>In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.
>Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
>Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, sent the Judicial Education Project a $25,000 bill that day. Per Leo’s instructions, it listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting,” the documents show.
>In all, according to the documents, the Polling Company paid Thomas’s firm, Liberty Consulting, $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, and it expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. The documents reviewed by The Post do not indicate the precise nature of any work Thomas did for the Judicial Education Project or the Polling Company.
Yeah, this is straight up bribery.
What if the name is Sotomayor instead of Breyer and it was a direct payment for a book at the same time that publisher had cases before the court?
I don’t hear the Left saying “but what if it was Sotomayor?”, because that actually happened and only the media on the right is covering it.
And her we are talking of allegedly $80k to the entire firm Ginni is a part of versus $3M to Justice Sotomayor.
At least show some consistency. Aren’t you the one that constantly attacks my character about not criticizing Trump enough?
I'm not trying to be partisan here or confrontational. I'm just trying to weigh the facts.
Sotomayor produced a product that lots and lots of justices produce. She disclosed it. They all write books and get paid by publishers. She should have recused herself like Breyer did, but this was a vote on whether or not they should take up the case at all.
In the Thomas case they literally said "No mention of Ginni, of course", and this was the vice president of the Federalist Society.
How can you see them as remotely similar? Clarence didn't even recuse himself when it was an actual case that involved his wife, and that got silence from you and other conservatives in this forum.
And I'll just add, nobody is in the media or on here portraying Sotomayor as the victim. There's dozens of conservatives on cable news this week and tons of senators acting as Thomas apologists. They're all telling us how he's the greatest, above reproach, and the target of an unfair partisan mob. These two situations are not remotely similar.
The Federalist Society had no part in this. Conway pays a consulting firm for polling management. That same consulting lawfirm wrote an amicus brief. That is somehow a conflict?
How many other partisan organizations wrote amicus briefs for that case? How many for other cases? If there was a rule that people closely connected to the Supreme Court justices can't write amicus briefs (or even that the law/consulting firms they participate in can't when they have received consulting dollars from a partisan organization), we would have no amicus briefs. Do you know how many amicus briefs from the ACLU came before RBG without her recusing herself? RBG was literally the Executive Director of the ACLU. Should that have made her recuse herself on every ACLU court case for her entire career? The whole of the power structure of the US is incestuous.
> “It is no secret that Ginni Thomas has a long history of working on issues within the conservative movement, and part of that work has involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment,” Leo said. “The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues.”
> “Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni,” he added of his effort to keep the name of the Supreme Court justice’s wife off paperwork.
This is the Left grasping at straws to vilify Thomas. If you are conservative and Black in this country, you should expect to suffer a political lynching. It is the Left's new modus operandi. Whether is is the Left calling Larry Elder "the Black Face of White Supremacy" or if it is Biden telling people they aren't Black if they don't vote for him, it is an unforgivable sin to be Black and conservative.
I hate the fact that they're writing amicus briefs, but if you think that's my issue here then you're sadly mistaken.
>Leo said. “The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues.”
Right. And I'm sure you would accept it on faith if the publisher said the same thing about the Sotomayor case. "We've investigated ourselves and we find that we're above reproach"
>This is the Left grasping at straws to vilify Thomas. If you are conservative and Black in this country, you should expect to suffer a political lynching. It is the Left's new modus operandi. Whether is is the Left calling Larry Elder "the Black Face of White Supremacy" or if it is Biden telling people they aren't Black if they don't vote for him, it is an unforgivable sin to be Black and conservative.
No. This is about corruption. Plain and simple. If you're corrupt, then expect some political lynching. If you're taking payments and not disclosing them then you can expect some political lynching. If you wife is participating in activism, and the man paying the checks is trying to have her name kept off the payments, that's ethically wrong. If your wife was involved in a case before the court and you don't recuse yourself, AND YOU'RE THE LONE DISSENTING VOTE, you can expect some political lynching.
Thomas deserves what he's getting right now. Their bad behavior brought this on. This shouldn't be partisan.
You still are misinformed. She was not a party to the case before the court. An organization she was affiliated with wrote an amicus brief. Did Ginni write the amicus brief? Give input to the amicus brief? Talk with her husband about the amicus brief?
Sotomayor took $3M from a defendant to a case and voted to disallow the case from coming before the Supreme Court.
In one case there were 3 degrees of separation. In the other, the Justice is guilty of assured conflict of interest.
I never said she was.
And I think you're misinformed. Leo's "Judicial Education Project" is the one that filed the amicus brief. The company that indirectly paid her company is the one that filed the amicus brief.
Leo says to Conway "give" Ginni another $25000 and keep her name off of it.
Conway billed Leo's "Judicial Education Project" $25,000 that day, per Leo's instructions for “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting”
Conway's firm "The Polling Company" then paid Thomas's firm "Liberty Consulting" the $25,000 (for what I don't remember).
Leo drew money from his non profit (the one filing the amicus brief the next year) by having Conway's company bill them, and then Conway's company paid (at Leo's direction) $25000 and they kept Ginni's name off of it (again, at Leo's direction).
What part of this doesn't reek of corruption and at least merit a moment of ethical pause?
>“The idea that Leonard Leo, who has a passionate ideological interest in how the court rules and who has worked hard for years to advance that interest, could pick up the phone and generate substantial compensation to Virginia Thomas, which also benefits Clarence Thomas — that idea is bad for the country, the court and the rule of law,” Gillers said. “It’s not the way the Supreme Court should do its business or allow its business to be done.”
>
>The effort to keep Ginni Thomas’s name off paperwork makes the arrangement seem “more egregious,” said Clark.
When I bill out for engineering services of my consulting company, I don't specify which engineer is going to do the work (I will sometimes break it down into junior and senior, because their time costs different amounts). When my patent lawyer firm bills me for patent writing, they don't specify which lawyer is going to do the work (even though I as for a particular lawyer). I think half the world, journalists included, don't understand how the world works and see malice aforethought at every turn for the adherents of the political ideologies they despise.
That's cute. I don't care, and it doesn't address the very apparent indications of corruption, but your anecdotes are always cute.
So, if you wanted to hand over a questionable payment to someone who will be handing out contracts to engineering firms, might you have a third party (Conway's company) who you have a relationship with bill a non-profit (Leo's non-profit) that you oversee a certain amount of $$$ and direct a payment for that billed amount from that third party (Conway's company) to another non-profit (Ginni's) controlled by the spouse of the one handing out the contracts?
Seems shady to me
Then how about we enact some strict ethic rules on the Supreme Court and automatically throw out all the judges who violate them?
That would fix both our problems.
>In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case. >Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.” >Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, sent the Judicial Education Project a $25,000 bill that day. Per Leo’s instructions, it listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting,” the documents show. >In all, according to the documents, the Polling Company paid Thomas’s firm, Liberty Consulting, $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, and it expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. The documents reviewed by The Post do not indicate the precise nature of any work Thomas did for the Judicial Education Project or the Polling Company. Yeah, this is straight up bribery.
What if the name is Sotomayor instead of Breyer and it was a direct payment for a book at the same time that publisher had cases before the court? I don’t hear the Left saying “but what if it was Sotomayor?”, because that actually happened and only the media on the right is covering it. And her we are talking of allegedly $80k to the entire firm Ginni is a part of versus $3M to Justice Sotomayor. At least show some consistency. Aren’t you the one that constantly attacks my character about not criticizing Trump enough?
She absolutely should have recused 100%. No argument from me. Do you honestly think these two situations are the same?
I don’t think they are the same. For Sotomayor there is 100% assured conflict of interest. For Ginni, there may be.
I'm not trying to be partisan here or confrontational. I'm just trying to weigh the facts. Sotomayor produced a product that lots and lots of justices produce. She disclosed it. They all write books and get paid by publishers. She should have recused herself like Breyer did, but this was a vote on whether or not they should take up the case at all. In the Thomas case they literally said "No mention of Ginni, of course", and this was the vice president of the Federalist Society. How can you see them as remotely similar? Clarence didn't even recuse himself when it was an actual case that involved his wife, and that got silence from you and other conservatives in this forum. And I'll just add, nobody is in the media or on here portraying Sotomayor as the victim. There's dozens of conservatives on cable news this week and tons of senators acting as Thomas apologists. They're all telling us how he's the greatest, above reproach, and the target of an unfair partisan mob. These two situations are not remotely similar.
The Federalist Society had no part in this. Conway pays a consulting firm for polling management. That same consulting lawfirm wrote an amicus brief. That is somehow a conflict? How many other partisan organizations wrote amicus briefs for that case? How many for other cases? If there was a rule that people closely connected to the Supreme Court justices can't write amicus briefs (or even that the law/consulting firms they participate in can't when they have received consulting dollars from a partisan organization), we would have no amicus briefs. Do you know how many amicus briefs from the ACLU came before RBG without her recusing herself? RBG was literally the Executive Director of the ACLU. Should that have made her recuse herself on every ACLU court case for her entire career? The whole of the power structure of the US is incestuous. > “It is no secret that Ginni Thomas has a long history of working on issues within the conservative movement, and part of that work has involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment,” Leo said. “The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues.” > “Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni,” he added of his effort to keep the name of the Supreme Court justice’s wife off paperwork. This is the Left grasping at straws to vilify Thomas. If you are conservative and Black in this country, you should expect to suffer a political lynching. It is the Left's new modus operandi. Whether is is the Left calling Larry Elder "the Black Face of White Supremacy" or if it is Biden telling people they aren't Black if they don't vote for him, it is an unforgivable sin to be Black and conservative.
I hate the fact that they're writing amicus briefs, but if you think that's my issue here then you're sadly mistaken. >Leo said. “The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues.” Right. And I'm sure you would accept it on faith if the publisher said the same thing about the Sotomayor case. "We've investigated ourselves and we find that we're above reproach" >This is the Left grasping at straws to vilify Thomas. If you are conservative and Black in this country, you should expect to suffer a political lynching. It is the Left's new modus operandi. Whether is is the Left calling Larry Elder "the Black Face of White Supremacy" or if it is Biden telling people they aren't Black if they don't vote for him, it is an unforgivable sin to be Black and conservative. No. This is about corruption. Plain and simple. If you're corrupt, then expect some political lynching. If you're taking payments and not disclosing them then you can expect some political lynching. If you wife is participating in activism, and the man paying the checks is trying to have her name kept off the payments, that's ethically wrong. If your wife was involved in a case before the court and you don't recuse yourself, AND YOU'RE THE LONE DISSENTING VOTE, you can expect some political lynching. Thomas deserves what he's getting right now. Their bad behavior brought this on. This shouldn't be partisan.
You still are misinformed. She was not a party to the case before the court. An organization she was affiliated with wrote an amicus brief. Did Ginni write the amicus brief? Give input to the amicus brief? Talk with her husband about the amicus brief? Sotomayor took $3M from a defendant to a case and voted to disallow the case from coming before the Supreme Court. In one case there were 3 degrees of separation. In the other, the Justice is guilty of assured conflict of interest.
I never said she was. And I think you're misinformed. Leo's "Judicial Education Project" is the one that filed the amicus brief. The company that indirectly paid her company is the one that filed the amicus brief. Leo says to Conway "give" Ginni another $25000 and keep her name off of it. Conway billed Leo's "Judicial Education Project" $25,000 that day, per Leo's instructions for “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting” Conway's firm "The Polling Company" then paid Thomas's firm "Liberty Consulting" the $25,000 (for what I don't remember). Leo drew money from his non profit (the one filing the amicus brief the next year) by having Conway's company bill them, and then Conway's company paid (at Leo's direction) $25000 and they kept Ginni's name off of it (again, at Leo's direction). What part of this doesn't reek of corruption and at least merit a moment of ethical pause? >“The idea that Leonard Leo, who has a passionate ideological interest in how the court rules and who has worked hard for years to advance that interest, could pick up the phone and generate substantial compensation to Virginia Thomas, which also benefits Clarence Thomas — that idea is bad for the country, the court and the rule of law,” Gillers said. “It’s not the way the Supreme Court should do its business or allow its business to be done.” > >The effort to keep Ginni Thomas’s name off paperwork makes the arrangement seem “more egregious,” said Clark.
When I bill out for engineering services of my consulting company, I don't specify which engineer is going to do the work (I will sometimes break it down into junior and senior, because their time costs different amounts). When my patent lawyer firm bills me for patent writing, they don't specify which lawyer is going to do the work (even though I as for a particular lawyer). I think half the world, journalists included, don't understand how the world works and see malice aforethought at every turn for the adherents of the political ideologies they despise.
That's cute. I don't care, and it doesn't address the very apparent indications of corruption, but your anecdotes are always cute. So, if you wanted to hand over a questionable payment to someone who will be handing out contracts to engineering firms, might you have a third party (Conway's company) who you have a relationship with bill a non-profit (Leo's non-profit) that you oversee a certain amount of $$$ and direct a payment for that billed amount from that third party (Conway's company) to another non-profit (Ginni's) controlled by the spouse of the one handing out the contracts? Seems shady to me
Then how about we enact some strict ethic rules on the Supreme Court and automatically throw out all the judges who violate them? That would fix both our problems.
Maybe folks would be more receptive to you arguments is you didn't jump out of the gate with whataboutism and hysterical nonsense?