Thomas’s choice for clerk spurs questions
Close ties, past comments cited
The email went out to members of Justice Clarence thomas’ law clerk network late last month celebrating his newest addition to an exclusive club. the justice’s selection needed no introduction.
“Crystal Clanton’s clerkship for Ot ’24 was announced by Scalia law today!” wrote an assistant to Virginia thomas, the justice’s wife, who is known as ginni. the email referred to the 2024 October term of the court, and the tone was jubilant: “Please take a look at these posts of congratulations and support. Consider reposting, replying or adding your own!”
The thomases and Clanton, 29, a conservative organizer turned lawyer, have built such a close relationship that the couple informally refer to her as their “nearly adopted daughter.” Clanton, who was previously accused of sending racist text messages, including one that read “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE,” has lived in the thomas home, assisted ginni thomas in her political consulting business, and joined her in a “girls trip” to new York.
In 2019, at the thomases’ urging, Clanton enrolled at Antonin Scalia law School at george mason University in Virginia, where Clarence thomas has taught. She received a full merit scholarship, according to a judge who later hired her.
Her upcoming Supreme Court clerkship, one of the most coveted jobs in the American legal profession, is the latest triumph in her redemption from a highly publicized 2017 controversy over the racist messages. the blowup led to her departure from a group she helped build, turning Point USA, which seeks to increase the influence of conservative students on college campuses across the country.
For Thomas’s critics, his selection of Clanton as a clerk is blatant favoritism, if not nepotism, particularly for a justice already under an ethics cloud for revelations about his gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors. to his defenders, thomas is showing admirable willingness to take in a young conservative and shield her from a firestorm of attacks for text messages that he and other supporters say were fakes designed to malign her.
Either way, his decision is another example of the justice landing himself in public controversy, this time by hiring his wife’s former employee and a virtual family member primarily known outside the justice’s circle for allegations that she sent antiblack texts. friends say Clanton’s hiring also reflects thomas’s sympathies to a young woman under siege, as he has been, from what he has long viewed as a sanctimonious liberal elite.
“Justice thomas knows what a racist is,” mark Paoletta, a close friend and frequent defender of the thomases, wrote on social media, adding, “I will take his word and judgment any day of the week.”
The Thomases and Clanton did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Ethics experts say there is nothing in the Supreme Court’s new ethics code that prohibits a justice from hiring someone accused of racism, or even a close family friend. Court watchers point to other recent selections of clerks, such as Justice Elena Kagan’s decision to hire Attorney general merrick b. garland’s daughter (although she will not start work with the justice while her father is attorney general).
But the federal judicial code of conduct — which the Supreme Court is not bound to follow — advises judges to avoid “favoritism” and to “exercise the power of appointment fairly and only on the basis of merit.” A 2016 advisory opinion cautioned against a judge’s giving “the appearance that someone may gain an advantage” in hiring because of the person’s “broader connections to a judge.”