The revelation this week that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence ThomasSenators should ask Biden’s SCOTUS nominee about judicial code of conduct Wife of Clarence Thomas says she attended Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally Supreme Court denies GOP requests to halt new maps in NC, Pennsylvania MORE, attended the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol has renewed questions about Clarence Thomas’s impartiality.
Critics say the new detail is just the latest example of Ginni Thomas’s political activity posing an ethically troubling overlap with her husband’s judicial position.
“Virginia Thomas should be able to back whatever causes motivate her. The problem is that Justice Thomas continues to participate in cases related to her political activities,” said Steven Lubet, a professor of legal ethics at Northwestern University Law School. “He is the one whose conduct should be questioned.”
Judges on lower federal courts are bound by a code of conduct that requires recusal for conflicts of interest, or even if their impartiality might be reasonably questioned. But Supreme Court justices are permitted to decide for themselves whether recusal is appropriate in a given case.
In Clarence Thomas’s three decades on the bench, he has never stepped aside from a case due to a real or perceived conflict of interest resulting from his wife’s political activities, according to a letter sent this month to him by several progressive groups, including the court expansion advocacy group Take Back the Court.
“It is striking that in more than 30 years on the Supreme Court you have never — not once — recused yourself from a case because of a conflict of interest presented by professional political activities of your wife, a prominent Republican strategist who has been involved in some of the most controversial matters to come before the Court,” the March 8 letter states.
The Supreme…