A judge appointed by Donald Trump has spoken out about recent media attacks on Judge Clarence Thomas and has criticized the “potshots” taken at the Supreme Court.
Judge Amul Thapar, a judge of the Cincinnati Federal Court of Appeals, dismissed allegations that one of America’s leading legal minds had acted improperly after failing to disclose allegedly lavish gifts from a billionaire’s friend.
Judges are just like any other human being. We have a diverse group of friends and those friends don’t influence the way we do our jobs,” Thapar said in an interview with CNN.
Thapar promoted a new book that analyzes the rulings of Clarence Thomas during his time as Supreme Court justice
The 54-year-old lawyer made his remarks during a PR blitz for his new book about Thomas ‘The People’s Justice’.
Liberal critics accuse the 75-year-old of an overly rigid approach to constitutional interpretation that spawns his conservative pronouncements on abortion and gun rights.
But Thapar said there is no evidence that Thomas’ ties to Dallas real estate mogul Harlan Crow had influenced his decisions.
“You can judge their works and what they do by what they’ve done in the past,” he said. “And if it’s consistent, then it’s hard to say anything influenced them.”
He added that it was “disheartening to see people who know better trying weed in court.”
Thapar writes in his new book that “by bungling or misrepresenting his opinions, Judge Thomas’s critics argue that his originality favors the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, and corporations over consumers.
“They have called Judge Thomas ‘the cruellest justice,’ ‘stupid,’ and even an ‘Uncle Tom’, a traitor to his race.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has gone on weekly vacations with real estate mogul Harlan Crow, including on an adventure to Indonesia aboard a mega yacht and private jet. He issued a response citing a “personal hospitality” exception to the gift rules
Crow called Thomas a dear friend and got to know him after he joined the Supreme Court. Crow is a real estate mogul from Dallas
Clarence Thomas has faced more criticism in recent weeks after it emerged that he failed to explain the hospitality of his wealthy friend Harlan Crow.
He had boarded the billionaire’s superyacht to Indonesia, New Zealand and Greece and used his private jet for free.
The 74-year-old also took vacations at Harlan Crow’s country lodge in New York’s Adirondack Park.
The retreat offers boating and fishing opportunities and features exotic furnishings
Crow also paid the expensive private tuition of a grandnephew of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which the judge did not explain.
A July 2009 bank statement showed that Crow’s company paid a $6,000 monthly bill for a boarding school where Mark Martin lived.
Thomas had legal custody of the teen at the time.
In April, he released a rare statement noting that he and his wife had been friends with Crow for over twenty-five years.
“As friends do, in the more than a quarter of a century we’ve known them, we’ve taken them on a number of family outings,” Thomas wrote.
He said he followed the advice of others in deciding what required disclosure under official guidelines and that Crow himself had no cases in court.
The real estate mogul has made more than $10 million in donations to Republican political groups.
He also donated half a million dollars to a conservative lobby group founded by Ginni Thomas.
The woman justice has issued her own criticism for supporting Donald Trump’s bid to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Billionaire Harlan Crow helped pay tuition for a relative of Clarence Thomas. This included help for the $6,000 a month Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia
The retreat offers boating and fishing opportunities and features exotic furnishings
Supreme Court guidelines have since tightened, and now judges are required to declare gifts and free property stays.
But there’s nothing in the past that would have prevented a member of the nation’s highest court from unveiling lavish travel gifts.
The Ethics and Government Act of 1978 requires judges to file an annual disclosure form when required to disclose gifts, but makes exceptions for “personal hospitality.”
A judiciary policy guide references the exception, but the language states that it does not apply to travel that replaces commercial transportation — which appears to include luxury jet or yacht travel.
“The exemption for reporting personal hospitality gifts applies only to food, lodging or entertainment and is intended to cover such gifts of a personal, non-business nature,” the guide said.
“Therefore, the reporting exemption does not include gifts other than food, lodging or entertainment, such as transportation in lieu of commercial transportation,” it says.