Clarence Thomas Decided Three Cases Where AEI Filed A Brief After AEI Gave Him A $15,000 Gift
By Ian Millhiser
Jun 21, 2011
In 2001, a conservative, corporate-aligned think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) gave Justice Clarence Thomas the gift of a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln. At the ceremony presenting Thomas with this very expensive gift, AEI president Christopher DeMuth explained that the bust was “cast in 1914 by the great neo-classical sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman.”
AEI, however, is not simply in the business of giving luxurious gifts to Supreme Court justices — it is also in the business of litigating before the United States Supreme Court. ThinkProgress uncovered three briefs that AEI filed in Thomas’ Court after Thomas received their $15,000 gift. Thomas recused from none of these three cases, and he either voted in favor of the result AEI favored or took a stance that was even further to the right in each case...
For the full article, go to:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/21/249512/thomas-aei/
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Note there is a precedent in this case since Associate Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign from the Supreme Court in 1969 over basically the same issue, receiving gifts and considerations from groups and individuals who had cases pending before the courts and where he did not recuse himself. Of course, there was one big difference. Fortas was considered a liberal so of course he had to go, while Thomas, being a conservative with a wife up to her neck in Tea Bagger activities who also happens to have gotten money from groups who have cases before the court, well that's OK because we KNOW the conservative justices will ALWAYS follow the Constitution to the letter while liberal justices go out of their way to make new law at every opportunity. Not like how the Roberts' Court pulled the opinion that Corporations are People in the Citizens United case out of thin air.
OCU
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