The Clarence Thomas ethics scandal has deepened again, giving Democrats yet another reason to push for Supreme Court reform. In a letter Monday, Democrat Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said the Supreme Court justice had failed to disclose even more travel paid for by conservative donor Harlan Crow—this time, private jet trips for Thomas and his wife between Hawaii and New Zealand in 2010. “For decades, Justice Thomas has failed to disclose complimentary use of Mr. Crow’s superyacht and private jet(s), concealing from the American people millions of dollars’ worth of gifts in a manner that likely violated federal law,” Wyden wrote to Michael D. Bopp, an attorney for Crow. The previously unreported trips—discovered by Wyden’s committee via flight records—heightened the senator’s concern that Crow “may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” he wrote in the letter. “I am also concerned that I have so far been unable to even determine the full extent of the potential tax abuse at issue.”
This latest beat in Thomas’s long-running conflict of interest saga underscores the shortcomings of the code of ethics Chief Justice John Roberts announced in November—and the need for the more serious reforms President Joe Biden endorsed last month. “We need to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act to make sure Supreme Court justices abide by real, enforceable ethics guardrails,” Senator Jeff Merkley wrote Monday. (An attorney for Crow said in a statement to the New York Times that Wyden’s inquiries had “no legal basis and are only intended to harass a private citizen,” and said they consider the matter “settled.” Thomas has not publicly commented on the letter.)
The conservative response to those proposals? “Be careful,” Justice Neil Gorsuch warned Biden in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday. Gorsuch—a Donald Trump appointee and part of a six-member conservative majority that has upended reproductive healthcare in America, hamstrung the administrative state, and effectively put presidents “above the law” in ruling that Trump has “absolute immunity” from prosecution for acts taken as part of his official duties—did not specifically address the proposals from Biden and the Democrats. However, he echoed Roberts by arguing that such reforms could threaten the “independent judiciary.” “Don’t you want a ferociously independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions?” Gorsuch asked.
Of course, neither Biden nor Democrats like Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin are calling to do away with an “independent” judiciary; the president in July called for term limits for Supreme Court justices and a code of ethics that is actually enforceable, unlike the one Roberts put forth last fall. In short, he is proposing that the Supreme Court be held to the same checks and balances as the other branches of government and that justices on the highest court be held to the same ethics rules as their peers on the lower courts. (Biden also called for a constitutional amendment that would pronounce no president above the law or “immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.“)
For now, at least, such proposals are theoretical: Biden is a quasi-lame-duck president, and his proposals seem more symbolic than actionable. Republicans, meanwhile, seem no more interested in reforming the high court than they did a couple years ago when the Thomas saga began. Democrats have “decided that the time has come to eliminate the Supreme Court as we know it,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor in July. An unexpected Democratic sweep in November could change things. Unless and until that happens?. “I think the the court is doing a pretty good job,” Gorsuch told Fox News Sunday.