Was Justice Thomas Behind The Obamacare Leaks?

[deminks]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/03/510247/thomas-crawford-leaks/

The biggest revelation in CBS News reporter Jan Crawford’s piece on the Supreme Court’s health care deliberations isn’t that Chief Justice John Roberts originally voted to strike down the Affordable Care Act and then changed his mind — Crawford merely confirmed what many people already expected based on evidence in the opinions themselves. Rather, the biggest revelation is that fact that, in order for her piece to exist at all, someone inside the Court must have leaked confidential information to her.

Yesterday, the New York Times‘ Adam Liptak strongly implied that the leak could be Justice Clarence Thomas:

(snip)

If Thomas is the leak, that would be a shocking escalation from the justices normal tactics — and one which could have lasting consequences for the future. Appellate courts function because of the assumption that their members can openly discuss their thoughts and misgivings about individual cases without fear that those discussions will later be used to embarrass them. If that assumption no longer prevails in Supreme Court conferences, the Court will morph into a far less deliberative, more factional institution.

(snip)

If Thomas did leak the Court’s deliberations, that still leaves open who the second leaker is (Noam Scheiber makes a strong case that the second leak could be Justice Kennedy). At the moment, however, we know that Thomas is the justice who is most likely to cast long-established practices aside due to a personal crusade. And we know that he already has a good relationship with the reporter who received the Supreme leak.

(end snip)

[SoutherDem]

1. I was thinking his wife.

You know the justices talk to their spouses.

[Control-Z]

2. I was thinking the same thing.

Not that Thomas is a pillar of justice, himself. His wife is appears to have less control over her mouth.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. Ginni Thomas advertises her "connections" to get huge "consulting" fees

from Tea Party financial angels:

From http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/48812.html :

"Justice Thomas’s wife Virginia Thomas now a lobbyist
By KENNETH P. VOGEL & MARIN COGAN & JOHN BRESNAHAN Updated: 2/5/11 7:33 AM EST

Now, Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her 'experience and connections' to help clients 'with 'governmental affairs efforts' and political donation strategies."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. More from the Politico article about Ginni Thomas

"Thomas’s role as a de facto tea party lobbyist and--until recently--as head of a tea party group that worked to defeat Democrats last November 'show a new level of arrogance of just not caring that the court is being politicized and how that undermines the historic image of the Supreme Court as being above the political fray,' said Arn Pearson, a lawyer for Common Cause...

'It raises additional questions about whether Justice Thomas can be unbiased and appear to be unbiased in cases dealing with the repeal of the health care reform law or corporate political spending when his wife is working to elect members of the tea party and also advocating for their policies.'

Even among congressional Republicans, with whom Thomas boasts she has close ties, the reaction to the entreaties from her new firm, Liberty Consulting, ranged from puzzlement to annoyance, with a senior House Republican aide who provided Thomas's e-mail to POLITICO, blasting her for trying to 'cash in' on her ties to the tea party movement."

[Historic NY]

9. Lots of pillow talk......

just wait until they have the RV out on the highway.

[PoliticAverse]

3. If a justice leaked the decision before it was publicly announced that justice should resign. n/t

[randome]

4. That would be ironic.

Since he rarely says anything in court.

[rocktivity]

5. It was a deliberate campagin to smear Roberts into striking down all of ACA

so I have absolutely no reason to doubt that the conservative justices were the main leakers.

Kennedy and Scalia would be the most obvious choices. But Thomas, through his wife, would be the perfect weapon of mass diversion.


rocktivity

[spanone]

7. activist judges...

[UTUSN]

8. Does a Coca Cola can have a pubic hair on it?!1 n/t

[madinmaryland]

11. Ironic, because he never speaks or has any opinions.