'Does this look awful?' Legal expert explains the latest Ginni Thomas scandal
Judicial ethical standards provide a clear framework to evaluate the latest bombshell revelations about Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
"Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails obtained by The Washington Post. The emails, sent by Ginni Thomas to a pair of lawmakers on Nov. 9, 2020, argued that legislators needed to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud," the newspaper reported Friday.
For analysis, MSNBC's Chris Hayes interviewed Slate editor Dahlia Lithwick, who hosts the podcast Amicus.
Hayes noted "there are people that say Ginni Thomas is her own person what she does is irrelevant. Everything we find out, it just gets harder, and harder to just divide it, even just conceptually or factually, from Justice Clarence Thomas, who sits on the court."
"So, here is the good news, Chris, to the extent that there is good news," Lithwick said.
"You, know there are federal statutes and there are judicial canons and they don't parse the questions are asking," she explained. "They don't try to figure out who is an independent ethical agent, they don't try to figure out whether spouses or working in tandem with their spouse, they simply state, and this is 28 U.S. Code § 455, any justice, judge, our magistrate judge is required to disqualify in any case where spouses are known to have an interest in the proceeding."
"And so I think the way I would reframe your question gently is 'Does this look awful? If it does, it is awful and he should not be involved in these cases."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
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