There was a phrase that entered the political lexicon during the Watergate scandal that eventually led to the resignation of Richard Nixon: It’s not the scandal, it’s the cover-up.
That may well be the case when applied to Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who is currently embroiled in a scandal of his own creation by accepting fancy trips and accommodations from a billionaire Republican donor, as was first reported by ProPublica earlier this month.
Thomas has attempted to downplay the entire matter, and it would appear that Chief Justice John Roberts has no interest in pursing the matter, even though not doing so threatens the integrity of the entire Supreme Court and its nine justices.
So while it may seem right now that Thomas is in the clear, Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics notes in an op-ed he wrote for MSNBC, that Thomas’ continued efforts to pull a screen down on his actions is a direct threat to him.
Thomas’ actions place him in potential legal jeopardy, and further undermine the Supreme Court’s legitimacy in the eyes of a public that has become increasingly skeptical of its ability to act as an apolitical arbiter of the law.
That’s where you can see the parallel to Nixon, Bookbinder continues:
That’s a lesson that the country learned from the Watergate scandal. The revelation that some Nixon campaign employees broke into the Democratic Party headquarters didn’t cause a generation of Americans to lose their faith in government. Time and again the cover-up is what ultimately causes the downfall.
If the Supreme Court is to have any legitimacy whatsoever (according to recent polls, public confidence in the high court is at an all-time low), it will have to try and police itself, and that means that Thomas’ days on the court of final appeal are numbered.
This is poison for the Supreme Court. It is an institution built on a foundation of public trust: It does not have the power of the purse or the authority to enforce the laws that it interprets. Credibility is its currency. And that foundation of credibility is already eroding. Thomas has an ethical duty, and he failed to live up to it. As a result, he has caused greater harm to himself, his legacy and the Supreme Court as an institution than disclosing his conduct would have done. And in doing so he learned the same lesson that many before him have been forced to learn: Honesty may be painful or uncomfortable, but the alternative is worse. And once again, our democracy may end up paying dearly for that lesson.
Justice Thomas needs to resign as soon as possible. Every day he remains on the court will only serve to further degrade our belief in the independence and integrity of the American judicial system.
