Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has an indisputable conflict of interest in judging cases involving Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in office despite losing the 2020 presidential election because his wife, Ginni, is a right-wing activist who worked to promote Trump’s bogus claims of a stolen election. But the Media Research Center is a staunch defender of Thomas and believes he can do no wrong, since he delivers on right-wing narratives. Which brings us to a Feb. 7 post by Jorge Bonilla, in which he bizarrely and ridiculously accused those pointing out Thomas’ conflict of interest of engaging in, yes, a “recusal jihad,” whatever that is:
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in the Colorado ballot removal appeal, ABC News has taken this opportunity to further efforts to get Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from this and other potential matters related to the ongoing prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. Hence, tonight’s cheap hit job.
Watch as anchor Linsey Davis frames the report, which aired on ABC News Live Prime:
[…]After a few seconds, the interview jumps to Gabe Roth, executive director of an activist nonprofit called “Fix the Court”, which is best known for leaking its funders to The Washington Examiner. Per the Examiner’s reporting, Fix The Court was funded by the Hewlett Foundation, and by the New Venture Fund- a 501c(3) funded by Arabella Advisors, a notorious dark money network. This is one of the designated leftwing critics of Justice Thomas, along with Professor Lawrence Tribe and Professor James Sample. Along with Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), they make the bulk of the arguments for Thomas’ recusal.
There is only one such advocate for Justice Thomas, and that would be Carrie Severino, head of the Judicial Network (JCN). Severino doesn’t nearly get as much time as the anti-Thomas speakers, and her precious few quotes are chopped up. We just don’t get to hear much of her, unlike the disproportionate time given to the others.
Note that Bonilla described Fix the Court as an “activist nonprofit” funded by “a notorious dark money network” while Severino’s JCN gets no such descriptors even though it too is an activist group fueled by dark money. Also note that Bonilla’s full description of JCN is just the “Judicial Network” — that could be because the C changes depending on who’s in office; it stands for “Crisis” when a Democrat is president but “Confirmation” when a Republican is.
Bonilla then whined some more about Thomas’ spousal conflict of interest being pointed out:
The piece aims at pressuring Thomas by using his wife, longtime conservative activist Ginni Thomas, as leverage. It is a most unsavory tactic. Unfortunately, recent history has shown that there has been no lack of imagination for unsavory tactics when it comes to dislodging originalists and conservatives from the Court or hectoring them into ruling as the left wishes them to rule.
The line that runs through the onslaught against then-Judge Kavanaugh, the illegal pre-Dobbs protests at the homes of the conservative justices, and this hit job is the left’s uncontrolled urge to undermine the Court. As these cases continue to come before the Court, we can expect more such cheap hit pieces.
Exit question: given the amount of Acela Media types married to known Democrat [sic] operatives, is disqualification-by-spousal association really a wise tactic to pursue?
Bonilla didn’t explain how, exactly, pointing out conflicts of interest is “unsavory” — after all, his employer didn’t feel that way about the issue when accusing Justice Sonia Sotomayor of a conflict of interest because she ruled on a case involving the book publisher that published a book she wrote. Bonilla also engages in hypocrisy by complaining about activists allegedly “dislodging originalists and conservatives from the Court or hectoring them into ruling as the left wishes them to rule” — as if the MRC doesn’t do that but from the right. And Bonilla’s whine about “Acela Media types married to known Democrat [sic] operatives” ignores that there are media types married to Republican operates as well — and that journalists are not judges.
Finally, Bonilla never explained how merely exposing judicial conflicts of interest was equal to his headline claim of a “jihad,” which in popular right-wing parlance involves killing people to advance an ideology. Such wild hyperbole makes him look even more ridiculous.