The Supreme Court as composed June 30, 2022 to present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The Supreme Court as composed June 30, 2022 to present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

A series of recent reports have pulled back the curtains on possible ethics violations by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

It started with an investigation by ProPublica that revealed the depth of a relationship between Thomas and a Republican mega-donor. This included decades of lavish gifts and paid vacations – none of which were disclosed.

Then came revelations of undercover real estate deals and continued claims of income from a company that had not existed for years.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern says this fits a pattern of behavior by Thomas, who most recently raised eyebrows when he refused to recuse himself from a January 6th case despite his wife Ginni Thomas’s participation in the “Stop the Steal” rally that day. “This isn’t a conservative problem, this isn’t a liberal problem, this is a Clarence Thomas problem,” Stern tells Diane. He is among a growing number of Court watchers who see this not only as a crisis for Justice Thomas, but for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself.

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