RUTH MARCUS’ OPINION: “The Clarence Thomas story has now entered the Abe Fortas danger zone.
“It’s impossible to imagine that the current Supreme Court justice will ever resign, as Fortas did in 1969. But a new ProPublica report about Thomas’s acceptance of thousands of dollars in tuition payments for his grandnephew from conservative megadonor Harlan Crow put the Thomas situation firmly on the level of the ethical missteps that drove Fortas from the bench.
“For weeks now, I’ve refrained from making the comparison to Fortas, who resigned after reports about his continuing financial relationship with a former client, financier Louis Wolfson, who had been convicted of violating feeder securities laws.
“Others disagree, but invoking Fortas seemed to me potentially unfair. No longer. The Crow tuition payments cross the line from extraordinary hospitality to direct financial benefit, money that ought never to have been accepted but should have been disclosed if it was. …”
Read on: Clarence Thomas’s ethical missteps get much worse. (renamed) Opinion– Clarence Thomas should get out his checkbook and reimburse Harlan Crow. (The Washington Post, 5/4/2023, author Ruth Marcus)