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‘GoFundMe’: Experts Say Clarence Thomas Being ‘Sponsored by Billionaires’ Is ‘Bribery’

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Legal experts are stunned once again after the latest ProPublica bombshell investigation into U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. That deep-dive into the Justice’s financial history includes the written remarks of a U.S. Congressman and the head of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, focusing on the Thomas’ secret complaint about his salary and his thinly-veiled request – or, “threat” – to that lawmaker for a pay raise. Shortly after his remarks about his salary, Thomas was showered, for years, with big ticket vacations and other major financial benefits from billionaire conservatives who happen to also want a like-minded jurist on the nation’s highest court.

“I intend to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court,” a January, 2000 letter from former U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) to Justice Thomas reads. “As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted. We must have the proper incentives here, too.”

ProPublica senior editor Jesse Eisinger posted the letter to social media as well.

“In early January 2000,” Propublica’s report published Monday begins, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.”

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“After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.”

“Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told [Congressman Stearns]. If lawmakers didn’t act, ‘one or more justices will leave soon’ — maybe in the next year.”

“At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money,” ProPublica reported. It added, “in the years that followed, as ProPublica has reported, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court.”

Professor of law and former Bush White House ethics chief Richard Painter on Monday declared, “Supreme Court justices make $285,400 a year, a large sum of money for a public official. If he needs more he can resign.”

Justice Thomas’ comments to Congressman Stearm “set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill,” reported ProPublica.

“’His importance as a conservative was paramount,’ Stearns said in a recent interview. ‘We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.’”

While ProPublica calls it “an open question” as to “what led so many people to offer Thomas money and other gifts,” some are calling it something else: “bribery.”

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Writer and attorney Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief at the legal news and commentary website Balls & Strikes, writes: “The new Clarence Thomas story in ProPublica is like the stuff of bad Mafia movies. Just sidling up to a Republican congressman like ‘I love taking away civil rights on the Supreme Court, but I suuuuure wish I could get paid more for doing so.'”

Civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, founder and executive director of Zealous, a nonprofit that trains public defenders, called for some cases Justice Thomas decided to be “relitigated” in response to the ProPublica news.

“Clarence Thomas being allowed to remain on the Supreme Court should rightfully destroy the institution. How we can allow any case where he was a deciding vote not to be relitigated? His votes weren’t just bought. He demanded payment for his votes under threats & duress,” wrote Hechinger.

“Clarence Thomas in quid pro quo bribery,” declared international relations professor Nicholas Grossman. “Not that he was going to vote X on a case and interested parties paid him to vote Y. Rather, as many suspected, it’s that they know he’ll vote Y, and have been paying him off to stay on the Court so he doesn’t resign to pursue wealth.”

“Is it ok for supreme court justices who are deeply in debt to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from political activists,” posited attorney Andrew Fleischman.

Award-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, a Syracuse Law lecturer, observed: “Justice Thomas wanted to get rich AND be a Supreme Court Justice. He found a way. He privatized his jurisprudence to the benefit of Harlan Crow & friends, which was neither ethical nor prudent.”

Constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, founder of the nonprofit Free Speech For People, called for Thomas’ impeachment: “Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached. He has abused his power and must be removed from the Supreme Court.”

Attorney Max Kennerly said, “if Thomas was a judge on any court except SCOTUS, this would be a no-brainer. It’s bribery. He and everyone involved, like Harlan Crow, would be indicted. But we’re supposed to pretend it’s okay because it’s SCOTUS.”

NYU professor of law and MSNBC contributor Melissa Murray wrote, “some of Justice Thomas’s colleagues come from similarly modest backgrounds and were also appointed at young ages . . . and they aren’t (to our knowledge) sponsored by billionaires.”

Professor Murray summed it all up as, “Justice Thomas’s GoFundMe campaign.”

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News

Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

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10 hours ago

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May 13, 2024

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During one of several rants outside the courtroom Monday during his New York trial for alleged criminal business records falsification, election interference, and “hush money,” Donald Trump repeatedly complained falsely that the judge overseeing the case was appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

Trump is well-acquainted with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan was the judge who presided over the trial of Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer, Allan Weisselberg, who was convicted. He also presided over the fraud and money-laundering trial of former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and senior White House counselor Steve Bannon.

“We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly-conflicted,” Trump, nearly yelling, told reporters Monday afternoon. “And he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed, New York judge, he’s appointed.”

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“You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed.”

Trump repeated his baseless claims Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted,” adding, “he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam.”

Trump is incorrect about Judge Merchan’s background: he was not appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

In 2006, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to his first judicial post, to the New York City Family Court. In 2009, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Merchan as Acting Justice to the Supreme Court of New York. Pfau was appointed to her first judicial post by Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

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Trump also appeared to suggest appointed judges are somehow suspect – despite frequently bragging that he himself appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention 234 judges in total he appointed to the federal bench.

Some legal experts believe a system where judges are appointed rather than elected serves justice better.

“The quality of justice suffers when politics invades the judicial sphere, casting doubt on the impartiality of case outcomes and eroding public confidence in our nation’s system of justice,” an article at the American Bar Association reads.

Watch Trump below or at this link.

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‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

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12 hours ago

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May 13, 2024

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Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in damning testimony Monday told jurors about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s fears in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, and what his real concerns were about the bombshell audio that nearly ended his nascent political career.

Cohen revealed that in 2015 when the then-real estate magnate announced he was running for president, Trump told him, “Be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Courthouse News.

Cohen told jurors that in 2016 “he caught wind of the fact that adult film star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story that she had sex with Trump a decade prior. Cohen said that he was concerned about the impact it could have on Trump’s presidential campaign, particularly after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.”

“At this time, Mr. Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Cohen testified, adding that Trump “said to me, ‘This is a disaster.’”

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“‘Women will hate me. Guys, they may think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”

Cohen also revealed from the witness stand that he had asked Trump how his wife, Melania Trump, was taking the news about Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who Trump allegedly paid hush money to then falsified his business records to hide the transactions in an effort to influence the election, according to prosecutors.

“How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,” Trump told Cohen, according to his former attorney.

“He wasn’t thinking about Melania,” Cohen said. “This was all about the campaign.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called that a “Remarkable moment.”

The Daily Mail adds, “Asked if Trump was angry during this frantic period of damage control that could surface the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen said ‘Yes. Because there was a negative story that could impact the campaign as a result of women.’ ”

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

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‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

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3 days ago

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May 10, 2024

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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.

Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.

One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.

“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”

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Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”

“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”

“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”

“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.

In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.

Listen to a short clip below or at this link.

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