Clarence Thomas Supreme Extortion Scheme

Follow the SUPREME EXTORTION SCHEME that led to billionaires buying out the Supreme Court!

Thomas complained to Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) about his salary. He warned that if lawmakers didn’t give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, “one or more justices will leave soon.” ... Stearns immediately set out to pass legislation separating the salaries of Supreme Court justices from the rest of the judiciary, and then raising pay for the Supreme Court justices alone. 

Stearns told the ProPublica reporters that Thomas’s “importance as a conservative [as they called themselves] was paramount…. We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and was being paid properly.” ... About this time, wealthy Republican donors began to provide Thomas and his wife Ginni with expensive vacations and gifts. Ginni went to work for the Heritage Foundation, making a salary in the low six figures. Yale law school professor George Priest, who has joined Thomas and billionaire donor Harlan Crow on vacation, says that Crow “views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary. So he provides benefits for him.” - Heather Cox Richardson

Use this map to follow the money, gifts, luxury trips, free rent, free tuition and luxury motor homes flowing to Clarence and Ginni Thomas.

Understand Clarence Thomas' extortion scheme

Stream of gifts

But in the years that followed, as ProPublica has reported, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court. Some defrayed living expenses large and small — private school tuition, vehicle batteries, tires. Other gifts from a coterie of ultrarich men supplemented his lifestyle, such as free international vacations on the private jet and super-yacht of Dallas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow.

Thomas’ comments in 2000 were to Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, a vocal conservative who’d been in Congress for 11 years and occasionally socialized with the justice. They set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill. “His importance as a conservative was paramount,” Stearns said in a recent interview. “We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.” - ProPublica

TakeAway: Hold corrupt justices and the billionaires corrupting the courts accountable.

Deepak
DemLabs

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