McConnell Defends Supreme Court amid Calls for Clarence Thomas Probe
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In his first week back after sustaining a fall last month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) defended the Supreme Court’s independence amid calls from Democrats for new ethics rules as well as an investigation into Justice Clarence Thomas’s financial dealings.
Since the release of the draft opinion in the Dobbs case, which overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats have intensified their attacks on the third branch, criticizing recent opinions and supporting demonstrations against the justices. Earlier this month, it came to light that Senate Democrats wanted to make funding for next year’s Supreme Court term conditional on the creation of an ethics code.
Democrats have now zeroed in on reports from ProPublica that allege Justice Clarence Thomas did not disclose gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow as well as real-estate deals between the two. Responding to the first article, Thomas explained in a statement that he has complied with disclosure guidelines throughout his tenure and he intends to continue to comply with new guidelines that were announced last month. But this statement has not mollified Democrats, who have intensified calls for an ethics code and even an investigation into Thomas. The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to hold a hearing on the matter.
Asked to weigh in during a press conference on Tuesday, McConnell explained he has confidence the Supreme Court can deal with any ethical issues internally.
“I have total confidence in the Chief Justice of the United States to deal with these internal court issues,” McConnell said.
The Senate minority leader also stressed that challenging the judiciary’s independence is not a new approach for Democrats.
“The Supreme Court and the court system is a whole separate part of our Constitution and the Democrats it seems to me spent a lot of time criticizing individual members of the court and going after the Court as an institution,” McConnell said. “For example, my counterpart went over in front of the Supreme Court and called out two of the Supreme Court justices by name, and actually threatened them with some kind of reprisal, I don’t know what kind, if they rule the wrong way in a case that he cared about.”
The Supreme Court asked Congress for a budget increase earlier this year to cover higher security expenditures. Threats against the Court have increased since the Dobbs decision, with frequent protests outside the Court as well as outside the homes of the justices. Additionally, an individual was arrested for planning to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Republican senators on the Judiciary committee grilled Attorney General Merrick Garland in March on why he had failed to bring forward a single prosecution in connection with these protests, which are criminalized under statute, but Garland dodged the question. McConnell brought up Garland’s public response to the protests Tuesday, saying: “The attorney general seemed to be largely unconcerned with security issues around the homes of Supreme Court members.”
Crow, who is at center of the Thomas controversy, recently gave an interview to the Dallas Morning News in which he defended his friendship with Thomas and rejected the ProPublica allegations.
“I don’t think the media cares really much about Harlan Crow, and I think they’re right. They shouldn’t care much about Harlan Crow,” he said. “But I think that the media, and this ProPublica group in particular, funded by leftists, has an agenda to destabilize the Court. What they’ve done is not truthful. It lacks integrity. They’ve done a pretty good job in the last week or two of unfairly slamming me and more importantly than that, unfairly slamming Justice Thomas.”
“It’s a political hit job,” Crow explained.
