A right-wing religious rights group is fighting Supreme Court reform, and Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, is secretly one of its top supporters.
The First Liberty Institute has a budget of $25 million per year and calls itself “the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans.”
On July 31, the head of the institute, litigator Kelly Shackleford, held a private call with his organization’s top donors and read out an appreciative email from Thomas, according to ProPublica, which obtained a recording.
“YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH,” Thomas’s email read in all caps, Shackleford said. Shackleford added that Thomas also recently met with a First Liberty Institute staffer.
“‘Great to meet through the meetings today,’” Thomas wrote, according to Shackelford. “‘I cannot adequately express enough appreciation for you guys pulling into reacting to the Biden effort on the Supreme Court.”
“Many were so depressed at the lack of response by R’s and conservatives” to recent court-reform proposals, Thomas’s email reportedly continued.
Shackleford told the donors that he saw the email as proof that judges who “can’t go out into the political sphere and fight” appreciated the organization’s efforts.
“It’s neat that, you know, those of you on the call are a part of protecting the future of our court, and they really appreciate it,” Shackleford said.
Later, Shackleford attacked liberal Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, who supports enforcing ethics reforms on the court, as “treasonous” and “disloyal,” and said that an ethics code would “destroy the independence of the judiciary.”
The conference call came days after President Biden announced his support for Supreme Court reforms including term limits for the court’s justices and a binding code of conduct. Shackleford attacked these and other proposals in the call, calling them “a dangerous attempt to really destroy the court, the Supreme Court” led by “people in the progressive, extreme left” who were “upset by just a few cases.”
Shackleford and Thomas seem to ignore the fact that her husband’s ethical lapses spurred the calls for judicial reform, particularly the many gifts the justice received from conservative megadonor Harlan Crow that he failed to disclose, including luxury vacations and the renovation of the home where Thomas’s mother lives.
Ginni Thomas, for her part, is a longtime conservative activist who played a suspicious role in the January 6 Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. This latest revelation seems to indicate that she and her husband have no remorse for their ethically questionable behavior.
Source Agencies
