ProPublica reports that Thomas was in debt, frustrated with his salary, and implying he’d resign from the Supreme Court if his financial situation didn’t change—just before Harlan Crow and other conservatives started lavishing him with expensive gifts and luxury vacations.
Before he began receiving expensive gifts and luxury vacations from Harlan Crow and other conservative benefactors, Clarence Thomas reportedly expressed significant concerns about his financial situation—even prompting concerns from a Republican lawmaker more than 20 years ago that he might resign from the Supreme Court if he could not boost his salary.
“One or more justices will leave soon” if justices aren’t given a raise, Thomas told then Republican Representative Cliff Stearns in 2000, as they flew home from a conservative conference at a Georgia resort, according to ProPublica.
They get paid 274k…DC is expensive, but anyone that can’t live very comfortably on that is awful with money. Being awful with money will lose you a TS clearance because it makes you susceptible to bribery by spies. I would think it would also be a disqualifier for a SCOTUS judge for the same reason.
I think maintaining a TS clearance should be a requirement for all positions above a certain level in the federal government. Not because they need access to TS information, but to ensure they are at a lower risk of bribery, adversarial interests, and criminal activity. Getting a TS clearance isn’t terribly hard. Just generally have your act together. As long as you aren’t a train wreck, a drug addict, a criminal, an untrustworthy asshat, or have connections to adversaries, you will pass adjudication. TLDR: A TS clearance would ensure high level government employees are minimumly functional humans.
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Odd that red state losers vote for people who make them bigger losers, isn’t it?
We had a bit of a thing about that in Canada with opposition leaders not wanting to pass security clearance to be allowed to see documents related to Chinese interference because as long as they didn’t see the documents they could speculate as much as they wanted… Pretty crazy that it’s not automatic to be an elected member of the government…
Yeah, but that would 100% get abused politically to remove justices that don’t align with whoever is issuing clearances. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but recent history has shown that trusting politicians to not abuse the system isn’t a good long term solution
They did it to Oppenheimer
Regular TS sure, but like Whitehouse comms? Kinda strict… But I completely agree that this guy obviously for sale to the highest bidding handler.
The way this is supposed to work, is the higher the position and responsibility, the greater the “find out” consequences. You absolutely had to know better and you absolutely did it anyway.
Some Airman walks off with a Secret document, and they’re in for some UCMJ meat grinding.
This joke needs to be fired and charged if there are crimes. If that kind of blatant bias for bucks bullshit isn’t a crime it needs to be.
Fuck that guy.
Oh also agree 💯 about the salary. 274K with gold plated benefits? Yeah cry me a river. If you had to shovel sewage for 60 hours a week for minimum wage, but his benefits package, there would be a million people fighting for the job.
Its first time for me hearing about the ts clereance, but seems to me its doing its job. If it was used the way you describe it, I am sure it would fast become the victim of Goodharts law and thus become useless.
Is there really not a single criminal charge that can come of this overt bribery?
Nevermind, forgot I lived in a pay to play, fully bought and paid for dumpster fire exploitation camp, not a society.
Carry on.
I don’t know how a solicitation for a bribe could be any thinner than this without being clearly criminal.
He needs to go. How are you in that position and got sugar daddies?
this thing where we all pretend that they’re burying him under a pile of money out of the goodness of their hearts, he knows how they want him to rule, but it’s sheer coincidence that he rules in their favor 100% of the time is how rich people get eaten. at this point they’re fucking with us on purpose to show us what they can get away with, but we decide what they can get away with.
Yep, the last decade has shown they don’t need to be quiet about anything anymore. The gifts are so obvious but nobody with power will do anything to fix it.
Dude could have left the SC and found a high-paying gig anywhere. Law firms love attaching celebrity legal names to their partnerships.
Whether he knew it at the time or not, this was an ask.
first world, second world…where u at usa?
Vanityfair literally never reports on anything that’s actual news.
It’s a news article citing ProPublica. ProPublica did (does) the heavy lifting.
