SUPREME COURT JUSTICE THOMAS FACING POSSIBLE IMPEACHMENT

CLARENCE THOMAS WHAT???

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed.
Editor’s Note: In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475 decided last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, Thomas did not recuse himself though he worked as an attorney for Monsanto from the years 1976 – 1979. Thomas apparently did not see this as a conflict of interest.

By Michael Tomasky for the Guardian.co.uk

So we have Palin and Bachmann who don’t care what they say. And what about this guy, who doesn’t seem to care what he does:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife’s income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed.

In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as “none.” Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.

Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law. Thomas’ omission — which could be interpreted as a violation of that law — could lead to some form of penalty, Gillers said.

“It wasn’t a miscalculation; he simply omitted his wife’s source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission,” Gillers said. “It could not have been an oversight.”

Another professor is quoted farther down in the piece saying it’s not really a crime. This lawyer, a Kos diarist, says like hell it isn’t a crime:

While 5 USC app 104 makes this conduct a misdemeanor punishable for up to a year in prison, 18 USC 1001 is, on its face still applicable. Take a look at the indictment against Don Young’s former aide, who is awaiting trial for a violation of 18 USC 1001 for failing to report his World Series Trip if you have doubts.

While there is no doubt an argument to be made that this conduct is just a misdemeanor, take a look at UNITED STATES v. WOODWARD, 469 U.S. 105 (1985) where a person checking the “no” box on a custom form was punished both for the false statement (18 USC 1001) violation and the charge of failing to report the currency itself — all as a result of checking the “no” box.

Obviously, Thomas is not going to be indicted over this. But how could a man – a member of the Supreme Court! – just openly lie on such a form? Lie? Yes, rather obviously. Let’s put it this way. If you or I were filling out a form, and we came to a question about our spouse’s income, and we knew very well that our spouse had income, we would check the appropriate income category. And here is one of the nine leading legal people in the United States. On what conceivable honest basis could he have thought his wife, who got up every morning and went to work every day at one of Washington’s most richly endowed think tanks, had no income? For six years?

I wish we had a satirist, a Balzac, chronicling this age. It is beyond believability.