Nothing unusual about a GOP-appointed judge and known right-wing ideologue who’s married to a prominent Republican implicated in an illegal attempt to overturn an election not only not recusing himself regarding the case of a prominent Republican Senator implicated in the same illegal effort but instead stepping up to buy the Senator more time to avoid questioning.
Nothing to see here at all. /s
There’s just on problem with that, it’s all made up by the Biden regime.
At least that’s what I heard on Facebook.
Yes, it does. The purpose of a stay like this is to preserve the status quo until a decision can be made. If the SCOTUS decides to not hear the appeal, there is no reason for the stay, so it’ll be lifted.
One would hope. But hey, shadow docket!
when was graham expected to testify, in the absence of a stay?
iirc, last Wednesday?
That’s not exactly correct. The standard for granting a stay is supposed to be based strictly on the likelihood of the case coming out in favor of the person requesting the stay (and the likelihood of them suffering harm if the stay is not granted). If there is little to no chance the case will fall in their favor, a stay is not typically granted. If there’s a good possibility the person requesting the stay will eventually prevail in their lawsuit, stays are typically granted. The 11th Circuit said there’s little to no chance of Graham prevailing in his lawsuit, which is why they refused to issue a stay. It’s true that stays are granted all the time. It’s also true that stays are refused all the time.
In an ideal world, Thomas would have recused himself from this case because his wife was in close contact with Graham and others in the Trump campaign before, during, and after the election. In any lower court, a recusal would have actually been required by federal law. Unfortunately, Congress has never seen fit to apply such rules to the Supreme Court. Ginny Thomas herself could be the subject of this suit and Thomas wouldn’t be required by law to recuse himself. That’s a problem. Thomas should have kicked this decision to the whole Court. He had that prerogative. Had he done that, and a majority of the Court then decided a stay was appropriate, I probably still wouldn’t agree with it, but I would have less of a problem with it that I do with it coming unilaterally from Thomas.
The stay Thomas issued is strictly so that there is time for the whole court to make a judgment, rather than the entire thing being moot because Graham has already been forced to testify. It’s a temporary stay so that they can actually rule based on the merits, or decide not to make a ruling(which is effectively a ruling that he loses).
What merits? The Constitution protects members of Congress during their direct work in Congress. Calling Secretaries of State to push them to overturn an election for a 3rd party - not even his fucking state - is way outside that protection.
There are no merits. This should have been ignored. Thomas only put the stay in place because he’s being paid (through Ginny) by the same people who pay Graham.
I remember the Impeach Earl Warren bumper stickers as a kid.
When I said he could have thrown it to the whole Court I didn’t mean the actual case. I meant the decision on the stay. While those are typically made by one Justice based on which district the request is coming from, that Justice can involve the entire Court, even on the emergency, time sensitive request. All of you trying to make this seem normal, STOP! This is NOT normal!
Which needlessly drags this out even further, muddying the waters prior to the mid-terms and the end of this congress, which has an ongoing investigation into Jan. 6th…
But the fact that you believe Thomas is acting in good faith, despite all evidence to the contrary, is hilarious, I guess. I dunno… maybe stop believing fascists?
That most likely would have come from right wingers, angered by the progressive slant to the warren court, which was still fully consistent with the constitutional order… unlike “textualists” who just make shit up. Apples to taxis, if you ask me.
In case people aren’t familiar with Warren…
That it was Thomas and his involvement is the out of the ordinary. The rest, not so much. The delay isn’t even a full week.
SCOTUSblog seems to agree that it’s not indicative of any actual decision.
I would have preferred they didn’t look at it at all, since it seems straight forward and obvious that Graham is going to lose. But, this reaction isn’t really predictive of which way they will land.
Now, if they do land where Thomas thinks it has merit and none of the others do, that will be informative. (and depressing)
The best part about Warren is that he was supposed to be the conservative Republican nominee to the Chief Justice job to ensure that all that liberal civil rights nonsense got blocked by SCOTUS. And then once on the court, ended up leading the Court through arguably its most progressive era, and he sided with the liberals on the Court more often than not.
But the goal for Thomas is to slow down investigations into Jan. 6th as much as possible. He knows he can’t shield Graham, but he can make things more difficult for the rule of law. He’s not a disinterested party. He’s very biased here, and should have recused himself. He’s not to be trusted.
Which is why it was probably groups like the Birchers who wanted him impeached.
No one here is saying that it’s predictive of how the Court is going to rule on the appeal when they hear it. What we’re saying is that the stay was odd. In your own words, “it seems straight forward and obvious that Graham is going to lose.” Based on the standard for how the Court is supposed to decide requests for stays, that fact should have resulted in the request being denied. And yet…
I agree that Thomas should recuse himself from all things Jan 6th related or even slightly tangential.
I was sharing that SCOTUSBlog, a source that I trust for it’s reporting the court, also reported that this specific ruling isn’t as exciting as the rest of us view it.
SCOTUSBlog not known for presenting the same perspective as say Fox “News”.
It’s not like the hold was issued for the next month or longer. We’ll likely have an answer on Friday.
I think his intent to just hold things up is still what mattes, here, though. He should have totally recused himself, so the fact that he did not is the problem here. Full stop.
Congress really needs to subject the Supreme Court Justices to an ethics code. Every other federal judge is required to abide by an ethics code, but that code does not apply to SCOTUS. It’s unconscionable to me. And speaking of impeaching Thomas, the lack of an ethics code to violate is going to make it that much harder to impeach a sitting Justice.
Except, once again, for Thomas himself having ties to this whole mess. THAT is the problem with him issuing a stay here. THAT is what makes it unusual. 
We need to stop treating this whole coup attempt as “politics as usual” because it is MOST certainly not. If this were happening in another country, we’d call it what is is - an attempt to end democratic practices. The fact that so many people are still treating this as “normal” is deeply problematic. It is NOT normal in a democracy, and should not be normalized.
