Justice Thomas’ Ginni Problem

A husband doesn’t control his wife. A man doesn’t control a woman. She is a free, independent human being, capable of, and entitled to, her own ideas, expressions and actions. But when your husband happens to be a Supreme Court justice, particularly one whose views tend toward outlier, what the hell were you thinking?

The disclosure that Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had sent a barrage of text messages to the Trump White House urging efforts to overturn the 2020 election brought into sharp focus the conflict of interest her political activism has created — and the lack of a clear-cut remedy.

It is one thing, experts in legal ethics said on Friday, for the spouse of a Supreme Court justice to express political views, even ones shot through with wild conspiracy theories. That may not by itself require the justice’s recusal from cases touching on those views.

But the text messages from Ms. Thomas, a longtime conservative activist who goes by Ginni, revealed something quite different and deeply troubling, experts said.

I’ll say what Adam Liptak is too polite to say. Ginni Thomas’ texts were batshit crazy. Which would be bad enough in itself, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this woman who would send these texts, believe such insanity, would do so knowing that it would splash all over her “best friend” and husband, Clarence.

Now recall that in January, the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Trump’s request to block the release of White House records relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Mr. Meadows had submitted a brief in the case supporting Mr. Trump. The court’s ruling came as an unsigned order, with only one noted dissent: from Justice Thomas.

Perhaps Justice Thomas was not aware of his wife’s text-message campaign to Mr. Meadows at the time. But it sure makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

And that’s precisely the problem: We shouldn’t have to wonder. The Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial body in the country, and yet, as Alexander Hamilton reminded us, it has neither the sword nor the purse as a means to enforce its rulings. It depends instead on the American people’s acceptance of its legitimacy, which is why the justices must make every possible effort to appear fair, unbiased and beyond reproach.

Jesse Wegman is right on both counts, that it makes you wonder and we shouldn’t have to wonder.

The Supreme Court is not subject to rules of recusal that apply to other federal judges, and for good reason. First, that justices should be reliable enough to know for themselves when recusal is appropriate. Second, separation of powers dictates that no other branch should be in a position to control the Court’s decisions, or who gets to make them, short of impeachment. Third, if there were applicable rules, there would be no place to go to challenge them, as this is the Supreme Court.

But the judicial branch is, as Hamilton said, the least dangerous branch, as its only weapon is integrity. What this means is that it’s not merely actual conflicts of interest, but the appearance of impropriety, that matters. As Jesse says, “we shouldn’t have to wonder.”

This dilemma arises because Ginni Thomas is doing what she, as an American, is entitled to do, be as insanely partisan as she wants to be. For those most part, spouses of people in positions of extreme power, and extreme public scrutiny, tend to be a bit more circumspect in their actions for the sake of not creating problems for their spouse.

It’s not because there is a rule prohibiting them from spewing nonsense or believing in space aliens, but that wonderful combination of sound discretion and not damaging your best friend’s integrity. Ginni Thomas has chosen instead to be as crazy as she wants to be. That’s her right. And that’s covered her husband in controversy, far more so than he does to himself.

It’s unimaginable that Justice Thomas will resign, but Jesse calls on him to recuse himself from cases in which his wife has chosen to be personally embroiled. It’s not as if Justice Thomas isn’t sufficiently controversial on his own, but being covered with his wife’s, his “best friend’s,” dirt takes it way over the top. His fans and supporters will fight this with every disingenuous argument they can muster, but don’t blame Democrats, liberals or progressives for this one. They didn’t do this to Justice Thomas. Ginni did. With “best friends” like this, he doesn’t need enemies.