If Clarence Thomas has to recuse himself, what about Joe Biden?

Here’s a question: If Justice Clarence Thomas has to recuse himself on cases relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot because of his wife, does that mean President Joe Biden has to recuse himself on China and Ukraine because of his son and brother?

Of course, presidents never recuse themselves. But the fact that Democrats are crying foul over the Thomases while ignoring the Bidens shows that their concern about ethics is just cover for another attempted takedown of a respected conservative jurist.

The Washing- ton Post recently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s emails which show that a Chinese energy conglomerate linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter and his uncle James Biden (Joe Biden’s brother) for energy projects that “never came to fruition.” And we already knew that while then-Vice President Joe Biden was in charge of Ukraine policy in the Obama-Biden administration, his son was receiving as much as $50,000 a month from a Ukrainian energy company by banking on his father’s name.

That seems to be a far more serious conflict of interest than Virginia “Ginni” Thomas sending a bunch of text messages to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows spouting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Her texts were extreme, but essentially harmless. She does not sit on the Supreme Court or hold any position of public authority. She was a private citizen expressing her personal political views. Her husband is not responsible for his wife’s personal views or political activism. If her text messages require him to recuse himself, how much more so does Hunter Biden’s earning millions of dollars from China and Ukraine require Joe Biden to recuse himself?

The Post reports that it “did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about” of his son and brother’s financial engagement with Communist China. There is a Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden, so we will see whether such evidence emerges. But there is no concrete evidence that Clarence Thomas knew details about his wife’s Jan. 6 activism or shared her views.

Thomas’s critics say that doesn’t matter – that even if he did not know, he must recuse himself because her activism creates the “appearance” of a conflict of interest. Well, the same is true of Hunter and James Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China. The Code of Federal Regulations states that when an executive branch official has “a relative with whom the employee has a close personal relationship” and “the circumstances would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question his impartiality in the matter, the employee should not participate in the matter.” Does Hunter Biden and his uncle accepting $4.8 million from entities linked to China’s government and army create a circumstance in which a reasonable person would question his father’s impartiality?

Because Biden is president, he is not covered by the Code of Federal Regulations on ethics. Clarence Thomas is an associate justice of the Supreme Court, and the Code of Judicial Conduct applies only to lower federal court judges. A federal statute requires any judge to disqualify himself “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” but it is up to Thomas alone to decide whether he has a conflict of interest.

If he does not, then he has a positive duty (BEG ITAL) not(END ITAL) to recuse himself. As Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote in his 2011 report on the Federal Judiciary, “If an appeals court or district court judge withdraws from a case, there is another federal judge who can serve in that recused judge’s place.” But, “the Supreme Court consists of nine Members who always sit together, and if a Justice withdraws from a case, the Court must sit without its full membership.” Therefore, Roberts said, a Justice “cannot withdraw from a case . . . simply to avoid controversy.” Citing Chief Justice William Howard Taft’s 1924 Canons of Judicial Ethics, Roberts said a justice’s decision on recusal should not be “swayed by partisan demands, public clamor . . . considerations of personal popularity or notoriety . . . [or] unjust criticism.”

If anyone’s impartiality should be in question, it is that of the House select committee on Jan. 6. Since only Meadows and the committee had access to his text messages, it appears someone on that committee leaked Ginni Thomas’s conversations with Meadows to the media in order to embarrass her husband. If so, it is disgraceful and irresponsible – and would call into question the objectivity of the committee, not Clarence Thomas.

This whole episode has nothing to do with a concern for judicial ethics. It is simply a continuation of what Clarence Thomas famously called the “high-tech lynching” he endured during his confirmation hearings. Just as the left smeared both him and Brett M. Kavanaugh in an effort to stop them from ever sitting on the court, they continue to stop at nothing in their efforts to discredit the 6-3 conservative majority as it prepares to hand down key decisions on abortion, gun rights and racial preferences in college admissions.

Thomas understands this – and is not intimidated. Which is why he should ignore the “partisan demands” and “unjust criticism” and do his job.