Congresswoman Ross Joins Colleagues in Pushing for Answers on Justice Clarence Thomas' Failure to Recuse in Key Supreme Court Cases

Press Release

Congresswoman Deborah Ross (NC-02) joined Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), and 21 of their colleagues in sending a bicameral letter to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts requesting answers regarding Justice Thomas's potential violation of federal ethics law following last week's explosive reporting on the efforts of his wife, Ms. Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting vote in a Supreme Court case requiring that Trump White House records be turned over to the January 6th House Select Committee earlier this year.

The lawmakers called for a written explanation from Justice Thomas about his failure to recuse himself given these potential conflicts of interest, sought Justice Thomas's recusal from future cases involving efforts to overturn the 2020 election or the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and called on Chief Justice Roberts to create binding, enforceable ethics rules for the Supreme Court.

"Justice Thomas's participation in cases involving the 2020 election and the January 6th attack is exceedingly difficult to reconcile with federal ethics requirements… Justice Thomas has neither disclosed the extent of his knowledge about Ms. Thomas's activities nor recused himself from multiple Court cases involving the 2020 election and the attempted insurrection that followed. In fact, Justice Thomas was the sole dissenting Justice who would have blocked the January 6th Committee's access to presidential records involving the Trump Administration's efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power -- records that could very well contain communications between Ms. Thomas and top White House officials given what we now know," wrote the lawmakers.

In addition to raising concerns about whether Justice Thomas may have violated federal ethics law, the lawmakers noted the Supreme Court's pattern of major ethics failures. Between 2003 and 2007, Justice Thomas failed to disclose $686,589 in his wife's income from her work at the Heritage Foundation in violation of the Ethics in Government Act. Multiple Justices have failed to recuse themselves from cases before the Court while owning individual stocks in the parties, and Justices regularly accept lavish trips, donations to causes they support, and expensive memberships, in stark contrast to the gifts allowed under ethics restrictions imposed on other branches of government.

Congresswoman Ross is a leader in the fight against corruption and for ethics in government and the in judicial system in particular. Last year, she introduced the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives and would require online publication of financial disclosure reports for federal judges and mandate that federal judges submit periodic transaction reports for certain securities transactions. She has also cosponsored a number of measures during her time in Congress to improve accountability and transparency throughout the federal government.

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