rutledge, peter
clarence clerk chic u
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https://www.alternet.org/clarence-thomas-2659749180/
an 4 23
no lnx in orig?
'A flagrant violation': More legal, ethics experts slam Clarence Thomas over bombshell corruption allegations
David Badash andThe New Civil Rights Movement April 06, 2023
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is under fire after a bombshell ProPublica report detailed the expensive vacations he’s been given, gifts of a Republican megadonor, for more than two decades, without disclosing certain portions of them – which legal experts say he is required by federal law to do.
At issue are important questions of ethics and law.
The vacations, revealed in ProPublica’s extensive and detailed report Thursday, from a legal standpoint appear to be worth hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in total. From an ethical standpoint, some say, they have cost the institution of the Supreme Court further repetitional damage.
Justice Thomas at times was accompanied on these lavish trips by his wife Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist and lobbyist who worked behind the scenes to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
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Together or apart, one person who joined them on these all-expenses-paid trips to private resorts via private jets and private yachts was the gift-giver: billionaire Dallas real estate magnate and GOP mega donor Harlan Crow.
READ MORE: For Decades Clarence Thomas Has Accepted Luxury Vacations from a GOP Megadonor Without Disclosing Them
ProPublicarevealed the details of one of Thomas’ almost yearly trips.
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“In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef,” ProPublica reports.
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“If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.”
Justice Thomas “has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.”
Crow, who financially supports right wing causes, in 2011, according to Politico, contributed $500,000 to help Ginni Thomas start her consulting group, “Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her ‘experience and connections’ to help clients with ‘governmental affairs efforts’ and political donation strategies.”
The ProPublica report includes an image of a painting that hangs at Crow’s private lakeside resort, Camp Topridge, in the Adirondacks that features shows Crow and Justice Thomas “smoking cigars at the resort. They are joined by lawyers Peter Rutledge, Leonard Leo and Mark Paoletta.”
READ MORE: Students Across the Country Walk Out of School to Protest Gun Violence After Nashville as TN House GOP Moves to Expel Dems
Leonard Leo is a vice president of The Federalist Society and sits on its board. The Federalist Society was the right-wing clearing house for most of Donald Trump’s federal court appointees, including his three Supreme Court nominees, and Leo is seen as the man behind those picks.
Meanwhile, legal experts are responding to the bombshell report, confirming ProPublica’s assertion that Thomas’ “failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.”
Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern, an attorney who writes about the courts and the law and wrote a book on the Roberts Supreme Court, calls Justice Thomas’ actions “corruption.”
Stern observes that “federal law DOES require justices to disclose most gifts of value.”
“It’s clear that Thomas brazenly violated this law many times. We should call this what it is: corruption,” he says.
“Just to be clear here,” Stern adds, “it was a flagrant violation of federal law for Thomas to accept this wildly expensive luxury vacation without reporting it as a gift—his conduct isn’t just unseemly, it’s illegal.”
READ MORE: ‘They Had an Insider on SCOTUS’: Legal Experts Stunned by Bombshell Clarence Thomas Was Seen as ‘Key’ by Trump Lawyers
The award-winning investigative reporter for The New Yorker, Jane Mayer, pointing to ProPublica’s report, says: “This is why public trust in the Supreme Court is cratering.”
Leah Litman, Assistant Professor of Law and The University of Michigan School of Law, says, “no one is doing a better job at making the case that the Supreme Court is broken than … the Court and its Justices.”
Top national security attorney Brad Moss offers this exercise: “Change the name of the Justice to Kagan or Sotomayor, and the name of the donor to Soros. Then think about how Fox would react.”
Imani Gandy, Editor-at-Large covering courts and the law for Rewire News Group, does not mince words.
“Clarence Thomas should be impeached,” she says. “He broke the law.”
Attorney and former Biden deputy cabinet secretary, Cristóbal Alex asks, “How do you impeach a Supreme Court Justice?
“Besides being married to someone who conspired to overthrow our government, Justice Thomas has accepted what appears to be millions of dollars in undisclosed gifts,” Alex notes.
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https://www.alternet.org/clarence-thomas-2659747910/
an 4 23
no lnx
in the wake of the latest bombshell report revealing incriminating details about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' luxurious lifestyle, legal experts are weighing in with critical remarks and concerns as calls for accountability increase.
According to the new report:
"For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has asalary of $285,000, he has vacationed on [Harlan] Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks."
READ MORE: Clarence Thomas opposes a 'landmark precedent' guaranteeing defendants the right to counsel: legal columnist
The report also emphasized: “The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Now, legal experts have taken to Twitter with ethical concerns as they've pointed out the many issues with Thomas' conflicts of interest.
"There’s been a lot of talk by MAGA Republicans this week about the judge in NYC," former Trump administration official Olivia Troye tweeted. "If you want to talk about a judge & their family let’s talk about Justice Clarence Thomas & his wife Ginni…"
"Our country is poisoned from within," tweeted former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.). "Ethics be damned. And with his wife, Ginni, being a major GOP influencer with multiple organizations that funnel and accept money in GOP circles—and certified Q quack—Clarence Thomas should not be allowed anywhere near a judicial decision.…"
READ MORE: How Clarence Thomas went from a 'fringe figure with extremist views' to the Court’s 'center of gravity': report
Calls have also increased for Thomas to be impeached from the Supreme Court or held accountable amid reports on the latest findings.
"Google 'Clarence Thomas RV' and you'll find endless puff pieces about him and Ginni being ascetics who spend their free time with the common folk," Max Kennerly tweeted. "Turns out their vacations were really on private planes and superyachts — trips they concealed in violation of federal law."
"What is the penalty for violating the disclosure law? Would the DOJ need to first file a criminal complaint?" Chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon also asked.
According to a new report from The Washington Post, Supreme Court disclosures will likely hold justices accountable going forward.
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"Supreme Court justices and all federal judges must provide a fuller public accounting of free trips, meals and other gifts they accept from corporations or other organizations, according to revised regulations quietly adopted this month," the report notes.
The latest controversy followsThomas' own remarks insisting that the Supreme Court was being "bullied" following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. At the time, Thomas also raised concerns about Americans disrespecting the government, a remark Truthout's Sharon Zhang described as a form of "glaring hypocrisy" given the Supreme Court justice's reputation.
The judicial system “can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want,” Thomas said, implying that the opposing views toward institutions “bode ill for a free society.” Per the report, Thomas also said, "Young people are especially guilty of disrespecting government institutions like courts."
Pushing back against the remarks, Zhang wrote:
Thomas’s comments sparked ire among abortion rights supporters, who pointed out the glaring hypocrisy of telling people to simply live with decisions made by 9 unelected judges with lifetime appointments who are not subject to any oversight. As political commentators pointed out, Republican attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election are a prime example of people not being able to live with an outcome they don’t like — but Thomas has yet to condemn the anti-democratic campaign and coup attempt, perhaps because of his wife Ginni Thomas’s involvement in those events.
READ MORE: Here Are 5 of Clarence Thomas’ Worst Decisions - And Proof Judge Brett Kavanaugh Is Cut from the Same Cloth
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How Clarence Thomas went from a 'fringe figure with extremist views' to the Court’s 'center of gravity': report ›
What a Supreme Court impeachment from 1805 could mean for Clarence Thomas: historian ›
Ginni Thomas’ testimony to Jan. 6 committee sparks calls to investigate Clarence Thomas ›
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ref badash 11/22
https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/they-had-an-insider-on-scotus-legal-experts-stunned-by-bombshell-clarence-thomas-was-seen-as-key-by-trump-lawyers/
Washington Post bombshell revealing Trump attorneys saw **Justice Clarence Thomas** as the key to getting the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election is leaving several legal experts stunned.
The Post reports eight emails “ordered released by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of California, include correspondence between Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and others discussing various legal strategies to convince Republican members of Congress to object to the official certification of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.”
In one email “from Chesebro to Eastman and several others sent on Dec. 31, 2020, Chesebro argued that [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence] Thomas would ‘end up being key’ to asking the high court to overturn then-President-elect Joe Biden’s win in contested states.”
The Post states the email also says, “they should ‘frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt.'”
Politico’s Kyle Cheney sums up the scheme.
“Chesebro made the plan explicit: Get any remotely favorable ruling from a federal judge — not to win outright but to embolden GOP state legislatures, Congress or Pence to reverse the results.”
Politico‘s reporting includes copies of the redacted emails, and adds: “Chesebro contended that Thomas would be ‘our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress.'”
“I think I agree with this,” Eastman replied.
“Eastman,” Politico notes, “an architect of Trump’s last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, once clerked for Thomas and had corresponded with his wife, Virginia, in the weeks before Jan. 6.”
READ MORE: Ginni Thomas Attempts to Influence Overturn of Election Even Wider Than Previously Known
“[I]f we can just get this case pending before the Supreme Court by Jan. 5,” Chesebro wrote in one email, “ideally with something positive written by a judge or justice, hopefully Thomas, I think it’s our best shot at holding up the count of a state in Congress.”
Richard Signorelli, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) blasted both the Supreme Court Justice and his far right wing activist wife, **Ginni Thomas**.
“They had a damn insider on SCOTUS who they thought would help them overthrow our democracy,” Signorelli tweeted. “He’s married to a deranged MAGA cult member. He won’t even recuse himself.”
Former Harvard Constitutional Law professor Laurence Tribe blasted Chesebro.
“We now learn that Ken Chesebro saw Justice Thomas as Trump’s ‘only chance’ to stop the 2020 election from being duly certified. Such abhorrent abuse of an attorney’s license to practice law should be strictly disciplined and perhaps criminally prosecuted,” he tweeted.
Attorney and writer Rachel Solar, pointing to the Politico article asks: “When is it enough???? His wife is an insurrectionist He refuses to recuse He’s the Trump election-denial go-to? Come on.”
Journalist Helen Kennedy goes one step further.
“Hey look! It wasn’t just critics of the Supreme Court who thought Clarence Thomas was corrupted – Trump’s lawyers said so too in secret emails just revealed.”
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cxford Health Plans v. Sutter - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
SCOTUScast 6-26-13 featuring Gail Peter "Bo" Rutledge
On June 10, 2013, The Supreme Court announced its decision in Oxford Health Plans
off bs
peter B. "Bo" Rutledge is a full professor whose teaching and research interests include international dispute resolution, arbitration, international business transactions and the Supreme Court.
He is the author of the forthcoming book Arbitration and the Constitution and co-author with Gary Born of the book International Civil Litigation in the United States. His works have been published by Yale University Press, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, and his articles have appeared in a diverse array of journals such as the University of Chicago Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review and the Journal of International Arbitration. He also regularly advises parties on matters of international dispute resolution (litigation and arbitration).
In 2008, the Supreme Court appointed Rutledge to brief and argue the case of Irizarry v. United States as amicus curiae in defense of the judgment below. He subsequently won the case, joining the ranks of a select few advocates who have successfully defended a judgment below when the government refused to do so. A former law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit for Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Rutledge regularly files briefs and advises lawyers in matters before the Supreme Court and lower courts.
Given his interest in international dispute resolution, Rutledge has taught and spoken at numerous foreign universities. In 2010-11, he was a Fulbright Professor at the Institut für Zivilverfahrensrecht at the University of Vienna Law School. Foreign universities where Rutledge has been invited to speak include Oxford University, Cambridge University, the University of Mainz, Jagellonian University, Stockholm University and the University of Oslo.
An accomplished teacher, he has received teaching awards in the majority of his years in the legal academy, including most recently the 2009 John C. O'Byrne Award for Furthering Faculty-Student Relations.
In addition to his academic and legal work, Rutledge remains active in professional circles. He regularly advises parties on matters of international dispute resolution and has served as an expert in both litigation and arbitration. He is a listed arbitrator with the London Court of International Arbitration and the Vienna International Arbitral Center. He has testified on several occasions before Congress on pending arbitration legislation,has regularly spoken to broadcast and print media, and has given speeches to a range of professional audiences on matters such as international dispute resolution, arbitration and the Supreme Court. He currently serves as part of the American Arbitration Association's delegation to the UNCITRAL Working Group on Arbitration and is a member of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.
Before entering the teaching academy, Rutledge practiced at Wilmer Cutler & Pickering (now Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr), where his practice included international dispute resolution and Supreme Court matters, and at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where his practice concentrated on international arbitration.
He holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University, an M.Litt. in Applied Ethics from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland) and a J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago, where he served as executive editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.
- B.A., Harvard University
- M.Litt., University of Aberdeen
- J.D., University of Chicago
*****
A person listed as a contributor has spoken or otherwise participated in Federalist Society events, publications, or multimedia presentations. A person's appearance on this list does not imply any other endorsement or relationship between the person and the Federalist Society. In most cases, the biographical information on a person's "contributor" page is provided directly by the person, and the Federalist Society does not edit or otherwise endorse that information. The Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions of opinion by a contributor are those of the contributor.
Prof. Peter B. Rutledge
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https://fedsoc.org › contributors › peter-rutledge
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"Bo" Rutledge is a full professor whose teaching and research interests include international dispute resolution, arbitration, international business ...
Not in this result: gop | Must include: gop
https://fedsoc.org › contributors › commentary
Peter B. Rutledge. SCOTUScast 6-26-13 featuring Gail Peter "Bo" Rutledge. On June 10, 2013, The Supreme Court announced its decision in Oxford Health Plans ...
Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From ...
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ProPublica
https://www.propublica.org › article › clarence-thomas...
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11 hours ago — For over 20 years, Clarence Thomas has been treated to luxury vacations by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. He goes on cruises in far- ...