Quid Pro Crow

Some important context for Clarence Thomas receiving at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in unreported grifts from the Chairman of the Board of the AEI is his jurisprudence. Not only does he agree with the incredibly narrow definition of corruption Kennedy unleashed on the country in Citizens United, but as we’ve discussed before he thinks that ant form of transparency in political donations is bad and in some cases unconstitutional:

On the issue of disclosure, Citizens United was actually an 8–1 decision: Eight justices voted to uphold mandatory disclosure requirements for corporate electioneering—every justice except Justice Thomas. In a solo dissent, he railed against disclosure laws, citing California’s Proposition 8 as his chief example. California law, if you recall, had compelled the disclosure of all donors to the campaigns for and against Prop 8, a proposed same-sex marriage ban, who gave more than $100. Many residents used this information to boycott businesses, lobby fellow citizens, and stop associating with anti-gay Californians—all forms of expression protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, far from silencing speech, these disclosures promoted it. Yet Thomas railed against these First Amendment activities as an assault on the First Amendment. For support, he cited a small number of legitimate “threats of physical violence,” lumping them in with “reprisals,” “ruined careers,” and (perfectly lawful) “warning letters” about the social and political costs of contributing to the campaign.

Thomas revived these same concerns in 2010’s Doe v. Reed, when he took his theory of disclosure as bullying a step farther: Citizens who participate directly in the lawmaking process by signing a petition for a ballot initiative or referendum, he asserted, have a First Amendment right to conceal their identity from the public. That case, too, involved a ballot question seeking to disallow marriage equality: A group of signatories who had helped get the question on the ballot wanted to hide their involvement from their fellow citizens. Thomas was once again the sole justice to vote against disclosure. He complained that the requirement chilled signatories’ free speech by subjecting them to “threats, harassment, or reprisals.” In 2021, Thomas reiterated his belief that the Constitution protects a near-absolute “right to associate anonymously.” In practice, that meant an ability to donate massive sums to deeply political organizations and conceal your identity from the state.

In conclusion, it is unpossible that Thomas’s unreported activities could be in any way influencing his judicial decision-making. Nothing to see here!