One of our favorite charts here on All In is
this one.
I can't get enough of it.
It shows just how much Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
has benefited from outside gifts.
The bar. Wait. Well, can I see where Thomas?
Oh, there he is. Right.
Yeah. The bar all the way on the left,
that. That's it. That's Clarence Thomas.
All the other Supreme Court justices are just all those
little,
little, little nubs.
Clarence Thomas has received an estimated $4 million in gifts,
much of which, as you see,
between those two colors, right,
undisclosed and disclosed, almost half of which maybe 40%
of which was never disclosed.
And that's all that we know so far.
By the way, there may be more undisclosed.
Now, two Democratic senators who've been probing Thomas's gifts are
asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel
to investigate him,
writing, we do not make this request lightly.
The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas
has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false
statement laws
and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy
benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations.
Presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct,
Justice Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence.
One of those senators is Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
He's chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts,
and he joins me now.
Senator, what, what got you to this point?
You have been obviously concerned with the obvious and apparent
ethical lapses of this justice for a while.
What what brought you to this moment?
Really getting frustrated with the
absence of any proper fact finding
at the Supreme Court and the refusal of Thomas,
through his lawyers to answer what I consider to be
really basic questions,
particularly with respect to the quarter of $1,000,000 loan for
his motor coach,
which it appears no principle was ever repaid on.
And so the question is what took place?
And all his lawyers would say is that the
terms of the agreement were satisfied in full,
which is you will recognize or what lawyers would call
weasel words that don't actually give you the facts.
So having run up against that wall,
we've now asked people with real investigative authority,
the Attorney General, to look into criminal violations of the
disclosure laws,
false statement, potential felonies and
tax violations potentially by Justice Thomas or by his donors
and lenders.
You know, I want to just stay with that third
thing for a second.
In the case of the RV,
this is the sort of
land yacht RV that is it's a quarter of $1,000,000.
He was loan the money for it to purchase it
by by a wealthy benefactor who then subsequently,
if I understand this correctly,
forgave the entire loan with none of it being paid
back.
So essentially a gift.
And again, I'm not a tax lawyer but you know,
I got to do my taxes like everyone else.
If someone gives you a
$250,000 gift, like
I'm pretty sure you have to report that right?
Am I, am I crazy?
There is a very clear and specific provision in the
tax law
and in the disclosure law
that says that forgiveness of a debt
is income and must be declared as such,
And this was a debt.
He borrowed
$250,000 thereabouts,
267,300 to be exact, and he paid interest on it
for a while.
Then the interest payment stopped.
And our information is that no principal was ever repaid,
which means that in some fashion that
debt was either forgiven or somebody else stepped in and
paid.
And when there were no reasonable answers coming back
from Justice Thomas, we just had to assume the worst.
And so we've turned it over for proper
investigation, but undoubtedly, the forgiveness of a loan,
very simple language anyone could understand.
It is income for tax and disclosure purposes.
Yeah. I mean, I think that just seems clear,
clear as a bell in terms of this letter to
Merrick Garland.
I mean, I think he's going to blow you off,
if I had to guess about Merrick Garland.
So I guess the question is,
like, what? Like, where does this go?
And one of the thoughts I had,
and I don't think this is the right way to
go,
but I just want to layout
that. The holding of the majority in Trump V US,
as written by John Roberts,
is that Joe Biden could,
could instruct the Justice Department to open a tax investigation
of Clarence Thomas tomorrow,
and that would be fully within its constitutional power.
Is that how you understand the holding of that as
well?
Yeah. I think frankly, it would be.
Even if he did it for
a criminal purpose, even if he did it,
that's the result. That's expansive.
Yes. Even if he did it in order to
commit some act of treason,
it really didn't matter that he would be protected in
doing that.
I want to call your attention because I thought,
you know, it's hard to think about,
well, how does this normally work?
And I thought there was an interesting story out of
Alaska in which a federal District Judge in Alaska was
accused of sexual harassment.
There was a fact finding undertaken by a a panel
of judges.
There was a report issued.
And ultimately this judge, Josh Kindred,
was asked to leave his post and he resigned.
Again, reports of impropriety, a fact finding undertaken,
a report issued in a recommendation.
And what was striking to me read this was just,
oh, right, Like it isn't anything goes for the rest
of the federal judiciary.
You can't just take a quarter,
$1,000,000 loan forgiven. You can't sexually harass your clerks like
there is some mechanism of accountability for everyone else.
Your keywords there were fact finding undertaken.
That's what the Supreme Court won't permit for itself.
They are the only nine people in all of government
for whom that is true.
If you go to state supreme courts,
they are overseen by panels of lower court judges.
When there's a legitimate ethics complaint and there is a
fact finding procedure,
federal district judges, Federal Circuit court judges,
they all have fact finding.
Fact finding is kind of the essence of process of
law.
It's almost so basic in essence,
so you don't even think about it.
So when these judges won't answer questions about what they
knew about their wife's role in insurrection activities or when
they make false statements about what was the justification for
flying MAGA battle flags, there's no accountability to the truth.
And of all the people
to be not accountable to the truth,
Supreme Court justices would seem to be the worst of
all.
I, I will just say that when we have this
table of likely undisclosed gifts.
Just a final point on the fact checking is just
that this is the stuff we know about from reporting
and other stuff.
But again, it's not comprehensive.
Like we don't know what we don't know.
And, and, and it would be nice to have an
actual comprehensive accounting of what exactly is going on.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is seeking that.
Thank you very much for your time tonight.
Senator, thank you very much.