Should Justice Clarence Thomas Be In Jail Over ‘Egregious’ Conduct?: Steve Cohen Asked Point Blank

2 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) spoke about Supreme Court approval ratings and the rationale behind President Biden’s Supreme Court reform proposals.

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Transcript

00:00A new Gallup poll shows that the approval for rating for the Supreme Court is at a near historic low at 43 percent.

00:10Do you think that these types of proposals will make Americans believe in the court once again that approval rating will go up?

00:18It would go up if there were term limits. It would go up if there was a code of conduct that they were required to adhere to and that there were sanctions if they violated it.

00:27It would certainly go up. Whether this court could do those things, it's very hard.

00:32I had great faith in Justice Roberts. I met with him on several occasions when I was a chair of a subcommittee in the history committee that dealt with the courts.

00:40And we had discussions on occasion. I had respect for him. I thought he cared about the courts.

00:45But lately he's been voting 6-3 and the vote to trump the USA to give these god-like, king-like powers to the president are just anathema to me and to anybody who believes in the Constitution.

00:55There was no precedent for it at all.

00:57And in the Dobbs decision that took away women's right to vote, ripped up Roe v. Wade, not women's right to vote, but women's right to choose, and it tore up Roe v. Wade.

01:06There was not precedent for that either. The precedent was that there was prenumbral rights.

01:10There was a right to privacy. Roe v. Wade was accepted as the law.

01:14And they all said when they came through there to the nomination process that they would abide by precedent and they basically suggested Roe v. Wade was not going to be overturned.

01:22They lied.

01:25The Supreme Court lost it.

01:27The Supreme Court lost a lot of its respect because they lied during the confirmation process.

01:33Cavanaugh's main thing he's remembered for is, I like beer.

01:38Democrats clearly, as you said, weren't happy with Roe v. Wade being overturned.

01:44Are these proposals a direct response to that?

01:49Well, it's partially a response to Roe v. Wade, but it's also a response to Clarence Thomas' egregious conduct and accepting all these monies.

01:57I guess it was the same man, Mr. Crowe, paid for a house for his mother, paid for a home, took his house.

02:04I think they're going to build it into a monument, Clarence Thomas, paying for the education of one of his stepchildren or godchildren.

02:13It's just any other public official would be in jail for doing what Clarence Thomas has done.

02:22Do you think, are you suggesting then that Justice Thomas should be in jail?

02:27I think that other public officials would be because there are laws that don't allow that type of behavior.

02:33It's called bribery, and it's called extortion.

02:38We're taking public services, public gifts to influence your public decisions.

02:45You should not be accepting outside gifts.

02:49You can't in Congress, and you can't in most public offices.

02:52And if you do, you're going to be in trouble.

02:55And we've seen what's happened in other jurisdictions.

02:58What do you say then to Republicans who are criticizing Democrats, saying,

03:02hey, they don't like the few decisions that the Supreme Court has made, so they want to change the rules now.

03:10What do you say to that?

03:12It's not just a few decisions.

03:14It's lots of decisions where they don't have precedent.

03:16They've taken away the rights of the regulators who know more about the subject matter than courts do,

03:25which was shown in the opinion when Gorsuch didn't even know what some of the chemical agents were.

03:31And he said something was a laughing gas, and it wasn't a laughing gas.

03:35He didn't know.

03:37It showed that the experts know, and they're the best ones to make the rules and regulations.

03:42And that decision will set back environmental law in this country and conservation law.

03:51But they've done it there.

03:52They've done it with guns.

03:53They've done it with guns, and they've let guns run rampant in our country.

03:56They did it with bump stocks.

03:58They've done everything to not make this country safe for people walking on the streets, breathing the air,

04:03or feeling that the court is representing the Constitution and justice rather than themselves and their well-being friends.

Should Justice Clarence Thomas Be In Jail Over ‘Egregious’ Conduct?: Steve Cohen Asked Point Blank

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