“Clarence Thomas should resign,” she wrote on Twitter. “If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.”
Ocasio-Cortez is just the latest in several Democratic lawmakers and legal experts to tighten ethical scrutiny of Thomas following explosive reports last week that exposed his wife’s aggressive efforts to help overturn former President Trump’s electoral defeat.
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Those discoveries raised new questions about the justice’s denial to step aside from related cases before the Supreme Court, including at least 10 rulings concerning the 2020 presidential election, without indicating him recusing.
The ruling that has drawn the sharpest criticism came in January, when Thomas was the only justice who disagreed in an 8-1 ruling that cleared the way for House investigators examining the January 6, 2021 insurrection to receive Trump-era White House records.
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His vote brought renewed attention last week after it was reported that, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, exchanged dozens of text messages with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that appeared to show her strategizing over how to avoid the will of American voters to install Trump for a second White House term despite his loss to President Biden, an outcome she described as an “obvious fraud” and “the greatest heist of our history.”
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The disclosures have provoked growing calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from future cases involving disputes over the 2020 election and January 6 insurrection. Others, like Ocasio-Cortez, have gone further in calling for Thomas to leave or be forced off the bench through impeachment.
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Supreme Court justices — unlike judges on lower federal courts — are not bound by a code of conduct and are permitted to decide for themselves whether recusal is appropriate.
The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Dick Durbin, is calling on Thomas to recuse himself from January 6-related cases following reports that Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, had exchanged texts with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, prompting him to attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results.
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Durbin said Monday that the development “raises a serious question about conflict of interest for Justice Thomas.”
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“To think that he would consider a case where his wife is frequently contacting the chief of staff for the President and giving advice on matters that are going to be ultimately litigated by the court,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “For the good of the court, I think he should recuse himself from those cases.”
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