A political expert has claimed that a report released last week, which accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of improperly receiving lavish gifts from a wealthy friend, is nothing more than a political hit job.
“This is just grasping at straws by the left that is desperate to tear down Justice Thomas because he now has a working originalist majority on the court,” Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy and The Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said, according to Fox News.
“This is politics. Plain and simple,” he added.
The comments come in response to a ProPublica report accusing Thomas of accepting luxurious gifts from wealthy Republican donor Harlan Crow.
According to the report released last week, Thomas allegedly went on extravagant vacations with Crow without disclosing them, including trips on Crow’s yacht and private jet. Crow admitted to offering “hospitality” to Thomas but denied that Thomas had requested it, adding that their families have been friends for many years.
The ProPublica report also claimed that trips taken by Thomas “have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which Severino rejected out of hand.
“There is no ‘there’ there because the justices have received gifts of hospitality from friends forever,” Severino said. “And many of the justices have taken far more trips than Justice Thomas on somebody else’s dime, including Justice Breyer, who we know has taken at least 233 trips when he was on the bench.”
Severino explained further that justices are allowed to accept invitations to their friends’ properties for dinner or vacations without paying or disclosing it.
“There’s nothing to see here because there’s been no allegation whatsoever that accepting travel to a friend’s property somehow influenced Justice Thomas’s decision-making,” Severino told the news outlet. “That’s absurd. If you know anything about Justice Thomas, it’s that he’s not influenced by outside pressures one whit. He’s guided by the law and the Constitution. Period.“
Severino accused liberals of hypocrisy for ignoring perceived bias on the left, citing the example of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiating a same-sex wedding before the Obergefell decision that federally recognized gay marriage.
“Did that perhaps indicate bias where she should have recused herself?” Severino asked. “The media was fairly silent about that and that sort of thing is much closer to the heart of impropriety in judging.”
Supreme Court justices are not obligated to disclose travel invitations or “personal hospitality,” and the Court is not subject to an ethics code, Fox News Digital added.
The Washington Post reported last month that judges must now report travel by private jet, which is further evidence that Justice Thomas was following the rules, Severino said.
“It actually further reinforces the fact that he’d been acting within the rules and according to the practice that has been understood for decades. Hospitality includes when somebody picks you up to take you to their house or to their property. That’s what hospitality is. It just happened to be a friend that has made it in the world that’s been quite successful, doesn’t change the fact that he’s a friend,” he said.
Constitutional law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told the network that until recently, “even lower court judges were not required to report such trips under a personal hospitality exception.”
“Justice Thomas would not have been required to report the trips under the prior rule,” Turley said. “Once again, the Democrats and the media appear to be engaging in the same hair-triggered responses to any story related to Thomas. This includes the clearly absurd call for an impeachment by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
