I don’t want to get anyone too excited, but Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Chair, is going on cable news shows and saying some very stern things about Clarence Thomas and his liberal interpretations of what’s ethical for a Supreme Court Justice to be doing. I need to be very clear here: You should not get excited because nothing will happen to Thomas.
Like, nothing. Maybe he won’t be able to Google himself for a bit because he doesn’t like people saying mean things about him (Or maybe he gets off on it, so this is the best time for him to Google himself? I don’t really want to dive into his psychology, to be honest.), but Thomas will go on business as usual. His little Nazi friend will probably lie low for a bit, so no more fishing trips on his yacht, but they probably have a group chat or something, because these people are so above the law that they get to bend the law to their own will. America!
Now that we’ve set expectations, though, back to Durbin. He recently went on CNN, and Thomas came up because why wouldn’t he? He sits on the highest court and is hanging out with a billionaire who collects nazi memorabilia. That is concerning! Anyway, this is what he had to say on the matter, per CNN.com:
Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin said Sunday that “everything is on the table” as the panel scrutinizes new ethics concerns around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“The bottom line is this: Everything is on the table. Day after day, week after week, more and more disclosures about Justice Thomas – we cannot ignore them,” the Illinois Democrat told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
“The thing we’re going to do first, obviously, is to gather the evidence, the information that we need to draw our conclusions. I’m not ruling out anything,” he added.
So this is where the expectation setting comes in, because this sounds exciting, right? Our elected officials are mad and want to do something about it! Yeah, no. The Senate can hold a hearing. That’s about it. If you want Thomas removed, you must look to the House of Representatives (that is currently controlled by possibly the most ineffective, incompetent, power hungry Speaker of the House in the past 100 years, Kevin McCarthy, so that’s fun) because removing a Supreme Court Justice requires impeachment.
We’re all familiar with that process because we’ve gone through two in the past four years now because of Donald Trump: the House Impeaches, the Senate decides to convict or not and if so, they remove you from your position. So, friends, as you know: The House will never vote to Impeach Thomas because they’re run by the worst people this country has to offer, like Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert—you know, people who would rather engage in culture wars than actually govern.
So, we now must rely on the other tried and true American method of getting things done: speaking to a manager. Unfortunately, Thomas’ manager is Chief Justice John Roberts, and he simply doesn’t want to do his job right now either, or have any accountability to Senate, either. Man, I guess the Boomers on Facebook were right. No one wants to work anymore, do they!? Per the above source:
But Durbin said Sunday the recent revelations “just embarrasses me” as he called on Chief Justice John Roberts to impose a code of conduct on the court. Roberts previously declined Durbin’s request to voluntarily testify in a hearing on Supreme Court ethics.
“I must respectfully decline your invitation,” Roberts wrote in a letter to Durbin, which was released by a spokesperson for the high court. “Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”
This should enrage you. As a reminder: We did not elect these judges in their fancy robes who are making decisions that affect us all. We did, however, elect the Senate, and now the Chief Justice has decided he doesn’t have to answer questions to our elected officials. Everything is fine and functioning as normal!
If you’ve been holding out hope that maybe Thomas (or maybe some of the others, ahem, Kavanaugh) could get arrested for some crime, well, give that up, too. Even if he is arrested, tried, and convicted, he would still hold on to his seat on the bench. It seems like being a Supreme Court Justice is literally the only job in America with a safety net left. Cool.
(featured image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
