One of the details that emerged in the ongoing case regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol was the involvement of the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice. A group of congressional Democrats is now asking Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases related to the insurrection following the involvement of his wife Ginni Thomas.
The Washington Post reports that a group of Democratic lawmakers from Congress penned a letter addressed to the Supreme Court, calling for Thomas to recuse himself from cases related to Jan. 6 moving forward. The lawmakers also called for Thomas to provide a written explanation as to why he did not recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases.
This followed the revelation that Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, repeatedly pushed for Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to help twice-impeached, now-former President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 elections and stay in power.
“Given the recent disclosures about Ms. Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election and her specific communications with White House officials about doing so, Justice Thomas’s participation in cases involving the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack is exceedingly difficult to reconcile with federal ethics requirements,” said the letter.
The letter also called for Chief Justice John Roberts to establish a binding code of conduct for justices that would include enforceable provisions and require justices to write recusal decisions by April 28. This would be in response to ethics violations within the Supreme Court, which also included Thomas’s failure to disclose his wife’s income from the Heritage Foundation.
The involvement of Thomas and his wife regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection was described by MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell, who was also a Senate aide, as “the most important story about a Supreme Court justice” in the high court’s history. O’Donnell also said that no Supreme Court Justice has gone to the extent of what Thomas has done in history.
O’Donnell also noted that Thomas participated in cases related to the Capitol insurrection despite federal law dictating that no Supreme Court justice or federal judge can participate in a case that might bring their impartiality into question. O’Donnell also noted that Thomas was the lone dissent on the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Jan. 6 records from the Trump White House are to be turned over to the congressional committee.