I’ve written about the ridiculous push on the left calling for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas because his wife Ginni Thomas had an opinion they consider bad about the 2020 election, and that she shared it in texts with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Please bear with me for a moment as I make the bizarre claim. Meadows was asked to investigate some questions about the election that had been raised, according to the texts. She didn’t encourage him to do anything illegal, and she was nowhere near the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. But that hasn’t stopped the left from slandering her and accusing her of trying to overthrow the country.
The second part of the story is that in January, the Supreme Court decided against Trump’s claim of privilege regarding White House messages and emails, 8-1, with Thomas being the one “no” vote. So according to the left’s scenario, Thomas should be impeached because he dared to vote in the case.
Yes, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It didn’t stop people like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), former Sen. Barbara Boxer, and MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan from saying he should be impeached. They’re desperate to find a way to get him out, while Democrats still hold control in Congress. They don’t even care if they’re pushing this insanity while he was in the hospital with an infection. He’s now home and well.
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor of law, agrees with me about how absurd this claim is and has stopped the leftist attempt to press for impeachment.
Turley says that Turley has observed that Turley’s attempt to grab messages having to do with the Jan. 6 election challenge or rally is overbroad. This I can agree with, as neither the rallies nor the challenges are illegal. Nor do they have anything to do with the riot — the alleged point of the Committee’s investigation. Congress leaked these messages to media and Ginni was the target of the hate speech. The purpose of this whole operation is to attack Republicans, not truth and illegality.
Turley points out first that conflicts rules within the Code of Judicial Conduct were not mandated or required by Congress. They are viewed as discretionary and therefore, by the court. Second, there wasn’t anything that Ginni Thomas did that put her in “legal peril,” he noted, and it wasn’t clear that there was any kind of a violation of that conflict rule, to begin with. Before the case was settled, Meadows had handed over the incriminating messages to the Jan.6 Committee. So, Thomas’ decision effectively had nothing whatever to do with the messages in question. Finally, even if there had been an “appearance” of a conflict (and there wasn’t), such a thing still wouldn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
Turley also makes another great point that we’ve made before about the Democrats’ hypocrisy over questions about the election. He noted how Boxer had been behind organizing a challenge to the certification of George W. Bush’s victory in January 2005, and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Democrats were supportive. They claimed Bush stole the election.
Boxer was praised by many today who have condemned the challenge. Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Boxer’s challenge as “witnessing Democracy at work. This isn’t as some of our Republican colleagues have referred to it, sadly, as frivolous. This debate is fundamental to our democracy.”
That act so “fundamental to our democracy” is now being cited as evidence that Ginni Thomas is potentially liable for her advocacy with the White House. These messages do not support such a liability. These messages, absent additional evidence that has not been leaked, show that the spouse of a judge engaged in protected speech.
Of course, none of this matters. Women’s March Executive Director Rachel O’ Leary Carmona who called for impeachment and declared that “the revelations that Ginni Thomas advocated for the overthrow of our democracy are disqualifying — not just for her … but for her husband. He is hopelessly compromised, conflicted and corrupt, and he must be impeached immediately.”
Turley points out that they have been attacking Ginni Thomas because of the same thing Democrats did in the past. Can we also talk about the Democrats’ involvement in casting doubt on the 2016 election for the past several years?
Moreover, even if Ginni Thomas had done something, she’s a separate entity from her husband. What does it say about the Democrats, that they don’t seem to think so? They think that her husband is somehow responsible for what she did.
While the calls to impeach Justice Thomas seem absurd, there’s nothing funny about the impending impeachment frenzy. It is possible for people with good faith to disagree over the fact that Thomas must withdraw from certain cases related to Commission. These grounds could lead to Thomas being impeached. However, all justices would be at risk of political motivated impeachments if Congress majorities change. This is exactly what our Constitution forbids.
I would further note that these are the same Democrats who continually say “Hunter Biden is not in government,” so what potential conflicts/crimes he might be involved in don’t matter, but who are now saying that Ginni Thomas’ political opinion is now something to nail her husband with. Talk about hypocrisy.
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