We’ve detailed how CNSNews.com, led by editor in chief Terry Jeffrey, has been determined to portray Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has having a conflict of interest from serving as as President Obama’s solicitor general that should force her to recuse from deciding any lawsuit regarding health care reform that is likely to come before the Supreme Court — while ignoring that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas also has an apparent conflict of interest due to his wife’s activism against the reform measure.
Jeffrey keeps that up in his June 8 column, repeating his previous contention that Kagan’s naming of a deputy to handle the administration’s case while solicitor general constitutes a conflict of interest, since she had previously recused herself from a case involving Harvard Law School, where she previously served as dean.
Jeffrey didn’t mention, as CNS has in previous articles, that the emails CNS obtained from the solicitor general’s office through a Freedom of Information Act request offered no evidence that Kagan offered any opinion of the health care law, nor did he note as he did in a June 3 article that the solicitor general’s office determined that Kagan had been “walled off from Day One” from health care litigation.
And, of course, at no point did Jeffrey mention Thomas’ apparent conflict of interest. Then again, Thomas can be presumed to vote against health care reform, and Jeffrey doesn’t want to jeopardize that.