Four Senate Democrats sent fundraising emails Friday to capitalize on allegations that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took gifts from a GOP mega-donor friend.
Fundraising emails from Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., which were reviewed by Fox News Digital, cited the news of reported gifts to Thomas as they called for passage of the Supreme Court Ethics Act, which would require a code of conduct for Supreme Court justices.
"As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them. Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable," Thomas said.
Mark Paoletta, a close friend of Thomas and an attorney who served in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations, defended the Supreme Court justice in a statement Thursday. Paoletta said Crow recommended Randolph-Macon Academy, his alma mater, for Thomas' great-nephew. Crow, Paoletta said, then paid for one year of tuition and later paid another year when he switched to a boarding school.
"This story is another attempt to manufacture a scandal about Justice Thomas," Paoletta said."But let’s be clear about what is supposedly scandalous now: Justice Thomas and his wife devoted 12 years of their lives to taking in and caring for a beloved child – who was not their own – just as Justice Thomas’ grandparents had done for him."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sent a fundraiser email to capitalize on allegations against Justice Clarence Thomas."The Supreme Court – whose justices are among the most powerful people in the country, has shown no interest in adopting a Code of Ethics that ensures they are held to the same standards and transparency that anyone would expect in their own workplace," Hirono said."So if they won't, Congress must require them to.
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