Supreme Court Corruption (Formerly Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire) (1 Viewer)

[cuddlemonkey]

It seems that a billionaire GOP donor has spent a small fortune on vacations for Ginni and Clarence Thomas.

Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

Island-hopping on a superyacht. Private jet rides around the world. The undisclosed gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the Supreme Court. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” says one former judge.

www.propublica.org

 

[GrandAdmiral]

thomas is being sued for his tax evasion.

MSN

Article is misleading at best. Sued by who for what? If there tax evasion, that's a crime. He wouldn't be sued. He'd be arrested.

 

[MT15]

thomas is being sued for his tax evasion.

MSN

Who is suing him? Where and when was this lawsuit filed? I skimmed it but couldn’t tell.

 

[MT15]

Article is misleading at best. Sued by who for what? If there tax evasion, that's a crime. He wouldn't be sued. He'd be arrested.

Beat me to it. Horrible article.

 

[zztop]

Who is suing him? Where and when was this lawsuit filed? I skimmed it but couldn’t tell.

this is when I google things lol

Exclusive: Republican hits Clarence Thomas with. lawsuit over his taxes

Republican John Anthony Castro told Newsweek he is filing suit against Thomas alleging that the justice violated Virginia tax law.

www.newsweek.com

Castro, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate and who describes himself as a tax attorney who filed a flurry of lawsuits seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the GOP primary ballot, told Newsweek that he is filing suit against Thomas in a Virginia court under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act (VFATA). Although he mailed the complaint to the court on Friday, he expects it to take two business days for the court to process and file the case.

The complaint, which was shared with Newsweek, alleges that in violation of VFATA, "Clarence Thomas knowingly presented or caused to be presented a false and fraudulent claim (i.e., his 2005 Virginia State Income Tax Return) to the Virginia Department of Taxation on or about April 15, 2016, that failed to report income from discharge of indebtedness."

 

[LovesMusic7360]

Article is misleading at best. Sued by who for what? If there tax evasion, that's a crime. He wouldn't be sued. He'd be arrested.

I'm sorry, I read about it a while ago so I did a search on it.

I meant to post the second result in that search which is the following but I wasn't paying attention to which web address I copied and pasted.

This is the one I meant to post:

Exclusive: Republican hits Clarence Thomas with. lawsuit over his taxes

Republican John Anthony Castro told Newsweek he is filing suit against Thomas alleging that the justice violated Virginia tax law.

www.newsweek.com

My mistake for copying the wrong web address.

 

[MT15]

Thanks, guys, I was on my way out the door this morning. It doesn’t seem like it will go anywhere at first glance, but I’m all for it.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

John Oliver makes a lifetime $1M year offer to Thomas for him to leave the court, offer expires in 30 days!


The offer begins @32min mark...the build-up to the offer is around the 15min mark!

John Oliver offers to pay Clarence Thomas $1m a year if he resigns from supreme court

Late-night host gives justice, under fire over undisclosed donations, 30 days to accept offer, which includes a tour bus

www.theguardian.com

 

[GrandAdmiral]

John Oliver makes a lifetime $1M year offer to Thomas for him to leave the court, offer expires in 30 days!


The offer begins @32min mark...the build-up to the offer is around the 15min mark!

John Oliver offers to pay Clarence Thomas $1m a year if he resigns from supreme court

Late-night host gives justice, under fire over undisclosed donations, 30 days to accept offer, which includes a tour bus

www.theguardian.com

I'll contribute to that...

 

[fooferdoggie]

John Oliver makes a lifetime $1M year offer to Thomas for him to leave the court, offer expires in 30 days!


The offer begins @32min mark...the build-up to the offer is around the 15min mark!

John Oliver offers to pay Clarence Thomas $1m a year if he resigns from supreme court

Late-night host gives justice, under fire over undisclosed donations, 30 days to accept offer, which includes a tour bus

www.theguardian.com

he is doing it wrong he has to do it behind closed doors.

 

[MT15]

 

[zztop]

 

[MT15]

 

[Optimus Prime]

guess this can go here. Not just SCOTUS

Definitely need some judicial reform starting with a family member is involved in a case in any way the judge must recuse. Period.

If it turns out that a potential juror's spouse has been receiving payments from one of the companies involved in a case, guess what? That juror is excused immediately. If that doesn't come up and that person is placed on a jury and it comes out later the whole case is in jeopardy

But it’s okay for a judge?
===========================================

When the former president Donald Trump appointed the Texas attorney James Ho to the fifth circuit court of appeals in 2017, lawyers at the prominent law firm Gibson Dunn – where Ho worked before his appointment – had a problem: how to replace the politically connected Ho. Turns out, they didn’t even need to change the home address for his replacement. Ho’s wife, Allyson, moved into her husband’s position and his old office.

Meet the Hos.

Few people outside of legal circles have heard of the Hos, yet the couple is tied to the case before the US supreme court that will determine women’s access to mifepristone, a drug commonly used in medication abortions. The court hears arguments in the case on Tuesday.


Ho served on the three-judge panel last summer that ruled to restrict access to mifepristone. The legal group behind the mifepristone case, Alliance Defending Freedom, made at least six payments from 2018 through 2022 to his wife, Allyson, a powerhouse federal appellate lawyer who has argued in front of the supreme court and has deep connections to the conservative legal movement that has led the attack on the right to abortion in the US.

The payments don’t violate the court’s code of conduct, according to Stephen Gillers, a New York University emeritus professor of law and author of Regulation of Lawyers: Problems of Law and Ethics. But some court watchers argue that Ho’s failure to recuse himself from the case illustrates why public trust in the judiciary is eroding. One recent survey found that 63% of judges noted a dip in the public’s positive perception of them.

“When Americans see a case like this – so clearly concocted and motivated by special interests, and with evident connections between those interests and the judges on the case, it does tremendous damage to the reputation of the courts, and to the public trust in their ability to give all litigants an even shake,” said Alex Aronson, the executive director of the nonpartisan group Court Accountability and a former chief counsel to the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

In an email to the Guardian, James Ho wrote that he “consulted our court’s ethics advisor prior to sitting in that case, and was advised that there was no basis for recusal. In any event, my wife’s practice is to donate honoraria to charity.”

The Hos are just one of the increasing number of power couples in the conservative movement in which the wife of a prominent official works in the background, laying the groundwork for Republican policies that their spouses will rule upon or legislate. In the mifepristone case, the wife of the Missouri senator Josh Hawley, Erin, is the attorney of record for Alliance Defending Freedom and argued the case before Ho. The supreme court justice Clarence Thomas rankled the legal world when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving questions about the January 6 insurrection and the “Stop The Steal” campaign to which his wife, Ginni Thomas, was closely tied.

For Aronson, these are examples of “serious concerns about what is becoming an apparent pattern of coordinated activity by some of these couples in this extremist movement, including the Thomases, Hawleys and Hos”.

Ho’s rulings have included zealous language, referencing what he called in one decision “the moral tragedy of abortion”. He has suggested that protection orders in domestic violence cases “are too often misused as a tactical device in divorce proceedings – and issued without any actual threat of danger”. Orin Kerr, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor, tweeted that one of Ho’s opinions “reads like a politician’s op-ed, not a legal opinion; judges should stick to law”..................

The next Clarence Thomas? Abortion pill case spotlights rightwing judge and his wife’s shadowy connections

Judge James Ho ruled to restrict mifepristone. His wife Allyson is linked to the anti-abortion group that brought the case

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

This just might be the most corrupt, political SCOTUS ever.

 

[LA - L.A.]

This just might be the most corrupt, political SCOTUS ever.

In another post, I joked that if I were president and the Supreme Court ruled that the president had immunity, I would have Trump secretly whisked away to a remote, uninhabited and un-visited island or uninhabited planet in another galaxy.

I amend that to include secretly whisk away every justice that votes to give the president immunity to join Trump on that that island or planet in another galaxy.

Any justice that rules a president has immunity from prosecution would be opening themselves to the possibility of a president doing terrible things to them, as well as the rest of the country.

They can trust Biden not to abuse that immunity, but they can't trust Trump not to to turn on them if he wins the election.

If the Supreme Court rules that the president has immunity, then the judicial branch, including the Supreme Court, would no longer have the checks and balances over the executive branch that they are supposed to have. A president could personally kill any justice that doesn't vote the way they want, so they could replace the justice with their own guy. They could then kill any senator that voted against confirming their hand picked justice.

That's completely insane, but it would be allowed if they give the president immunity from prosecution. We're about to find out how depraved or insane the 6 conservatives on the court are.

I expect Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Kavanaugh to all rule for presidential immunity. I'm not sure about Barrett and Roberts.

 

[DaveXA]

In another post, I joked that if I were president and the Supreme Court ruled that the president had immunity, I would have Trump secretly whisked away to a remote, uninhabited and un-visited island or uninhabited planet in another galaxy.

I amend that to include secretly whisk away every justice that votes to give the president immunity to join Trump on that that island or planet in another galaxy.

Any justice that rules a president has immunity from prosecution would be opening themselves to the possibility of a president doing terrible things to them, as well as the rest of the country.

They can trust Biden not to abuse that immunity, but they can't trust Trump not to to turn on them if he wins the election.

If the Supreme Court rules that the president has immunity, then the judicial branch, including the Supreme Court, would no longer have the checks and balances over the executive branch that they are supposed to have. A president could personally kill any justice that doesn't vote the way they want, so they could replace the justice with their own guy. They could then kill any senator that voted against confirming their hand picked justice.

That's completely insane, but it would be allowed if they give the president immunity from prosecution. We're about to find out how depraved or insane the 6 conservatives on the court are.

I expect Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Kavanaugh to all rule for presidential immunity. I'm not sure about Barrett and Roberts.

I think they won't do anything and remand the case back to the lower courts. Status quo imo.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I'm curious how SCOTUS will rule in a way that applies only to Trump and not future presidents
============================================================

Listening to Thursday’s oral arguments in the Donald Trump immunity case was positively surreal.

As is often the case in Supreme Court arguments, while the justices piled one hypothetical on top of another, the real-world stakes in the case were barely mentioned. And while the questions asked at oral argument are not always a reliable predictor of how the court will ultimately come out in any case, Thursday was not a good day for American democracy.

As it has done in other cases, the court’s conservative majority seemed ready to jettison its own originalist interpretive method and to ignore the grave threat that former President Trump’s election denialism — and efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power — posed to our constitutional republic. They displayed a level of hypocrisy, cynicism and bad faith that matched Trump’s own, and seemed to lust for the kind of strong executive that has become a familiar part of the agenda of Trump and his MAGA allies.

One can only hope that the justices will come to their senses when they get around to deciding the case, and will reject Trump’s plea to take the unprecedented step of establishing presidential immunity.

To get a taste of the hypocrisy displayed during the oral argument, let’s start with originalism.

Given the originalist commitments of the court’s conservative majority, you would have thought that the oral argument would have been consumed by an exploration of constitutional history. Yet they said almost nothing about it.............

MSN

 

[superchuck500]

I'm curious how SCOTUS will rule in a way that applies only to Trump and not future presidents
============================================================

Listening to Thursday’s oral arguments in the Donald Trump immunity case was positively surreal.

As is often the case in Supreme Court arguments, while the justices piled one hypothetical on top of another, the real-world stakes in the case were barely mentioned. And while the questions asked at oral argument are not always a reliable predictor of how the court will ultimately come out in any case, Thursday was not a good day for American democracy.

As it has done in other cases, the court’s conservative majority seemed ready to jettison its own originalist interpretive method and to ignore the grave threat that former President Trump’s election denialism — and efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power — posed to our constitutional republic. They displayed a level of hypocrisy, cynicism and bad faith that matched Trump’s own, and seemed to lust for the kind of strong executive that has become a familiar part of the agenda of Trump and his MAGA allies.

One can only hope that the justices will come to their senses when they get around to deciding the case, and will reject Trump’s plea to take the unprecedented step of establishing presidential immunity.

To get a taste of the hypocrisy displayed during the oral argument, let’s start with originalism.

Given the originalist commitments of the court’s conservative majority, you would have thought that the oral argument would have been consumed by an exploration of constitutional history. Yet they said almost nothing about it.............

MSN

We already have a federal officer immunity standard under the Supremacy Clause caselaw, I don't get why it needs to be any different for a president. Was the act reasonably within the official duties of federal officer involved and was it carried out in a reasonable way. I think there can be quite a bit of deference in those standards but as a baseline, it has to be reasonably related to an official function that fits within the authority of federal law, and it has to be a reasonable performance of that function.

It's entirely appropriate - and it already exists. No president has ever needed to invoke it and Trump can invoke it now. Meadows tried it in the Georgia case and lost, because intervening in election results is not within the function and authority of the White House chief of staff.