Why Raskin wants Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from potential Trump ruling [View all]

Source: USA Today

Published 2:08 p.m. ET Dec. 31, 2023 | Updated 2:09 p.m. ET Dec. 31, 2023


As some states fight to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot in 2024 and cases head to the U.S. Supreme Court, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wants one of the longest-serving justices to recuse himself from a potential ruling. Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself because his wife, Ginni Thomas, "was involved in the big lie," according to Raskin.

Thomas sent dozens of text messages after the 2020 election to Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, urging him to fight the results. In late September 2022, she told a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she regretted those texts that were sent at an "emotional time" and would take them all back if she could. Though Thomas told the panel she still thought there were election irregularities, she did believe Joe Biden was the president of the United States.

Raskin was a member of the House committee that investigated what led to the Capitol attack and suggested Clarence Thomas couldn't objectively evaluate whether Trump should be disqualified from the 2024 ballot.

"Anybody looking at this in any kind of dispassionate, reasonable way would say if your wife was involved in the big lie and claiming that Donald Trump actually won the presidential election and been agitating for that and participating in the events leading up to Jan. 6, that you shouldn’t be participating," Raskin said.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/12/31/clarence-thomas-should-recuse-himself-from-trump-ruling-raskin-says/72072823007/