In a Supreme Court term packed with pressing cases, the decision by Colorado’s highest court to bar former President Donald Trump from the GOP primary ballot will skip the line, the court announced Friday afternoon. But there is no world in which this momentous case can be fairly heard by all nine justices.
There is no world in which this momentous case can be fairly heard by all nine justices.
Justice Clarence Thomas has reportedly committed numerous ethical lapses over his years on the high court. He’s heard cases involving his wife, Ginni Thomas, and her political work; he’s taken lavish gifts from a billionaire benefactor with business before the court; he’s neglected to list those gifts on documents meant to provide much needed transparency to the judicial process. But there’s no question that refusing to recuse himself from any decision regarding the Colorado case would be the greatest betrayal of his oath to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent” upon him as a justice of the Supreme Court.
Both the voters who successfully sued to have Trump barred under the 14th Amendment and the Colorado Republican Party asked the justices to move quickly to hear the case and issue a swift ruling. The justices agreed on Friday to hear arguments from the parties on Feb. 8. But the clock is ticking, as the state, which votes almost entirely via mail, needs to prepare the ballots to be sent to residents by Feb. 12 for the primary.
Ahead of the court’s decision, a group of House Democrats on Thursday sent Thomas a letter demanding that he recuse himself from the Colorado case, known as Anderson v. Griswold, specifically citing Ginni Thomas as a factor. While Trump himself appointed three of the nine justices to the bench, a recent NBC News analysis documented that the court’s conservative supermajority still doesn’t always rule in his favor. But the level of connection that Ginni has to Trump himself and the movement that…
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