The Clarence Thomas Scandal Is Somehow Looking Even Worse

[Nevilledog]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/clarence-thomas-scandal-somehow-looks-even-worse

No paywall link
https://archive.li/ycdNp

Before he began receiving expensive gifts and luxury vacations from Harlan Crow and other conservative benefactors, Clarence Thomas reportedly expressed significant concerns about his financial situation—even prompting concerns from a Republican lawmaker more than 20 years ago that he might resign from the Supreme Court if he could not boost his salary.

“One or more justices will leave soon” if justices aren’t given a raise, Thomas told then Republican Representative Cliff Stearns in 2000, as they flew home from a conservative conference at a Georgia resort, according to ProPublica.

“I intend to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court,” Stearns wrote to Thomas afterward. “As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the Constitution properly interpreted.”

Congress ultimately did not give justices the major raise Thomas had pushed for, nor did it lift the ban on justices accepting speaking fees, as he had also sought. But a new ProPublica report raises questions as to how and why elite conservatives began lavishing the right-wing justice with gifts soon after—gifts that often went undisclosed by Thomas, in apparent defiance of federal law.

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