Last week, ProPublica published a blockbuster story about how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife have gone on swanky vacations paid for by a Republican megadonor. Thomas never disclosed these gifts.
It naturally raised legitimate questions about Thomas, his role as a powerful judge on the most powerful court in the land and how he might be influenced by politics and favors instead of the law.
At the time of the story, Thomas didn’t bother to respond. After the story came out and launched an outpouring of negative responses toward him, Thomas did respond. He essentially said he did nothing wrong because he and the donor, Harlan Crow, are old friends. In a statement, Thomas said, “Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”
ProPublica’s story — written by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski — was meticulously reported, and drew praise from many in the journalism community. In addition, Thomas was criticized by many who see this as another example of the Supreme Court’s credibility being weakened by political biases.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote a story with the headline, “Clarence Thomas Broke the Law and It Isn’t Even Close.”
New Yorker political columnist Jonathan Chait wrote, “The right-wing justice has operated, in conjunction with his wife, in the center of a network of conservative activists whose project is indistinguishable from his legal work.”
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal editorial board came out and ripped … ProPublica. In an astonishingly brazen editorial, the board called this “The Smearing of Clarence Thomas.” They called ProPublica’s story a “non-bombshell,” among other insults.
The editorial started with, “The left’s assault on the Supreme Court is continuing …” They also called ProPublica a “left-leaning website.” (ProPublica’s founding editor-in-chief, CEO and president was Paul Steiger, a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal — something you did not read in the Journal editorial.)
The editorial board wrote:
The piece is loaded with words and phrases intended to convey that this is all somehow disreputable: “superyacht”; “luxury trips”; “exclusive California all-male retreat”; “sprawling ranch”; “private chefs”; “elegant accommodation”; “opulent lodge”; “lavishing the justice with gifts.” And more. Adjectival overkill is the method of bad polemicists who don’t have much to report.
Never mind that the adjectives are actually, you know, true and accurate. As ProPublica senior editor and reporter (and former Journal columnist) Jesse Eisinger tweeted:
We stand accused of adjectival abuse. Assume the WSJ will be reporting us to the Society of Professional Journalists. I’d take alt suggestions.“Short & long-order cook who works just for him”? “Extremely large boat”? “Place where no gurls lowd”?
The board of the Rupert Murdoch-owned publication then used its own adjectival overkill to defend Thomas and disparage what they redundantly call the “liberal press.”
The board went on to write, “It’s all ugly politics, but the left is furious it lost control of the Court, and it wants it back by whatever means possible.”
Again, Thomas and his wife did go on vacations paid for by a Republican mover and shaker who also, according to Washingtonian’s Sylvie McNamara, collects Nazi memorabilia.
At no point did the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board ever mention Thomas and the problematic conflict involving his wife, Ginni, and her deep connections to powerful conservative activism, including trying to get the 2020 presidential election overturned. For the Journal’s editorial board to dismiss this as all ugly politics and biased journalism is as misguided as it is ironic. Whoever was actually responsible for writing the editorial clearly didn’t realize that it came across as projecting and partisan. At no point did the editorial ever consider that a Supreme Court judge accepting gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars is worth reporting on and, at the very least, questioning.
ProPublica is an elite-level journalism outlet with multiple Pulitzer Prize winners. While one certainly has the right to question whether Thomas actually broke any ethical or legal guidelines, the Journal’s editorial board’s attack on a respected media outlet in this way is unseemly. To dismiss a well-reported story as a political hack job that is some part of a grand media conspiracy because it doesn’t like the court’s makeup feels beneath The Wall Street Journal.
When Chait wrote his piece for The New Yorker, he wasn’t talking about the Wall Street Journal’s editorial, but I couldn’t help but think of the Journal when Chait wrote, “The Republican Party believes that Thomas’s seamless integration of conservative-movement activism with the Supreme Court’s singularly powerful and unaccountable role in public life represents the finest and purest workings of the republican form of government. As we peer into a future of unbroken conservative control of the courts for perhaps decades to come, we should take seriously their professions of admiration for Thomas and his open contempt for the idea any ethical obligations might constrain his power.”
