20 DEM REPS: DOJ Should INVESTIGATE Clarence Thomas [View All]

[Segami]

:applause: :popcorn: :applause: :popcorn:



" Twenty Democratic members of Congress- including Connecticut Fifth District Congressman Chris Murphy- wrote federal judicial authorities on Sept. 29 to request a formal Justice Department probe of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose junkets, other gifts and income.



A coalition of both black and white Democrats told the Judicial Conference of the United States that it is required by law to seek a Justice Department investigation of the new allegations against Thomas and his wife, Republican political activist Virginia Lamp Thomas. Most of the allegations became public this year. They involve claims of undisclosed gifts, junkets, vast income and other conflicts, along with justice’s failure to report his wife’s earnings on annual judicial disclosure forms that he signed under oath. “Due to the simplicity of the disclosure requirements, along with Justice Thomas’s high level of legal training and experience,” said the congressional letter to judicial conference secretary James C. Duff, “it is reasonable to infer that his failure to disclose his wife’s income for two decades was willful, and the Judicial Conference has a non-discretionary duty to refer this case to the Department of Justice.”



To be sure, the 20 signatures are relatively few from a 435-member, Republican-run House. Still, the letter marks a significant step in justifying a criminal probe for what Thomas defenders and the nation’s oft-timid watchdog institutions trivialize as either oversights by a busy public servant or else potential “ethics” issues that have scant remedy as a practical matter. I observed the start of the Thomas era first-hand by attending his 1991 confirmation hearings. The hearings reached a dramatic point 20 years ago in early October as Thomas faced sexual harassment claims by law professor Anita Hill. She was the fellow Yale Law School graduate who had been a Thomas subordinate at two different federal agencies during the early 1980s.



In February of this year, I hosted Common Cause Vice President Mary Boyle on my “MTL Washington Update” radio show just after her group disclosed that Thomas had been hiding his wife’s income. Last week, our radio audience heard also from retired federal judge Lillian McEwen, a former Thomas lover from the early 1980s and author of the compelling memoir, DC Unmasked and Undressed, published earlier this year. She said — based on Thomas telling her about “Long Dong Silver,” among other shared experiences — that he apparently perjured himself during his confirmation hearings when he denied under oath that same kind of pornography use that Hill had described him mentioning.


cont'


http://ctwatchdog.com/2011/09/30/20-dem-reps-doj-should-investigate-clarence-thomas


.