Scandal-plagued Clarence Thomas signals he wants to make suing news outlets easier

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, whose ethics have fallen under suspicion following a series of reports on his ties to billionaire donors, wants to make it easier for public figures to sue news organizations.

The court declined to take up a defamation case brought by coal baron Don Blankenship against NBCUniversal, which would have allowed the justices to overturn the precedent set in New York Times v. Sullivan that requires public figures to prove defamatory statements were knowingly false.

But Thomas wrote a separate ruling calling that standard into question.

"I continue to adhere to my view that we should reconsider the actual-malice standard," Thomas wrote. "The actual-malice standard comes at a heavy cost, allowing media organizations and interest groups 'to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.' The Court cannot justify continuing to impose a rule of its own creation when it has not 'even inquired whether the First or Fourteenth Amendment, as originally understood, encompasses an actual-malice standard.'"

Thomas agreed with the majority's decision not to take up Blankenship's case, saying it appeared the Massey Energy CEO and Republican Senate candidate's claims were subject to actual-malice standard under West Virginia state law, but he signaled that he would like to rule on another case to lower the standard for defamation.

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"In an appropriate case, however, we should reconsider New York Times and our other decisions displacing state defamation law," Thomas wrote.

Blankenship had sued media organizations for describing him as a felon after his conviction for conspiring to violate federal safety standards following a 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners, but he did not serve long enough in prison for the crime to be considered a felony.

Thomas has recently been the subject of a series of investigative reports by Pro Publica that have revealed he accepted undisclosed travel accommodations and other lavish gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow and took part in donor events for the right-wing Koch network, as well as reports linking his wife Ginni Thomas with efforts to overturn Donald Trump's election loss.