A report from The New York Times details yet another luxury obtained by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas using funds from a wealthy associate. In this instance, it’s been revealed that he purchased a Prevost Marathon RV in 1999, using $267,230 received from Anthony Welters, a former executive at UnitedHealthCare who worked alongside Thomas in the Reagan administration, per the outlet. In a statement on the matter, Welters said that the funds were considered a loan and that it has since been “satisfied,” avoiding the phrasing “paid off,” which means it could have been a gift that would have then needed to be disclosed

  • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Man, I want a job where people just give me six figures in addition to my salary and I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.

    “Good afternoon Bob.”.
    “Good afternoon, Soda. How’s the family?”.
    “Doing great, not affected by anything I do at work at all.”.
    “That’s great, Soda. Oh by the way here’s $300,000”
    “Nice, thank you Bob. I’ll see you around.”

  • edric@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Why can the SC accept donations if they are supposed to be impartial?

    • nvimdiesel@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      There are no rules saying they can’t. This is all still legal if completely immoral. SCOTUS is a co-equal branch of the government which in the past had be given to regulating itself. It’s starting to look like Congress will have to step in and pass some ethics constraints since SCOTUS won’t adopt one.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why would a justice need a donation? They don’t have campaigns to finance. There isn’t any legal justification for a “donation”.

    “I didn’t pay that hitman, detective. I donated to him.”

    When articles refer to these payments as “donations”, they are becoming complicit in the lie.

      • herzberd@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Reminds me of an episode of Common Sense by Dan Carlin from yeeears ago that basically said “the system is corrupt and voters aren’t able to command our politicians to do what we want, so what if we just pool money together and bribe them too?”

  • Pratai@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Not sure why this is such a big deal. He’s allowed to do it because no one will stop him. There is zero accountability in American governments.