Sen. Whitehouse and Lawrence Slam Clarence Thomas for Refusing to Recuse in the Trump Immunity Case

as I indicated last night I am not one who finds it outrageous that the Supreme Court has decided to hear Donald Trump's lawyers argument about immunity possibly applying to some of the charges against Donald Trump and Jack Smith's prosecution of Donald Trump for possible crimes leading up to an on January 6th I am reserving my outrage for someday possibly in May at the earliest when we read the Supreme Court's opinion which could be outrageous or could completely reject Donald Trump's claim of immunity and then today's outrage will be forgotten the Supreme Court has already rejected half of Donald Trump's petition to the Supreme Court in which Trump lawyers argued a double jeopardy claim based on Donald Trump having faced an impeachment trial in the United States Senate on similar charges without comment the Supreme Court simply threw that out threw out the double jeopardy thing threw it right out of the case yes yesterday when they announced they would hear argument only on the following question whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from Criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office because the appeals court opinion in Washington DC applies only to that Federal jurisdiction the Supreme Court may have reasonably decided that they should deliver an opinion on this question that will cover any crimes that could arise in all 50 states the Supreme Court is the only court that can make the law of the land all other courts only control specific sections of the country there is one thing that I for one am ready to be outraged about right now and have been outraged about it since last night and that is Clarence Thomas's refusal to recuse use himself from the case the law of the United States of America says any justice judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned he shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances he knows that he or his spouse has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding Clarence Thomas's wife does indeed actually have a financial interest in the proceeding because Clarence Thomas's wife profited from the Trump presidency and would again and Clarence Thomas's wife has an interest in a party to the proceding Donald Trump is a party to the proceeding and Virginia Thomas has a desperate desate interest in Donald Trump an interest in Donald Trump becoming president again and she had a desperate interest in urging Donald Trump and white house chief of staff Mark Meadows through text messages to commit the crimes they committed to try to overturn the presidential election the outrage that is already upon us before The Supreme Court hears one word of argument in this case is the continuing ethical outrage that Clarence Thomas brings to the spring Court every day and is now right before the eyes of the Chief Justice and the rest of the members of the Court ready to violate federal law that bars him from hearing this case joining us now as Democratic senator Sheldon White House of Rhode Island he's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and he chairs the subcommittee on federal courts Senator White House you are invited uh to talk me down from my outrage uh over the recusal issue can't do it okay if if um the Supreme Court were to decide that President Trump has presidential immunity then Jack Smith's case would come to an end and Jack Smith's case could very well in producing evidence about the Insurrection produce evidence about Justice Thomas's wife jinny's role in that Insurrection including correspondence directly with the defendants trumps Chief of Staff so there's a very direct conflict of interest if he can help get rid of the case he can protect his wife from the scrutiny of having her actions be evidenced for the prosecution so that's pretty blunt I would say that there's an even worse outrage behind that which is that even now we do not know what the facts are here there is no other officer in the entire United States government government who when an Ethics question is raised doesn't have the facts about what took place found by some independent entity it is only these nine justices who re reserve for themselves the right to say here's what I say the facts are and nobody else gets another view and Justice Thomas has simply refused to disclose what he knew and when he knew it about his wife's Insurrection activities and that has tainted a number of Supreme Court cases already so it's a double trouble problem an immediate conflict in this case and a signal of this larger problem of the Court not playing by the rules of rule of law so the what I just read is a law it's it's not it's not some rule that someone created it's not some Court rule it's not some judicial principle it's the law of the land of the United States of America and how is that law enforced well by courts and of course at this point you've got a court that doesn't want to have that law enforced on itself and the very basic sort of opening bid of any law enforcement effort of any contest of law is that you find out what the facts are fact finding is Elemental to a decision to go forward on an Ethics matter on a refusal matter in a civil case in a criminal case it's across the board so it's extremely peculiar that this Supreme Court will not allow fact finding as to its own ethics problems so uh we know that in the last hour uh Virginia Thomas was watching her hero on Fox talk about this very case that her husband is considering uh maybe with her husband sitting beside her let's listen to what uh Clarence Thomas's wife was listening to uh in Donald Trump arguing his own case face on Fox in the last hour they have to do the immunity thing because if you don't a president will not be able to be a president if you're going to make a big decision as president and you're afraid that as soon as you get out you're going to be indicted by the opposition Party by the Democrats by the radical left lunatics who will indict you and try and put you in prison because you're trying to do something good for the country even if it's severe the severe may be a great thing for the country they have to have presidential immunity if you don't have immunity for a president and I'm not talking about only me if you don't have immunity for a president you're going you will not be able to function properly uh and so uh I don't know does does Mrs Thomas uh turn to her favorite Supreme Court Justice and say what do you think after that well I she has a term that she refers to her husband with I think my best friend is the way they often describe each other and she actually talks about talking with her best friend in the communications that went back and forth between her and the defendant Trump's uh Chief of Staff so you could actually even go beyond just having Jenny Thomas figure in the evidence in the case presuming that Clarence Thomas is the best friend that she mentions he could actually appear in the case so you know it just keeps getting worse and worse and just by the way the president president's commentary is complete nonsense we've had you know a lot of United States presidents uh they have never been charged criminally the one who came closest was President Nixon he did not concede that the criminal law did not apply to him he conceded that it did apply to him throughout the entire history of the United States of America there's never been a problem of a president not being able to do something lawful that he should be doing for the people of the United States because of fear of criminal prosecution this is an imaginary uh figment of Donald Trump's Senator Sheldon White House thank you very much for joining us tonight

Channel: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Views: 242,183

Keywords:

Id: 1PdYw0vCNnI

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2024