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It’s not me this time! (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Today is a sad day for my career. Through no fault of my own, I am called by the gods of journalism to do something previously thought unthinkable: defend Clarence Thomas. Let’s be clear here: I’ve done my fair share of drawing attention to Clarence Thomas scandals when the opportunity presents itself. Which are legion. But there is a difference between guilt and the lesser guilt by association, which The Guardian reporters find themselves up to here:
Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.
The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.
Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.’
That’s the story. There is no jump that shows Vasisht took the Venmo’d money and then CashApped Justice Thomas at $Pubichaircokecan or something. They are grasping at straws which, barring further information, all appear very defensible. Justice Thomas had a Christmas party? Weird to picture a group of people who would voluntarily go to that on a weekend, but it all seems above board. Vasisht was close with Thomas? Forgivable after working with a guy for two years. And that goes for the other people they’re trying to point fingers at: Patrick Strawbridge, Kate Todd, Elbert Lin — all former clerks. This isn’t a controversy, this just a Friends reunion special. I hate a slow news day as much as anyone else, but sounding the alarm because some attorneys went to a justice’s annual party is scraping the barrel. Payments labeled CT Xmas party? Maybe they all decided to hit Ruth’s Chris once Thomas turned his head to look at a portrait of Harlan Crow and went dutch on the bill.
I’d go even further — something like this is damn near inevitable once you factor in the justice’s lifelong appointments. Justice Thomas has hired Supreme Court clerks since 1991. That’s over 30 years. Each Supreme Court justice can recruit four clerks a term (while the chief can do five, but that’s neither here nor there). While I shudder at the thought, that means that there are like 120 Thomas clerks who ran off to make careers for themselves. Flags shouldn’t fly just because they hang out together. Now, did they all decide to treat Clarence to a lavish meal and a statue in his honor hoping for a quid pro quo verdict in their favor? That would definitely be newsworthy. Is that what happened here? The current record is inconclusive at best. Which is why the legal ethics lawyer they consulted addressed a hypothetical ethics violation that doesn’t really fit the fact pattern:
Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration and has been a vocal critic of the role of dark money in politics, said is was “not appropriate” for former Thomas law clerks who were established in private practice to – in effect – send money to the supreme court via Venmo.
I have never seen the words “in effect” do more work than they are doing in that sentence. That’s like saying that if I buy a piece of gum from a Marlboro employee I am — in effect — funding Big Tobacco.
The second ethical opinion The Guardian cites is a bit closer to admitting this whole thing is much ado about nothing:
Kedric Payne, the general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, said that – based on available information – it was possible that the former clerks were paying their own party expenses, and not expenses for Thomas, which he believed was different than random lawyers in effect paying admission to an exclusive event to influence the judge.
He added: “But the point remains that the public is owed an explanation so they don’t have to speculate.”
I appreciate the sentiment here, but is that true? Do all prior and current Supreme Court clerks really have to explain to the public every time a friend sends them cash on PayPal? Vasisht did what most of us would do and made his Venmo history private after The Guardian started getting nosy about his debt collecting. Ought the public have a right to make his history public again? I don’t think so, and I doubt you do either.
I will recognize Payne’s latter point. While I do not think association per se is a smoking gun, I think that the compulsion to speculate over something as small as a Venmo history is symptomatic of the rapidly declining legitimacy the Supreme Court has seen over the last few years. When you have a court with no binding ethics and people with matters before the court having private conversations, it can be hard to find the line between a Christmas party and Rob Schenck praying with Justices Alito and, yes, Thomas, before they overruled Roe and its progeny.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go atone for my zealous defense. May Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson have mercy on my soul.
Lawyers With Supreme Court Business Paid Clarence Thomas Aide Via Venmo [The Guardian]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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