Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from ruling on Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 presidential election, a prominent Democrat said Sunday, warning that the leading Republican candidate is seeking to become a “political martyr” as he pursues a second presidency.
Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin was speaking ahead of the nation’s highest court stepping in to adjudicate recent state rulings in Maine and Colorado that struck the former president from the general election primaries under the US constitution’s 14th amendment insurrection clause.
Thomas, whose wife, Ginni, a hard right conservative, was a vocal proponent of Trump’s big lie that his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden was fraudulent, should stand down ahead of the supreme court hearing the case, Raskin argued. Trump’s legal challenges could begin as early as Tuesday.
Raskin led the push for Trump’s second impeachment following the deadly January 6 riot that the ex-president’s supporters staged at the US Capitol.
Please don’t put words in my mouth, or assume that I’m a conservative. Personally, I don’t see how a president could be impeached for something he did as a Vice President, no matter what past transgressions the Republicans end up finding related to Hunter Biden.
I wasn’t suggesting that Clarence Thomas not recuse himself because his wife wasn’t the judge, I just didn’t understand how her involvement in the insurrection had anything to do with a court case about interpreting the 14th amendment. And I’ve changed my mind on the recusal question after reading some of the good faith replies folks were nice enough to post.