OAN’s Brooke Mallory
12:15 PM – Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court is being urged by Senate Democrats to step down from his position so that he cannot decide whether or not to prosecute former President Donald Trump for alleged crimes he committed while in office.
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Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other Democrat members of the panel contend that Thomas’s involvement is a conflict of interest because his wife Ginni publicly endorsed Trump’s allegations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
“There are so many unanswered questions about the relationship of the justice and his family with the Trump administration that I think in the interests of justice, he should recuse himself,” Durbin said.
According to Durbin, he is worried that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, to which Trump nominated three justices, may decide to rule that the former president is not subject to prosecution by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis or Special Counsel Jack Smith for the actions he took as president to allegedly obstruct the transition of power in 2021.
Trump’s trial is set to begin on March 4th.
“If we say certain people are above the law, I believe it diminishes values in this country,” Durbin said.
Durbin’s remarks followed Special Counsel Smith’s Monday request for the Supreme Court to quickly review and rule on Trump’s claims.
Since they do not believe that Chief Justice John Roberts would uphold the court’s ethics and recusal rules, Durbin and other Senate Democrats are applying further pressure to Thomas to withdraw from considering Trump’s claim of immunity.
“When they came back with their supposed code of conduct, it didn’t address recusal like we did in the bill that we passed,” Durbin added, referencing the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act.
Trump’s attorneys have been directed by the Supreme Court to reply to Smith’s motion by December 20th.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) expressed grave worries over the possibility of Justice Thomas voting in favor of Trump, due to the justice’s wife’s backing of pro-Trump demonstrators who protested at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Many of the January 6th demonstrators entered the government building after security personnel stood down or allowed them in, as shown in a number of videos that were posted to X, the platform previously known as Twitter.
Another similar instance of demonstrator chaos occurred on October 18th when anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine protesters entered the U.S. Capitol in order to hold up signs, sing, and scream, calling for a cease-fire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
“Your right to peacefully assemble and to demonstrate doesn’t give you the right to breach federal property or private property and things like that it’s why we’re seeing people getting arrested and law enforcement needs to do that. They need to set that perimeter,” said Jeff James, a retired U.S. Secret Service agent who spoke with Fox 5.
According to Blumenthal, the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results “concerns Jan. 6, which involved [Thomas’s] wife.”
“The argument could be made that anyone” on the Supreme Court “with whom [Thomas] has discussed his wife’s involvement” in purported attempts to overturn the election “may have an improper interest,” Blumenthal continued.
Another Judiciary Committee member, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), claimed that Justice Thomas had a conflict of interest and the appearance of one in any case involving Trump’s alleged attempts to “rig the 2020 election.”
“Recusal usually applies when there’s an actual conflict and when there’s an appearance of conflict,” Hirono continued. “I think in Clarence Thomas’s case, it’s both.”
Hirono argued that Thomas ought to have stepped away from other issues as well, such as his decision to delay a lower court order that would have forced Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to appear before a special grand jury in Atlanta regarding attempts to have Georgia’s 2020 election results overturned.
“I think Justice Thomas should have recused himself from some of the other cases that came before him where his wife was very much involved. The fact [is] he didn’t really raise concerns for whether they have a recusal practice that makes any kind of sense,” Hirono maintained.
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