Jack Smith wants Donald Trump to go to trial over his election fraud charges before the presidential election next November. Could Clarence Thomas save him?
Special counsel Jack Smith wants Donald Trump to go to trial over his alleged election fraud charges before the presidential election next November. And it looks like that could happen, despite the former president’s desperate desire to delay. But Trump still has one possible Hail Mary remaining. He could try to somehow kick the case up to the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority could rescue him. That Supreme Court was one of the last, desperate plans for Trump’s 2020 coup. And there is at least one very conservative justice who one of Trump’s co-conspirators thought would be particularly inclined to help out: Clarence Thomas.
Justice Thomas is probably the most right-wing member of the Supreme Court in living memory. He is fully committed to re-making the country in his conservative vision. But the other key thing you need to know about Clarence Thomas is that he has always wanted to be rich. It is part of what drove him from a childhood in abject poverty to an Ivy League law school. As explained in the Frontline PBS documentary about Thomas, attending Yale Law School “was a chance to leave Pin Point [Georgia] far behind, defy his grandfather’s prophecy and get positioned to make real money.”
For a time, Thomas did work in the private sector for the agrochemical giant Monsanto. But by 1981, he was nominated for a position in the Reagan Administration. President George H. W. Bush elevated Thomas to a federal judgeship, and in 1991, nominated him to the Supreme Court. When Clarence Thomas chose to take that path, he was foregoing a lot, and I mean a lot, of potential income. Supreme Court justices are paid well, but nowhere near as much as a corporate lawyer. Thomas said himself, in a 2001 speech to the Savannah Bar Association that it is not a job that you do for the money.
And being a Supreme Court justice is also not a job that you leave. Thomas has been on the court for more than 30 years now, making a very good, upper-middle-class salary. Certainly enough to live comfortably and take nice vacations. But not enough to be really rich. You do not get to be a flamboyantly rich guy if you are a Supreme Court justice.
But there are a lot of flamboyantly rich guys who have a real interest in keeping Clarence Thomas on the court — people who share his right-wing ideology who want him to rule in line with their conservative vision.
