As his ethics controversies mounted over the course of the year, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his allies struggled to justify his apparent lapses. Over the summer, for example, my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones reported that more than a 100 of the far-right justice’s former clerks released an open letter vouching for the jurist’s integrity.
The odd thing about the defense, however, was that it didn’t include an actual defense. The public should discount the allegations, the former clerks effectively argued, not because they’re false, but because people who’ve worked with Thomas believed he deserved the benefit of the doubt, the evidence notwithstanding.
What was not obvious at the time, however, was the ease with which the former clerks’ statement came together. The New York Times reported over the holiday weekend:
In the 32 years since Justice Thomas came through the fire of his confirmation hearings and onto the Supreme Court, he has assembled an army of influential acolytes unlike any other — a network of like-minded former clerks who have not only rallied to his defense but carried his idiosyncratic brand of conservative legal thinking out into the nation’s law schools, top law firms, the judiciary and the highest reaches of government.
The Times’ report has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.
In the nation’s capital, it’s not too unusual for alumni of prominent officials to keep in touch long after they’ve moved on to other positions. Aides to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, for example, famously created an alumni group of sorts, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with such efforts. These organizing efforts can be great for networking, learning about job opportunities, maintaining relationships, etc.
But Thomas’ “army of influential acolytes,” based on the Times’ reporting, is qualitatively different. From the article:
Supreme Court clerks are, by definition, the sort of ambitious lawyers likely to wield…
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