Does your employer require you to sign a conflict of interest disclosure, violation of which can lead to your firing? Would your boss be happy to hear that you didn't let him know about how your day job influenced your spouse's earnings? If you've ever (and even if you haven't) had to sit through an ethics lecture, it is pretty clear that there are so no go lines that -- if crossed -- set you up for firing and, potentially, prosecution. This is about one of the clearest issues re ethics and legal issues for any professional in a large organization (Corporate, government, or otherwise): avoid hidden interlinking of your personal and professional interests.
This clarity, however, clearly seems to have escaped at least one Supreme Court Justice who has taken trips funded by Corporate interests, who funded his wife's projects, and who had significant roles in major cases where Justice Thomas provided the/a deciding vote ... and Justice Thomas did not -- contrary to the law -- identify the money going to his wife.
This is all okay, after all ...
Justice Thomas always rules on the side of more corporate influence in our elections.
So this trip to Palm Springs wasn’t a bribe–it was a reward!
Colbert, not surprisingly, provides a dead-panned (yet biting) sarcastic perspective on Thomas' activity.
Colbert begins ...
I have always admired Justice Clarence Thomas. The man is a rock as if he were replaced by a rock, no one would notice.
The very basics of the situation ... if you're not aware:
- Justice Thomas went, courtesy of payments from them, to a secretive enclave funded and organized by the Koch Brothers that involved political organization and fund-raising designed to favor fossil-foolish libertarian interests -- including developing the path toward the Citizens United case which has so fundamentally changed the American political scene.
- Justice Thomas' wife received significant financial compensation from these same interest groups. (Roughly $700,000 ...)
- Justice Thomas failed to disclose the payments to his wife on Federal disclosure forms and misrepresented, it seems, his role/participation in the Koch Brothers' event. The failures to disclose and misrepresentation occurred on forms for which such actions are felony violations with penalties including incarceration if convicted.
- Justice Thomas failed to recuse himself from any of the myriad of cases involving the interests of those at the private Koch Brothers' enclaves .
- If substantiated, these sort of violations have led to the firing and prosecution of Federal employees in the past.
And, I must say, I would expect a security guard escort to the door if I were to do anything like this. Wouldn't you? (Note, while I would hope that my basic ethics would prevent such activity, the real threat of firing and potential prosecution certainly reinforces that 'ethical' tendency/mind set.)
As Common Cause has asks,
the legitimacy of the Supreme Court hinges on the confidence of the American people in the court. How confident are you?
Hat tip to Nikki Willoughby at Common Blog and, of course, a bigger hat tip to all at Common Cause for their efforts to expose and bring attention to Thomas' questionable (and likely) illegal actions. Recent Common Cause President Bob Edgar appeared on Rachel Maddow who commented:
That means at least six times, that we know of, in the two years before the Citizens United decision was handed down, Justice Scalia hob-nobbed with and received payment from some of the corporate leaders in whose favor he would be handing down a very controversial decision in a matter of months.