Several lawyers who have had business before the Supreme Court,
including one who successfully argued to end race conscious
admissions at universities paid to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas
some transactions, some money through Venmo.
Now, I wanna just give you this caveat as we continue,
I think this story was a little premature.
l kinda wish that the journalists reporting this story would wait a little
bit and get a little more confirmation and
do a little more investigation before putting this out there.
Because I do agree that there are problems with some of the close relationships
that Justice Thomas and his wife have with business interests.
I am concerned with, in the very least, the appearance of corruption,
the appearance of conflicts of interest,
especially when it comes to his relationship with Harlan Crow.
But with that said, I think that stories like this, and
I'll give you the details in a moment, will start to make it seem like a witch
hunt when I don't think that it's a witch hunt.
I think that the previous reporting absolutely is important and
brings up important questions about our Supreme Court Justices and
whether they should be allowed to have these kinds of financial transactions.
These kinds of trips with wealthy business interests while they are hearing
cases that these business interests certainly have a stake in, Cenk.
>> So in this story, there is one critical fact that is missing,
as far as I know when I last looked at it, that will make all the difference as to
whether this is a BS story or an enormous story.
>> Right. >> So let's give you the story and
you'll see.
>> Okay, so again, this has to do with payments by
lawyers to a now former clerk or aide, I should say,
to Justice Thomas by the name of Rajan Vasisht.
And so this person served as Thomas's aide from July of 2019 to July of 2021,
and the payments were made in connection to a 2019 Christmas party.
So the aide's Venmo account, which was public prior to requesting comment for
the article and is no longer, showed that he received seven payments in November and
December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks, okay?
The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment
is listed as either Christmas party, Thomas Christmas Party, CT Christmas
party, or CT Xmas party in an apparent reference to the justices initials.
Now, despite the description of the payments, it is unclear,
it has not been confirmed what the Venmo payments are specifically for.
But since every single one of them mentioned Christmas party and
they were sent in November and December,
I would venture to say they literally have to do with the Christmas party.
I don't know if there was a cover charge, that would be strange.
But nonetheless, according to his resume, this aide's duties included assisting
the justice with the administrative functioning of his chambers,
personal correspondence and his personal and office schedule.
>> Yeah. >> So I'll give you a few more details
about this, who were the lawyers who were sending these payments via Venmo?
You had a gentleman by the name of Patrick Strawbridge,
a partner at Consovoy McCarthy who recently successfully argued that
affirmative action violated the United States constitution.
Also you have Kate Todd, served as White House deputy counsel
under Donald Trump at the time of the payment and
is now a managing party at Ellis George Cipollone's law office.
And you also had Elbert Lin,
former solicitor general of West Virginia, who played a key role
in a Supreme Court case that limited the Environmental Protection Agency's
ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
There were others as well, but those those three really stood out.
>> Okay, so as I was reading this story, I went through a couple of waves.
So first off, they said Christmas party, former clerks, and
I was like, they used to work there, they went back for a Christmas party,
I'm not sure that's a big deal.
Okay, but then I saw they had cases in front of the Supreme Court,
at least four of them did, I believe.
No, no, don't even go to Christmas parties, and don't send in 25 bucks for
the Christmas party, don't do any of that cuz it looks like a conflict of interest
that looks really bad, so don't do that.
Then I said, wait a minute, how many Christmases did they go to?
They went to one Christmas and there were seven payments, and
then I was like, hm, that seems weird.
Then I got to the critical fact that's missing, which is how much?
>> Right. >> Because if they went to the party and
they said, hey, I'm gonna chip in 35 bucks for the cookies and the schmear or
whatever they had at the Christmas party, schmear, eggnog, I don't know.
All right, 35 bucks, hey, don't do that either, it looks bad,
it's a little bit of a conflict of interest, but everybody's gonna survive,
it's not that big a deal, right?
If instead it turns out it's $35,000, they sent, seven of them,
then we got a different story and a massive corruption scandal, right?
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> So can someone find out how much they sent in?
>> That's why I'm saying I just think as the story is right now, with the details
we have right now, it was premature, they needed to wait, in my opinion, right?
>> How did they see who they were, but they couldn't see how much?
That's interesting.
>> On Venmo, you can do complete privacy settings where none of your
transactions are open to the public.
Or you can do settings where no one sees the amount but
they see the transactions between two individuals, do you get what I'm saying?
>> No, absolutely, and look, authorities should look into it,
and they should absolutely determine the amount,
cuz what if it is $10,000 from all seven of them or $100,000?
That would be massive corruption, that would be bigger than any of these other
stories, but if it's 25 bucks, let's move on.
Let's move on to the next thing.
>> Right, okay, so I have another question for you, and
I don't know how I feel about this because it's a fact of life and
I don't even know if you can really get around it.
So we're talking about lawyers here who clearly had
a previous relationship with Justice Thomas, they're friendly, and
let's say there's nothing fishy at all with the Venmo payments.
We find out that it's $5, $25, not a big deal at all, right?
But aside from the financial stuff, the close relationship with lawyers who
are going to have, they're gonna argue cases before the Supreme Court, right?
Them having that close cozy relationship partying during the holidays and stuff.
>> Party.
>> That's how I party, I don't know about you guys.
>> Okay, yeah, with the smears.
>> But partying with the smears.
>> [LAUGH] >> Okay, no, but seriously, I mean,
that has an influence, right?
So when you talk about a workplace dynamic and, when the guys they're hanging out on
the weekends, knocking back a few drinks, the argument is that might put the female
employees in the company at a disadvantage, right?
I've heard those arguments before.
But I think the stakes are much higher when it comes to the Supreme Court,
the stakes are much higher when it comes to the cases the Supreme Court hears.
Is there any concern about that cozy relationship, friendly relationship?
>> Definitely, so look, there should be reasonable rules.
That doesn't mean, hey, somebody clerked for you and they've got cases in front
of the federal judiciary at large, you could never see them again.
I don't know about that, right?
But if they've got cases in front of you, I don't care how close you were, no,
of course you can't hang out with them and
be like, how do you think I should rule in your case?
[LAUGH] Knock down another Bud Light, no, no Bud Light, set it up and shoot a,
[SOUND] right?
So no, you can't do that if they've got a case in front of you, and
these guys definitely had cases in front of Clarence Thomas, so
they shouldn't even been at the Christmas party, to be honest.
>> Yeah. >> Look, and by the way, that's easy,
that's an easy conflict of interest case, you should not do it.
The reason we're saying if it's 25 bucks, let it go, is not because it isn't wrong.
It's just that it's wrong but minor compared to all the other things that
the Supreme Court justices are doing where they're raking in tons of money.
>> Okay, final question, I can't help myself.
And I know that it's definitely an Armenian cultural thing.
Because if I was hosting a holiday party and I asked, or
even if I didn't ask, but I took $25 from people who wanted to pitch in,
I know exactly what my parents would say.
They'd be like, Anamot, like, what are you doing, don't do that, right?
>> Don't accept other people's payment, right?
>> Yeah, you're hosting a party, don't do that.
But I know that's a cultural thing to some extent.
>> No, no, I don't think so.
>> No? >> I think yeah,
we have Christmas parties here,
if as people were walking in- >> Can you imagine?
>> Give me money, hey, hey.
>> There's a cover charge, $25. >> Okay, Edwin, okay, 25, Bart,
I need 30 from you, okay?
[LAUGH] No.
>> So Justice Thomas, Justice Thomas, what are you doing, what are you Anamot, okay?
>> Anamot.
[LAUGH]