Clarence Thomas Could Face Federal Investigation For Possible Tax Law Violations

Democrats in the Senate are calling on the Department of Justice to open an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for possible ethics and tax law violations over the undisclosed "gifts" that he has received over the years. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland outlining the multiple different causes for concern that warrant a closer look by the DOJ. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A pair of Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden have sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him this week to please for the love of God appoint a special prosecutor to at the very least, investigate Clarence Thomas for potential violations of ethics laws and probably more importantly, tax laws here in the United States. They of course, point to reporting over the last year or so that has shown that Clarence Thomas received unprecedented gifts and other services from the very people he was deciding cases for, and he never disclosed it. So these two Democratic senators granted after sitting on it for a while, but at least they're doing something, finally said, Merrick Garland, it's time to do something about this because this is flippant ridiculous. Here is a, a couple lines from their letter, the breadth of the omissions uncovered to date and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates warrant the appointment of a special counsel to investigate this misconduct.

Justice Thomas failed to clarify whether or why he failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in forgiven debt on his federal income tax returns and pay the income taxes owed. We submit that the facts we have developed combined with strategically evasive answers creates a predication for further investigation by relevant authorities. Now, I'm gonna read a little bit more in just a second, but let me kind of point out what they're saying. Clarence Thomas had loans. Now, when you owe money and you're making those monthly payments and you're paying interest on those monthly payments, you report that on your taxes, right? So that's gonna reduce the amount that you owe to the federal government. And even though Clarence Thomas is a federal employee, he still has to pay federal taxes. But we did find out, of course, and Widen actually did an investigation into this, that some of these loans were actually forgiven by some of Clarence Thomas's wealthy benefactors, and based on his public, you know, publicly available tax information, he didn't report on his taxes, that he essentially got this free money in the form of the loan forgiveness, and you have to report that on your taxes, but he didn't.

So, I mean, textbook, if it's all true, of course, that is tax fraud, cut and dry could not be any clearer. If these allegations are true, then that is tax fraud. So that is the big thing they want 'em investigated for, but they do continue. The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their

Federal tax obligations, presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct. Justice Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence. It's really not that suspicious at all, right? We all know why the dude is being silent, and I do agree with them that it is time for the DOJ to finally investigate this. If you appoint a special prosecutor, they dig into this, they find nothing wrong, then so be it. Right? No harm, no foul at that point, but if you're just going to ignore it, then you're no better than the people that need to be investigated. That's how I feel about this issue.