For years, Clarence Thomas has been showered with gifts. Flights on a billionaire’s private jet, lavish vacations cruising on his superyacht, summer stays at his Adirondacks compound, tuition for a child Thomas was raising, a quarter-million-dollar motorhome a wealthy friend paid for.
Those gifts were income, and income belongs on a tax return. Thomas treated them as nothing, and no public record shows he ever reported a dollar of it. Under Virginia law, leaving income that size off a return, if it was done to cheat the state, is a felony. The evidence is already public, and he could be charged on Monday.
Virginia law makes it a felony to file a state income tax return with a false statement on it, made with intent to defraud the Commonwealth. The statute is Virginia Code section 58.1-348, it carries up to five years in prison per count, and the clock has not run out on the returns Thomas filed for tax years 2020 through 2024. That is the whole case, and unlike everything else, it is a case a county prosecutor in Virginia has the plain authority to bring.
103 Comments
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 228 pts · 97d
I'll believe it when I see it.
artyom@piefed.social · 73 pts · 97d
Yeah that's what I told everyone when Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges :(
If it comes down to it, Trump will just pardon him as "a victim of the radical left".
qprimed@lemmy.ml · 58 pts · 97d
this looks like a state charge. trump (theoretically) has no control over state pardons.
RunningInRVA@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 97d
Yes but there won’t be any charges. This article is only saying that the state could charge him, if it decided to.
EpeeGnome@feddit.online · 25 pts · 97d
The good news it's the state of Virginia, not the federal government, that could file these charges, so the president would have no ability to pardon it. The bad news is that it's purely hypothetical. We can all see the crime was committed, but that doesn't mean a Virginia prosecutor will actually go through with pursuing the case on any particular day.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 97d
Watch thomas sue, let it get all the way to the SCROTUS and Thomas doesn't recuse himself.
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 96d
Well, that would be another way to reinforce to American public that SCOUTS is illegitimate.
Maggoty@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
A pardon requires an admission of guilt. An admission which would violate the good behavior clause of the Constitution. Meaning he's no longer eligible to be on the court.
artyom@piefed.social · 1 pts · 96d
Huh? Why would you think that?
Since when does anyone care about the Constitution?
tomiant@piefed.social · 1 pts · 96d
This is where we're at. They've inoculated us with the DDOS of constant bullshit where it becomes normalized, you just can't keep up. It's a smash and grab. They're literally seizing power. Kinda crazy seeing this happening. I don't want to sound doom and gloom but I just can't unsee how bad it is.
kinther@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
The filing should be easy. Proving it might be tough. He knows enough to deny, defend, depose.
fodor@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 96d
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social · 66 pts · 97d
The worst part of this is that even if he is convicted and removed from the judiciary, Trump gets to pick his replacement, so it will not only not fix anything but will very likely make it worse.
DomeGuy@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 97d
The least reliable members of the facist block of SCOTUS are those appointed by Mr. Trump.
He's really, really bad at the job.
qprimed@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 97d
thats a pretty astute observation. still, narrowly missing a "state-level charlie kirk" because the fascists are just fucking bad at the job is not the type of comfort I hope for.
auntieclokwise@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 96d
Not really a new thing for fascists. Hitler screwed the German army so hard with dumb projects that had no chance of going anywhere, poor decision making, poor management of the government, etc. For example, the V-2 program is widely seen as a net loss for Germany - it cost too much, consumed too many resources, and never proved to do meaningful damage. Then there's Germany's obsession with giant tanks that were never going to be practical, even if they somehow made them reliable.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
Well, it's all we've got right now.
Kirp123@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 97d
I mean the trial will take time and if Democrats get to control Congress after midterms they could just not confirm any of Trump's picks. Who am I joking, the Democrats would never.
auntieclokwise@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 96d
It needs to be delayed till January of next year, when the next Congress comes in session. If Thomas has any sense he'd resign if this looks like it's going somewhere so Trump can sneak an appointment in. My best guess for what the Democrats would do, if they were able to block a Supreme Court pick, is come up with some sort of compromise. Maybe appoint somebody who's a moderate, not a Trump acolyte. I doubt they'd want the optics of not confirming a justice for 2 years.
Maggoty@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
Are memories really that short? If you keep giving them help while they spit on you every chance they get then you're just helping them. They blocked Obama and then had their candidates straight up lie to congress. There is a very strong case for not giving them the time of day much less a hearing in the Senate.
auntieclokwise@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
I agree they shouldn't even give them the time of day. But I don't know if they'd be willing to take the pressure of putting off a hearing for 2 years. I suspect they'd eventually buckle. Probably the best course of action is to just drag the whole thing out. You get hearings, but we'll schedule it a ways out, turn down anyone where there's even a hint that they're lying, etc. That way they can claim they're taking action, but Trump keeps sending them bad candidates, candidates who go against the clear expressed will of the American people, candidates who lie to Congress, candidates who have conflicts of interest, etc.
Maggoty@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 96d
I've got to say it. This is a case the Biden DOJ could have brought too. And Obama. The Democrats have got to stop playing games. They should have immediately changed it up when Obama was denied justice picks.
bmebenji@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 38 pts · 96d
I’m looking forward to the Supreme Court ruling that a sitting Supreme Court member has “operational immunity” and effectively ruling that anyone on the Supreme Court can break the law as much as they want until their fucking life
sentenceterm is upTronn4@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 96d
And also all supreme court members can't be tax audited. And the creation of a Supreme Slush Fund
magi093@l.tta.wtf · 37 pts · 96d
To be clear (because it isn't totally obvious from the title and text submitted on Lemmy), this article is a call to action, not reporting on a filing that's actually happened or rumored to be in progress or anything like that:
He could be charged Monday. Or Tuesday. Or he could've been charged last Monday. There's three people in Virginia who have the power to make that happen, you should go call and email them.
PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk · 8 pts · 96d
Surely it's better to wait until trump is no longer president, otherwise if this forces Thomas to resign trump gets yet another supreme court pick who will be as young as possible to guarantee the court doesn't swing back around for another 40 years
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
Action to do what? A People's Arrest?
Let me know when we reconvene the Revolutionary Tribunals. Then write the article
relative_iterator@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 96d
They want us to contact the elected officials who can take action. I doubt anything happens but worth a shot.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 96d
🥴
relative_iterator@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 96d
Yup. Just answering. This whole thing is just a wish though.
xSikes@feddit.online · 30 pts · 97d
Throw all the books at him
Etterra@discuss.online · 30 pts · 96d
Nothing will come of it but it at least sounds funny.
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world · -33 pts · 96d
Idk, I'm not saying that Clarence Thomas doesn't have it coming. It looks like he took bribes.
I get kind of an ick about going after the black guy, when I doubt he was off on his own taking bribes and think it's more of a structural issue.
So, I'm not sure which would be more repellent doing nothing or doing something in this case.
You do have to kind of admire the game though, which damnation would you prefer?
optimisticturtle@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 96d
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 96d
He's the one that did it publicly and he's an idiot for it. Gotta start somewhere with these Supreme Injustices. I fear if he's impeached the replacement the orange one picks will be far worse, if that's even possible.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 96d
Seriously‽ The guy is corrupt. The law applies to all no matter the skin colour, and he of all people should know that (as a supreme court judge).
BillCheddar@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
I think Uncle Clarence gave up his black guy card decades ago.
chilldrivenspade@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 96d
sounds like what a russian troll would say
bold_atlas@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 96d
Or an Israeli lobbyist.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 96d
Well he certainly had no problems going after the black guys. time for him to get what he gave
AvocadoCumToast@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 96d
Go back to Reddit
too_high_for_this@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 96d
Absolutely nothing will happen.
Best case scenario, the stress pushes a clot into his brain.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 96d
Yeah, and then the cons put an extremely right wing hack that's also a zygote onto the court.
Eternal192@anarchist.nexus · 22 pts · 96d
And this is why we are all poor, this is why billionaires keep stealing from us, because of greedy no backbone failures like him.
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 96d
how is this guy still employed? honest question - dude has litany of corruption accusations going back decades and he's still holding a position? How does that work?
Etterra@discuss.online · 11 pts · 96d
He's rich.
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
and there is no law for the rich
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 96d
The legal system exists to serve these people and attack everybody else.
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 96d
and it is absolutely disgusting
Bytemeister@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
Supreme court justices are appointed for life.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 96d
NOBODY should be appointed for life. That shit stinks of dictatorship real bad.
What bad could come of letting someone make important decisions, someone who has become deranged as their brain atrophies and also desperate as death looms large, someone with no future and no stake in the consequences of their decisions?
Bytemeister@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 96d
The idea behind the SC being lifetime appointments was to insulate it from political pressure, unlike the president and Congress which are suceptible to removal. The SC is (supposed to be) a rather apolitical body that determines if the laws passed are unconstitutional, in order to preserve basic rights.
Right now, it's rife with partisan hacks, and it need to be removed and rebuilt from the ground up. Absolutely none of the current Republican justices meet the qualifications nor strength of character to be SC jucsticies.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 96d
Didn't work. The highest prize for any president is appointing a SCJ from "their side".
Given that a president can serve 8 years, I'd say a fixed term of 16 years so that they can outlast a hostile president. On average a position would come up every couple of years with the current 9 seats.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 96d
Does that include from behind bars?
Bytemeister@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 96d
TBH, I don't know. If my highschool history was correct, along with my memory, it is unlawful to prevent a supreme court justice from carrying out their duties. Cops can't even give them speeding tickets if they are heading to a sessions IIRC.
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 96d
what can go wrong...
TrippingBalls@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
You obviously don't remember the nomination hearings regarding the coke can. Should have never gotten the job
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 96d
i'm not american so my knowledge about american supreme court is limited to corruption news which paints a lively picture of that joint
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 96d
I have been hearing about this guys corruption and scandals since the early 90s.
Hes living proof of why lifetime Supreme Court appointments should not exist
stoy@lemmy.zip · 19 pts · 97d
Calling it now, nothing will come of this.
boaratio@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 97d
Monday is a federal holiday.
portifornia@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
"May Memorial Day fools!" 😅😅😅
BarneyPiccolo@lemmings.world · 17 pts · 96d
Isn't Monday a Federal Holiday? The courts will be closed.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 17 pts · 96d
Could be? Or will be?
timochka@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 96d
It's the US - I think we all know the answer.
That country needs to (for so many reasons) drop "In God We Trust" as an official motto - "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" seems more apposite.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 96d
Fine, but do it in Latin... for the mystique...
Archelon@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
𝓟𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓶, 𝓐𝓾𝓭𝓮𝓶, 𝓓𝓮𝓱𝓲𝓫𝓮𝓶
JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 96d
Possem, Audem, Dehibem
Your phrase is actually a mix of Latin and Portuguese, translating to "I can, praise to God, I got along well."
Notyou@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 95d
The governor is too centrist for this to be a real thing. I'm not holding my breath.
......unless the AG is angry enough about her recent vetoes to say fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 97d
Yeah, I'm jaded and cynical. Can you blame me?
Microtonal_Banana@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 96d
DO IT.
TryingToBeGood@reddthat.com · 10 pts · 97d
That would be lovely. Nothing will come of it, of course, and he'll just scream “racism!!” but it would still be nice.
Wait—Monday's a holiday. Nothing’s going to happen on Monday.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 96d
That asshole really needs to fall for all the corruption he has been part of.
But it's doubtful it will ever happen.
Americans simply don't do enough against corruption, no matter how bad and no matter how obvious.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 96d
Hey y'all, RTFA. It is not saying what you think it is saying. The last several paragraphs twist things on thier head.
DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 96d
Jesus Christ.
There's a difference between possible and probable. This headline is extremely misleading. It might as well say Clarence Thomas could have monkeys fly out of his butt on Monday.
Is it possible? Yes.
Is it probable? No.
I understand this is "a call to action" but the headline is disingenuous.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 96d
He will not be
green_goglin@thelemmy.club · 7 pts · 96d
lol we all know nothing is going to fucking happen
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 96d
Please send this slimeball to jail
lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 97d
Get him
AA5B@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 95d
BS.
I understand the desire for justice, I agree this case is egregious, and the proof does seem out in the open, but wishing doesn’t make it so
WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 96d
Aaannnnddd nothing will come of it because he is a boot licker for this administration.
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 96d
These are state crimes. The only way Trump can affect this case is if he sends in the National Guard to protect Thomas from being arrested.
WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
Don’t threaten me with a good time
🫲🍊🫱
auntieclokwise@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
As long as Virginia's governor doesn't betray us, like Polis did here in Colorado.
bold_atlas@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
Virginia's CIA puppet governor won't let it happen.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
Time to put him behind bars.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 96d
They should lock him in a cabin.
Leviathan@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
Would be charged, if the US wasn't deeply infiltrated by Nazis.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 96d
Memorial Day? Definitely not but maybe Tuesday
Spesknight@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 97d
Just like Al Capone.
pootzapie@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 96d
I mean, let’s prosecute crimes and all but the timing of this kind of seems like we’re giving the pedos another lifetime appointment.. dammed either way. Special shout out to disposing of the useful black idiot first
SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
And I could be starting pitcher for the Padres, but it ain't likely.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 96d
him and his wife are both hardcore magats, so crucify them
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe · 3 pts · 96d
Oh no how unfortunate.
OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
Yes please
BillCheddar@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
No, he won't.
Should he? Yes, he should have been dragged out behind the courthouse 20 years. But he's not going to ever face any consequences for betraying this country or for taking bribes, even though he's made a career out of doing both.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 96d
We may see a migration of Virginian motorcoaches into Florida and Texas.
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 97d
Leona Helmsley was a prophet: "We don't pay taxes. The little people pay taxes."
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
Good, but unseating that lousy POS will take a lot more.
Akasazh@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 96d
Could…? Should
tomiant@piefed.social · 0 pts · 96d
Haha silly, a supreme court justice can't break the law! They make the law! How can they make the law and break the law at the same time? That makes no sense hahahahahahaha 😭
AdamBomb@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 96d
If that even happens, the Supreme Court can simply issue a ruling in his favor from the shadow docket and I have no reason to believe they won’t
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 96d
The SC has no authority over state laws unless they find them unconstitutional or conflict with federal laws. I don't think even the 6 GOP justices would go that far.
AdamBomb@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 96d
Useful context, and maybe how it should work normally. I have little faith in this lawless time.
etherphon@piefed.world · -7 pts · 97d
AA5B@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 96d
That specific black guy very much deserves to take a fall