Democratic lawmakers are calling out Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas after new revelations from ProPublica that he’s taken at least 38 luxury trips paid for by wealthy benefactors.
Some say the case illustrates the need for ethics reform on the Supreme Court.
“This is a shameless lifestyle underwritten for years by a gaggle of fawning billionaires,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter. “Justices Thomas and [Samuel] Alito have made it clear that they’re oblivious to the embarrassment they’ve visited on the highest court in the land.”
He said that if the court wouldn’t reform itself, Congress should step in and do it for them.
But other lawmakers went even further, calling for Thomas to step down.
“Thomas takes cash bribes while crushing your freedoms,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) wrote on Twitter. “He’s corrupt as hell and should resign today.”
Others also called on him to pack up his robes:
Thomas once bragged that when it came to travel, he preferred Walmart parking lots ― where budget RV travelers often gather ― and “seeing the regular parts of the United States.”
“I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that,” he said in a documentary financed by one of his travel benefactors, according to Slate.
But earlier this year, it was revealed that Thomas enjoyed luxury travel paid for by Republican donor and Dallas billionaire Harlan Crow, and the new report shows he enjoyed dozens of other trips paid for by a number of members of the ultra-elite.
The Thomas scandal has led to growing call for ethics reform of the court ― but at least one justice has bristled publicly at the notion of Congress stepping in.
“No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court,” Associate Justice Samuel Alito FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE NEWS