As hard as this is to believe, the sleaze surrounding Thomas is even worse than originally reported.
His "friend", the GOP billionaire mega donor, has apparently purchased real estate from Thomas and his family in transactions which, per ProPublica, undeniably had to be reported. And weren't.
Even assuming Congress cannot compel #SCOTUS justices or personnel to testify, the Senate Judiciary Committee can, and should, look into this, and subpoena everything and everyone (Crow, Ginni, etc), except Thomas himself, who can be invited to appear if he chooses.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus
For me part of this situation is, as you put it, sleaze surrounding Thomas.
The thing is, I don't know why we should care. The guy wasn't hired to be an angel, and it seems pretty problematic for Congress to be snooping into people's personal lives as it threatens the independent judiciary.
I really don't think Congress should be threatening to start digging into justices' personal lives, particularly politicians who don't like how the Justice might be ruling on cases they have a stake in. It really just sounds corrupt.
Judge the guy based on how he does his job. If Congress has a problem with his rulings, then they should hold him accountable for his rulings.
But to attack the guy based on accusations of "sleaze" in his personal life, that's dangerous territory.
ProPublica is pretty awful, with that long track record of misleading and biased and sensationalized stories; I would hope that Congress would not be sucked down to their level here.
@volkris I’m coming from an anti-corruption and pro-disclosure position. None of these are original thoughts, but here is what I think:
* Disclosure is good, concealment is bad, so any public figure should err on the side of disclosure if it’s a remotely close call.
* Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Do you really think Thomas would have accepted millions of dollars had he known it would be public knowledge?
* Public figures should be held to a higher standard than lower-level officials, not a lower standard.
* The lack of a SCOTUS code of conduct, combined with Roberts' silence for the past week, shows that the judiciary cannot be trusted to police their own. Congress has impeachment power, and is the logical body to investigate.
It's not so simple as disclosure good, concealment bad. There are a ton of areas where disclosure is not particularly warranted, ranging from appropriate state secrets through simple matters of privacy.
I actually think we need to value the idea that public officials deserve respect for their privacy in part as emphasizing government for the people.
These are still mere citizens serving the country. And heck, if we value their privacy that helps them have skin in the game should they start itching to compromise ours.
So sure, hold public officials to high standards *based on their job performance* not based on looking for dirt in their private lives.
And for goodness sake, let's maintain the independence of the judiciary. Congress should not be crossing that line.
If you believe there's nothing wrong with private citizens paying money to government officials, then push for a law allowing it, and doing away with reporting requirements.
But I think there's a big difference between a public official (especially a senior one) accepting millions of dollars from a political donor and peering through the official's window to check out his sexual practices or to see if he drinks too much.
Accepting money is not mere "dirt" - it raises legitimate questions as to whether there's corruption, or paying for access.
As for the independence of the judiciary, Congress has the power of impeachment, so has a constitutional role in policing the judiciary. And that's especially true when the judiciary won't police their own.
But again, Supreme Court justices publish their opinions in the open so we have an especially clear view of their work, that we can judge them based on.
Hell, if a justice is being bribed to do a good job, then for goodness sake, let's have more bribery!
It is the quality of the work that matters here, not whatever is going on in the official's private life.
It's a problem that these threats to their privacy threaten to interfere with their ability to do good work for the country.
If I didn't say it above, Justices are subject to the same rules as the rest of us. If a justice in his private life is caught speeding, he still gets a fine. It's between him and cops, but has nothing to do with Congress.
YES, as long as a justice's work product is good, then he's OK to remain in the job. That's what the US government hired him to do, so he's fulfilling his side of that employment obligations.
You bring up the problem of work quality being subjective, but we've solved that problem: Congress is free to judge, subjectively, work quality as they represent all of us and remove justices who fail. Legislative processes are all about sorting out subjective judgments.
So yep, so long as the justice is doing good work, I have zero care about anything in his personal life. Why should I?
Good work for the US is good work.
@volkris "It is the quality of the work that matters here, not whatever is going on in the official’s private life."
The problem is that one person's "quality" is another's "horrible decision", or even "corrupt" decision. It sounds like you're saying that as long as the work product is good, nothing the justice (or judge?) does in his/her private life should be subject to scrutiny.
Does that mean you are opposed to laws prohibiting conflicts of interest, bribes, graft, and the like?
Hypothetical - What if in public, a justice's opinions were undeniably fair to all litigants, and all were treated with respect, black & white alike. But in private the justice was secretly a member of the KKK and frequently used racial epithets - would you be okay with him continuing to serve on the bench simply because he hid his bigotry on the job?