#thomas impeachment

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez introduces articles of impeachment against SCOTUS Justices Alito and Thomas

This afternoon, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced articles of impeachment against two corrupt far-right judicial activists sit

This afternoon, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced articles of impeachment against two corrupt far-right judicial activists sitting on the Supreme Court: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The articles of impeachment against SCOTUS Justices Thomas and Alito have no chance of passage in the GOP-controlled House.

Summary of the impeachment charges against Alito and Thomas, via Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s Congressional website:

The first impeachment resolution includes the following impeachment articles against Justice Thomas:

Failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information.

Refusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouse’s legal interest in cases before the court.

Refusal to recuse from matters involving his spouse’s financial interest in cases before the court.

The second impeachment resolution includes the following impeachment articles against Justice Alito:

Refusal to recuse from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party in cases before the court.

Failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information.

This afternoon, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced articles of impeachment against corrupt and unethical far-right judicial activists Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that currently sit on the nation's highest court.

AOC is correct: these two corrupt far-right judicial activists deserve to be impeached and removed from the court for their unethical conduct on the bench.

Read the full story at Daily Kos.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Last week, the Supreme Court’s far-right majority went home for the summer, but only after a stark reminder that they do not serve the people of this country — they serve Donald Trump and MAGA extremism. They serve wealthy corporations exploiting our communities. They serve whichever right-wing billionaire gives them the most gifts. This term, the same extremist justices who overturned the constitutional right to abortion and ended affirmative action doubled down on the court’s legacy of protecting the interests of wealth and white supremacy. These unelected justices have pulled off a judicial coup on behalf of fascists and billionaires. They have enabled Trump to evade accountability. They have opened the door for the MAGA cult to destroy our rights through Project 2025. They have greenlit the criminalization of homelessness. They have left millions of people in states like Missouri vulnerable to bans on emergency abortions and other attacks on reproductive rights. And they have provided a road map for wealthy corporations to harm our planet and our communities by handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and countless other agencies from regulating them. The Republican-appointed justices are fighting a war on behalf of far-right extremists against the people of this country, and they are just getting started. Congress has a choice to make: reform the court or bear witness to the death of democracy and the destruction of the communities it should protect. [...] Court reform is personal for me — not just as a member of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, but as a survivor of gun violence, as someone who has had an abortion, as the daughter of a former union meat cutter, and as a congresswoman representing a community that has been systematically denied the right to vote. And it should be personal to everyone who cares about our democracy and our freedoms. The gavel’s fall should signify justice served, not lives destroyed. Our lives and our communities are worse off because of this unchecked, extremist Supreme Court. The time for reform is now. Congress must remove lawless justices through impeachment — that’s why this week my colleagues and I introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito over their multiple ethical conflicts and failures to disclose. Congress must also pass legislation that imposes a binding code of ethics for every justice. We must expand the Court to 13 seats by passing the Judiciary Act, which I proudly co-lead. Congress must enact term limits for the justices. Finally, we must strip the Supreme Court of its power to invalidate federal laws that protect our fundamental rights.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) for MSNBC.com on why the Supreme Court needs significant reforms to dilute the radical right-wing MAGA Majority influence, such as expansion of the court to 13, a binding code of ethics, and term limits (07.11.2024).

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) wrote a solid editorial on MSNBC.com calling for judicial reforms to neuter the MAGA Majority on the court, such as expansion to 13, term limits, and a binding ethics code. Hopefully the people in MO-01 vote her again.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Clarence Thomas must resign or be impeached

The revelations about Thomas' failure to disclose luxury vacations and gifts bankrolled by wealthy executives make it untenable for him to r

Darrell Lucus at Loud, Liberal, Christian Substack:

Like many Black political junkies of my generation, I cringe whenever Clarence Thomas opens his mouth or puts pen to paper. As I write this, Thomas has served on the Supreme Court for 11,614 days—the 12th-longest tenure in the history of the Court. By my estimate, he has found at least that many ways to disgrace the seat Thurgood Marshall held for 24 years.

Thomas has authored some of the most ill-informed and tone-deaf sentiments to have ever emerged from an American jurist. This is a man who believes slavery didn’t amount to a loss of dignity, believes domestic violence convictions shouldn’t strip you of your right to own a gun, and would give state legislatures carte blanche to draw districts any way they please. He was also the lone justice who found any merit in Donald Trump’s claim that allowing the National Archives to turn over records related to the Capitol insurrection would be merely serving “political objectives.” But those pale in comparison to recent revelations by ProPublica and The New York Times that Thomas has been showered with vacations and gifts by ultrawealthy executives—and in many cases, failed to disclose them as required by federal law. According to a ProPublica estimate that is “almost certainly an undercount,” Thomas has taken at least 38 luxury vacations, 26 private jet and helicopter flights, and a dozen VIP passes to sporting events. But worst of all, he allowed a high-dollar fundraiser to take place in the Supreme Court building—an act that, to my mind, demands that Thomas be impeached. [...]

It’s bad enough that Thomas either cannot or will not comply with rudimentary requirements about financial disclosures. That would be enough to prove that he is one of the most, if not the most, corrupt individuals ever to serve on a federal bench. But selling access to the Supreme Court building is another thing altogether. If that’s not an impeachable offense, what is? For the sake of the integrity of the Supreme Court, Thomas must go, and he must go now while he can at least appear to be doing so decently. Failing that, he must be impeached and removed. I’d be saying the same thing if Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, or Ketanji Brown Jackson had done even a fraction of what Thomas has done. But we cannot tolerate a Supreme Court justice who finds it remotely acceptable to even appear to be selling access to the Court. Granted, it’s not likely an effort to impeach and remove Thomas will succeed in this hyper-polarized era. But we have to at least try for the sake of the historical record. Both Trump impeachments were necessary to show that we at least tried to hold Trump to account. Similarly, impeaching Thomas is all but essential to restore trust in the Supreme Court.

As usual, Darrell Lucus nails it: SCOTUS "Justice" Clarence Thomas should either resign or face impeachment.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Impeach Clarence Thomas!!!! Impeach Samuel Alito!!!!! Impeach Brett Kavanaugh!!!! #ImpeachThomas #ImpeachAlito #ImpeachKavanaugh #SCOTUS

[justinspoliticalcorner]

As momentum builds in Congress to do something about Thomas, impeachment needs to be an option

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos: 

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a problem for the court, for the nation, and for democracy in general. That’s been true for decades, as long as his deep ties to the dark money swirling around the judiciary, and doesn’t even take into account the extremely partisan activities of his “best friend” and wife Ginni. Since those activities now include attempting to overthrow the government, the problem of Clarence Thomas just got a whole lot more glaring—and congressional leadership has been caught just a bit flat-footed.

Stepping into the void, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the first to use the “I” word. “Clarence Thomas should resign,” she tweeted. “If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.”

By all means, the House should start talking about impeachment. That’s what Thomas deserves: the ultimate censure. That’s where to start: the maximum. There’s no real other leverage the other two branches have over the Supreme Court than pressure in the public eye and the threat of action. Chief Justice John Roberts has been aware enough about his personal legacy in his career thus far to make blowing up the Thomas scandal in public—and keeping it there with discussion of impeachment—a smart tactic.

Would the 50-50 Senate convict him? No, but that’s a valuable weapon for Democrats in the upcoming election. Republicans are protecting the Supreme Court justice who has refused to recuse himself from cases involving his wife’s efforts to overthrow the government.

The good news is that Democrats are inching toward something a little more concrete than demanding that Thomas recuse. That’s where they started. A group of House and Senate Democrats, spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), wrote to the Supreme Court requesting that Thomas recuse himself from any future Jan. 6-related cases, as well as provide a “written explanation for his failure to recuse himself” in previous cases.

I agree with Rep. AOC here. Clarence Thomas should be made to resign or face impeachment from his SCOTUS job.