http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley-clarence-thomas-20110306,0,3221633.storyClarence Thomas' dangerous conceit
The Supreme Court justice argues that criticism of him is an attack on the court itself. But a single justice doesn't define the institution.
By Jonathan Turley
Louis XIV of France was infamous for his view that there was no distinction between himself and the state, allegedly proclaiming "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the State"). That notorious merging of personality with an institution was again on display in a February speech by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas before the conservative Federalist Society. Thomas used the friendly audience to finally address a chorus of criticism over his alleged conflicts of interest and violation of federal disclosure rules concerning his wife's income. Rather than answer these questions, however, Thomas denounced his critics as "undermining" the court and endangering the country.
In January, Common Cause released documents showing that Thomas had attended events funded by conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch. Thomas was even featured in Koch promotional material — along with Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others — for events that sought financial and political support for conservative political causes. Worse yet, Common Cause discovered that Thomas had failed to disclose a source of income for 13 years on required federal forms. Thomas stated that his wife, Virginia, had no income, when in truth she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from conservative organizations, including roughly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation. Thomas reported "none" in answering specific questions about "spousal non-investment income" on annual forms — answers expressly made "subject to civil and criminal sanctions."
Virginia Thomas was receiving money from groups that had expressed direct interest in the outcome of cases that came before her husband, including Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, in which the court in 2010 struck down limitations on corporate contributions to elections. A justice is expressly required by federal law to recuse himself from any case "in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." This law specifically requires recusal when he knows that "his spouse has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome."... Thomas misled the public for years on the considerable wealth he and his wife were accumulating from ideological groups. After Common Cause detailed the violations, Thomas simply wrote a brief letter to the court saying that the information was "inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions."
It is unclear how Thomas will rule in the next case in which an individual is accused of a failure to disclose on tax or other government forms. Thomas is viewed as one of the least sympathetic justices to such defenses. Indeed, last year, he joined a decision in Jerman vs. Carlisle that rejected a defense from debt collectors that their violations were due to misunderstandings of the requirements of federal law and just "bona fide errors." In rejecting the claim that such errors were not intentional, the court reminded the defendants that "we have long recognized the common maxim, familiar to all minds, that ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally.". None of these issues, however, was addressed by Thomas in his speech to the Federalist Society. Instead, Thomas suggested that his critics were endangering freedom by undermining his authority and, by extension, the authority of the court...
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