WASHINGTON, D.C., November 1, 2023 – In an unprecedented move, 66 organizations have joined Alliance for Justice (AFJ) to call for the immediate resignation of Justice Thomas. Many of these organizations have never called for the resignation of a sitting Supreme Court justice.
AFJ first called for Thomas’s resignation on April 6, 2023 after ProPublica exposed that for years Justice Thomas has accepted luxury travel and lavish gifts from right-wing mega-donor and billionaire Harlan Crow. In the six months since then, revelations around Justice Clarence Thomas’s actions, including that Justice Thomas has secretly participated in fundraisers with the Koch Brothers donor network, have brought Supreme Court ethics to national attention and alarm, leading a diverse group of organizations to join the resignation call because the Supreme Court should be the gold standard of judicial ethics.
“Justice Thomas’s conduct is egregious by even the low ethical standards the Supreme Court has set for itself,” said Rakim Brooks, president of Alliance for Justice. “Every day he serves undermines the ordinary citizen’s faith in the rule of law, further destabilizing our democracy. If we are to be a country of laws and not men, he must resign.”
The credibility of the Supreme Court has been devastated due to decades of corrupt and unethical behavior by Thomas. Whether Thomas resigns or not, accountability actions must be taken by Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Court itself if the public is to ever trust the Supreme Court again.