Terry Jeffrey’s attempts to get Elena Kagan to recuse from Supreme Court deliberations on the constitutionality of health care reform have been a complete failure so far, but that’s not stopping him from forwarding more specious arguments.
In a Nov. 10 CNSNews.com article, Jeffrey makes a big deal out of a email Kagan — then solicitor general — sent to law professor Laurence Tribe upon the passage of health care reform in 2010, “I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.” Jeffrey tries to portray this as a reason to recuse, even as Jeffrey’s email Q-and-A with Tribe asking about his correspondence with Kagan makes it clear Kagan expressed no opinion on the constitutionality of the health care law.
This was accompanied by another article in which Jeffrey notes that the Department of Justice is ” refusing to comply with a request from the House Judiciary Committee to provide the committee with documents and witness interviews” regarding a separate action by House Republicans trying to get Kagan to recuse.
Needless to say, in neither of these articles does Jeffrey reference a more obvious Supreme Court conflict of interest on health care reform: Clarence Thomas’ wife is a a right-wing activist who has attacked health care reform as unconstitutional. Thomas also failed to disclose his wife’s income from activist groups for several years.