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Judge Ho Blows Off Clarence Thomas Taking $500K In Vacations Because Some Other Judges Own Stocks So... You Know... Something Something.

There are bad arguments and then there's whatever Judge Ho was trying to do here.

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Judge James Ho Jim Ho

(via YouTube)

While many conservatives have kept their heads down while Justice Thomas suffers the slings and arrows of the outrageous consequences of his own ethical lapses, his former clerk decided to take a turn justifying half-a-million dollars in gifted vacations and having a right-wing donor house a jurist’s mother rent-free while failing to disclose it for years despite the incredibly explicit language of the statute.

It’s not an easy fact pattern to square with, you know, the law. But where there’s a will, there’s an incredibly disingenuous way:

“Citizens deserve a government they can believe in. So I warmly welcome any good faith discussion about how to strengthen ethics in government,” Ho said in prepared remarks. “But we should apply the highest ethical standards, not hypocritical double standards.”

What the f**k does that even mean?

Because even if there were double standards at play here, he’s saying that taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in value and failing to comply with basic financial disclosure laws is not covered by “the highest ethical standards” somehow? Any “hypocritical double standards” could only implicate others, never absolve Thomas — at least without invoking the “well, Jamie’s mom let’s her do it” doctrine. And I don’t think that was recognized by the Framers.

Also, the thing about “double” standards is that both behaviors have to be like in style or substance. What is Ho citing for this?

Sponsored

Ho pointed to a Wall Street Journal report that found more than 130 federal judges heard cases in which they or a family member owned stock in one of the involved companies, saying the report “did not accuse all of those judges of actual corruption.”

That report determined that a whole bunch of judges failed to recuse themselves when a financial conflict existed. Some of those conflicts were more tenuous than others. Some held stock in the companies directly, while others just had family members with stock. At least one judge didn’t own stock throughout the case, while a financial advisor purchased some during the matter possibly without her knowledge. In almost all of the cases in the report, the amount in question totaled less than $50K, which is a weak comparison to half a million in direct gifts.

But also… you know who did say these were all serious ethical lapses and that some amount to actual corruption? WE DID!!!

Go ahead and flog the straw argument this is all fine because some vast left-wing conspiracy excused ethical breaches from Obama-appointees, but we were right f**king here writing that some of these judges deserved to be impeached.

“That’s an important distinction to draw. Because there’s a big difference between actual corruption and the appearance of corruption,” Ho said.

Sponsored

Avoiding the appearance of impropriety is the guiding maxim of the profession, but all right, dude.

If some future Republican administration nominates Judge Ho to the Supreme Court, I hope someone on the Judiciary Committee zeroes in on this remark as uniquely disqualifying. The highest court in the land cannot be populated with people who think that judges “just appearing corrupt” makes for a viable justice system. The justice system only works if the public generally has faith that judges aren’t corrupt. “Appearance” is just as bad if the judges are feeding it through their actions.

Ho said Thomas wasn’t the only justice to take trips that were sponsored by individuals or organizations that don’t have interests pending before the court, but that hasn’t been enough to trigger recusal.

One, it probably should be. Two, Judge Ho knows other justices took trips… because they disclosed them. Maybe transparency cures these breaches and maybe it doesn’t, but there’s not even an attempt out of this guy to justify concealing this. As an advocacy for Thomas, Ho’s remarks amount to a non-sequitur.

Even Thomas made up some argle-bargle about his friends telling him it wasn’t a problem and not realizing that losses were covered by the statute. Those, if true, would at least constitute defenses. Ho could have doubled-down on that! James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal wrote a blathering hagiography of Thomas’s poor upbringing to frame some warrantless claims that Thomas forgetting about hundreds of thousands in gifts amounted to an honest mistake (wouldn’t growing up poor make him more cognizant of found wealth?). Ho might have at least tried the “noble oopsie” approach.

But instead, Judge Ho went in front of a microphone and said, “we need high ethical standards… like the ones we should’ve applied to people with $15K in stock” just forcing us all to ask: how does this help a judge getting $500K?

As hard as this may be to believe, somehow Justice Thomas was handling this better without Ho’s help.

Fifth Circuit’s Ho Defends Justice Thomas’ Ethics in Speech [Bloomberg Law News]

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