In the past few weeks, Democrats and their media allies have been engaged in a pressure campaign to force Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a Colorado case that will begin Thursday.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that allowed Trump to be excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot due to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Colorado court cited the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, which bars people from holding office again if they engaged in “insurrection.”
Regarding Thomas hearing the case, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Il.) recently said: “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.”
The Democrat reiterated his argument in a post on X Wednesday: “Given questions surrounding his wife’s involvement, Justice Thomas should recuse himself so there’s no question of bias.”
I’m calling for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself in the 14th Amendment case determining if Donald Trump is ineligible for the 2024 ballot.
Given questions surrounding his wife’s involvement, Justice Thomas should recuse himself so there’s no question of bias.
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) February 7, 2024
Reps Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) have also called for Thomas to recuse himself from Trump-related cases in recent weeks.
Mark Paoletta, a D.C. lawyer who is a close friend of the Thomases, told American Greatness flatly that “there’s no conflict of interest and therefore he [Justice Thomas] has a duty to sit.” Paoletta added that while he does not know what Justice Thomas will do, he expects Justice Thomas to sit, like any other Justice would in this situation.
But the media drumbeat for recusal has gotten louder in recent days with the Washington Post, ABC News, Vanity Fair, the Daily Beast, the Hill, and Politico all running stories advocating for Thomas to step aside.
Meanwhile, mobile billboard sponsored by the far-left group MoveOn, has been seen in the streets of Washington, DC calling on Thomas to recuse himself.
In an article Tuesday headlined “Some want Justice Thomas to skip Trump’s ballot case. He doesn’t plan to,” the Washington Post appeared to come down on the side of recusal.
“Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about Thomas’s ability to remain impartial in this and several other Jan. 6-related cases given the involvement of his wife, Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas, in the movement to overturn the 2020 election results. The ballot disqualification case, which is likely to be decided quickly, is a test of the court’s recently released code of conduct and recusal guidelines,” wrote WaPo researcher Tobi Raji.
The new ethics code asks justices to step aside if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”
Raji noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from two cases involving Harvard University because she had previously served on their board, but acknowledged that “the decision to recuse is up to the individual justice.”
The Post compared Jackson’s previous position with Harvard to Thomas’ wife’s activities surrounding the disputed 2020 election.
“Ginni Thomas pressed the Trump White House and lawmakers to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, exchanging more than two dozen text messages with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after the vote,” the Post wrote. “Thomas also attended the Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally before the Capitol attack.”
Berkeley Judicial Institute executive director Jeremy Fogel told the Post that Thomas “doesn’t necessarily need to recuse,” but added that Ginni Thomas’s involvement “raises the question of whether he can fairly assess the gravity of the conduct that President Trump is accused of.”
The Post also noted that seven Democrat lawmakers sent a letter to Thomas last month urging him to recuse himself from the case, “citing dwindling public confidence in the Supreme Court.”
Berkeley Judicial Institute executive director Jeremy Fogel told Raji that Thomas “doesn’t necessarily need to recuse,” but added that Ginni Thomas’s involvement “raises the question of whether he can fairly assess the gravity of the conduct that President Trump is accused of.”
The Post also contacted Paoletta for comment.
Paoletta told Fox News that he sent the Post a lengthy answer, but it was cut down to: “As there is no basis whatsoever for Justice Thomas to recuse from Trump v. Anderson, Justice Thomas has a duty to sit on this case.”
The lawyer said it’s “not surprising” that the Post used a small portion of his comments while giving “a lot of space to the other side.”
“The Democrats are inventing recusal standards in an effort to shrink the Court to have their preferred Justices decide cases,” Mark Paoletta told Fox.
Paoletta co-authored the book “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” and worked as Thomas’ aide during his 1991 confirmation.
The lawyer, a devoted defender of his good friend, called Clarence Thomas “the greatest living American” and said he should be honored during Black History Month in a recent piece at the Federalist.
My latest op-ed to celebrate Justice Clarence Thomas, an American Hero, during #BlackHistoryMonth https://t.co/Ya6d00dswO
— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) February 5, 2024
Paoletta also served as Ginni Thomas’ lawyer during the Jan. 6 investigation.
“Ginni Thomas’s activities were so minimal that the January 6 Committee did not even mention her once in any hearings or in its 845-page final report,” he told Fox.
The lawyer explained that spouses are allowed to express opinions on matters that may come before the Court, and those opinions do not necessarily constitute an “interest” that requires recusal.
Paoletta cited a 2010 case in which a judge in California refused to recuse from a pivotal case.
“The Democrats’ made-up double standards for recusal are outrageous and hypocritical,” he told Fox. “Their leading judicial ethics experts… filed a brief supporting liberal federal appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s decision to not recuse from an appeal that came before him on a challenge to California’s same-sex marriage ban even though his wife’s ACLU chapter joined two amicus briefs in the district court proceeding, and she publicly opposed the ban he was considering.”
He added: “In contrast to Judge Reinhardt’s wife’s organization filing a brief on the constitutionality of the issue before the court, Ginni Thomas has no connection whatsoever to the issues in this case. There is no basis for Justice Thomas to recuse because of his wife’s views or activities. This is not even a close call,” Paoletta said.
Paoletta provided other examples: “Justice Ginsburg trashed candidate Trump regarding his decision to not release his taxes during 2016 campaign, yet she did not recuse from 2020 case Trump v. Mazars, in which Trump challenged a congressional subpoena to produce his taxes,” he said.
“Given her previous comments, it’s not surprising Ginsburg voted against him. But no one criticized her for not recusing,” Paoletta added. “There was a much stronger case for her to recuse than for Thomas to recuse, yet there were no calls from the left for her recusal.”
Paoletta also pointed out that no one seemed to care that Ginsburg did not recuse herself when her husband’s law firm appeared before the Supreme Court.
Democrats push baseless recusal arguments and “memory-hole” inconvenient cases that don’t help their agenda, Paoletta noted on X, Wednesday.
“Media is all in w/ Democrats’ partisan lawfare agenda to force Justice Thomas to recuse in Trump-related cases,” he wrote.
(Photo of MoveOn mobile billboard by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images)