Wow, Clarence Thomas might actually be in trouble as GOP support crumbles amid latest ethics scandal

It looks like Justice Clarence Thomas might have actually gone too far with his apparent ethics violations. Even Republicans are starting to publicly question whether the gay-hating 74-year-old could maybe perhaps just possibly be contributing to the reason why a growing number of Americans say they’ve lost trust in our institutions.

It was recently exposed that Thomas accepted thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of luxury travel and hospitality, including rides on private jets and superyachts, plus other lavish gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.

And he did it all under the radar without telling anyone.

Thomas also failed to report that he sold three properties to Crow in Savannah, Georgia back in 2014. Oh, and he forgot to mention that Crow has been letting Thomas’ 94-year-old mother live on one of his properties rent-free for the last decade.

We can’t help but wonder: What else hasn’t Justice Thomas reported???

All of this, many Democrats say, is “a direct violation” of U.S. law and is only further eroding public trust in the Supreme Court. Amazingly, some Republicans actually seem to be agreeing with them. Sort of.

“I think we are moving dangerously close to a place where the public has lost faith and trust in the credibility of our governing institutions. They don’t trust the court, I don’t think what’s going on with Justice Thomas is helping anything,” Lisa Murkowski told reporters this week.

She added, “I think there have been some recent rulings that have rattled people and their confidence in the impartiality of our process that [judicial nominees] go through for confirmation. We’re losing–I don’t know–credibility in our systems.”

Ted Cruz concurred, although, in the same breath, he also accused Democrats of using Thomas’ improper behavior to lodge a “smear campaign” against the justice.

“I think the topic of judicial ethics is certainly an appropriate topic for the Judiciary Committee,” he said, adding “I don’t think that’s actually what Senate Democrats are interested in.” 

Meanwhile, Susan Collins expressed her usual concern about the whole thing, saying that when she first heard Thomas had accepted such luxurious gifts from Crow, “my reaction was that I wondered what the judicial practices were in this area.” 

“I know that personal hospitality is exempt and that he has known the Crow family for a long time, they’re personal friends, but that doesn’t usually extend to the use of airplanes to pick up someone to bring someone to a site,” she said.  

The 1978 Ethics in Government Act is crystal clear about this. It states that all high-level government officials, including Supreme Court justices, must disclose things like transportation and travel, as well as real estate transactions other than the property used as their personal residence.

Thomas failed to do this.

Now that he’s been caught, Thomas reportedly plans to amend his financial disclosure documents to include the 2014 real estate transactions he made with Crow… nearly 10 years after the fact.

Dems are calling on Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate the matter as well as demanding tighter ethics codes for Supreme Court justices to prevent it from happening again in the future. Some are going as far as to call for Thomas to resign (never gonna happen), or be impeached (also highly unlikely), or be referred to the attorney general for potential ethics violations (keep dreaming, unfortunately). 

Meanwhile, here’s what folx on Twitter are saying about the whole thing…