CNN
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Senate Democrats railed against Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday amid reports that the Supreme Court conservative failed to disclose luxury travel, gifts and a real estate transaction involving a GOP megadonor, but their plan to investigate the conservative jurist remains unclear.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin has promised that his committee will hold a hearing on the alleged ethics violations in the coming weeks, but shared no details when pressed by CNN on whether lawmakers will seek testimony from Thomas or others who might have knowledge about his relationship with the donor, Texas-based billionaire Harlan Crow.
Asked if subpoenas were on the table, Durbin said that no decision has been made on that yet. He said that it was “too soon” to share more information about what his committee’s hearing on Supreme Court ethics might look like. He and other Judiciary Democrats sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts last week calling for him to open an investigation into the Thomas allegations.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Tuesday that “the American people deserve all of the facts surrounding Justice Thomas’s blatant violation of law.”
“I hope that [Thomas] will voluntarily appear, and if not, we should consider subpoenas for him and others, like Harlan Crow, who have information,” Blumenthal said.
Other Democrats on the committee said Tuesday that they were deferring to Durbin, who huddled with Democrats on Monday evening to discuss their strategy towards Thomas.
Meanwhile, Republicans appear mostly united in defending the Thomas, suggesting the court can handle its own affairs.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked Democrats for criticizing the court, and said he has confidence in Roberts “to deal with these court internal issues.”
“The Democrats, it seems to me, spent a lot of time criticizing individual members of the court and going after the court as an institution,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday.
Bringing more transparency to the high court has had some bipartisan support in the past, but the court’s jerk to the right – particularly with the three justices that former President Donald Trump put on the bench – has raised…
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