This afternoon, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced articles of impeachment against two corrupt far-right judicial activists sitting on the Supreme Court: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The articles of impeachment against SCOTUS Justices Thomas and Alito have no chance of passage in the GOP-controlled House.
Moira Warburton and Makini Brice at Reuters, via NewsNation:
(Reuters) – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has introduced articles of impeachment against conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, her office said in a statement on Wednesday.
The effort stands no chance of advancing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. To remove an official through this process, the House must vote to impeach and the Senate then must vote to convict.
Democrats for years have criticized the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, over rulings that advanced causes popular on the right. These have included rolling back abortion rights, expanding gun rights, rejecting race-conscious collegiate admissions and ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts in office in a decision favoring Donald Trump.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X:
Sam Levine and Maya Yang at The Guardian:
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against the conservative US supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Wednesday over the justices’ “pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court”.
The articles of impeachment are unlikely to gain traction in the US House, which is controlled by Republicans. The effort follows calls from two US senators, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden, for the US attorney general to appoint a special counsel to investigate potential criminal violations of federal ethics and tax laws by Thomas.
“Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law. And their refusal to recuse from the specific matters and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis,” Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement.
The articles were supported by seven other Democrats in the House.
Ocasio-Cortez continued: “The unchecked corruption crisis on the supreme court has now spiraled into a constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large.”
Ryan Nobles and Alexandra Marquez at NBC News:
The resolutions were co-sponsored by Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y.
The first charge centers on two controversial flags that were flown outside his homes — an upside-down American flag and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Both flags have each been carried in recent years by members of the "Stop the Steal" movement, whose supporters claim that President Joe Biden did not lawfully win the 2020 presidential election. Alito has said it was his wife's decision to fly the flags.
Alito declined to recuse himself from two Trump-related cases that were pending before the court when the existence of the flags was first reported.
The second charge against Alito appears to refer to Alito's relationship with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who ProPublica reported took Alito on a fishing trip to Alaska that the justice did not disclose in ethics reports. Alito later did not recuse himself from cases involving Singer.
Thomas' impeachment article centers on his “failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information, refusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouse’s legal interest in cases before the court [and] refusal to recuse from matters involving his spouse’s financial interest in cases before the court.”
Thomas' relationship with GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow has been the subject of intense scrutiny for months.
[...]
Thomas has also drawn ire from critics over his wife Ginni Thomas' conservative political activism, particularly her role in former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Arizona.
Summary of the impeachment charges against Alito and Thomas, via Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s Congressional website:
The first impeachment resolution includes the following impeachment articles against Justice Thomas:
- Failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information.
- Refusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouse’s legal interest in cases before the court.
- Refusal to recuse from matters involving his spouse’s financial interest in cases before the court.
The second impeachment resolution includes the following impeachment articles against Justice Alito:
- Refusal to recuse from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party in cases before the court.
- Failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information.
AOC is correct: these two corrupt far-right judicial activists deserve to be impeached and removed from the court for their unethical conduct on the bench.