prohibits supreme court justices from hearing cases in which their spouses have quote, an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding. but republicans don t think justice thomas should have recused himself. republicans, including house minority leader, kevin mccarthy. i think justice thomas can make a decision that he s made every other time. it s his decision based upon law. if you spend any time studying the supreme court justice, he s one who studies correctly. joining us now is emily basil, on staff writer for the new york times magazine and a fellow at yale law school. she co-host the sleet podcast, political die effect. emily, i am no lawyer. but this seems like a clear violation of federal law. and yet, republicans, justice thomas, don t seem at all move by the evidence at hand. so what recourse is there in a case like this? well, very little recourse,
to encourage thomas to do the right thing? or do you think that is a fools errand? that s a great question. i cannot imagine the chief justice roberts is not double negative. i am sure that he is distressed by this news. how could he not be, you are right. he cares about the court s reputation. this is damaging. there is clearly an appearance of a propriety here whether or not justice thomas and ginni thomas we re talking about her efforts to overturn the election. the appearance looks bad. whether there is something going on behind the scenes, whether chief justice roberts has quietly said to justice thomas, you know, we have more of the january six cases pending, you really need to get out of the next one. there s just no way to know about those private conversations. i just wonder, i mean, it could get worse for the times this too, right? there s talk that the january six committee could subpoena not only ginni thomas but
clarence thomas. a, can that legally happen? and the, just how catastrophically damaging would that be to the reputation of the court if a sitting supreme court justice is subpoenaed for a committee that is investigating attempts to incite insurrection? that would certainly not look it would raise all kind of difficult legal questions about separation of power along the branches, this congress have the authority to do that. wouldn t that question ultimately be up to the supreme court? which reviews the subpoena power of congress. usually it does so with congress is subpoenaing people outside the court. so, you know, that would be a real mess. one question would be, what would congress really get? if we are talking about, presumably private communication between justice thomas and his wife. what s really is there to subpoena? but it certainly would be a way to try to embarrass him and embarrass the court. i mean, and also tie
alex. the issue here is that supreme court justices get to decide when to recuse themselves. wind to sit out hearing a case. and their decisions are not reviewable. so, yes, there is a federal law setting a standard that would absolutely seem to apply in this case. and the idea that a justice whose wife is basically on the team for trying to overturn the election, the idea that the justice should recuse himself, that should be a bipartisan principle. but in this case, we have this highly partisan contentious atmosphere. and unfortunately, this is turning into one more division between republicans and democrats. do you think that division does extend all the way to the court, though? i mean, i m not trying . justice roberts, chief justice john roberts, he is an institutionalist in a lot of ways, right? he cares a lot about the reputation of the court. he looks at the same news we are looking at. does he play any role in trying
judge ketanji brown jackson, faced days of outrageous questioning from republicans in her confirmation hearing. republicans may be laser focused on the importance of a lifetime to the court. but they are turning a blind eye to the conduct of a current sitting member of the court and his spouse who was using her influence to try and overturn the 2020 election. today, justice clarence thomas was released from the hospital after reports of an unspecified illness. while justice thomas was hospitalized, the washington post reveals text messages obtained by the january six committee, tying his wife, ginni thomas, to donald trump s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. in the week surrounding the election, ginni thomas set dozens of text messages to trump chief of staff, mark meadows, she encouraged meadows to push claims of voter fraud and to work to prevent the election for being certified. reporters bob woodward and robert costa said this about the text messages they obt