Congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called for the immediate impeachment of the judge less than 24 hours after the publication of the report, condemning Ramot’s “The corruption The shocking ones – almost cartoons” of Thomas.
”It is beyond party or partisanship“, she tweeted, and warned that “If there won’t be a dramatic change, that’s what the court will do [של נשיא בית המשפט העליון ג’ון רוברטס] It will be known: corruption, the erosion of democracy and the denial of human rights.”
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, promised that the committee would act on the report, and described Thomas’ behavior as “It’s simply not consistent with the ethical standards that the American people expect from any public servant, let alone a Supreme Court judge.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and a member of the Judiciary Committee, as well as Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts joined the protest and demanded stricter ethics rules to govern the Supreme Court.
The ProPublica report details a relationship in which Crowe, a Dallas billionaire, paid for annual vacations, travel and lodging — including vacations at his private lakeside resort nearly every summer as well as flights aboard his private jet for more than 20 years. A total cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars
”The extent and frequency of Crowe’s alleged gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the US Supreme Court.“, said the report, which claimed that Thomas’s avoidance of revealing theGiftsand the financial disclosures, violates the ethics laws that require judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose the gifts they receive.
In a statement to ProPublica, Crowe claimed that Thomas was a friend and never asked for any of the gifts or hospitality.
He added that neither he nor anyone else present at the meetings ever discussed pending cases with the judge.
Thomas is generally considered the most conservative member of the Roberts court, which tends to be more conservative than former President Donald Trump’s trio of appointees.
While some Democrats, including the AOC, have called for expanding the court beyond the traditional nine justices in hopes of counteracting the conservative bias, a bipartisan commission established by President Joe Biden to examine the feasibility of such a controversial move has refrained from recommending it.
If Thomas is dismissed, Biden will be called upon to name his replacement