Petition to Impeach Thomas Picks Up Steam

The online document has been around awhile, but it gained new attention after recent rulings
By Mike L. Ford,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 4, 2022 2:25 PM CDT
Petition to Impeach Thomas Tops 1M Signatures
Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, arrive for a state dinner with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, on Sept. 20, 2019.   (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

There is a movement afoot to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Per Newsweek, the petition on MoveOn.org was created earlier this year after revelations that Thomas' wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, pressured lawmakers and White House aides to overturn the 2020 election results. Meanwhile, Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting vote early this year when the Supreme Court rejected former President Trump's attempt to withhold presidential records from Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigators. "Thomas' failure to recuse himself warrants immediate investigation and heightened alarm," the petition states, "and it's only the latest in a long history of conflicts of interest ... and mixing his powerful role with his conservative political activism."

The petition was appended and gained considerable attention after the Supreme Court's recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In denouncing Thomas and the majority for overturning 50 years of precedent, the petition adds that—in the same ruling—the justice suggested reconsidering decisions that established the right to contraception and same-sex marriage, according to the Hill, which notes that Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes also called for impeaching other justices for misleading testimony during their Senate confirmation hearings. "If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath ... and then issue—without basis, if you read these opinions—rulings that deeply undermine the human civil rights of the majority of Americans, we must see [impeachment] through,” Ocasio-Cortes said on Meet the Press.

According to Salon, Ocasio-Cortes also raised Justice Thomas' past failure to disclose nearly $700,000 in income his wife took from the conservative Heritage Foundation. "I believe that violating federal law in not disclosing income from political organizations, as Clarence Thomas did years ago, is ... potentially an impeachable offense," Ocasio-Cortes said. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar backed up her colleague in a tweet, saying, "We need an impeachment investigation into Clarence Thomas’s role in the January 6th coup, as well as into Gorsuch, Alito, Barrett, and Kavanaugh's testimony on Roe during their confirmation hearings." (More Clarence Thomas stories.)

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