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The April 17 front-page article “Thomas has claimed income from defunct firm” made a little higher the pile of reasons Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should resign.
It’s obvious that Congress needs to set ethics rules that include Supreme Court justices. Obviously, there should be term limits for all judges. Obviously, vigorous investigations should proceed.
But, even more obviously, Justice Thomas should go. Immediately. Every day that he remains on the Supreme Court is a day in which public respect for and trust in the court get dimmer.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. owes his old comrade-in-conservatism a private “Be missing, Clarence, while it’s still your choice.” But he must also inform his old friend that if he fails to retire promptly, he, Justice Roberts, will go public with a full-throated denunciation of Justice Thomas’s behavior — and he’ll encourage others to join in his angry calls. Justice Roberts must make it clear that he intends to shame his corrupt (“How could you?”) old friend into quitting, for the good of the court and (unspokenly) for the sake of his own legacy and future histories of “the Roberts Court.” The chief justice must see that he would have far more influence as one of five conservatives than with a court split 6-3.
Justice Thomas would, of course, call such doings a “lynching,” but those whose judgment is not wholly compromised by love for the Federalist Society’s agenda would perceive Justice Thomas’s self-defense to be the most pathetic sort of nonsense.
Lawrence Houghteling, Ruxton, Md.
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