Senate Judiciary Democrats slam Justice Thomas for alleged ethical lapses in new report

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized Justice Clarence Thomas and other justices for "ethical" lapses in a newly released report. 

The report comes after a long investigation into Thomas allegedly accepting luxury presents and trips from a billionaire friend during his time on the Supreme Court.

“Any claim that the Court can adequately police itself is belied by the fact that the Court has not taken meaningful action to address ethical misconduct and no justice has faced consequences for unethical behavior—despite dozens of credible allegations of misconduct by multiple justices over decades,” the report reads, according to The Hill.

The partisan report, which focuses only on conservative justices, said that the court failed to "police" itself regarding appropriate conduct. 

Mark Paoletta, a close friend of Thomas who has written a book about him and who was picked by President-elect Trump for a senior role in the Office of Management and Budget, called the report “pathetic” and criticized Democrats for releasing it the Saturday before Christmas. 

Paoletta wrote on X, "As predicted, this report is so pathetic they released it the Saturday morning before Christmas right after Congress left for year and @SenatorDurbin and @SenWhitehouse fled town. When they come back, they will thankfully be in the minority. Good riddance."

Paoletta wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal earlier this year pushing back on the hypocrisy and the charges that have been leveled at Justice Thomas for years now, though not specifically about this new report. He refers to one such issue as "an inconsistent standard for what constitutes a 'gift.'"

In the past, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has pushed articles of impeachment for Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito.

The two conservative justices have faced ethics and corruption allegations over the past year, over failure to disclose luxury trips and refusals to recuse themselves from certain Supreme Court cases.