Oliver made the proposal on Sunday’s episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, saying the supreme court justice had 30 days to accept or it would expire.
The British-born comedian’s offer came after a steady drumbeat of media investigations in the previous several months established that Thomas failed to disclose that political benefactors bought him lavish vacation travel and real estate for his mother. Thomas also failed to disclose – as required – that he allowed school fees for a family member to be paid off and had been provided a loan to buy a luxury motor coach, all after openly complaining about the need to raise supreme court justices’ salaries.
As a result, Thomas’s impartiality came into question after he sided with the contentious ruling that eliminated the federal abortion rights once provided by the Roe v Wade case.
He also recently listened to arguments over whether Donald Trump can be removed from states’ ballots in the presidential election after the former president’s supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – staged the January 6 attack at the US Capitol in Washington DC. Thomas resisted pressure to recuse himself from such matters, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, is a conservative political activist who has endorsed false claims from Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen from him.
It was scary seeing the stark difference between when he was begging his legislative colleagues that they need to raise their pay and his more recent interviews about how they are paid.
It’s clear as day that even though he isn’t getting paid more, he’s getting paid plenty.
The funny thing was that I almost couldn’t get a security clearance because I had so much debt in my early career days. The fact that there is zero oversight over the Supreme Court is just baffling.
Yup.
Rules for thee, not for me. Maybe that should become part of the swearing in oath so they can be honest at least once.