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.

    • artyom@piefed.social
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      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
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        this looks like a state charge. trump (theoretically) has no control over state pardons.

        • RunningInRVA@lemmy.world
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          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
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        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.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        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
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          A pardon requires an admission of guilt

          Huh? Why would you think that?

          which would violate the good behavior clause of the Constitution

          Since when does anyone care about the Constitution?

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        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
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      The filing should be easy. Proving it might be tough. He knows enough to deny, defend, depose.

  • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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    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

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    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.

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      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?

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        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.

        As a member of the black delegation, fuck that guy. We don’t claim him.

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        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.

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        I get kind of an ick about going after the black guy

        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).

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        Well he certainly had no problems going after the black guys. time for him to get what he gave

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      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.

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      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.

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    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:

    So why Monday? Because there is nothing special about Monday. It is the next day the courthouse opens, the next day a prosecutor could walk this to a grand jury, the same as they could have on any working day for the last several years. For anyone else, this case would already be filed.

    […]

    Three officials can move on this, and they can each do something different, so we ask each one for what they actually have the power to do. […] Here is where to reach them, by phone or by email.

    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.

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      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

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      this article is a call to action

      Action to do what? A People’s Arrest?

      Let me know when we reconvene the Revolutionary Tribunals. Then write the article

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    BS.

    • Monday is a holiday
    • everything said here has been true for years. Where are the charges?

    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

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    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.

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      The least reliable members of the facist block of SCOTUS are those appointed by Mr. Trump.

      He’s really, really bad at the job.

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        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.

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          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.

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      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.

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        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.

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          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.

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            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.

  • BmeBenji (he/him)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    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 sentence term is up

    • Tronn4@lemmy.world
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      And also all supreme court members can’t be tax audited. And the creation of a Supreme Slush Fund

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    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.

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    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?

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        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
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          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.

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            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.

        • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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          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
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        i’m not american so my knowledge about american supreme court is limited to corruption news which paints a lively picture of that joint

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    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.