Legal experts are stunned once again after the latest ProPublica bombshell investigation into U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. That deep-dive into the Justice’s financial history includes the written remarks of a U.S. Congressman and the head of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, focusing on the Thomas’ secret complaint about his salary and his thinly-veiled request – or, “threat” – to that lawmaker for a pay raise. Shortly after his remarks about his salary, Thomas was showered, for years, with big ticket vacations and other major financial benefits from billionaire conservatives who happen to also want a like-minded jurist on the nation’s highest court.
“I intend to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court,” a January, 2000 letter from former U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) to Justice Thomas reads. “As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted. We must have the proper incentives here, too.”
ProPublica senior editor Jesse Eisinger posted the letter to social media as well.
NEW: In 2000, Clarence Thomas was deep in debt.
He met w/ a GOP Congressman & complained about his salary.
The GOP started to fear he’d leave the court.
In the years that followed, billionaires lavished him w/ secret gifts.https://t.co/uLSfv8rmnp pic.twitter.com/d44z1OwxV7
— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 18, 2023
“In early January 2000,” Propublica’s report published Monday begins, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.”
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“After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.”
“Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told [Congressman Stearns]. If lawmakers didn’t act, ‘one or more justices will leave soon’ — maybe in the next year.”
“At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money,” ProPublica reported. It added, “in the years that followed, as ProPublica has reported, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court.”
Professor of law and former Bush White House ethics chief Richard Painter on Monday declared, “Supreme Court justices make $285,400 a year, a large sum of money for a public official. If he needs more he can resign.”
Justice Thomas’ comments to Congressman Stearm “set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill,” reported ProPublica.
“’His importance as a conservative was paramount,’ Stearns said in a recent interview. ‘We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.’”
While ProPublica calls it “an open question” as to “what led so many people to offer Thomas money and other gifts,” some are calling it something else: “bribery.”
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Writer and attorney Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief at the legal news and commentary website Balls & Strikes, writes: “The new Clarence Thomas story in ProPublica is like the stuff of bad Mafia movies. Just sidling up to a Republican congressman like ‘I love taking away civil rights on the Supreme Court, but I suuuuure wish I could get paid more for doing so.’”
Civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, founder and executive director of Zealous, a nonprofit that trains public defenders, called for some cases Justice Thomas decided to be “relitigated” in response to the ProPublica news.
“Clarence Thomas being allowed to remain on the Supreme Court should rightfully destroy the institution. How we can allow any case where he was a deciding vote not to be relitigated? His votes weren’t just bought. He demanded payment for his votes under threats & duress,” wrote Hechinger.
“Clarence Thomas in quid pro quo bribery,” declared international relations professor Nicholas Grossman. “Not that he was going to vote X on a case and interested parties paid him to vote Y. Rather, as many suspected, it’s that they know he’ll vote Y, and have been paying him off to stay on the Court so he doesn’t resign to pursue wealth.”
“Is it ok for supreme court justices who are deeply in debt to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from political activists,” posited attorney Andrew Fleischman.
Award-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, a Syracuse Law lecturer, observed: “Justice Thomas wanted to get rich AND be a Supreme Court Justice. He found a way. He privatized his jurisprudence to the benefit of Harlan Crow & friends, which was neither ethical nor prudent.”
Constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, founder of the nonprofit Free Speech For People, called for Thomas’ impeachment: “Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached. He has abused his power and must be removed from the Supreme Court.”
Attorney Max Kennerly said, “if Thomas was a judge on any court except SCOTUS, this would be a no-brainer. It’s bribery. He and everyone involved, like Harlan Crow, would be indicted. But we’re supposed to pretend it’s okay because it’s SCOTUS.”
NYU professor of law and MSNBC contributor Melissa Murray wrote, “some of Justice Thomas’s colleagues come from similarly modest backgrounds and were also appointed at young ages . . . and they aren’t (to our knowledge) sponsored by billionaires.”
Professor Murray summed it all up as, “Justice Thomas’s GoFundMe campaign.”
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