Federalist Rips Mayer’s ‘Malicious Smears’ of Ginni & Clarence Thomas

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has opinions on the current controversies and is a spokesperson for Clarence Thomas. The New YorkerJane Mayer, a spokesman for Clarence Thomas believes Clarence Thomas should be excused from many rulings. This includes the affirmative action cases the Court has announced it will hear. Attorney Mark Poaletta attacked Mayer’s nasty piece at The Federalist and denounced its “malicious gossips.”

Mayer appeared with MSNBC Deadline for White House Monday afternoon, host Nicolle will discuss the brutal article. Ginni Thomas is a threat to the Supreme CourtWallace said, “I’d like to first ask her about her propensity in writing things down, and how brave she appears to be when she puts her hand over problems that could easily land in front her husband at the bench.”

Mayer claimed that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a member of the ACLU, even though she did not join the Court.

…it’s an extraordinary situation. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything quite like it in the history of the Supreme Court. You have the wife of one of justices who is so tangled up in so many of these explosive issues that are right before her husband’s Court and she’s not just tangled up, but she’s actually aligned herself with the activists who are bringing the suits in many, many different ways that I lay out in the story but, I mean, and for instance this, you know, the first example you gave today, it’s, it’s just kind of mind boggling, really.

In his Federalist piece, Poaletta blasted: “Mayer’s article…is full of falsehoods and distortions, consistent with the malicious and error-filled book she co-authored in 1994, ‘Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas.’” He hammered her obvious partisan sniping: “Weaving together a mishmash of facts, conspiracies, and comments from dial-them-up liberal judicial ethics ‘experts,’ Mayer argues that Ginni Thomas’ political activities and public comments on issues that come before the court require Justice Thomas to recuse himself from those cases.”

Crying scandal on MSNBC over the fact that Ginni Thomas has opinions on controversial issues, Mayer declared: “Ginni Thomas is on the advisory committee of a group called The National Association of Scholars, it has filed an amicus brief in this case that the Court took up today that’s going to challenge the affirmative action policies of Harvard University and University of North Carolina, it’s an incredibly important case and there’s the wife of the Supreme Court justice on one of the organizations that’s involved in it, on taking one a side.”

As Poaletta called out, Mayer made her true left-wing political motivation clear as she ranted to Wallace: “…any other court, any lower court and, this, she, either the judge would have to recuse or the amicus brief would be struck….I mean it’s, it’s, it’s just not the kind of behavior that is allowed in this country except at the Supreme Court, which polices its own ethics so there’s no way to do anything about it unless you’re going to impeach a justice…”

Poaletta didn’t buy it.

Mayer is not concerned about the ethics of judicial conduct. She wants Ginni Thomas to be the only one who has to cease her political activities or Justice Thomas to withdraw from it. She invents a new “recusal” standard that liberal judges don’t follow and misrepresents what other judges in fact do in facing the same situation as the Thomases. Call it Jane Mayer’s version of feminism in 2022: conservative women can’t speak out on issues when their husbands are judges.

He pointed out several other falsehoods in Mayer’s poor reporting, such as this one:

Mayer claims, in one instance, that Justice Thomas went to Impact Awards’ luncheon. Ginni Tom was the host of the luncheon where conservative leaders were awarded awards. Mayer writes that a guest at the luncheon, Jerry Johnson, who was then the president of the National Religious Broadcasters, “later recalled that the Justice sat in front of him and was a ‘happy warrior,’ pleased to be watching his wife ‘running the show.’”

Mayer’s claim is 100 percent false. Justice Thomas wasn’t at the Impact Award ceremony. Justice Thomas has never been to an Impact Award luncheon. Johnson told me Justice Thomas wasn’t at the luncheon when I spoke to him. Johnson said to me that Johnson and Mayer never tried to reach him, to see if Justice Thomas attended the event.

Wallace did not press Mayer regarding any of those matters because MSNBC has the sole job to echo the far right.

This segment was sponsored and produced by Qunol. 

This transcript is for the Jan 24th show.

MSNBC Deadline for White House

1/24/2022

4:00 PM ET

NICOLLE WALLACE: I want to dive in right in, I’m going to drive the control room crazy and go all out of order, but I, I want to ask you first about how prolific she is in putting things on paper, how brazen she seems to be in putting her hands all over issues that could very easily end up in front of her husband on the bench.

JANE MAYER: Thanks Nicolle, it’s great to be able to join you. It’s, it’s an extraordinary situation. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything quite like it in the history of the Supreme Court. You have the wife of one of justices who is so tangled up in so many of these explosive issues that are right before her husband’s Court and she’s not just tangled up, but she’s actually aligned herself with the activists who are bringing the suits in many, many different ways that I lay out in the story but, I mean, and for instance this, you know, the first example you gave today, it’s, it’s just kind of mind boggling, really. Ginni Thomas is on the advisory committee of a group called The National Association of Scholars, it has filed an amicus brief in this case that the Court took up today that’s going to challenge the affirmative action policies of Harvard University and University of North Carolina, it’s an incredibly important case and there’s the wife of the Supreme Court justice on one of the organizations that’s involved in it, on taking one a side. 

Now, any other court, any lower court and, this, she, either the judge would have to recuse or the amicus brief would be struck or there would just be a basically an outcry and, and she would have to back off. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s just not the kind of behavior that is allowed in this country except at the Supreme Court which polices its own ethics so there’s no way to do anything about it unless you’re going to impeach a justice which is really something that’s not even been attempted since 1804. So, I don’t think we’re likely to see that but it’s, it’s an incredible and at a time when all the polls show esteem for the Court, the Supreme Court is at an all-time low because many Americans think it is too politicized and they think so for reasons like this, that the Supreme Court justice’s wife is involved with all of these extreme groups. 

WALLACE: And it’s not like anyone suggesting that both people in a marriage can’t have careers in politics or activism but she’s is all over as you have reported out, the fringiest elements on the right.