Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Faces Calls For Hearings, Recusal, Resignation For Wife’s Texts About 2020 Election

Topline

Text messages between Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows encouraging attempts to overturn the 2020 election have come under scrutiny on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers push for the justice to recuse himself from election-related cases—or resign—and advocacy groups urge Congress to hold hearings on the court’s ethical practices.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas, arrive at the Heritage … [+] Foundation on October 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

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Key Facts

Reports published Thursday that Ginni Thomas repeatedly urged Meadows to try to overturn the election sparked widespread criticism from Democratic lawmakers—particularly after Thomas participated in a case concerning whether documents should be released to the House January 6 committee and was the lone dissenter.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called for Thomas to be impeached and lawmakers including Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.) urged him to resign, while Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said Thomas “dishonors the Supreme Court.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called Friday for the justice to recuse himself from cases not only related to the House’s January 6 investigation, but also any future cases involving the 2024 election.

More than 30 advocacy organizations—including MoveOn, the American Federation of Teachers and Indivisible—sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee Friday calling for it to “immediately” hold a hearing on imposing a code of ethics for the Supreme Court in light of Ginni Thomas’ text messages, as justices aren’t bound to follow the one in place for lower federal judges.

Pointing to both Thomas and his wife as well as other justices’ conduct, the groups said the lack of a code of ethics for justices is a “major concern for the country,” and called for lawmakers “to rein in a Supreme Court that has utterly failed to police the conduct of its own members.”

Republican lawmakers have so far not spoken out against Thomas and his wife, and House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Friday he believes it should be the justice’s decision whether or not he recuses himself from cases.

What To Watch For

The text messages were discovered after Meadows turned them over to the House January 6 Committee, which could still get more information on Ginni Thomas’ postelection activities. CBS News reported Friday that lawmakers on the committee have raised the possibility of asking her to testify before the committee, and subpoenaing her to do so if necessary.

What We Don’t Know

Whether Clarence Thomas will actually face any consequences. It remains unlikely that the justice will resign of his own accord, but if there’s enough momentum in Congress, he could be impeached and removed from office. The impeachment process is the same for justices as it is for presidents—he would first face impeachment hearings in the House, and then the Senate would consider whether or not to convict him—but his removal remains a long shot. There’s unlikely to be enough support in the Senate for him to be convicted—two thirds of senators would have to vote for it—and only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached in U.S. history, Justice Samuel Chase in 1804. The Senate did not vote to convict him.

Tangent

Lawmakers’ concerns about Clarence Thomas’ conduct have been echoed by legal experts, who told the New Yorker Friday the text messages present a clear conflict of interest for the 73-year-old justice. NYU professor Stephen Gillers told the New Yorker the texts are a “game changer” and that “Ginni has now crossed a line.” Fordham law professor Bruce Green, a judicial ethics expert, told the publication that Thomas should have recused himself from the January 6 committee case, “because his wife, although not formally a party, had a very direct personal interest in the case—an interest in avoiding the embarrassment that would result (and now has resulted) from the revelation.” (Meadows’ text messages were separate from the documents at issue in the Supreme Court case, the Washington Post reports, which resulted in the National Archives being forced to turn over Trump Administration documents.)

Chief Critic

The Supreme Court and Ginni Thomas have not yet commented on the text messages, but she told the Washington Free Beacon in a recent interview that she and her husband “have our own separate careers and our own ideas and opinions, too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work.”

Key Background

The 29 text messages obtained by the January 6 committee—21 of which were sent by Ginni Thomas, largely in November 2020—show the justice’s wife repeatedly championing efforts to overturn the election to Meadows, telling him to “make a plan” and “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” “Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back,” Thomas texted on November 4, before telling Meadows on November 19 to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” referencing far-right attorney Sidney Powell’s nickname for her failed postelection legal strategy. The text messages, first reported Thursday by the Post and CBS News, came as Clarence Thomas had already been coming under scrutiny for his wife’s political activities as a right-wing activist. While Ginni Thomas’ conservative activism has long been known, recent pieces in the New Yorker and New York Times have intensified scrutiny on her, particularly as the 6–3 conservative Supreme Court takes up an increasing number of partisan issues like abortion and guns.