Anthony Weiner is catching hell for his ongoing genital tweeting and naughty texting. But though the former congressman and mayoral candidate has his issues, he was right about one thing when he worked on Capitol Hill: Clarence Thomas.
Many have forgotten that back in 2011, before the failed DM seen round the world, Weiner was on a tear, railing almost daily against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the time, the Affordable Care Act was winding its way through federal courts on its way to the SCOTUS, and Weiner was among the loudest voices demanding that Thomas recuse himself. He even taunted Thomas about what he called the conflicts of interest embedded in Thomas’ finances, on — you guessed it — Twitter.
At issue: Justice Thomas’ failure to disclose his wife Virginia “Ginny” Thomas’ employment with the Heritage Foundation — a key voice opposing the healthcare law (which Thomas corrected by filing amended disclosure forms in January 2011) and the more than $550,000 his wife, Ginny, raised in 2009 to start an anti-healthcare reform Tea Party organization and consulting firm Liberty Central.
Ginni Thomas was the founder and leader of Liberty Central, a political nonprofit “dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist ‘tyranny’ of President Obama and Democrats in Congress.” The group was funded by Harlan Crow, frequent patron of the Thomas’ projects and causes and a financial supporter of right-wing campaigns such as the “swift boat” attacks on then-presidential candidate John Kerry and the advertising push to confirm President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees. Crow also serves on the board of the American Enterprise Institute, whose Edward Blum brought the two most recent attacks on the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action before the Supreme Court. Justice Thomas favored Blum’s positions against progressive precedent on both civil rights issues.
Ginni Thomas’ direction of Liberty Central was heavily criticized in the run-up to the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act because Justice Thomas “was planning to rule on the healthcare law when his wife, a conservative lobbyist, has made so much money challenging the law.” As U.S. News & World Report explained, this paid activism continued even after Ginni Thomas stepped down from Liberty Central to form a separate lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting:
Apparently, Ginny Thomas’ “advocacy” hasn’t died down, even after the ACA was ratified by the Supreme Court, thanks to a surprise change of sides by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. Mother Jones reports that Mrs. Thomas is a key member of a new, D.C.-based conservative coalition whose goal is to wage a “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation.” And by “transform,” they mean to begin to “win the message war” that the group says progressives are currently winning, and to get conservative policies entrenched, enacted, and popularized. Mother Jones reports that the group, which includes former Florida Congressman Allen West, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, and reporters from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner, have another target, besides “the left:”
Dubbed Groundswell, this coalition convenes weekly in the offices of Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group. During these hush-hush sessions and through a Google group, the members of Groundswell—including aides to congressional Republicans—cook up battle plans for their ongoing fights against the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, progressive outfits, and the Republican establishment and “clueless” GOP congressional leaders. They devise strategies for killing immigration reform, hyping the Benghazi controversy, and countering the impression that the GOP exploits racism. And the Groundswell gang is mounting a behind-the-scenes organized effort to eradicate the outsize influence of GOP über-strategist/pundit Karl Rove within Republican and conservative ranks.
According to Media Matters, memos obtained by Mother Jones indicate that Mrs. Thomas “is continuing to be paid on issues and court cases that will likely come before her husband once again.”
Groundswell has reportedly been very active, including in opposing gun reform legislation, and in pushing for the repeal of sections of the Voting Rights Act, which her husband voted to do regarding Section 4 just last month:
Ginni Thomas also actively coordinated Groundswell’s efforts to assist in the attacks on voting rights precedent, doing so in the months leading up to the Supreme Court’s infamous 5-4 conservative Shelby County decision. In communications with voter suppression groups, such as True the Vote, that sought to “reframe” voter ID laws because they are “already lost & equated with racism,” Ginni Thomas demanded to know who “are key working group members on ELECTION LAW, ELECTION REFORM and THE LEFT’S NARRATIVES, Groundswell???” (emphasis in original). It is this unapologetic Groundswell involvement in cases that were actively pending before the Supreme Court that reveals Ginni Thomas is continuing the ethically dubious right-wing activism that raised so many red flags previously.
Justices periodically recuse themselves from cases in which they have a potential conflict. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the vote last month to uphold the core of Arizona’s tough immigration law, because she was the government’s solicitor when the Obama administration sued Arizona over the statute. And Justice Sonya Sotomayor recused herself from a case this year regarding indecency and the public airwaves, because she dealt with the issue as a lower court judge. But Thomas has shown no willingness to step aside on cases in which his wife has a deep ideological — and financial — interest.
And that has some public interest advocates crying foul.
Mother Jones‘ Washington Bureau Chief, David Corn, says there are a number of “bombshells” in the report.
“The documents show that there is a portion of the far right so fed up with the Republican Party and mainline conservatives that it felt compelled to band together to scheme how to advance the most extreme talking points of the Right AND to mount an attack on Karl Rove,” Corn told theGrio. “Its secret Rove project has the ambitious aims of reducing conservative donations to his super-PAC and rendering Rove ‘toxic’ for the conservative grassroots. And the fact that this effort is led in part by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Cout Justice Clarence Thomas, indicates how closely aligned Clarence Thomas is with the most extreme reaches of the conservative movement.”
Corn says Groundswell is extensive.
“It does involve some of the loudest voices of the right, including Allen West, Frank Gaffney, and Jerry Boykin, and its meetings and deliberations include organizations active in Washington and the grassroots, including True the Vote, one of the leading players in the Right’s so-called voter identification crusade,” Corn said. “The documents show that Groundswell and its members do communicate and coordinate with the offices of the most conservative members of Congress, including Senators Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions. They also show that this hush-hush message coordination is active on a host of fronts: immigration reform, voter rights, Benghazi, sequestration, judicial appointments, and much more.”
Corn, who broke the Mitt Romney “47 percent” video, described Ginni Thomas as an “active participant” in the group, but not its leader.
“There do not seem to be official officers of the group, but Ginni Thomas has been one of the coordinators of Groundswell,” Corn said. “She attends meetings. She is one of the most active participants on the group’s Google page, often egging on participants to advance agreed-upon [sic] talking points. In meetings and in messages to the group, Thomas has awarded “brownie points” to participants who have used talking points cooked up by the group. After my story appeared, one prominent conservative told me that Thomas helped set up the group so that Frank Gaffney, an extremely anti-Islam hawk who has been booted out of several conservative coalitions, could have a forum.”
Read more, and view the memos obtained by Mother Jones, at MotherJones.com.
And follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @thereidreport.