Janine Jackson interviewed Sarah Lipton-Lubet about the Clarence Thomas/Ginni Thomas conflicts for the April 22, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
NPR (3/30/22)
Janine Jackson: NPR‘s Morning Edition on March 30 said that further revelations that Ginni Thomas, spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was deeply embedded in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election are “another piece of bad news for the couple.”
Others would say that the fact that the Supreme Court, that makes decisions intimately affecting each of us, allows one of nine justices to refuse to recuse himself from cases involving a coup attempt his spouse did not merely attend or sympathize with, but actively sponsored—well, that’s really more bad news for a democracy, and anybody interested in it, than for the Thomases per se.
But we know that we are dealing with a corporate press corps that seems to hate seeming partisan more than they do seeming anti-democratic. So what questions should we be keeping foregrounded as we see this Thomas case and its adumbrations unfold?
Our guest has thoughts on that. We’re joined now by Sarah Lipton-Lubet, executive director of the Take Back the Court Action Fund. She joins us now by phone from Arizona. Welcome to CounterSpin, Sarah Lipton-Lubet.
Sarah Lipton-Lubet: Thank you so much for having me.
JJ: I don’t assume that listeners are necessarily news junkies who have read the latest of the latest, so I would just start by asking, what do you see as the important information that’s been gleaned from reporting from the Washington Post, CBS, the New Yorker, the New York Times—what is the information about Ginni Thomas and January 6 that is meaningful?
SL: As you’ve just rattled off, it’s almost impossible to keep up with the latest of the latest when it comes to the actions of Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife’s political activities, and his decision to continually, over time, rule in cases that are related to his wife’s activities and actions. Each time we think that we’ve heard just the most alarming piece of information, the most serious violation of judicial ethics in this space, open up the front page and there’s a new revelation.
So I think probably we are still at the tip of the iceberg. But the most recent piece of information to come out, and the most alarming, among the top of the mountain of alarming information, is that Justice Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, a longtime right-wing activist, was in constant communication with former President Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, encouraging Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election. And in the month leading up to the deadly insurrection on January 6, she repeatedly called on Meadows not to let the Trump camp concede, saying: “Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” This is upwards of 20 texts exchanged by Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows leading up to the insurrection. It really could not be more alarming.
Slate (3/29/22)
JJ: If we can dip into some of the media tropes that we’re seeing, as media look for angles on this, we’re hearing, “Well, she’s just a spouse,” you know, “What does that have to do with him?” And not just that, but if you think her actions have anything to do with him, you’re a sexist, you don’t think women have a right to their own views. Dahlia Lithwick at Slate had a thoughtful response to that. But I wonder what you make of the idea that, oh, why would you be conflating Clarence Thomas’ decisions with Ginni Thomas’ actions?
SL: I am so glad you asked that question. Because anyone who is trying to tell you that this is really just about people not wanting Ginni to have her own political opinion is trying to distract you from what’s really at stake here.
This is not about Ginni Thomas, her views, her actions, as abhorrent as they may be. It is about whether Justice Clarence Thomas used his power as a Supreme Court Justice to try to cover up his wife’s participation in an attempted coup.
What we should be concerned with here, for those of us who care about democracy, for those of us who care about the integrity of the Supreme Court and the judicial system (what little integrity is left at the Supreme Court), is Justice Thomas’ repeated decision not to recuse himself from cases involving Ginni’s activities, whether that is the January 6 subpoena case—where Justice Thomas was the lone dissenter, right? This was a decision, eight to one, in which he was the only one who tried to keep hidden Trump records about the January 6 insurrection. We now know that Ginni Thomas was constantly texting Mark Meadows, the Trump Chief of Staff, right during that time period.
This is about Clarence Thomas’ decision not to recuse himself from a case involving the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, again, an eight-to-one case where the parties were making the same stop-the-steal, big lie arguments that Ginni Thomas was propagating, again, as she was communicating with the Trump administration in their efforts to try to overturn the election.
So this is not about her political opinion at all. This is about the actions of a sitting justice on the US Supreme Court, and just blatant, flagrant violations of judicial ethics.
JJ: And not for nothing, for those who are looking for comparisons, Stephen Breyer, I understand, has been recusing himself in cases that involve his brother, who’s a federal judge. There are other cases in which Supreme Court justices have said, “I am too closely connected to this and so I will not rule on this case.” This would not be a unique thing.
Sarah Lipton-Lubet: “Justices should not be allowed to police themselves, which is what happens right now, because clearly they’re not taking that role seriously.”
SL: It is beyond clear that someone who cared about the integrity of the court would have recused himself from this case. It’s also clear that that’s not who Justice Thomas is. Now, you raise a really important point here about recusal. And certainly other justices have made recusal decisions in much less egregious circumstances. And also, I think this situation makes it really clear that the justices should not be allowed to police themselves, which is what happens right now, because, clearly, they’re not taking that role seriously. And so it’s no surprise that public trust in the court is at an all-time low.
We are incredibly concerned with Justice Thomas’ misconduct here, but I think we also need to make clear that Chief Justice Roberts owes the American people an explanation, and should be held accountable for allowing this blatant violation of ethics and justice to happen in plain sight under his watch. So this is about more than Justice Thomas’ actions. This is really about the integrity of the court as a whole.
JJ: Let me just ask you, from that, if we do want to keep from having these fights again and again, what are the structural solutions you propose, and how can we see how they track back to instances like these?
SL: There are a number of structural reforms that are urgently, urgently needed, that have been urgently needed, and this situation only makes all the more clear, which is, Supreme Court justices should not be allowed to make their own recusal decisions based on their whims, or whether or not they care about ethics, right? There needs to be a binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court.
But more broadly, we need to address, really, the rot at the core of the court’s integrity. And this whole situation just drives home how urgent it is that we rebalance the Supreme Court by adding seats. The reason we need to add seats to the Supreme Court and expand it is that conservatives have robbed the court of its independence and its integrity, really turning it into an arm of the right-wing political movement. And nothing drives that home more clearly than the situation that we’re facing right now.
LA Times (3/31/22)
JJ: Let me just ask you, finally, about journalists, because I’m looking at coverage, and I’m seeing lots of outlets, like the LA Times has an editorial, “Of Course Clarence Thomas Should Recuse Himself,” you know. And then I’m also looking at NPR, where Nina Totenberg is describing the Thomases as a couple pulled into an “ethics vortex,” which, forgive me, but I don’t think that’s how media would talk about me if I was a drug court judge and my spouse was dealing cocaine, you know?
I just feel like there’s a range of media reactions that are kind of, yeah, it’s bad, but you don’t understand, it’s really more important that we do…something else. And then other folks who were saying, “No, this is actually an actual urgent problem that we need to address.” How would you hope to see journalists take up this case? As we know, it’s currently still unfolding.
SL: It can be easy to become dulled to the flagrant abuses of democracy that we have been seeing all the more so, but it is incumbent upon all of us not to let that happen. It’s incumbent upon all of us to call for the right thing to do, to give these incidents, which strike at the core of the integrity of our judicial system, the integrity of our democracy….
Frankly, I can’t think of a story that gets closer to the heart of the peril that our democracy is in right now than this one. Justice Thomas, clearly violating ethics, is violating the public trust, and he needs to be held accountable. And coverage of this story that just kind of raises our hands and says there’s nothing we can do, or we should expect these kind of egregious abuses of the public trust, that’s disappointing.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Sarah Lipton-Lubet. She’s executive director of the Take Back the Court Action Fund. You can find them and their work online at TakeBackTheCourt.Today. Sarah Lipton-Lubet, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
SL: Thank you so much.
The post ‘Someone Who Cared About Integrity Would Have Recused Himself’ appeared first on FAIR.
This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.
Janine Jackson | Radio Free (2022-04-06T21:40:04+00:00) ‘Someone Who Cared About Integrity Would Have Recused Himself’. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/06/someone-who-cared-about-integrity-would-have-recused-himself/
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