Mar 30, 2022 2 min read

In an effort to restore the declining reputation of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett told an audience, “We are not a bunch of partisan hacks.” Chief Justice John Roberts, who is known to be greatly concerned about how the court is seen in the eyes of the public bristled when former President Donald Trump referred to an “Obama judge,” responding, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

If these Justices meant what they said, imagine how disconcerting it must be for them to see the blatant appearance of impropriety that is being engaged in by Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginny, who is not only a dedicated right-wing activist, but one whom we now know was working behind the scenes in an effort to overturn the legitimate result of the 2020 election because she did not like the outcome. Her documented contacts with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and her reference to having been in contact with “Jared” (Kushner) is unseemly, the spouse of one of the most powerful individuals in the country angling to sink our system of elections and with it, our democracy.

The very least one would expect of an honorable Supreme Court Justice in these distasteful circumstances would be to recuse himself from any case which involves the 2020 election and the ensuing insurrection, yet to this point Justice Thomas has not done so. He was the lone dissenter in the case in which the court ruled that Trump must turn over documents relevant to the riot: a clear instance in which there is the appearance of impropriety which any Justice should consider untenable.

As the American people’s trust in their government goes up in flames, we may look to Clarence and Virginia Thomas as two individuals who helped to light the match.

Oren Spiegler

Peters Township