Oliver made the proposal on Sunday’s episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, saying the supreme court justice had 30 days to accept or it would expire.
The British-born comedian’s offer came after a steady drumbeat of media investigations in the previous several months established that Thomas failed to disclose that political benefactors bought him lavish vacation travel and real estate for his mother. Thomas also failed to disclose – as required – that he allowed school fees for a family member to be paid off and had been provided a loan to buy a luxury motor coach, all after openly complaining about the need to raise supreme court justices’ salaries.
As a result, Thomas’s impartiality came into question after he sided with the contentious ruling that eliminated the federal abortion rights once provided by the Roe v Wade case.
He also recently listened to arguments over whether Donald Trump can be removed from states’ ballots in the presidential election after the former president’s supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – staged the January 6 attack at the US Capitol in Washington DC. Thomas resisted pressure to recuse himself from such matters, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, is a conservative political activist who has endorsed false claims from Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen from him.
I did watch the episode. Clarence Thomas might be a self-serving asshole, but he’s not stupid. Confidence in the judicial is so low that we are perhaps one or two steps away from just having people ignore their rulings. If he took this - and let’s be frank here and call it what it is - bribe, it would spell disaster for the integrity of the courts. The most overt and nationally televised quid-pro-quo exchange possibly ever.
I’m sure Thomas doesn’t want to retire with a big fat pension paid for by John Oliver if he’s not going to be able to enjoy it if the country falls apart because the last semi-functioning apparatus of government becomes as ineffective and flaccid as the executive or legislative is currently.