<
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/harlan-crow-school-payments-insult-injury.html>
"In 1969, Justice Abe Fortas resigned his seat at the Supreme Court for
accepting $15,000 in exchange for a series of paid lectures at American
University. Part of the Fortas scandal also involved news of him accepting a
stipend for doing legal work for a very rich friend (money he had actually
returned when the benefactor was indicted and before the outcry).
None of Fortas’ colleagues defended him for this. No one blamed the press or
even the Nixon administration (which very much orchestrated the ouster). It was
widely understood that Fortas had done something that undermined the public
legitimacy and independence of the court and that he had to go.
Over the past few weeks we have learned that Justice Clarence Thomas took
multiple luxury vacations, valued in millions of dollars, over many years, paid
for by Harlan Crow, a billionaire GOP donor who has business before the court.
We know that Crow had also contributed the $500,000 seed money that became
Ginni Thomas’ Liberty Central, which paid her salary. We also know that Crow
purchased the home in which Thomas’ mother currently resides rent-free. And
late last week, we learned that Crow paid years’ worth of private school
tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew, Mark Martin, of whom Thomas had legal custody
and whom Thomas was, as he put it, “raising as a son.” Thomas knew that such
gifts needed to be disclosed because he did so with another tuition payment
gifted to Martin in 2002. But he did not report the tuition Crow paid.
Last Thursday, we also learned that in January 2012, Leonard Leo arranged to
have Ginni Thomas paid $25,000 for consulting work through Kellyanne Conway’s
polling company. The funds came from the Judicial Education Project, a dark
money group that listed its address as a UPS Store in Georgetown. Leo’s
instruction to Conway asked her to funnel the cash to Ginni, and took care to
note that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.” A few
short months later, the Judicial Education Project filed an amicus brief in
Shelby County v. Holder, arguing for the dismantlement of the Voting Rights
Act.
Shelby County was a 5–4 decision, with Thomas in the majority."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
