Welcome. It is a verdict of Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you, and we are publishing on a Tuesday for a reason. The Democrats have decided that they want to have a conversation in Washington in Congress over what they're describing as judicial ethics. The problem is it's nothing more than an assault on the Supreme Court, and specifically, there is one justice they're really wanting to go after, and that is Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator, you're there in the middle of this talk about the Democrats and their game plan for this quote judicial ethics conversation.
Well, we are witnessing an historic assault on the court. And what the Democrats are doing is launching a frontal attack on the Supreme Court itself, on the legitimacy of the Court. They are trying to tear down the institution altogether. The reason they are doing that is that the the Supreme Court is the one institution that the hard left does not control, and there is right now a majority of justices on the Court who are committed to the Constitution, who are constitutionalists, and that drives the left crazy. It is one of the very few checks that remain on out of control left wing assaults on our basic rights, on free speech, on religious liberty, on the Second Amendment. That you have justices on the Supreme Court willing to be faithful to the Constitution and not to leftist political ideology. But the assault is not just directed at the Court itself. The assault is very deliberately directed at one justice, in particular, Clarence Thomas. You may have noticed in the last several weeks, article after article after article attacking Justice Thomas, accusing him of being unethical, accusing him of being corrupt, accusing him of being being bought and paid for. All of this is designed to try to wear Justice Thomas down. And the objective of the left, I believe is they hope to drive him away from the court. Now, let me be clear, they will not succeed. But if you take a moment to enter the fevered minds of the radical left, they have a hatred for Justice Thomas that is unique. There are other conservative justices, there have been other conservative justices over the years, but the left has a special loathing for Justice Thomas because he is African American. It is a loathing that is qualitatively different their view, the view of the hard left is that a black man cannot dare to be a conservative, that if you are black, or for that matter, if you are Hispanic, you must be a left wing ideologue, and if you're not, they have a unique level of rage. And when it comes to Justice Thomas, you look at the dripping contempt that the left is heaped upon him for decades. Justice Antonin Scalia served decades on the Court. He was, by almost any measure, every bit as conservative as Clarence Thomas. And yet the left didn't despise Justice Scalia the way they despise Justice Thomas. My former boss on the Supreme Court, William Hub's Renquist, was an extraordinary conservative who ushered in fundamental realignments of Supreme Court jurisprudence, bringing them back to the text and the original understanding of the Constitution. Chief Justice renquist impact on the Supreme Court is monumental and historic, and yet the left does not despise him even a fraction of what they despise Justice Thomas. And the important thing to understand about this assault on Justice Thomas, this is not a fair minded inquiry into judicial ethics. The reason we're releasing this pod on Tuesday morning instead of Wednesday morning, we're releasing it one day early, is later Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing convened by Democrat Chairman Dick Durbin. It is a hearing that is designed to be a kangaroo court, that is designed to be a circus that has one central objective attacking, smearing, maligning Justice Thomas. The left wants to vilify him. And here's something important to understand. Supreme Court justices are not able to defend themselves from political attacks. It's important for everyone listening to this podcast understand what is happening. This is a political attack. It is organized, it is concerted, it is funded. It has left wing advocacy groups who, one day after another after another, release breathless exposs of alleged improprieties. Those exposees are then amplified in a deliberate, concerted way through all of their friends in the corrupt corporate media, and then Democrat senators and Democrat House members jump up and down and demand Justice Thomas's resignation. This is not organic, this is not happening just naturally. This is a political campaign. Every bit is organized as a campaign for governor, for senator, or for president, and a Supreme Court justice, like Justice Thomas, is not in a position to defend himself. Justices have none of the equipment to defend themselves from a political smear campaign. They don't typically have the skill set or experience to defend themselves in a political smear campaign. And when the media are active participants in the smear campaign, it is altogether one sided and imbalanced. Therefore, I think it is incumbent on those of us who are in the political arena to present the other side of the argument, to present the defense to defend Justice Thomas. Let me say I know Justice Thomas. He is, in my judgment, hands down, one of the greatest justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a brilliant man. He is a deeply principled man. He is ferociously devoted to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He is a careful scholar, and he is a man of courage. All of those attributes would lead most people ordinarily to respect, to admire, to revere the man. I will readily admit I revere Justice Clarence.
Time.
For the modern left, those attributes are why they despise him, and even more so, take all of that fury and amplify it tenfold because he's an African American, not just an African American, an African American who grew up in abject poverty in Pinpoint Georgia, who came from nothing, who worked hard, who studied, who achieved, and yet who does not buy into the leftist narrative that they demand of the African American community. You accept their rules or they will go after you and demonize you. So this podcast is designed to explain, Okay, what are the issues surrounding the attacks, what's really going on? And I'm going to tell you in one sentence the key thing to understand. The attacks are utterly hypocritical. They are applying a double standard to Justice Thomas that is applied to no other justice. If we want to have a abstract reason discussion about judicial ethics, about what the rules should be and what the rules are that should apply to every judge or every justice that's reasonable, that's perfectly appropriate for the Senate Judiciary Committee to do. That will not be what the Democrats do today. Instead, this will be a political attack. Ad from the moment it gabbles in till the end of the hearing, all designed to malign and attack Justice Thomas and what he is accused of. Numerous other justices, including liberal icons that the left reveres, people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, people like Stephen Bryer, people like Sonya Soto Mayor have done the very same thing. And what the Democrats in the media are doing is they're trying to apply a double standard, to apply rules that were not rules only to Justice Thomas, not because his conduct is materially different from the other judges or justices, but rather because they hate and despise him. And so I hope that this podcast gives you some more information to understand just how unfair, just how biased this political smear attack is.
Yeah, and it's not just a smear attack. It's also them trying to undermine the stability and how important the Supreme Court is. And I do want to ask you one question about that. Before I do, I want to tell you about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. If you are sick and tired of giving your money to companies that just don't stand with your values for years, in fact, big mobile companies, probably the one you're with right now, has been dumping millions into leftist causes, and you pretty much had to just say, Okay, I'm going to deal with it because you didn't have another option. Well, guess what, there is another option. Patriot Mobile America's only Christian conservative wireless now. They offer dependable nationwide coverage on all three major networks, so you get the best possible service in your area without the woke propaganda pushed by leftists working hard to destroy this country. When you switch to Patriot Mobile each month, the portion of your bill will actually go to support free speech and religious freedom, the sanctity of life, Second Amendment issues, and our military as well as veterans and first responders are heroes. They're one hundred percent US based customer service team makes switching easy. You can keep your same cell phone number if you want to. You can keep your same cell phone or upgrade to a newer model. Plus, you're gonna get free activation today with the offer code Verdict. That's right, use the offer code Verdict You'll get free activation the best deals of the day. Patriotmobile dot com slash Verdict is where you need to go. Patriot Mobile dot com slash Verdict or call them eight seven eight Patriot. That's eight seven eight patriot, eight seven eight Patriot. Senator, I want to get back to one other thing before we bring in a special guest, and that is it is clear that the Democratic Party has been trying to undermine the Supreme Court once they saw that it was going to be moving to a conservative court. This happened during Trump administration. Yes, it was very clear they decided, then, all right, let's undermine the court any way we can. We saw them give out home addresses of Supreme Court justice harassed, Supreme Court justices talk about packing a court, expanding the court, and now doing what they're doing today in Washington is another step in just undermining the rule of law.
That is exactly right. We also saw the absolute circus of the confirmation hearing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, where the Democrats were perfectly willing to smear Justice Cavanaugh. It followed a pattern they had done previously with Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearing again where they went into the gutter with nasty personal smears. And that followed a pattern that was originated in nineteen eighty seven with the nomination of Robert Bork and their treatment of Robert Bork was so detestable that it actually formed coined a new verb. To bork a judge or bork a nominee is to go into the gutter with nasty, personal, scurless attacks. The Democrats with Justice Kavanaugh basically bellowed and accused him of being a rapist. And you'll recall how frustrated Justice Kavanaugh became because proving a negative, proving you have not committed whatever ridiculous slurs are lobbed upon you by politicians who are not mired to the facts, who are not looking to evidence, is an incredibly difficult challenge. But all of that got worse after the Supreme Court issues the Dobs opinion, and in fact, after the Dobbs opinion was leaked. When the Dobb's opinion was leaked, which I believe and we've talked about at length, was done by a left wing law clerk in order to threaten and intimidate the justices. The result was exactly what the Democrats predicted. It was angry mobs of protesters descending upon their homes, threatening their families. And it was also not condemned by President Biden, not condemned by the White House when they were asked to condemn it, they refused to do so. It was not prosecuted by Merrick Garland, even though it's an explicit federal crime to protest at the home of a judge in order to influence the decision in a case. And the reason that Merrick Garland and Joe Biden and Kamala Harrison, senate Democrats, that none of them stood up in defense of the court is sadly they are willing to countenance intimidation, bullying, and ultimately threats of violence. As you know, one deranged lunatic traveled all the way from California to Bethesda, Maryland with a knife, a gun, rope, and equipment in an attempt to murder Justice Kavanaugh and inspired by the angry rhetoric of the left. That's how extreme they've been willing to go. And so their attack on Justice Thomas is meant in their fevered dreams to drive Justice Thomas off the court. But even if they fail with their major objective, their second objective is to tear down the legitimacy of the Court so that the American people do not respect its decisions. Now, for anyone that cares about our country, about our constitution. That's not good for the country. And I think part of this concerted attack on the legitimacy of the Court is also to try to build political support for their radical plan to pack the Supreme Court to add instantaneously four new left wing justices who will vote the way Democrats want. Mind you, they don't care about the law. Ironically, because they don't care about the law, they also don't care about democracy. Many of the pol sees the left pushes are wildly unpopular. The left embraces unlimited abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, with no limitations. Roughly nine percent of Americans agree with that. Ninety one percent don't, so when the people vote, they don't vote for radical left wing positions. The American people believe in the Second Amendment right to keep in bare arms. They want to be able to protect their families. When the people vote on that, they typically vote to protect those rights. Today's modern democrats don't want the people to be able to vote on contested political issues. Instead, they want unelected judges to decree the extreme left wing position and to disenfranchise the voters. And so this attempt to delegitimize the cord is ultimately an attempt to attack democracy itself. And there's an irony because that's one of the favorite talking points of today's democrats is their defend democracy. And unfortunately, in the political battle we're in, frequently we see democrats purporting to defend that which they are in fact attacking, and purporting to oppose that in fact in which they are in fact promoting. And in this instance, the attack on the court is front and center, an attack on democracy and an attack on the Constitution.
No doubt about it. Before we bring in a guest, as someone who knows Clarence Thomas very well, and I want you to intro him appropriately, I want to tell you about our friends of Augusta Precious Medals. Right now is a great time to protect your hard earned dollars in a four to oh one k an iray that is backed with gold. If you've never looked at gold and silver as a part of a diverse fire portfolio, now maybe the time for you to actually take that look. There is no time to make up losses in the market, especially if you're in retirement or close to retirement, and that is where Augusta Precious Medals comes in. In fact, right now, if you've saved one hundred thousand dollars or more and you switch part of that into a gold Ira, you're also going to get free gold. That's right, a free gold coin just by switching to Augusta Precious Medals. They also do things a little bit differently. Not only do you get a free investors guy on gold when you call them, but you also can do a one on one conference with them online so that they can walk you through why gold and silver may be the right thing for you to use to protect and hedge against what's going on right now in this country. We saw another bank that had to be sold in the last twenty four hours. If that has got you nervous, take control and call Augusta Precious Medals eight seven seven four Goldra that's eight seven seven the number four gold Ira, or visit them online Augusta Precious Medals dot Com. That's Augusta Precious Metals dot com. Say that I sent you, and they'll also pay your fees for up to ten years at Augusta Precious Metals dot Com. Senator, this was obviously a show that we had to do early because of what the Democrats are doing it also gave us an opportunity to bring on a good friend of yours and a very good friend of Clarence Thomas.
And I want you to introduce Mark Well sure. Our guest today is Mark Paletta.
Now.
Mark is a very experienced lawyer in Washington. He is someone who has been close friends with Justice Thomas for thirty years. Mark worked with Justice Thomas when he was a young lawyer in the White House Counsel's Office under George Herbert Walker Bush Bush forty one, when Bush forty one nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, and so Mark worked on Justice Thomas's confirmation in nineteen ninety one. Recently, he has co edited a book on Justice Thomas entitled Created Equal Clarence Thomas in his own words. Mark is a partner at the law firm in d C. Of Share Jaffey, which is actually Gene Cher and Eric Jaffe are both friends of mine as well. Actually, Eric Jaffe clerked at the Supreme Court the same year I did. Eric clerk for Justice Thomas while I was clerking for the Chief Justice. Mark is also a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America. He's served in both the George Herbert Walker Bush administrations and the Trump administration, and he worked on the confirmations of Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsic, and Justice Kavanaugh. Mark also represented Ginny Thomas in connection with the House January sixth Committee and other kangaroo court. And let me actually read for you what Justice Thomas said and his memoirs about Mark Paletta and his work on the Thomas confirmation fight. So this is a quote from Justice Thomas and his memoirs. Virginia and I looked at each other in astonishment, then thanked God for the good people of this country. We first went to Saint Albans Episcopal Church, where the Reverend Jack Danforth presided over a service of Thanksgiving, delivering a moving, heartfelt homily on justice to a roomful of peuse packed with the familiar faces of family and friends. Then we went to the White House, where I threw protocol to the wind and went directly to Mark Paoletta's office to thank him for his friendship and for everything he'd done to defend me. We sat among tall stacks of paper, eating hamburgers and talking over the strange events of the summer and fall. I knew how inadequate my words of gratitude sounded. It would have taken a poet to tell him how I felt. But I also knew that out of this nightmare had come a friend to whom I would remain close for the rest of my life. It's with great pleasure that I welcome Mark Paoletta to verdict. Mark. Great to be with you.
Shenner, Thank you yet.
So, Mark, you have witnessed firsthand this recent assault on Justice Thomas, and you have been intimately involved in fighting back against each of the charges for listeners of the podcast. Assume that listeners of the podcast are aware of the assault but are not necessarily following the details closely. How would you summarize the principal charges that have been leveled against Justice Thomas in the last six weeks or so.
So the charges are all utterly baseless, in a word, meant to attack us as Thomas and smear him. I thought you did a wonderful job setting up what is going on here, Senator, which is to you know, attack the court and undermine it. With respect to Justice Thomas, the charges that he has a friends who happens to be wealthy, and he always on vacations with him, like all Americans do, go on vacations with your friends. And this friend happens to be, as I said, be wealthy, and he's not required under the rules of that the Judicial Conference laid out in implementing the epics and to disclose these trips. Harland Crowe is his friend, and Harlan's a friend of mine, you know, has no business before the court. There are longtime friends. They share interests and values together, and they go on trips. They've gone, you know, he's got he's got a home up in the Adirondacks. That Justice Thomas's has been to and and and the Left has turned this into some sort of crime to have a friend and not have to disclose every time you have a Hamburger with a friend, or go on a trip, or go on a flight somewhere. And so many justices have done this over the years. It's perfectly permissible. And in fact, the Judicial Conference at the plotting and i'd say bullying of Senator Whitehouse recently changed this rule to say that flights that you take and certain I'll call them homes that you stay at have to be disclosed. But it's very clear from the way they change the language and the way it was covered in sto Friends of Justices, the New York Times, even you know, left wing judicial ethics expert Stephen Dillers All admitted that Justice Thomas wasn't required to disclose these trips and these vacations before this rule change. The rule was changed on March fourteenth of twenty twenty three, just a couple of weeks ago. That is this entire, this long pro public a story. And I'm telling you, Senator, the number of reporters and the time they spent hunting down Justice Thomas's you know, trip and where he was, the amount of time they put on that when they could be looked looking at Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and all the things of this administration. But what they want to focus on is making Justice Thomas's life a living hell. And as you said, this idea of trying to actually drives him off the court. They at first right, as they do with many justices, they want to see if they could bend you to their will and make you sort of change your jurisprudence, maybe trim it here and there. They know that's been a failure and utter failure for thirty years for Justice Thomas, who used to write solo descent and concurrences and you were up there at the time, you know, is now commanding majorities on all these opinion engine areas that you have laid out, from Dobbs to the Second Amendment, training in the administrative state, to religious liberties. These are all issues that Justice Thomas has been a leader on and has laid down as church prude. But that is the first sort of the first attack on him. The most latest attack was the one on the trips and the fact that he didn't disclose.
So and let's take a moment to focus on this, because Mark, you're right, this has been the most prominent attack. And the attack is that he traveled with a very good friend of his, Harlan Crowe. Harlan is a friend of mine as well. I know Harlan well. He lives in Dallas. He's a very successful businessman. He's a very generous philanthropist. He is a Republican, although he's not not a terribly conservative Republican. He frankly is a self described very moderate. In fact, he's described himself as a pro choice Republican. He is not Harlan Crowe is not a fan of Donald Trump, but he has been a supporter. He was a big, big supporter of Mitt Romney's. He's been a supporter of mine, He's been a supporter of other Republicans. And he and Justice Thomas have been friends for decades, close friends. And the attack is that Justice Thomas has vacationed with Harlan Crowe and has been to his home on vacation, and that has flown on his plane and has been on his yacht as well. And that's the attack. And look, I can imagine a world in which rules were put in place that says said, no Justice can stay at anyone else's home. I could imagine a world in which a rule was put in place that say no Justice can fly on a private plane. I could imagine a world in which a rule was put in place that say no Justice can be on anyone's yacht. That might make sense, it might not. We could debate that in the abstract, but let's start with this proposition. The rules don't say that, now do they mark.
They're being changed. If you can be on them, you need to disclose it. But until March fourteenth of twenty twenty three, it was if you were a friend, and the personal hospitality exemption, you didn't have to disclose sorts of trips from the flight to being on a boat, to being on at somebody's vacation home and food and entertainment, all those things were exempt under the personal hospitality exemption. The Judicial Conference changed that on March fourteenth of twenty twenty three. New York Times covered it, and even Senator Whitehouse last year had a hearing on this with the old rule and came up with a scenario to described the justice going on a yeah, a justice going to somebody's a place in Aspen or something like that, and said to the witness, now he wouldn't have to disclose those things right under this rule, and his witness it's left wing, you know. After this, Kedric paints, Yeah, the rule has been interpreted by the courts to not have to disclose that so up until this point, and you're right, you know, if they want to write a rule that says X y Z, fine, But what's being what is being sort of double standard, as you said, to apply to double centers with Justice Tomments, is the fact that he should have disclosed these things when he had no reason to so.
And let me underscore a couple of points, because it's important to understand the specifics. Number One, the Judicial Ethics rules have never and even to this day, do not prohibit a justice from staying at someone else's home, from flying on a plane a private plane, from getting on a yacht. The rules do not prohibit that. And up until March of twenty twenty three, in other words, up until just over a month ago, the rules did not require disclosure of staying at a personal friend's home, or flying on the friend's plane, or being on the yacht. Am I stating that accurately both of those propositions?
Yes? Okay.
Now you might say, well okay, but clearly from the press coverage, what Justice Thomas has done is really really different, and no other justice does that. And if that were true, then I guess you could have an argument about why Justice Thomas was doing something out of the norm. It just happens not just to be false, but wildly, blatantly, undeniably false. So, according to the public data that are available at all the Justices, Justice Thomas has reported to date one hundred and nine reported trips. That is, since he was appointed and confirmed to the Court in nineteen ninety one. One hundred and nine of those one hundred and nine five were international trips. Now you might say one hundred and nine Okay, that's egregious, that's just too much. All right, Let's look to Justice Ruth Vader Ginsburg. So Justice Ruth Vader Ginsburg. Justice Thomas was confirmed to the Court in nineteen ninety one. Justice Ginsburg was the next justice to arrive. She was confirmed in nineteen ninety three. How many reported trips did Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have? One hundred and fifty seven of them? How many were international? That would be twenty eight. So Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed after Clarence Thomas, had nearly fifty percent more trips than Justice Thomas has had, and had nearly six times as many international trips. Okay, well, maybe Justice Ginsburg is an outlier. What about Justice Brier? Okay, Justice Brier. So Steve Bryer was confirmed in nineteen ninety four, So he was the next justice confirmed to the Court after Ruth Bader Ginsburg. During his time on the Court, Remember, Clarence Thomas had one hundred nine trips? How many did Steve Bryer have? That would be two hundred and thirty three, so more than two times as many trips as Justice Thomas. Three of them were international. All right, that's Justice Bryer. How about Justice Kagan. Now, Lena Kagan was confirmed in August of twenty ten, so she's been on the Court just over twelve years. Twelve and a half years. In that twelve and a half years, so about a third of the time Justice Thomas has been on the court. Elena Kagan, who's a Democrat appointee appointed by Obama, reported sixty eight trips sixty eight, so she's got two thirds of the trips Justice Thomas has in only one third of the time, and six of those were international. Well, but surely those are outliers. All right, Let's try one more. Sonya so to my or, Sonya so to my or appointed by Obama, Obama's first appointee, confirmed in August of two thousand and nine, Sonya so to my or Again, she's been on the court just about a third of the time Justice Thomas has. How many does she have? One hundred and fifty one reported trips? That is fifty percent more than Justice Thomas in a third of the time, and ten international trips now at the Judiciary Committee hearing, if they want to go through and drag Ruth Bader Ginsburg through the mud, and drag Steve Bryer through the mud, and drag Elena Kagan through the mud, and drag Sonya Soto Mayor through the mud, the Democrats are welcome to do that. I'm going to predict they're not going to because they're being utterly hypocritical and they're attacking Clarence Thomas for something that other justices, including icons of the left, have done, and most of them have done far more frequently than Clarence Thomas. Is what I said. Accurate there, Mark.
Absolutely accurate, Senator, And I think I'll kind of go back to what you were saying about how the left heaps Justice Thomas and exposes their racism. When you read about Clarence Thomas and these trips and his friendship with with Harlan Crowe, it's always in this sense that like Harlan Crowe has bought Justice Thomas, he he has him, he's under his spell. And you never read that about any other justice with respect to you know, going on trips and going flying somewhere, being on somebody's boat, it's this racism, uh that's directed at Justice Thomas that somehow, you know, Harlan Crowe is controlling Clarence Thomas. And it's it started when he went on the d C circuit and they said he was dependent on Larry Silverman. Then it goes to when he goes on to the Supreme Court and he's dependent on Justice Scalia, always dependent on his wife or his law clerks at the Supreme that the White House allegedly, you know, picked for him. So it's got this it's really this disgusting attack on Justice Thomas that is connected to this his French with halland Crubb.
Well, you're exactly right. And there's a contempt that the left has, particularly to an African American who dares to be conservative. And part of the consmpt contempt is an intellectual arrogance that the left has for decades tried to caricature Justice Thomas as not very bright. He must be led by white conservatives, because lord knows, he couldn't figure out those views on his own. And it was grotesquely offensive when liberals advanced that argument in nineteen ninety one, and it has been grotesquely offensive ever since. And I got to tell you. Look, I was in law school. I graduated law school in nineteen ninety five, So Justice Thomas was a new Supreme Court justice when I was in law school, and the professors at Harvard Law School, most of the left wing students at Harvard Law School, they really did view Clarence Thomas as just a rube, just not bright enough really to even tie his own shoes, And the racist condescension was palpable. Now, I will say what's interesting is in the thirty plus years Justice Thomas has been on the Court, Justice Thomas' term after term has written extraordinary opinions. And for anyone that follows Supreme Court jurisprudence, there are real differences between Justice Thomas's jurisprudence and Justice Scalia's jurisprudence and Chief Justice Ranquist jurisprudence. But of all of the justices, the Justice most likely to revisit long standing precedent and to go back to first principles, to go back to what does the Constitution say, what was the original public meaning of the words used in the Constitution, and to go back and examine it carefully. There's no justice more willing to do so than Clarence Thomas. And he started very early on when he was brand new in the court. Every term there would be one or two opinions that term where he would write a very very serious, scholarly exposition of an area of law, sometimes big sexy areas of law that command a lot of attention, other times relatively obscure areas of law, but nonetheless that were consequential. And there was a palpable shift over the years, which is leftist for the first five ten years just decried him as an idiot. But you couldn't read the opinions that he wrote and maintained that. They would say, by the way, well he's not writing it. It's his law clerks. His law clerks are doing his work for him. Well, look I clerked at the court. Every justice has law clerks. And yet somehow, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an opinion, it wasn't her law clerks. When Bill Brennan wrote an opinion, it wasn't his law clerks. It's only Justice Thomas's law clerks. They think that are writing the opinions. Maybe you could argue that for a term or two, but at this point, over three decades, there is a consistent thread of a unified view and understanding, a depth and scholarly gravitas that Justice Thomas has brought. And I gotta say, Mark, oddly enough, the left, particularly the legal academy, have been forced to pay him a backhanded compliment because you don't see them attacking him anymore as not up to the job, not bright enough that they did for years say well, he just follows Scalia. Scalia is no longer with us, and Justice Thomas is the leader of the more conservative justices. He is one of the most consequential justices to have ever lived. And now the left just says he's dangerous. That in a way is a concession because it is acknowledging the power of his ideas. But they nonetheless visit a special agree of hate on him that I think is directly related to his race and the view Democrats have that you must agree with them if you happen to be African American, or if you happen to be a spati.
Mark, I want to ask you a question too, that that you just mentioned, Senator, and that's this. The Supreme Court is a tight knit group. A lot of times you will see justices you know that won't necessarily criticize us or other justice you know, publicly. Why is it on an issue like this that, by the way, would effect I would assume all of their lifestyles based on the number of trips that you heard this senator run through a few minutes ago. Are we not going to see some justices come out and kind of say, hey, this is out of bounds to you know, in the way that they're treating Justice Thomas. Are they just going to say, hey, we'll stay out of this. If you guys want to do this, it's on you.
Well, I think the attack on a court has actually galvanized them. We've never seen you know, there'll be differences on their opinions, but you just saw the Chief Justice. You know, am I do you give a stiff arm? Rightly so to the Judiciary Committee in terms of testifying. And then I think unprecedented. I don't think there's ever been a nine justices signing the ethics opinion, the statement on ethics and refusals that they also issued. So I think there's a coming together that they realize they're under assault, that this is so on the institution of the Supreme Court, and that's good for no one. And so you know, I think it's going to backfire on the left. This attack the left always, you know, they do this whole lot, but they are going after every justice. They're particularly hate Justice Thomas. As you said, Senator, I think it's in part right, he's been so successful. They tried to destroy him in ninety one. I lived through. I went through that with him. But he's now ascendant. Right, he is the leader of the cour were after thirty years right set more than seven hundred opinions. As you said, he writes more opinions per year than any justice on the court and has for many years. And the other thing, right, and as you said, one of the one legal commentator a left wing commentator. So Justice Thomas is the most important legal thinker of the generation and the most significant visual appointment of the last forty years. It's Ian Millheiser from box right who's no fan of the Justice but realizes his influence and more importantly, or as importantly, his clerks, his army of clerks, and Senator, you know this, right, they have gone out into the world. There are fifteen judges, I think fifteen judges on courts of Appeals and other courts that are are are is the next generation. He has solicitors general right out there, Scott Stewart, who who's in Mississippi. He argued the Bobs case. He has law clerks who are representing the Harvard the Planets against Harvard and the University North Carolina in the affirmative action cases. Right. His clerks are changing the faith of American jurisprudence from his ideas and from his example of courage to go out there and change the world and changing, you know, the legal status quo. And that's what really enrages the left is that he's successful and they've taken all these shots at him, and he is not bowed ever to these attacks. And he's only seventy four years old, right, which is as a mazing, you know, another decade on the court, maybe more. And so that's why they're attacking. I think that's why there's this fury and these other justices, the youngman justices who look up to Justice Thomas. You know, I helped out on the Borsch confirmation. And you saw, you know, an email that was revealed at the Department of Justice where Neil Borsich was emailing with Greg Cassis who's on the d C circuits talking about Justice Thomas's descent in Quila, what a magnificent opinion had opinion it was. So it's just effect on these younger justices. I think that that's shaping this court. That's providing the strength and courage for these guys both to do so bulgerus prudence and also personal courage in this attack. And I think it was significant. I think it's of the year university of this leak, that none of the justices backed off that opinion, and I think that was significant that you know, unprecedented leaks, but nobody moved and I think they showed courage under fire, and I think that significant going forward.
I want to ask another question of both you and many people that are listening right now are going to want to know what can I do to help? What is it that I can do to stand with Justice Thomas and others that are coming under attack from the left and the way that they're doing this in Washington. Before you guys answer that, I want to tell you about our friends of her Chalk. Chalk is a company that is actually run by a bunch of patriots and they're here to help real American men, take back your right to maximize your masculinity by boosting your testosterum levels up to twenty percent over ninety days. If you're feeling weakness and complacency, then you don't have to live that way. You can get back that strength and vitality by checking out Chalk choq dot com. I've been taking Chalk for now a couple of months, and I can tell you the mal Vitality stack. It works. It's manufactured right here in the US. Chalk's natural herbal supplements are clinically proven to have game changing effects on your energy, your focus, your mood. So maximize your masculinity today at Chalk choq dot com. Use the promo code Ben and you'll get thirty five percent off anty Chalk subscription for Life choq dot com promo code Ben for thirty five percent off Satra. I want to get you, guys, take on this and Mark. Many people that listen to this podcast, they listen because they want to be involved. They don't want to just listen and walk away. They want to be active participants in the process, and they want to make a difference for their country. What can they do to help justice Thomas when it comes to what's happening to Dan DC.
Well, let me say several things. First of all, they can share this podcast. You know what is guaranteed that the corrupt corporate media is not going to discuss the facts. They don't want to discuss these facts. They are active participants in the political campaign trying to drive Justice Thomas off the court. And by the way, there is a precedent. You look at abe Fortis, who was a sitting justice of the Supreme Court, and there was a scandal that came out, a financial scandal that came out, and abe Fortis resigned from the court. And the left is looking to that example and they want to replicate it with Justice Thomas. They hate him and they want him off the court because he is such an effective justice. And so the media is they're demonizing Justice Thomas. They're demonizing Harlan crow And Harlan Crowe is a good and decent man. He's a very generous philanthropist. They're trying to attack him as some nefarious right wing billionaire. By the way, one of the slanders they direct at Harlan Crowe as they say, oh, he collects not see memorabilia. So Harlan's home is essentially a museum, and he hosts events in Dallas all the time. There are all sorts of public and community events there and he has hundreds, probably thousands of artifacts. He has lots of artifacts from World War Two. He has actually outside his home a whole series of statues that were erected to Communist leaders and that were toppled when those countries became liberated. They were statues that were toppled, and he's collected them and erected them not because he admires Communist leaders, but because he wants the world not to forget get their horrors. The same is true with his World War Two displays. He has lots of displays with with artifacts from the Allies, the American Armies, but he also has artifacts from the bad guys from the Nazis, not because he admires them, but the same reason that a museum displays what happens so that we remember our history. But the media doesn't want to tell you that. They want to paint him like some comic book villain twirling his mustache. And just remember, nobody in the media is engaged in any research trying to do an expose of any of the left wing justices. Clarence Thomas, as I said, has one hundred and nine reported trips. Justice Bryer had two hundred and thirty three reported trips, so nearly so more than twice as many. And it's worth noting if you say, well, okay, but but there's not the farious billionaire. Well, actually, Justice Brier had multiple trips that were supported by the Chicago based Pritzker family, very wealthy billionaires Democrats. Actually Pritzker is the sitting governor, the Democrat governor of Illinois, and Justice Pryor took multiple trips supported by the Pritzker family. Not only that, in twenty thirteen, Justice Brier flew on hedge Fund manager David Rubinstein's private jet to a wedding in Nantucket. Because they're trying to say, well, it's different because Justice Thomas went in a private jet, Well so did Justice Bryer. And let me be clear, because I don't want what I'm saying here to be misconstrued. I am not suggesting that any of the justices are corrupt. I'm not suggesting Justice Brier is or Justice Ginsberg, or Justice Kagan or Justice sodamor all of them were following the rules that were in place, but so was Justice Thomas, and the left and their cronies in the media are happy to apply a standard to Justice Thomas that doesn't apply to any other justice. And if you want to have a rule, apply it to everyone, but don't make up a rule after the fact and then pretend the guy you hate is the only person that violated the rule that did not exist. That's what the Democrats are doing, that's what the media is doing. And so your question, Ben, what can you do make sure people know these facts? Because if you listen to the rhetoric today at the hearing and judiciary, Democrats are going to describe Justice Thomas as corrupt because he did the same things that the other justices have done over and over and over again, and that is fundamentally dishonest. Mark your thoughts.
Yeah, I completely agree the gas lighting and we saw this going back the last year with Justice Thomas and his wife, Jinny. Right, Jinny has her own career, He's been in the political square for many, many years, and yet when she speaks out on an issue, Justice Thomas has to has to accuse himself and he should be impeached if he doesn't do that when in fact, as you know, Ruth Vader Ginsburg's husband was at a firm and his firm appeared many times before the Supreme Court, and she never accused herself and nobody said a word. So there's all of these examples like that, Senator of you know, the double standard, as you said, you know, I'm at Mark Poleetta on Twitter. I write a lot. I have a lot of fact filled articles. I just wrote one today was published today in a National Review about the sale of Justice Thomas's mother's home to Harlan Crowe, which was a beautiful story actually that the vicious Meetia has turned into somehow Clarence Thomas being enriched at Harle.
So tell us that story, because that's another attack that's out there, and tell people what happens so they can actually understand the fact.
Sure. So Harlan Crowe, you know, has got this great friendship with Clarence Thomas, but he recognizes that this man is an American hero, that he represents the best of America. So over the years, Harlan's been down and he's gone down there. He's had dinner with Justice Thomas's family, with his mother in his mother's home. This is the home that she lives in, which is his grandfather's where Justice Thomas moved when he was seven and his life was transformed from this abject poverty of growing up in Pinpoint and then into Savannah with his mom and a one tenement into this this humble but solid home in Savannah, and she's living there now. But Harland renovated the Carnegie Library, which was that during segregation, the all black you know library in Savannah, where Thomas first learned to kind of love reading, and he gave a donation to renovate it and name a wing after Justice Thomas. Nothing ran to Justice time in that regard. There was a the Oyster and a crab factory which was in Pinpoint, which Clarence Thomas grew up right next to, and Harlan renovated that into a museum. So he's down there in twenty fourteen and he's near his mom's neighbor in the neighborhood, and he sees that it's it's it's a lot of drug dealers and just you know, just a bad place, not safe. And Harlane asked Justice Thomas, what are you going to do with his home when your mom passes and her his mom at the time was eighty five, and Justice Thomas says, I'm going to bulldoze it, and Harlan said that would be terrible, like this should be a museum. So he wanted to buy it in order to preserve it. And you know, at the time he talked to Justice Thomas by it, he didn't know that Justice Thomas even owned an interest in it. The house had passed from his grandfather when his grandfather died in eighty four, through his mother, his brother who passed away in two thousands, to his brother's estate. Now and his mother and Harlan Crowe's team. He's in real estate, he's a developer, looked at the fair market value and offered a price of one point thirty three for that home plus two other plots, lots that used to have homes on them that his grandfather owned their one one house over on the same street. So they entered into a you know, a contract and and in the and part of that contract was to give a life occumency agreement to Justice Thomas's mother so she could live there for the rest of her life. She's, you know, fortunately still living at ninety four, but at eighty five, had entered into this contract to purchase the home. This way he could own the property so that he could preserve it and it wouldn't be sold to somebody else. It wouldn't bulldoze. It was a beautiful story. When he bought the crab and oyster factory to the cannery several years earlier, the people who owned that, Harland wanted to buy that too to be able to preserve it, so he gave them a life occupancy agreement in that home. So it's the same thing people are saying, oh, you know, they're letting Harlan Crow was letting his mother live there rent free. There's nothing of the sort. It was an agreement that made a lot of sense. So Harlan could buy the property to preserve it and then allow his mom to live there. Because he's in no rush. He just wanted to have his home so that he could he you know, he can preserve it and make it into a museum at the appropriate time. Beautiful story. Now, when Justice Thomas had, you know, in supporting his mother and helping her with the homedown, and he had poured a lot of money into his home, and so his capital costs and the improvements to the home were such that one that when the transaction happened and Justice Thomas only got a third of that three so it's around forty four thousand dollars. His capital costs were above that. And so when he was doing the you know, thinking about this transaction, he thought it's a loss. That's not income for me, So I'm not reporting any income on it. But then there's this section that's called transaction. It's called it's called investments and trusts on the form, and I think he inherited this home many years ago, hadn't really thought of it as an investment or a trust, and didn't put down on that part of the format there's any transaction over a thousand dollars, So on that part he didn't put it down there because he thought I didn't make any money. I wasn't thinking of that section and didn't put it down. I think he's reviewing his forms and he's anticipated, I think, to amend that part of the form. But that's nothing. Amendments happened all the time right as you As you mentioned, Senator justices and mend their forms because they realized they did someth They need to amend it, just as Soda Mayor last year amended her twenty sixteen forms because she failed to list six trips that she had taken that were all paid for, you know, flights and accommodations. Justice Jackson forgot to mention got disclosed her husband's malpractice consultancies for many years on her form, and she put that down belatedly on her Supreme Court forms. Nothing unusual to do that. So again it was this transaction where you know Harlan Crowe because as you've described, and he's an incredible patriot, he is and sort of preserving the Clarence Thomas story. Right. This amazing and I won't go through it. You can did a beautiful job in the intro of where Justice Thomas was born and how he came you know, sort of came through life. Is just this inspiring story. And so Harlan has, over the years, long before he he purchased Justice Thomas's mother's home, had purchased several things in the Savannah Pinpoint area to preserve this heritage and the life story of Justice Thomas.
So let me underscore two things you said, because I think that there was a lot of very important information. You said number one, that Harlan Crowe purchased this home in order to preserve it, in order to turn it into a museum. Now, if you think about it, there are museums to practically every former president of the United States. There are museums to Supreme Court justices. There are museums to senators and members of Congress. There are museums to governors. We normally think of erecting museums to recognize people who have been historically significant as a public service, as recognizing their impact by any measure, Clarence Thomas's life has been historically significant. You also take this home in the context. Justice Thomas's autobiography is entitled My Grandfather's Son. It's a beautiful autobiography. I have actually given Justice Thomas's autobiography UH to teenagers, in particular to to to African American teenagers, to inspire what is possible. The journey that he traveled, facing real and serious discrimination, facing real and serious hardship, and rising to the very pinnacle of of of the legal profession. UH is is powerful and inspiring. It's inspiring to all of us. And and so you know, I for one, am grateful that that Harlan is stepping forward to commemorate that history, to to to provide for a museum. But but it is a fairly bizarre concept that by by creating a museum there's somehow something untoward or corr on that, particularly a museum where Justice Thomas lost money, and the sort of related notion that well, but Harlan Crowe didn't evict his ninety four year old mother from the home. If you're going to turn it into a museum, you know what he might have been the mustache twirling villain if he'd thrown the ninety four year old out and said, sorry, you're on the street, lady. Good luck. Like, it's not a strange notion to say, we're going to buy this and turn it into a museum, but we're going to allow you to live in your home until the time comes that you pass. That is a normal step. And then so the one, the one little attack they have that has a tiny purchase is you said that that well, technically he should have reported it. Now I will note, as you did, Supreme Court justices amend their disclosures all the time. I will tell you, as a senator, I have to file a financial disclosure every year, every senator does, every house me does. The directions on those financial disclosures are complicated. There are Caine. There's a whole team of lawyers in the Senate who advise you, and so you'll have a question about a particular transaction, how do I record it? And by the way, that team of lawyers sometimes changes their mind. So one year they'll tell you to record a particular transaction one way, and the next year they say no, no, no, We've decided you record it another way. And so it it is our Caane. There's a lot of gray area, and so justices and justices also have lawyers at the Supreme Court who advise them on that Justice Thomas has said he relied on the advice of the lawyers at the Supreme Court for how to fill out his form. And if it is the argument of the left that amending your form shows aha, you did something wrong or corrupt, I'm willing to wager something. I can't prove this, but you could actually research it and find out the answer pretty quick. But I'll wager you twenty bucks. Ben At every single Democrat on the Judiciary Committee who has been on the committee five years or more has amended their form at least once.
I was gonna bet you that, but I was gonna go for one hundred because that's that's how certain I was that what you were about to say is absolutely right, because like, there's no way they haven't been amended yet.
Look, I mean, maybe the brand new members haven't done it yet because they haven't been there long enough. But if you've been there five years, Look, amendments are just part of the process, and it's complicated, it's byzantine. And I'm not saying that the senators who've amended their forms are corrupt, but it is absurd to demonize Clarence Thomas because a museum is being erected in order to recognize his historical contribution. And if that's corrupt, you know, last I checked, there's an Obama museum. Last I checked, there's a Bill Clinton museum the state. By the way, Thurgood Marshall's childhood home is preserved as a museum. The standard ought to apply across the board fairly. And all of this attack is a nakedly hypocritical political attack. It is not a substantive criticism on the merits.
No doubt about it. Don't forget. As the Senator mentioned earlier, we publish this on Tuesday. We will do it again on Friday and get you the latest news of the day there, but this was an important way, and with this issue up in Washington on Tuesday, that's why we published a day early. Please make sure you share this podcast with your family and friends as well, so that they can hear what's going on and what the Left is trying to do here. Mark, it was a pleasure to have you on as well. Thank you for joining, Senator Take cruise night tonight, don't forget. Hit the share button, share this with your family and friends, and write us a five star review. We'll see you back here on Friday morning.