CNN
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Senate Democrats moved against Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday amid reports that the Supreme Court conservative failed to open luxury travel, gifts and a real estate deal involving a GOP megadonor, but their plan to investigate the conservative lawyer remains unclear.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin promised his committee would hold hearings on the alleged ethics violations in the coming weeks, but did not share details when CNN pressed whether lawmakers would seek testimony from Thomas or others who may know about his relationship with the donor, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow.
Asked whether subpoenas had been discussed, Durbin said no decision had been made on the matter. He said it was “too early” to share more information about what his ethics committee hearings at the Supreme Court might look like. Last week, he and other judicial Democrats sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts calling for an investigation into Thomas' allegations.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that “the American people deserve all the facts surrounding Judge Thomas's flagrant violation of the law.”
“I hope that [Thomas] will voluntarily appear, and if not, then we should consider subpoenaing him and other people like Harlan Crowe who have information,” Blumenthal said.
Other Democrats on the committee said Tuesday that they defer to Durbin, who met with Democrats Monday night to discuss their strategy regarding Thomas.
Meanwhile, Republicans appear largely united in defending Thomas, suggesting the court can decide its own cases.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Democrats for criticizing the court and said he was confident Roberts could “handle these internal problems of the court.”
“I think Democrats have spent a lot of time criticizing individual members of the court and attacking the court as an institution,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday.
Bringing more transparency to the high court has had some bipartisan support in the past, but the court's shift to the right — especially given the three justices former President Donald Trump put on the bench — has raised the partisan stakes around the issue. In recent years, the conservative majority has passed landmark decisions that repealed abortion rights, repealed gun regulations and limited executive branch powers, all of which drew opposition from Democrats.
While Senate Democrats have yet to develop a plan for their own response to Thomas' allegations, they have sought to highlight the issue and frame it as part of their broader push to develop a Supreme Court ethics code that is excluded from many of the ethics rules that apply to the lower levels of the federal judiciary.
“I am troubled by recent reports detailing potentially unethical — even potentially illegal behavior — at the highest levels of our judiciary,” Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said Tuesday at a Judiciary Committee hearing on three lower court nominees. “It goes without saying that judges at all levels must be held to strict and enforceable ethical standards.”
Durbin said in his speech that Congress should not wait for the court's decision.
“The Supreme Court does not have to wait for Congress to clean up its act; the justices can act today if they want, and if the court doesn't act, Congress should do so,” Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
ProPublica reports this month detailed how lavish travel and gifts to Thomas from Crow – and even real estate deals – went unnoticed in Thomas' annual financial reports.
Thomas said the trip and gifts to him and his family, which were financed by the Crows, were not disclosed because he was told he was not required to do so under court rules on the disclosure of so-called “personal hospitality.” After scrutiny by lawmakers, the Judicial Conference, which acts as the policy-making body for the federal judiciary, recently closed a loophole in the rules that appears to cover some of the hospitality Thomas received. Thomas has said he intends to follow this updated guidance in the future, and a source close to the justice also told CNN in recent days that he plans to amend his disclosure form to disclose the real estate transaction – the sale of his mother Crowe's home.
“If the reports are accurate, it's disgusting,” Sen. Mitt Romney said Monday night in rare comments from a Republican criticizing Thomas' lack of transparency.
Republicans defend Thomas and say SCOTUS can decide ethics issues domestically
Other Republicans lined up to defend the judge, whom President George H. W. Bush appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991, and said Congress has no power to impose an ethics code on the high court.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, suggested that the charges against Thomas were part of a “multi-decade effort by these liberal activist groups to go after Clarence Thomas.”
This is not the first time Thomas has been at the center of an ethical controversy. CNN reported last year that his wife Ginny Thomas, a conservative activist, had corresponded with Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about the former president's efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and her political lobbying has long raised questions about when judges are required to recuse themselves from cases.
However, Republicans have shown little interest in joining Democrats in using legislation to impose an ethics code on judges.
“I think historically the Court has sort of kept itself in check,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the Senate GOP whip, who said Thomas has been “a solid judge on the Court for many years and has done well there.”
“Let's see what the court does,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told CNN on Tuesday. “I prefer they do it internally.”
