The reporting about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has until now been focused on Justice Thomas. The focus should stay there.
Recent calls for a new "code of conduct" for Supreme Court Justices are a deflection from the focus on Justice Clarence Thomas. A code of conduct for the Supreme Court may be necessary going forward, sadly. That is largely but not entirely a result of the revelations about Justice Thomas, whether they are true or not.
And we have no denial from Justice Clarence Thomas or anyone else that while on our Supreme Court he has for decades accepted all sorts of lodging for free in all sorts of resorts all over the world from Indonesia to the Adirondacks, and all from one billionaire.
It is also largely a result of Justice Clarence Thomas taking free rides on yachts and on private airplanes, seemingly whenever he wants, all made possible by the same billionaire, and none of it reported for at least the past 19 years.
Some of it has never been reported by Justice Thomas. It is only now being reported. And the reporting is coming from ProPublica, not Justice Clarence Thomas. To say again, no-one including Justice Thomas has denied a single thing that ProPublica has reported in this story.
The calls for a code of conduct are certainly the result as well of Justice Thomas's choice of companions who, so far as we know, are each wealthy, White, and usually male. And each invited by the same billionaire on every trip, every vacation, everywhere.
But calling for a code of conduct for the Supreme Court does not answer a single one of these questionable things that Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly did without disclosing a single one of them.
It does not take a current code of conduct to know that taking free room and board on yachts and trips on airplanes and vacationing at resorts in the Pacific give off a bad smell.
Keep the focus on where that smell originates. Let's see what can be done about that, if anything. We' can let the future take care of itself, secure in the knowledge then of what it is that we are addressing now. What we are addressing now smells badly enough that we should address it now, not just in the distant future.
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