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united states v donald trump
'Do the Honorable Thing': House Dems Urge Clarence Thomas to Recuse in Trump Case
"Your wife's activities raise serious questions about your ability to be or even to appear impartial in any cases before the Supreme Court involving the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection," states a letter from lawmakers.
Dec 18, 2023
House Democrats on Monday called for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a pending case involving former President Donald Trump and the insurrection effort that took place on January 6, 2021.
A letter spearheaded by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and signed by seven other Democrats cites the participation of Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, in the far-right scheme to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election results, in which Trump was soundly defeated by President Joe Biden, as reason enough for the Thomas to recuse himself from a question before the court about the former's president immunity from prosecution.
According to the letter:
We know through public reporting and through congressional investigations that your wife, Virginia ("Ginni") Thomas was intimately involved in Mr. Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to obstruct its certification—the very conspiracies at issue in this case. Your wife not only attended the pro-Trump rally that preceded the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, she was one of nine board members for a conservative political group that helped lead the "Stop the Steal" movement.
Special Counsel Jack Smith petitioned the court to grant certiorari after Trump's legal team moved to have the case against him thrown out under a claim that he is immune from prosecution due to the fact that he was the sitting president at the time of the alleged criminal conduct. To move the case forward in the lower courts, Smith asked the Supreme Court to rule on the question of claimed immunity.
With the petition before the nine-member court, the Democrats argue that Justice Thomas must not be allowed to weigh in on a case in which his wife played such an active and prominent role.
"Your wife's activities raise serious questions about your ability to be or even to appear impartial in any cases before the Supreme Court involving the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection," the letter states.
In addition to Johnson, the letter was signed by Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.), Madeleine Dean (Pa.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), Jasmine Crockett (Texas) and Dan Goldman (N.Y.).
After providing specific details of Ginni Thomas' involvement in the scheme to subvert the election, the letter suggests to Justice Thomas that he has little choice but to step aside in the case known as U.S. v. Trump.
"If you want to show the American people that the Supreme Court's recent Code of Conduct is worth more than the paper it is written on," it states, "you must do the honorable thing and recuse yourself from any decisions in the case of United States v. Trump."
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Watchdog Joins Demand for Trump-Appointed Judge's Recusal From Classified Docs Case
"At a minimum, Judge Cannon's prior history creates an unacceptable risk of an unavoidable appearance of bias in one of the most important proceedings in United States history," said Free Speech for People.
Jun 14, 2023
A government watchdog warned on Wednesday that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's oversight of the federal case regarding former President Donald Trump's handling of classified documents and alleged jeopardizing of national security "undermines public confidence in the courts" due to her previous ruling on the matter last year, and demanded that Cannon be removed from the case unless she recuses herself.
In a letter to Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, on which Cannon also serves, the organization said the judge "demonstrated judicial error and extreme bias" when she ordered the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to halt its investigation into the classified documents that were discovered at the former Republican president's estate in Florida.
"In her order, Judge Cannon insisted that normal principles of prosecution and law could not be applied to Trump because of his status as former president," wrote the group. "The unprecedented and unprincipled ruling demonstrated that Judge Cannon could
not be, nor even appear to be, an impartial decision-maker."
Free Speech for the People (FSFP) said Altonaga should remove Cannon, who was appointed by Trump and confirmed after he lost the 2020 election, unless she recuses herself within 10 days, under federal laws requiring judges to disqualify themselves "'when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned' or when they have 'a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party'" in a case.
The group sent its letter less than a week after Trump, who is running for reelection in 2024, was indicted on charges including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and concealing documents in a federal investigation. Appearing in court on Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty.
In an op-ed at Slate on Monday, ethics attorneys Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Fred Wertheimer wrote that Cannon's assignment to United States v. Donald Trump "cannot stand."
\u201cIn light of the reversal on appeal of her prior rulings in this case, Judge Cannon now should recuse.\nhttps://t.co/9CLvWaSJK4\u201d— Richard W. Painter (@Richard W. Painter) 1686584594
In addition to Cannon's "deeply erroneous step" of ordering the end of the DOJ's investigation and appointing a special master to oversee the case, they wrote, her "statements and actions in the prior proceedings made clear her view that Trump is entitled to differential treatment than any other criminal defendant."
"She wrote that 'as a function of plaintiff's former position as president of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own,'" noted Eisen, Painter, and Wertheimer. "She reiterated this position in denying the government's motion for a partial stay of her order pending appeal, stating that her consideration 'is inherently impacted by the position formerly held by [Trump].'"
FSFP pointed out on Wednesday that a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously overturned Cannon's ruling last year, calling it a "radical reordering of our case law limiting federal courts" which, if allowed to stand, would "violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations."
"At a minimum, Judge Cannon's prior history creates an unacceptable risk of an unavoidable appearance of bias in one of the most important proceedings in United States history," said FSFP. "The public will view Judge Cannon as a biased decision-maker who opposes the prosecution, and who is prepared to enact unorthodox legal measures to favor Trump in court."
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