Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas remained mum after several Democrats in Congress urged him to recuse himself from hearing a case involving former President Donald Trump‘s 2024 ballot eligibility on Thursday.
The nation’s highest court heard the oral arguments in a Colorado case about whether Trump engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and could be disqualified from holding the presidency again. The case hinges on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits sworn officials from serving in government if they engage in insurrection.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin said via X: “I’m calling for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself in the 14th Amendment case determining if Donald Trump is ineligible for the 2024 ballot. Given questions surrounding his wife’s involvement, Justice Thomas should recuse himself so there’s no question of bias.”
However, Thomas expectedly did not respond or recuse himself before or after the oral arguments on Thursday.
Overall, Thomas has a lower rate of identifying conflicts compared to other justices. Between 2018 and 2023, justices recused themselves in about 3 percent of appeals, but Thomas recused in 0 percent of cases from 2018-2021 and 3 percent in 2022, according to Bloomberg Law. In comparison, last year, Justices Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch recused themselves from 16 percent and 11 percent of cases, respectively.
Yet, many political experts say activities involving his wife, Ginni Thomas, pose a clear conflict of interest for her husband, ABC News reported.
Ginni Thomas admitted she attended the rally in 2021 but started to feel cold and left before the riot erupted. His wife is a longtime conservative activist and staunch supporter of Trump; she helped to lead the “Stop the Steal” campaign to overturn the results.
“Ginni Thomas was a supporter of Donald Trump’s, from pretty early on in his campaign, and she has maintained that support even through today,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a judicial watchdog group, ABC News reported. “And those attempts to overturn the election was what led to the insurrection, which is what led to Trump being kicked off the ballot in Colorado.”
Federal law requires each justice to determine if a conflict of interest exists in a case and recuse themselves from the vote. However, there is no established procedure to enforce this rule, leaving the justices accountable for their own integrity.
“This is the easiest recusal analysis case you could ever imagine,” said James Sample, professor and judicial ethics expert at Hofstra University Law School, according to ABC News. “The question isn’t should Ginni Thomas be allowed or not allowed to engage in political advocacy.”
“The question here is should Clarence Thomas, when Ginni Thomas engages in that political advocacy, be allowed to rule on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of that advocacy,” said Sample.
Senators allege Ginni Thomas played a role in the alleged scheme after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, but Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, leading to the riots seeking to overturn the election results.
Thomas recused himself in October when the court had to decide whether to hear an appeal by former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who a federal judge ruled “more likely than not” acted criminally while helping the former president come up with a plan to overturn the 2020 election results.
“Having recused from a prior case related to Jan 6 due to his wife’s involvement, Justice Thomas’s participation in Trump’s ballot case is a shocking and intentional violation of his ethical obligations. Clarence Thomas is not above the law. This is a true crisis at the Court,” U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman of New York posted Thursday on X.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a former attorney, accused Thomas on Thursday in a lengthy message on X of already making a decision about the case before even hearing the arguments.
“Is Clarence Thomas able to accept the facts as determined by the lower courts that Trump did engage in an insurrection? Is he able to accept that that means that his wife doesn’t have clean hands? Overall, Is he able to have a clear mind on this issue when his wife has muddied it up so much,” the post partially reads.
“The reverberations for this country and other modern day democracies will be felt for generations if the Supreme Court doesn’t take its oath seriously & live up to the level of thoughtfulness that historically we’d respected the court for having,” it continues.
