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Defund the Supreme Court: legal analyst poses solution to ethics problems
Sarah K. Burris
August 31, 2023, 7:19 PM ET

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (Photo by Preston Keres/USDA)

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' drama continued to unfold as he announced Thursday that he "forgot" to disclose two of his trips from a GOP megadonor. Now, one legal analyst has found a solution.

Speaking to Dr. Jason Johnson, in for Ari Melber, "The Nation's" Elie Mystal devised a solution: defund the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts has been criticized for refusing to curb the problem by setting strict standards or penalties for filing disclosures. He also refused to speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the matter when called.

The two men discussed a video in which Clarence Thomas talked about his favorite vacations -- the ones where he goes RVing around from Walmart to Walmart.

"The RV that Thomas was in in that video was paid for by a Republican donor," quipped Mystal. "Of course that means the public has less confidence, but from where I sit, that confidence is still too high. The Supreme Court is at 40 percent approval rating. That should be in the 20s. That should be the lowest historically ever, because if you have these people who are not only lying about where they're getting their money from. But [they] are specifically getting their money from people who have an interest in things going on at the Supreme Court. It doesn't just matter if, like, they're the name on the RV in the document."

He noted that this term the Supreme Court will decide whether corporate taxation is governed by the 16th Amendment. It's an issue that all large donors would likely have an interest in.

"You think Harlan Crow doesn't have an opinion on that?" Mystal asked. "Where do you think Crow's been spending his money this summer talking to Clarence Thomas about it? The other big issue here is one of Thomas' things, I think you mentioned, is that he needed to do this for private security. The security in the upcoming budget has requested $783 million in extra security funds because people have noticed how ridiculous they are, right? So if Thomas is saying he needs to take private planes to have increased security. My question, so Thomas, can we have that money back then? Because surely $783 million, we can use that money to provide, I don't know, student debt relief to people who don't have rich Republican donors buying their mother's house and paying tuition for their secret sons, right?"

He noted that perhaps if Crow is willing to do it for Thomas, he might be able to extend the same courtesy to other justices, "and not just his pets."

At some point, he said, the public, which is paying for the Supreme Court, "need to demand that money back if they can engross themselves through Republican donors. And again, that comes back to Congress and that comes back to Congress pulling their funding until the Supreme Court submits to basic ethics reform."


See the full conversation in the video below or at the link here.