Democrats have gathered their pitchforks and are demanding that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas resign — or be impeached — because of text messages belonging to his wife.
What happened?
The Washington Post and CBS News reported late Thursday that Mark Meadows, chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, handed over a trove of documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots that included text messages he exchanged with Justice Thomas' wife, Virginia, also known as Ginni.
None of the text messages cite Justice Thomas or refer to the Supreme Court, nor were any messages sent on Jan. 6. Most of the messages were exchanged in November 2020, while one was sent after Jan. 6.
The text messages show that Ginni encouraged Trump's staff to continue fighting against the certification of election results throughout the first three weeks of November.
"Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History," Ginni wrote to Meadows in a Nov. 10, 2020 message, according to the Post.
What are Democrats & the left saying?
Despite absolutely zero evidence that Justice Thomas has committed any wrongdoing or engaged in any behavior necessitating his removal from the Supreme Court, Democrats seized on the news about his wife to demand that Thomas be impeached.
- Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.): "Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached."
- Kathy Griffin: "I want Clarence Thomas to get impeached, because you CAN impeach Supreme Court Justice, and then I want Anita Hill to get his position on the Supreme Court."
- NY Times writer Jamelle Bouie: "[F]eels like this is the stuff you impeach a supreme court justice for i don’t know."
- Far-left org Take Back The Court: "Clarence Thomas must immediately resign from his seat on the Supreme Court. If he refuses, Congress must move to impeach him. The integrity of the Court, our judicial system, and our democracy as a whole depends on it."
- Actor Rob Reiner: "In a functioning Democracy, Clarence Thomas would be Impeached."
- Far-left org Meidas Touch: "Thomas must be impeached."
Aside from giving Democrats the ammunition against Justice Thomas they have always wanted, Democrats and progressive activists point to Justice Thomas opposing the release of Trump-era White House documents about the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol to the House committee investigating the riot as evidence of purported unethical behavior.
Thomas was the only Supreme Court justice who voted against allowing the release of the documents, which Trump had attempted to thwart.
However, no evidence shows that Justice Thomas was in any way influenced by his wife's political activism.
In fact, as CNN correspondent Ryan Nobles observed, the text messages appear to be completely unrelated to the Supreme Court decision in which Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting vote.
Justice Thomas and his wife have long maintained that they keep their careers separate, and importantly, they refuse to discuss work-related matters to prevent accusations of unethical behavior.
"Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America," Ginni Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month. "But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn't discuss his work with me, and I don't involve him in my work."
Could Thomas be impeached?
The likelihood that Justice Thomas will be impeached — let alone removed from office — might as well be zero.
Not only is there no evidence that Justice Thomas has committed impeachable offenses, but the U.S. Constitution requires two-thirds approval in the Senate to removed an impeached official. Short of overwhelming evidence against Justice Thomas, the only ways that Thomas is leaving the Supreme Court are through retirement or death.
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