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first liberty institute
Ginni Thomas Thanked Group Fighting Ethics Reforms Spurred by Her Husband's Scandals
Leaked audio reveals that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas praised a far-right group whose president later attacked Justice Elena Kagan as "treasonous."
Sep 04, 2024
Leaked audio published Wednesday by the investigative outlets ProPublica and Documented reveals that the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Clarence Thomas effusively thanked a far-right group fighting judicial ethics reform effort spurred in large part by revelations about her husband's undisclosed gifts from Republican billionaires.
During a private July 31 call with the organization's top donors, First Liberty Institute president and CEO Kelly Shackelford read aloud an email—some of it in all-caps—from Ginni Thomas hailing the group's opposition to court reforms that are broadly popular with the U.S. public.
"YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH," Ginni Thomas, who was closely involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, wrote to the group, according to Shackelford.
"I cannot adequately express enough appreciation for you guys pulling into reacting to the Biden effort on the Supreme Court," Thomas wrote.
Later in the call, First Liberty's president attacked liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan as "treasonous" and "disloyal" for supporting an enforcement mechanism for the toothless ethics code that the high court unveiled under immense public pressure late last year.
Listen to the audio released by ProPublica and Documented:
The First Liberty Institute's donor call came days after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) uncovered additional billionaire-funded private travel that Justice Thomas failed to disclose, the latest in a string of scandalous revelations that began with ProPublicareporting last year.
ProPublicaestimates that Thomas—part of a right-wing Supreme Court supermajority that has overturned the constitutional right to abortion care and dramatically curtailed the power of federal regulatory agencies—has over the past three decades taken dozens of luxury vacations bankrolled by billionaire Harlan Crow and other GOP megadonors with interests before the court.
Survey data released shortly after ProPublica's first bombshell report in April 2023 found that a majority of U.S. voters at the time backed Supreme Court ethics reforms and wanted Thomas to resign from the nation's most powerful judicial body.
"Ginni Thomas isn't protecting the court. She's protecting her and her husband's bribes."
ProPublica noted that Shackelford held the First Liberty donor call "shortly after President Joe Biden had announced support for a slate of far-reaching Supreme Court changes," including term limits and a binding ethics code for justices.
"On the donor call, Shackelford voiced strong opposition to various court reform proposals, including the ones floated by Biden, as well as expanding the size of the court," the investigative outlets noted. "All of these proposals, Shackelford said, were part of 'a dangerous attempt to really destroy the court, the Supreme Court.' This effort was led by 'people in the progressive, extreme left' who were 'upset by just a few cases,' he said."
News of Ginni Thomas' support for First Liberty's efforts to combat Supreme Court ethics reforms was seen as further confirmation of the urgent need to overhaul the judicial body, whose favorability ratings are near historic lows.
"Ginni Thomas isn't protecting the court," progressive activist Melanie D'Arrigo wrote on social media. "She's protecting her and her husband's bribes."
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, said in a statement Wednesday that "the First Couple of the Supreme Court—Clarence and Ginni Thomas—have once again reminded us why we need term limits and a binding code of ethics to restore faith in our nation’s highest court."
"In a brazen political move, Ginni Thomas praised right-wing advocates working to quash commonsense Supreme Court reforms," said Edkins. "Having spent countless hours on all-expense-paid vacations on superyachts paid for by right-wing billionaires with interests before the court, it's almost too on the nose that Ginni thanked these advocates."
"It's a shameless reminder that the First Couple, and the Supreme Court broadly, must be held accountable," he added. "Congress must act by passing term limits and a binding code of ethics. The American people deserve a Supreme Court free from corruption and political bias."
This story has been updated to include a statement from Stand Up America.
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Ohio Pastor Files Federal Lawsuit Over Charges for Helping Homeless
An attorney for Pastor Chris Avell said city officials have launched a "smear campaign of innuendo and half-truths" to get him to stop hosting homeless people in his church.
Jan 23, 2024
Chris Avell, a pastor in Bryan, Ohio who opened his church to the city's "vulnerable" residents to give them a place to stay amid freezing winter weather, is suing city officials over what he says is "discrimination" and "harassment" stemming from criminal charges he faced for providing housing for homeless people.
Avell filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against the city of Bryan, Mayor Carrie Schlade, Police Department Capt. Jamie Mendez, zoning official Andrew Waterson, and Fire Chief Doug Pool.
In court filings, Avell said he hosted an average of eight unhoused people per night at his church, Dad's Place, "without incident" for several months before the city tried to stop him from keeping the facility open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
As Common Dreamsreported last week, city officials told Avell he could no longer house people in the church because it lacked bedrooms and was zoned as a central business, in which Ohio prohibits residential use.
"It was city police officers who would bring people by. The local hospital would call and bring people by... Other homeless shelters would call and bring people by."
Authorities arrived at the church during a New Year's Eve service and issued 18 zoning and fire code violations.
Despite Avell's assertion that welcoming unhoused people into the church, which is located next to a homeless shelter that has experienced overcrowding, has not caused any disruptions in the community, Bryan city officials said in a new release that police saw an increase in reports of "inappropriate activity" at Dad's Place in May 2023, two months after Avell first opened the church at all hours.
"It was city police officers who would bring people by," Avell toldThe Associated Press on Tuesday. "The local hospital would call and bring people by. Other homeless shelters would call and bring people by."
He told the outlet that two volunteers have acted as security guards since he began the overnight "Rest and Refresh in the Lord ministry," and that the church has allowed anyone who needs shelter to stay overnight, only asking them to leave if "there is a biblically valid reason for doing so or if someone at the property poses a danger to himself or others."
Avell's lawsuit alleges that the city has moved the "goalposts" in its directives to him regarding safety and zoning codes. Officials ordered him to install a hood over the stove in the church's kitchen, but after he complied, the city said the hood was not sufficient and required him to have the state inspect it.
"Nothing satisfies the city,” Jeremy Dys, Avell's attorney, told the AP. "And worse—they go on a smear campaign of innuendo and half-truths."
Avell accused the city of engaging in a "campaign to harass, intimidate, and shut down Dad's Place" and said the order to stop housing homeless people was "directly contrary to its religious obligation."
Represented by a conservative legal group called the First Liberty Institute, Avell alleged that the city has violated his rights under the First Amendment, the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
The court filings included a request for a restraining order against the city as well as damages and attorneys' fees.
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'He Needs to Be Investigated': Abortion Case Judge Potentially Hid Law Review Article From Senate
"A functioning Senate Judiciary Committee could investigate this," said one critic of Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk.
Apr 15, 2023
Calls for an investigation into Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk mounted Saturday after The Washington Postrevealed that the U.S. judge behind a temporarily blocked ruling against an abortion medication may have taken his name off of a controversial law review article as he sought a nomination to the federal bench from then-President Donald Trump.
In February 2017, Kacsmaryk was deputy general counsel for the Christian conservative legal group First Liberty Institute and sent an application to the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee, established by U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Texas Republicans, to vet potential nominees from their state. He was interviewed by the committee in March, the two senators in April, and White House and Justice Department offices in May.
Trump nominated Kacsmaryk to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in September—the same month that the journal Texas Review of Law and Politics, which Kacsmaryk led as a University of Texas a law student, published "The Jurisprudence of the Body," an article criticizing Obama administration protections for transgender patients and people seeking abortions,with First Liberty lawyers Justin Butterfield and Stephanie Taub listed as the sole authors.
\u201cThe only thing MAGA judges enjoy more than limiting our personal freedoms is lying.\u201d— Indivisible Guide (@Indivisible Guide) 1681594638
Kacsmaryk's nomination was sent back to the White House twice, but Trump renominated him both times and the judge was eventually confirmed by Senate Republicans in June 2019. Although judicial nominees are required to disclose any publication with which they are associated, the article is never mentioned in the
questionnaire that Kacsmaryk filled out for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
When Kacsmaryk initially submitted a draft of the article to the journal in early 2017, Butterfield and Taub's names did not appear anywhere, including in the footnotes, the Post reported. On April 11, a week after he was interviewed by the GOP senators, Kacsmaryk—whose initials are MJK—emailed an editor an updated version and attached a file titled "MJK First Draft."
Later that month, Kacsmaryk, wrote in an email that after consulting with the editor in chief, "For reasons I may discuss at a later date, First Liberty attorneys Justin Butterfield and Stephanie Taub will co-author the aforementioned article."
\u201cOne thing I appreciate about Matt Kacsmaryk is he keeps finding ways to make clear that he\u2019s a stone-cold right-wing freak, and no one in the Biden administration should respect him or take his opinions seriously\u201d— Jay Willis (@Jay Willis) 1681584910
According to the Post:
Kacsmaryk did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for First Liberty, Hiram Sasser, said that Kacsmaryk's name had been a "placeholder" on the article and that Kacsmaryk had not provided a "substantive contribution." Aaron Reitz, who was the journal's editor in chief at the time and is now a deputy to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), said Kacsmaryk had been "our chief point of contact during much of the editing" and "was the placeholder until final authors were named by First Liberty."
On Saturday, after this story was first published, Sasser provided an email showing that Stephanie Taub, one of the people listed as an author on the published article, was involved in writing an early draft.
But one former review editor familiar with the events said there was no indication that Kacsmaryk had been a "placeholder," adding that this was the only time during their tenure at the law review that they ever saw author names swapped. The former editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, provided emails and several drafts of the article.
Butterfield and Taub, who still work at First Liberty, did not respond to requests for comment, but Sasser told the Post that "Matthew appears to have not gotten to the project so Stephanie decided to do a first draft that Justin edited."
"It appears Matthew provided some light edits," Sasser added.
After the article was published, "Sasser sent what he said were emails showing that Taub, who was then associate counsel, was involved in writing the article as early as December 2016," the Post reported. "She sent an outline to Kacsmaryk, according to the emails provided by First Liberty, and then a first draft one month later."
\u201cLead counsel in the fight over venue before Judge Tipton; co-counsel in the fight before Judge Kacsmaryk:\u201d— Steve Vladeck (@Steve Vladeck) 1681593232
As the newspaper noted:
When Kacsmaryk requested the authorship switch, the editor familiar with the events said they raised the issue with Reitz, the law review's editor in chief. The lower-ranking editor asked why Kacsmaryk was making the request.
Reitz smiled, the editor recalled, then said, "You'll see."
Reitz did not address the exchange with the editor in his statement to the Post. But he said that "because of their work on the article, Mr. Butterfield and Ms. Taub rightfully received credit as authors."
As a judge, Kacsmaryk has issued key decisions on both reproductive and trans rights. Earlier this month, he struck down the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs often taken in tandem for abortions, though his "junk science" ruling was temporarily halted by the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday.
In response to the revelations Saturday, Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) urged Kacsmaryk to step down, tweeting: "Why did Judge Kacsmaryk mislead the American people during his confirmation hearing about his abortion views? Because he knew he wouldn't be confirmed if people found out he was a religious zealot. Judge Kacsmaryk made a mockery of the confirmation process and must resign."
U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), an attorney who served as lead counsel in Trump's first impeachment trial, called for a probe: "The judge hand-picked by the GOP to enjoin mifepristone withdrew his name from a law review article denouncing medication abortion *during* his confirmation process—and did not disclose the article. He needs to be investigated."
Federal judges serve lifetime appointments unless they retire or are removed from the bench—which requires being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.
"Unless there is some really surprising and persuasive innocent explanation for the sudden authorship swap, this is grounds for impeachment and removal," New York University School of Law professor Christopher Jon Sprigman said of Kacsmaryk.
\u201cFor the sake of our democracy, the judiciary needs to be held accountable. \n\nhttps://t.co/pekpjKzw0j\u201d— Let America Vote (@Let America Vote) 1681588794
Given that the House is currently controlled by Republicans, the reporting provoked some calls for a probe by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)—who has openly criticized Kacsmaryk's mifepristone ruling and this week pledged to soon hold a hearing on "the devastating fallout" since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade last June.
"A functioning Senate Judiciary Committee could investigate this," declaredThe Nation's Jeet Heer.
Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law professor and reproductive rights activist David S. Cohen agreed, arguing: "The Senate Judiciary Committee needs to call him in to testify and explain. Now."
Alex Aronson, a former chief counsel to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who questioned Kacsmaryk during his confirmation hearing, told the Post that not disclosing such an article is "unethical" and raises concerns about "the candor and honesty of the nominee."
"The Senate Judiciary questionnaire requires nominees to disclose all 'published materials you have written or edited,'" Aronson tweeted. "It's not a close call. Kacsmaryk needed to disclose this article he ghostwrote. What else did he bury?"
This post has been updated with information about emails that First Liberty Institute spokesperson Hiram Sasser shared with The Washington Post after the initial article was published.
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