The revelations about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failing to report financial favors given to him and his family by billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow just keep coming.

Given how central Thomas has been to the right-wing effort to gain ideological dominance of the federal courts—and use that dominance to return the U.S. to a pre-New Deal constitutional order—it’s not surprising that right-wing legal and political groups have rallied around Thomas.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the latest to ignore evidence of Thomas’s repeated lawbreaking and dismiss Pro Publica’s investigative reporting as a “high-tech lynching,” the phrase Thomas used to deflect allegations against him during his confirmation hearing years ago. In fundraising emails this week, Cruz slammed the calls for ethics reform that have spread in response to evidence that Thomas has violated disclosure laws with impunity for many years. Cruz’s emails did not substantively address the apparent repeated violations of disclosure laws by Thomas in ways that hid the scale of financial favors Crow has showered on Thomas and the justice’s right-wing activist wife Ginni; Cruz simply dismissed the well-documented allegations as “baseless.”

Claiming that Thomas is “unable to defend himself from political attacks,” the Cruz email told supporters that there is a way they can help: by sending cash to Cruz’s campaign committee.

Cruz and other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are also the beneficiaries of Crow’s largesse. Crow, a founder of the right-wing anti-tax Club for Growth and a board member of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, refused this week to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with a full list of the gifts and payments he has made to Thomas and his family.

“Clarence Thomas does not belong on the Supreme Court,” People For the American Way President Svante Myrick argued in a recent op ed. People For the American Way has asked its members and activists to sign a petition calling on the Department of Justice to investigate Thomas and hold him accountable.

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is not walking away from the firestorm he lit earlier this week when he declared white nationalists are simply “Americans.” Now, doubling down, the former college football coach has announced a white nationalist is simply a “Trump Republican.”

Tuberville, already under fire for holding up 184 U.S. Armed Forces promotions or appointments, has been promoting white nationalism by claiming he’s just trying to help the military meet its recruiting goals.

NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin asked Senator Tuberville, “Do you want to clarify your comments?”

“The Democrats characterize all MAGA Republicans in the military as white nationalists,” Tuberville incorrectly told her. “Wrong. Okay, we can’t get politics in the military. This has nothing to do with extremists and all that this, you know, my first day here was January 6 had several senators stand up on the Senate floor saying to me we got too many white nationalists, I mean, what the heck is that?”

“We all got different beliefs. You know, I’m a church Christ, Catholics, we got different people. And we all have to make one military. We can’t start distinguishing different types of people. Okay. That’s all I say.”

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That was not all he had to say.

Here’s the rest of the transcript Tsirkin posted:

TSIRKIN: But sir, there are folks with white nationalist beliefs unfortunately in this country, do you believe they should be serving in the military?

TUBERVILLE: We got to define that first. What is a white nationalist?

TSIRKIN: A white nationalist propagates Nazism, a white nationalist could be someone who doesn’t believe that Black and Brown people are equals…

TUBERVILLE: A white nationalist is a nazi?

TSIRKIN: Well that could be one of their beliefs – a white supremacist…

TUBERVILLE: I don’t look at it like that.

TSIRKIN: How do you look at it?

TUBERVILLE: I look at a white nationalist as a as a Trump Republican. That’s what we’re called all the time. A MAGA person and that’s what –

TSIRKIN: Do you agree with that characterization?

TUBERVILLE: We agree that we should not be characterizing Trump supporters as white nationalists.

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TSIRKIN: So what you’re saying is Democrats are painting Trump supporters as white nationalists but that’s not what they are?

TUBERVILLE: Every day. Every day on the floor. The first day after I got here on January 6, that night, and that’s not right. Let’s not get into politics and calling people names. The military is about somebody that is fighting for the security of all of us. I don’t care if you’re Catholic, Baptist, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re all in this together. And so they’re politicizing the military so much. It is ruining our military. Look at look at our our recruiting. We’re getting hammered 15,000 down last year in army this year, one of the branches of military our at quota at this point are recruiting what they want to recruit. Something’s going wrong in our military. So I’ve seen where different leaders have said stuff about me and about our military. They need to worry about building the military. Don’t worry about me and building a military that’s that that protects all of us and our allies. That’s what I’m about.

Late last week Alabama Public Radio station WBHM reported Tubverville had been attacking Democrats, saying in an interview, “Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists or white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda.”

When asked, “Do you believe they should allow white nationalists in the military?” Tuberville replied that Democrats “call them that. I call them Americans.”

The sports website Deadspin Friday looked at Tuberville’s coaching career, and compared it to his role as a U.S. Senator.

“Tommy Tuberville’s claim to fame as a football coach was derived from his silver-tongued salesmanship when it came time to recruit African-American teens, in their homes, and in front of their parents or coaches to his program,” Deadspin’s DJ Dunson wrote. “He peaked at Auburn in the early-to-mid 2000s and then bounced right when Nick Saban’s reign began at Alabama.”

“Tuberville tried to depict himself in a positive light, but the clues were always there that he was a scumbag. Tuberville bounced between jobs after leaving Auburn in 2008 and when he couldn’t cut it in college football anymore, he transitioned to a sector where he could showcase his disdain for Americans while also displaying his stunning lack of intellect — the United States Senate.”

This week MSNBC’s Chris Hayes explained why Sen. Tubverville’s remarks, whitewashing the violence out of white nationalism, is so dangerous.

Watch Hayes below or at this link.

Image via Shutterstock

Mark Pomerantz made clear Friday that he will show up but he’s not going to stay much to Republican House Judiciary Chairman  Jim Jordan.

Pomerantz is one of two former prosecutors for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who investigated Donald Trump under Cyrus Vance’s leadership, but resigned in protest after Alvin Bragg was elected and seemed to have shut down the investigation into Trump’s alleged porn star hush money payoff and alleged alterations of the valuations of his properties.

Chairman Jordan subpoenaed Pomerantz, a subpoena Pomerantz fought on several grounds including Congress has no constitutional authority over a state or local official or their criminal investigation. Many legal experts agree that Jordan is interfering in Bragg’s investigation, and now prosecution, of Trump, who has since been charged by Bragg with 34 felony violations.

Pomerantz has said not only does he strongly believe Donald Trump committed crimes, he strongly believes it would not be hard to convict the ex-president of those crimes. In his resignation letter to Bragg Pomerantz wrote he believed Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and it was “a grave failure of justice” to not prosecute him for them.

But Pomerantz sat down Friday for a closed-door deposition, and in a prepared statement blasted Jordan.

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“I am here because I respect the rule of law. I spent my working life in service to the rule of law, and the rule of law requires a witness to appear for testimony in response to a subpoena. So, I am present as required,” a defiant Pomerantz wrote (see statement below). He may have been referencing that Jordan himself, possibly unlawfully, refused to cooperate with a lawful subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

“What I do not respect is the use of the Committee’s subpoena power to compel me to participate in an act of political theater.”

“This deposition is for show,” he added. “I do not believe for a moment that I am here to assist a genuine effort to enact legislation or conduct legislative ‘oversight.'”

“We are gathered here because Donald Trump’s supporters would like to use these proceedings to attempt to obstruct and undermine the criminal case pending against him, and to harass, intimidate, and discredit anyone who investigates or charges him. Fortunately, I do not have to cooperate with the cynical histrionics that this deposition represents. Although the rule of law compels me to be here, it does not
require that I play a substantive role in your theatrical production. Under the law, I can decline to answer your questions for several reasons.”

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He went on to explain he is required by law to maintain “claims of privilege and confidentiality in order to protect the integrity of the pending prosecution and continuing investigation of Donald Trump.”

He tells Jordan, “the rule of law is best served if the merits of the case against Mr. Trump are litigated before the court that is hearing that case. This is neither the time nor the place for me to answer questions about the investigation or the pending indictment over the objection of the prosecutors. The charges against Mr. Trump should be heard and decided by a judge and a jury before politicians second-guess their merits or the decision to bring them. That’s how our system works. Those who claim that they respect the rule of law should wait for the courts to do their work.”

After explaining additional reasons he is invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, Pomerantz says: “It gives me no joy to invoke my legal rights, but I am glad that the law allows me not to cooperate with this performance of political theater. As an American, I am privileged to have the legal rights that I assert today, and I am hopeful that I live in a country that will continue to respect them.”

CNN’s Annie Grayer posted a copy of Pomerantz’s letter. Read it below or at this link.

Mark Pomerantz opening statement to House Judiciary Committee. He calls the committee’s subpoena to him “political theater” and explains that he is taking the 5th now that formal charges are pending against Trump pic.twitter.com/S8EeY6cr1u

— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) May 12, 2023