But Wait, There's More!
Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth released this statement following the latest revelations in ProPublica about Justice Thomas’ lavish lifestyle:
“The law is very clear. The Judicial Conference must refer to the Attorney General ‘any individual’ for which there is ‘reasonable cause to believe’ that ‘information required to be reported’ in their disclosure has not been reported. We’re far past ‘reasonable cause’ territory.
“The Conference’s Committee on Financial Disclosure appears complicit in Thomas’ defiance of federal law. It has sat on information about his disclosure omissions for five months — remember, a private plane is not a ‘facility’ exempt from reporting — even as more damning details come out.
“It should not delay any longer in informing the Conference there’s reason to believe Thomas has for years been willfully hiding his reportable gifts and trips.
“But that’s not where the process would end. Once the Conference refers this information to the Attorney General Garland, Garland should appoint a special counsel to investigate and corroborate the number of times Thomas has failed his disclosure obligations. Then Thomas should be fined for each of those omissions, as is allowed under the law.”
(This would be like fining a justice for littering — it’s a tort and not an Article III-prohibited diminishment of his salary.)