House Democrats serving on the chamber’s committees covering Oversight and Judiciary have written directly to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas seeking his recusal in matters related to an unfolding criminal case against ex-President Donald Trump that originates with Special Counsel Jack Smith at the federal Justice Department.
The case recently arrived at Thomas’ court, where federal prosecutors were seeking the Justices’ early intervention to more quickly resolve claims from Trump that he holds wide-ranging legal protections associated with his time in office that should stop the proceedings. The charges at issue deal with Trump’s schemes after the last presidential election to stay in power despite losing. Thomas’ court has since denied Smith’s request for early intervention, leaving the controversy to move forward on an expedited basis with D.C.’s federal Court of Appeals. Still, the Democrats’ outreach to Thomas applies to anticipated, future decisions from the court as well.
They pointed, in short, to the involvement by the judge’s wife Ginni Thomas in pushing back on the 2020 election results — the same presidential race outcome that Trump challenged ahead of the charges that lie at issue.
“We know through public reporting and through Congressional investigations that your wife, Virginia (“Ginni”) Thomas was intimately involved in Mr. Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to obstruct its certification – the very conspiracies at issue in this case,” the Democrats wrote to Thomas, adding: “If you want to show the American people that the Supreme Court’s recent Code of Conduct is worth more than the paper it is written on, you must do the honorable thing and recuse yourself from any decisions in the case of United States v. Trump.”
Prosecutors wanted a quicker resolution to Trump’s claims of immunity to keep trial on track. Democrats who signed this letter include Reps. Hank Johnson (Ga.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), Madeleine Dean (Pa.), and others. Read the missive in full here.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
