Clarence Thomas Just Hit With 'One-Two Punch'—Legal Analyst

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has just been hit with a "one-two punch" as Democratic lawmakers attempt to address alleged unethical behavior, legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said on Friday.

Thomas was hit with articles of impeachment by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, on Wednesday after Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch an investigation into alleged violations of Thomas.

"It was kind of the one-two punch," Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said in a YouTube video posted to the Political Voices Network channel on Friday. "When I saw these two developments, I thought back to my days as the chief of homicide at the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. I always told the incoming homicide prosecutors that it's really more important to try cases than to win cases."

"In my opinion, there are obvious violations of federal law, certainly federal financial disclosure laws," Kirschner told Newsweek via telephone on Sunday evening. "I also believe they're in violation of federal conflict of interest laws for Supreme Court justices."

Newsweek has reached out to the Supreme Court via online form for comment from Thomas and the DOJ via online form for comment on Saturday morning.

The articles of impeachment against Thomas are almost certain to fail in the Republican-controlled House. The articles for the justice cover a wide range of behavior, from reportedly taking gifts from his billionaire friend, Harlan Crow, to not recusing himself from cases in which his wife, Virginia, "Ginni" Thomas, "had an interest."

Thomas previously defended himself in a statement, arguing that the gifts from Crow were "not reportable," that he had sought out "guidance" before accepting them and that he "always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines."

Ginni Thomas told Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows in the wake of Trump's 2020 election loss that he should encourage the then-president not to concede to President-elect Joe Biden, according to text messages obtained by the House select committee tasked with investigating the Capitol riot that occurred on January 6, 2021. Ginni Thomas later told the committee that her husband "was completely unaware" of her text message exchange with Meadows "until this Committee leaked them to the press."

At a judicial conference in Alabama in early May, the justice said, "My wife and I, the last two or three years, just the nastiness and the lies," without explaining what instances he was referring to. "There's certainly been a lot of negativity in our lives, my wife and I, over the last few years, but we choose not to focus on it," he added.

Ocasio-Cortez also introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, another conservative, which are also extremely likely to fail. The allegations against Alito deal with a reportedly undisclosed luxury trip from a wealthy donor and his refusal to recuse himself from cases involving the attempted overturn of the 2020 election, citing the controversial upside-down American flag-flying incident outside his Alexandria, Virginia, home in the days before Biden was inaugurated and the "Appeal to Heaven" flag flown at his vacation home in New Jersey last summer.

Alito said that it was his wife's decision to fly the flags and that he had nothing to do with it. He has addressed calls for his recusal and declined to step aside, writing in a letter in late May that the two flag incidents "do not meet the conditions for recusal," citing the Court's code of conduct.

On Tuesday, a day before Ocasio-Cortez introduced the articles of impeachment. Whitehouse, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, and Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, announced that they sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week, asking him to appoint a special counsel to investigate the justice for potential violations of ethics and tax laws.

"Public investigative reporting and information obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee has revealed that billionaire Harlan Crow has donated to Justice Thomas numerous gifts over the past twenty years, almost none of which were disclosed by Justice Thomas as the Ethics in Government Act require," the letter reads.

The letter also accused Thomas of not disclosing over $267,000 in taxable income from forgiven debt.

"When you have certain duties and obligations as a public servant, including a member of Congress, you need to lean into addressing the abuses of government officials—that includes Supreme Court justices," Kirschner said in Friday's YouTube video.

Update 7/13/24, 12:54 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update 7/14/24, 6:19 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Kirschner.