recusing him from these decisions… The entire integrity of the court is on the line here.’
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 27, 2022
Thomas must resign, or be impeached. And by the way, that his conservative enablers in the Senate will give him a Trumpian acquittal is no reason not to impeach him. It will suffice to consign his professional legacy to the dustbin of impeached public servants along with Donald Trump’s.
We can leave it to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection to thoroughly expose his wife’s involvement. And of course, if the evidence warrants, we can leave it to the Justice Department to prosecute his wife.
But, coming full circle, this cynical symmetry should not be lost on any proud Black American: Racist, misogynist Republicans hailed Thomas at the beginning of his career to deny a Black woman’s allegations of sexual harassment against him. Racist, misogynists Republicans are now hailing him at the end of his career to deny a Black woman’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. And, despite their praise, Republicans saw Thomas back then just as they do now; that is, as nothing more than a useful idiot.
Related commentaries:
Clarence Thomas… Ketanji Brown Jackson…
Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.