Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with conservative billionaire Harlan Crow is corrupt.
No, there’s no evidence yet Thomas changed his views to fit what his benefactor wants, at least not yet. There is, however, no need to require a quid pro quo to prove corruption under Thomas’ favorite form of legal interpretation: originalism.
“Words have meaning at the time they are written. When we read something that someone else has written, we give the words and phrases used by that person natural meaning in context,” Thomas said at a conference on originalism in 2019.
In the past month, Thomas has been revealed to have hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars in private jet and yacht travel, luxury vacations and lodging, the sale of a family property and the payment of his adopted son’s boarding school tuition, all in connection with Crow. His wife, Ginni Thomas, also reportedly received secret payments from Leonard Leo, the mastermind of the conservative takeover of the court.
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