If there’s anyone congressional Republicans should find credible in the ethics controversy surrounding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, it’s Judge Mark L. Wolf. As The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus explained in her latest column, Wolf “has spent his career fighting against corruption and for the rule of law — as a public corruption prosecutor, as a federal judge, as a crusader against international kleptocracy.”
What’s more, he’s done so with a partisan pedigree that should bolster his credibility with GOP lawmakers: Wolf got his start in the Ford administration, before ultimately being nominated for the federal bench by Ronald Reagan.
But in 2011 and 2012, during his tenure on the Judicial Conference of the United States, which is responsible for reviewing jurists’ financial disclosure reports, Wolf examined complaints about Thomas, which he deemed credible, and which led to a series of questions about possible ethics lapses and how they were handled.
Wolf’s efforts were largely ignored. His term on the panel expired before he could get answers.
It was against this backdrop that the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week on ethics rules and judicial financial disclosures. Not surprisingly, given his lengthy career and background, members invited Wolf to testify.
It was there that Wolf, now a senior judge, heard outrage from Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana — not because Wolf failed to get answers, but because he dared to ask questions. From Marcus’ column:
Kennedy dismissed Wolf as “a lone federal judge … obsessed with complaining” about Thomas but himself guilty of ethical missteps. He cited discredited information placed in the file of an FBI informant that Wolf, as a federal prosecutor, had leaked evidence to organized crime. He asserted that Wolf had engaged in a “highly unethical move — that’s an understatement” when he declined to recuse himself from a death penalty case after moderating a panel that included a professor who later became a witness in the case. He asserted that Wolf had behaved improperly when he wrote an opinion piece endorsing a code of conduct to cover Supreme Court justices. “Is Judge Wolf planning on launching a super-PAC next?” Kennedy asked.
The Post columnist also noted that as Wolf began to defend himself, the Louisianan left the room.
During the same proceedings, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah kept the slander going, insisting that he considers the allegations surrounding Thomas to be “a political witch hunt, which may be in the process of being aided and abetted by a member of the judiciary,” a reference to Wolf.
Lee, of course, is the same GOP senator who recently tried to defend the controversial Supreme Court justice, not by addressing the specific ethics allegations, but rather by insisting that Thomas is “decent,” well liked by people who know him, and not the kind of guy who does bad things. Years ago, in “Arrested Development,” viewers were introduced to an attorney named Bob Loblaw, who pitched a memorable message in television ads: “Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else noticed?” The Republican defense of Thomas is similar: They’re not bothered by Thomas’ alleged misconduct; they’re bothered by anti-corruption officials like Wolf who noticed Thomas’ alleged misconduct. If politicians such as Kennedy and Lee believe the status quo is flawless and that there is no need for reforms — policies that would apply to all judges, not just Supreme Court justices popular with the GOP — they’re welcome to make that case. But for them to slander Wolf as part of a desperate and substance-free defense of Thomas says more about the senators than the senior judge.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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