Congressional Democrats are calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from ruling on whether former President Donald Trump can claim immunity from being prosecuted for crimes relating to his plot to overturn the 2020 election.
“No proceeding could be graver than the prosecution of an attempt to undermine our sacred electoral process. Justice will be done only if such a case is heard by judges whose impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote Thursday in a letter addressed to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Blumenthal urged Roberts to “take appropriate steps to ensure” that Thomas abstains from consideration of the case.
The conservative justice ― who is under fire concerning claims of ethical lapses involving luxury gifts and flights funded by wealthy GOP donors ― recused himself in October from a case involving former Trump legal adviser John Eastman, who was one of Thomas’ law clerks. Eastman was a prominent advocate for overturning the 2020 election results, pushing widely discredited schemes for Trump to stay in power despite having lost to Joe Biden.
Thomas’ wife, Ginni, is a conservative activist who was also involved in the election subversion plot by urging lawmakers in Wisconsin and Arizona to discount the popular vote despite Biden’s wins there. Democrats said her role supporting Trump’s efforts would create, at minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest.
“Mrs. Thomas’s close interactions with senior Trump administration officials about overturning the 2020 election results ― the very subject of the litigation—certainly creates circumstances” where Thomas’ impartiality might be questioned, Blumenthal wrote in Thursday’s letter.
“There are so many unanswered questions about the relationship of the justice and his family with the Trump administration that I think in the interests of justice, he should recuse himself,” Senate judiciary committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told The Hill earlier this week.
Trump on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to reject a request by federal prosecutors to immediately review his claim for immunity, seeking to delay the start of trial proceedings until an appeals court has a chance to review the matter. The move is widely seen as a stall tactic, since the odds of the 2024 GOP front-runner escaping criminal conviction grow greater as the presidential election draws closer.
Trump faces four criminal charges of conspiring to defraud the government and disenfranchise voters, and corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, namely the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of electoral votes in Congress.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that his actions during and after the 2020 election were part of his official duties as president, and that therefore he is protected from prosecution. But the federal judge presiding over the case rejected that claim.
“The court cannot conclude that our Constitution cloaks former Presidents with absolute immunity for any federal crimes they committed while in office,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote earlier this month.