Republican lawmakers are bashing Democratic calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a case on whether former President Donald Trump can be removed from Colorado’s primary election ballot.
A coalition of House Democrats led by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) claim the justice’s spouse, Ginni, had an “intimate involvement” in the Jan. 6 rally that devolved into a riot at the Capitol two years ago and therefore Thomas should recuse himself from deciding the case. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) told the Washington Examiner this week that there is “no precedent or justification” for such a request and that it is a part of Democrats’ “real goal: packing the Supreme Court.”
“The Left’s partisan attacks against [Thomas] are nothing more than desperate attempts to silence a brilliant legal mind during critical Supreme Court deliberations and delegitimize the court as progressives work to achieve their real goal: packing the Supreme Court. These intimidation tactics will not work, and Justice Thomas will continue defending the Constitution,” Jordan said.
Jordan’s response comes as Republican lawmakers in recent days have been atypically mum over the latest attacks on Thomas, one of the most conservative justices and a frequent target of Democratic criticism against the 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the high court.
The Jan. 4 letter from Johnson alleges the work that Thomas’s wife does for the conservative firm Liberty Consulting led to her playing an “instrumental” role in “planning [the rally] and [bringing] the insurrectionists to the Capitol.” The letter further alleges Ginni Thomas would be “positively impacted” by Trump winning reelection in 2024, noting the value of her firm went from roughly $15,000 before Trump won the 2016 election to “between 100,0001 and 250,000” in value while he was president and slipped back between “15,0001 and $50,000” after Trump lost in 2020.
“Your wife’s income benefits your household, therefore your family, and, by extension, you personally. You have a financial stake in the outcome of this case, which disqualifies you from any involvement in it,” Johnson claimed.
Johnson’s request is effectively asking the court to allow only eight justices, rather than the odd number of nine, to decide the key case before them: whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Trump from appearing on state primary election ballots after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that he “engaged” in insurrection during the Jan. 6 riot and that the measure applies to presidential candidates.
Federal judges have broad discretion over whether to recuse themselves from a case, but they are ultimately told to step aside if deciding the case would threaten their impartiality, harm public trust in the fairness of the judiciary, or damage the efficient and effective delivery of justice.
John Malcolm, vice president of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government, told the Washington Examiner that Democrats are making “unverifiable claims” that Ginni Thomas’s practice may benefit if Trump were reelected.
Malcolm furthered that the same argument could be “said of any individual who engages in political consulting or in any industry that is affected positively or negatively by the policies of a particular administration, be it Democrat or Republican.”
“The spouses of Supreme Court Justices do not sacrifice their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association,” Malcolm said, adding that those spouses also “do not sacrifice their right to earn a living” so long as a justice does not have a clear financial stake in the outcome of a case.
Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse have also been levied by former Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who appeared on television last week and argued Clarence Thomas should remove himself from the case for the same reasons stated in Johnson’s letter.
For months, Democrats have waged a pressure campaign on Clarence Thomas, amplified by a series of critical reports published by ProPublica beginning in April last year, a move that Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said has led to a wave of “pretend” arguments by lawmakers who are more interested in “power than principles.”
“Politicians who pretend that Justice Thomas needs to recuse himself from examining Colorado’s ballot tampering against former President Trump are more interested in power than principles,” Lee told the Washington Examiner. “Their arguments aren’t based on the law or the facts. Unfortunately, after over 30 years, the Left continues to viciously attack the one black conservative justice on the Supreme Court.”
Clarence Thomas in October chose to recuse himself from a petition concerning one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against him, which was filed by attorney John Eastman. The justice did not state his reasoning for the recusal, but it likely concerned Eastman’s role as a former clerk to Clarence Thomas.
Although Ginni Thomas has admitted she had sincere concerns about the potential for voter fraud in the 2020 election, she told the Jan. 6 committee on Sept. 29, 2022, that she never personally believed the election was “stolen” despite any mention of her name in the 845-page report about the riot.
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“I worried that there was fraud and irregularities that distorted the election, but it wasn’t uncovered in a timely manner, so we have President Biden,” she told the committee.
When the Supreme Court agreed to weigh the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove the former president from the ballot last Friday, there were no recusal notes, indicating that all nine justices will be deciding the fate of Trump’s ballot access across all 50 states at a Feb. 8 oral argument hearing.
