A sad 93-page Democrat personnel report replete with selfish and misleading information culminated in the Democrats-run Senate Judiciary Committee’s two-year republican assault on traditional Supreme Court justices, particularly Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, on false “ethics” allegations. It was so bad it was issued the day after Congress left area for the year and right before the Christmas corner.  ,
This complete investigation was always about “ethics,” but rather attempted to undermine the Supreme Court because it is no more acting like a left-wing very government dictating thoughts that support the Democrats ‘ political plan.  ,
Justices Thomas and Alito were erroneously charged by the Democrats of breaking ethical standards by not disclosing trips with associates and refraining from cases due to their families ‘ activities. They are incorrect on both works.  ,
Regarding reporting outings with friends, Justices Thomas and Alito complied with the laws, rules, counsel, and decisions of the Judicial Conference. No matter what the officials of this monster hunt, Democrat Sens., they were not required to report these excursions under the specific hospitality provision outlined in the rules. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, state or hope.  ,
Justice Thomas quickly reported these excursions when the Judicial Conference, which was established by law to handle the ethics laws for the national court, changed its rules in March 2023 and exempted trips on private planes and boats from the individual hospitality deduction.  ,
In fact, the Judicial Conference sent a notice to Whitehouse dated January 2, 2025, in a degrading rebuke to his personal fascination with smearing Thomas, rejecting his absurd request that the conference send Thomas to the Department of Justice for analysis. The meeting came to the conclusion that Thomas had followed the rules and had not broken any of them. It furthermore found that where there were accidental errors, Justice Thomas filed amended types, as every fairness and prosecutor has done through the years. In other words, Whitehouse’s silly attempt to slander our greatest fairness was entirely rejected by the Judicial Conference.  ,
Absurd Recusal Claims
Additionally, the staff statement falsely asserts that Justices Thomas and Alito broke the law by refusing to recuse themselves from scenarios involving Jan. 6 and 2021 because of their wives ‘ conduct. However, the law only allows for recusal when a marriage is a party or attorney in a case, has a monetary interest, or if there is a legitimate cause for concern about the judge’s impartiality. None of those factors are present around.
Ginni Thomas was concerned about the 2020 election’s irregularities and scams. She also sent an email to state legislators about worries about election integrity to a friend who was the White House’s chief of staff, and she also sent those worries to a friend. Martha-Ann Alito flew classic British flags at the Alitos ‘ house and summer house, including the ancient Appeal to Heaven flag, which was created during the Revolutionary War interval and has been flown by federal, state, and local governments through the years. Leftist critics made up the false allegation that Mrs. Alito was supporting the J6 defendants because some protesters carried this flag during the Jan. 6 demonstration.  ,
A spouse’s opinion or activity is not a basis for a justice to recuse, and it’s sexist to argue otherwise. When the other foot was in the door, the Democrats and legal ethics experts argued in fact that way.  ,
In a seminal case in 2011, left-wing federal appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt refused to recuse from a case concerning a challenge to California’s state ban on same-sex marriages, even though his wife’s ACLU chapter ( where she was the executive director ) had joined two amicus briefs in the court below arguing that the ban was unconstitutional, and she had publicly denounced the ban.  ,
According to the left-leaning Stephen Gillers, Reinhardt is not presumed to be the reservoir and carrier of his wife’s beliefs, and his wife’s views and actions, however passionately held and discharged, are not imputable to her. … No authority requires a judge to recuse based alone on the opinions of his or her spouse, only an’ outmoded conception of the relationship between spouses’ would hold otherwise”. Judge Reinhardt’s wife’s group had joined two briefs in the case now before him, in stark contrast to Mrs. Thomas and Alito, who did not comment on any particular case in the court system.  ,
Neither Thomas nor Alito had any reason to recuse from any of these cases based on their spouses ‘ activities. Additionally, it is astonishing that the Senate Democrats would criticize justices for recusal matters when Congress is not required to have recusal laws. Durbin and Whitehouse have repeatedly taken official action to help their spouses ‘ clients because they are the only branch of our system that is not subject to these laws.  ,
An Obedient Report
This Democrat staff report is a humiliation in general. I served for 10 years as a chief counsel for oversight and investigations for a major congressional committee, managed nearly 200 investigative hearings, and issued several staff reports. The staff’s response to letters to private citizens had already been covered in the press. The staff’s report here is based on very little independent research itself and heavily relies on subpar work from discredited leftist-funded organizations. It is a disgrace to the professionalism of congressional staff and the institution itself.  ,
For instance, the staff report quotes Justice Thomas accepting$ 4.75 million in gifts despite being completely discredited by the left-wing Fix the Court (FTC ) organization. FTC’s list has scores of trips Justice Thomas never even went on, preposterously values a trip to Indonesia as a$ 500, 000 gift, calculating that Thomas chartered a private yacht for his own personal use, and absurdly values visiting friends at their summer home as a$ 280, 950 gift. This source is a complete garbage dump of false information.  ,
This exposes Whitehouse and Durbin as pure hypocrites who don’t care about ethics. Joe Biden and his family have spent more than 15 vacations visiting billionaires ‘ mansions, but he has never reported them on his health. These billionaires are donors, not friends, and they evict while the Bidens are there.  ,
In fact, while residing in the$ 34 million mansion on Nantucket Island, a billionaire, Joe Biden made the decision to grant his son Hunter his sweeping and unprecedented pardon. Joe Biden hasn’t reported these trips on his forms, but he has spent eight years on a vacation at a mansion in St. Croix Virgin Islands over the Christmas holiday. Whitehouse and Durbin are fine with Biden grifting on billionaire donor homes but are outraged that Justice Thomas visits his friends at their homes and does not disclose it.  ,
Justice Stephen Breyer took more than 230 trips that were paid for by third parties, including 17 trips that were funded by the Democrat Pritzker family, without issue. Never mind that Ruth Bader Ginsburg took more than 157 trips paid for by third parties, 28 of them international. Additionally, RBG was given a$ 1 million gift from the Berggruen Institute, which she secretly distributed to her favorite charities.
Its own scandal center is Fix the Court. Its CEO Gabe Roth reportedly violated federal law by failing to disclose that he was lobbying Congress on certain issues and was recently exposed for being paid a salary equivalent of 96 percent of FTC’s revenues, while running a deficit of nearly$ 46, 000. Some experts think this might be in violation of federal law. Additionally, the FTC was charged with failing to list several trips that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor failed to report. FTC is a sloppy, partisan, noncredible source, but the Democrat staff report relies on its work for its findings.  ,
The staff report cites ProPublica’s dishonest reporting on the justices ‘ trips, despite ProPublica refusing to disclose for months in its reporting that similar allegations about Thomas ‘ travel had already been made in 2011 in a complaint filed by 20 Democrat members of Congress and that the Judicial Conference ruled in 2012 that Thomas had not failed to disclose any necessary information. When ProPublica was forced to write about this ruling, which blew up their entire false narrative that Thomas and Alito had violated the law, these left-wing activists sought to impugn the Democrat and Republican judges on the conference with smears from anonymous sources. Their approach is the same.  ,
The staff report even lists a fictitious yacht trip around the Bahamas that Thomas never took with a friend, which was first falsely reported by ProPublica. The yacht owner’s attorney confirmed to the Senate in a written confirmation that this trip never took place. However, the lazy Democrat staff rehashed ProPublica’s false story, which was based on unnamed anonymous sources, and appeared to have done no work to investigate this issue.  ,
Robert Schenk is reportedly accused of trying to manipulate justices through the Supreme Court Historical Society in a shocking Democrat staff report that even shockingly quotes him. However, Schenk is a fabulist and liar who lost credibility in a Supreme Court ethics hearing in 2022 after being exposed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for completely fabricating a story about a Supreme Court case and for repeatedly lying under oath in a federal trial.  ,
This is merely a classic left tactic and a reflection of the level of dishonesty in this report. Tell a lie, and when it is proven to be false, spread it. Depending on your media allies, you can avoid accountability.  ,
The Judicial Conference, which is made up of 27 federal judges, including the chief justice and the chief judges of every federal circuit, is attacked by the staff report for its 2012 ruling that Justice Thomas complied with the disclosure rules and for its modification of a recently amended rule that required judges to list as a gift staying at a friend’s or family member’s home ( including a sibling or parent ) if that home was held in an LLC solely for tax planning, estate, or security reasons. It was a foolish rule that Whitehouse adopted in response to bullying, and the conference made a wise decision to modify it.  ,
Utter Defeat
The Democrat staff’s claim that the court “allowed a culture of misconduct to metastasize into a full-blown crisis that has caused public opinion of the Court to reach historic lows is false. On the day this report was released, the court’s approval rating of 48 percent is the highest it has been since March 2022, and its disapproval rating of 52 percent is the lowest it has been since March 2022. In stark contrast, Congress has a shockingly low approval rating of 17 percent, with a disapproval rating of 71 percent.  ,
The Democrats ‘ entire assault on the court, and especially on Justices Thomas and Alito, has ended in utter defeat. The Democrats were unable to even pass a vote in the full Senate on their so-called Supreme Court ethics reform bill because they did not pass any “ethics” legislation. They failed to intimidate the court and impose any enforceable code of conduct on it.  ,
The Democrats are now in the minority in the House and Senate, and President Trump is now back in the White House, because of the shameful smearing of the Supreme Court and these honorable justices, who earned their scorn from the American people.
I’m anticipating Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, two of the Supreme Court’s most outstanding justices of all time, to write many more originalist opinions.  ,
Ginni Thomas was a Ginni Thomas’s attorney during the J6 Select Committee investigation, and she traveled with Justice Thomas while she was there.  ,
Mark Paoletta served as a lawyer in the George H. W. Bush White House Counsel’s office and worked on the confirmation of Justice Thomas. During the Trump Administration, he was the General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget. He is working for the Center for Renewing America as a senior fellow.
