Clarence Thomas must resign

In order to preserve the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas must resign. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington today sent a letter to Thomas calling on him to resign and outlining why his resignation is a necessity.

“This is not something we do lightly,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said. “This is a place we never wanted to be, but it has become clear that Justice Thomas likely violated civil and criminal laws and has created the impression that access to and influence over Supreme Court justices is for sale. A trusted Supreme Court is crucial to democracy, and Justice Thomas’s repeated ethical failings risk irreparably damaging the public’s trust in the Court.”

Despite Thomas’s legal requirement to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from billionaire Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, for decades Thomas accepted and did not disclose luxury vacations and private flights. Thomas accepted and did not disclose that Crow paid for his grandnephew to attend private boarding school. He did not disclose his family’s sale of three properties to Crow, nor the fact that Crow reportedly allowed his mother to live in one of the properties rent-free. He even failed to recuse himself from a case in which Crow had a financial interest despite his significant financial entanglement with Crow.

Thomas also consistently failed to recuse from cases in which his spouse had a potential financial or personal interest. He was the only dissent from the Court’s decision to reject President Trump’s attempt to block the release to Congress of January 6th White House documents—documents that could have included communications to and from his wife.

“We know of no other modern justice who has engaged in such extreme misconduct,” Bookbinder said. “Justice Thomas’s actions are so far beyond what most would consider acceptable, that by continuing to sit on the highest court in the land, Thomas does nothing but further diminish the Court’s credibility.”