Politics - News Analysis

Clarence Thomas Failed to Disclose His Wife’s Income for SIX Years (And She Made a lot of Money)

We all forget things. I certainly know that I do. Forgetting things, after all, is part of being human. And Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas forget things too. Ginni has her fingers in every political pie in D.C.-land and Clarence…as a Justice he’s reshaped already well-established precedent to fit his draconian will.

But it looks for all the world like he’s forgotten some pretty big items — of the financial kind, Above The Law reported Tuesday, citing a 2011 Los Angeles Times story by Kim Geiger, then the Washington Bureau correspondent for the Times. While the story may be a bit dated, this revelation is quite relevant today.

“Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure for those years, instead checking a box labeled ‘none’ where ‘spousal noninvestment income’ would be disclosed.”

And of course, since Ginni Thomas can’t keep her nose out of right-wing politics, she was also involved with Liberty Central, a Tea Party nonprofit lobbying group that she founded in 2009. The group ceased operations in 2012, but Common Cause believes that during that time, her salary was reported as “unknown,” since, dear hubby allegedly recorded spousal income as “none.”

Now, how cozy is that? You found your very own nonprofit and hubby “forgets” to mention your salary to the IRS. Sure. Happens all the time.

Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law, knows the difference between truth, and say, a lie of omission.

“It was a miscalculation; he simply omitted his wife’s source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission,” he said. “It could not have been an oversight.”

But here’s what’s even cozier for the Thomases: The Supreme Court doesn’t have a code of ethics for its own justices. So hey, no biggie.

The January 6th Committee is eager to talk to Ginni, however, about her role in the Capitol insurrection, since she was allegedly heavily involved in the scheme of things. CNN reports she will be interviewed by the committee in the coming weeks. And incidentally, even though she was involved, this didn’t discourage her husband from hearing a case about the January 6th committee, where he was (oh no! Say it isn’t so!) the lone dissenting justice when the Court kicked Trump to the curb when he tried to block the release of presidential records.

Of course, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have tried their best to get Thomas to recuse himself from any cases involving the January 6th committee but he’s been tone-deaf amid calls for his resignation.

But obviously, something that’s an obvious conflict of interest is inconsequential to Thomas since a code of ethics is apparently nonexistent for Supreme Court Justices.

meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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