Clarence Thomas should have gotten out while he could
The headlines of this past week are a good reminder of why Clarence Thomas would have been smart to retire from the Supreme Court right after it came out that his wife was a key January 6th figure. Because he stuck around, the media has kept digging into his past. And the various folks out there who know his dirty secrets are finally coughing them up. This is just the beginning.
We still don’t know if what’s now coming out about Thomas’ corrupt gifts is going to be enough for prosecutors to be able to take him down. There’s a world of difference between something that’s obviously corrupt in the court of public opinion, and something that a jury would actually convict on in a court of law. But more of his corrupt dirty secrets will keep coming out.
Nor for that matter do we have any idea if Ginni Thomas is a criminal target in Jack Smith’s 1/6 probe. Something like that would not become public unless someone who received a subpoena decided to leak it, or something along those lines. It’s very possible she’s a 1/6 criminal target. We can’t count on that saving the day. But we also can’t assume that she’s off the legal hook. Everyone thought Donald Trump was off the legal hook in Manhattan, and he ended up getting indicted on thirty-four felonies.
But even if nothing that’s surfaced thus far is enough to put Clarence or Ginni Thomas in prison, we know there’s more coming. People who spend this many decades living this corruptly don’t just have one dirty donor or one corruption scandal. That’s always just the tip of the iceberg.
Clarence Thomas has presumably remained on the court to put himself in a position to protect his wife against any prosecution. But he’s only making himself and her more vulnerable. Folks out there who know their dirt are going to keep leaking it until he retires and stops harming people.
Prosecutors don’t magically know where to dig for scandals. No one knew this secret corrupt gifts scandal existed, until someone tipped off someone else about where to dig and what to look for. But now prosecutors can (and will) look at it to see if it’s chargeable. It’ll happen with every new Thomas family scandal that emerges going forward.
There is a threshold where his criminal scandals get so bad, he does retire to try to make it all go away. We don’t know if we’ll ever reach that threshold before he croaks. But whether you reach it or not there is always a threshold on these things – something the “it’ll never happen no matter what” crowd doesn’t get.
So the point is to keep ramping up, digging in, exposing his scandals, and – this is crucial – making him the face of the Republican Party. Thomas is a financial criminal and a psychotic oppressor of women’s rights. If Clarence Thomas last that long, he is our 2024 messaging.
By the way, if we take back the House, keep all our existing Senate seats, and replace Sinema with Gallego, we’ll have the votes to strike the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court. You want Clarence Thomas neutered? Help the Democrats win the 2024 election.
