{"id":187466,"date":"2011-06-20T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T01:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/06\/20\/fortas-was-forced-to-resign-for-less-than-thomas-did\/"},"modified":"2011-06-20T20:22:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T01:22:00","slug":"fortas-was-forced-to-resign-for-less-than-thomas-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/06\/20\/fortas-was-forced-to-resign-for-less-than-thomas-did\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortas Was Forced to Resign for Less Than Thomas Did"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of course, the Nixon justice department was willing to threaten to file a bogus prosecution against his wife to grease the skids, but Clarence Thomas relationship with right wing real-estate developer<\/a>, who bankrolled his charities and his wife’s lobbying job:<\/p>\n

Clarence Thomas was here promoting his memoir a few years ago when he bumped into Algernon Varn, whose grandfather once ran a seafood cannery that employed Justice Thomas\u2019s mother as a crab picker.<\/p>\n

Mr. Varn lived at the old cannery site, a collection of crumbling buildings on a salt marsh just down the road from a sign heralding this remote coastal community outside Savannah as Justice Thomas\u2019s birthplace. The justice asked about plans for the property, and Mr. Varn said he hoped it could be preserved.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Clarence said, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve got a friend I\u2019m going to put you in touch with,\u2019 \u201d Mr. Varn recalled, adding that he was later told by others not to identify the friend.<\/p>\n

The publicity-shy friend turned out to be Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas\u2019s. <\/p>\n

The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Ms. Thomas to start a Tea Party-related group. They have also spent time together at gatherings of prominent Republicans and businesspeople at Mr. Crow\u2019s Adirondacks estate and his camp in East Texas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So he paid Thomas’ wife’s salary, set up a museum that is an homage to Clarence Thomas, and gave free access to his private jet, as well as gifting him a $19,000 bible, and putting him up at “retreats” (Want some more caviar with your Dom Perignon?) \u2026\u2026\u2026 Nothing to see here, move along.<\/p>\n

And then there was a $15,000 gift from the American Enterprise Institute, a frequent amicus filer in Supreme Court cases \u2026\u2026\u2026 America, what a country.<\/p>\n

BTW, some background on comparisons between Clarence Thomas and Abe Fortas here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BTW, the point person in the House of Representatives on Thomas’ethical lapses was Anthony Weiner \u2026\u2026\u2026 Imagine that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course, the Nixon justice department was willing to threaten to file a bogus prosecution against his wife to grease the skids, but Clarence Thomas relationship with right wing real-estate developer, who bankrolled his charities and his wife’s lobbying job: Clarence Thomas was here promoting his memoir a few years ago when he bumped into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,972,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-justice","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}