By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday she wants Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be impeached and his advisers probed after a media report described luxury trips he has taken over decades, funded by a Republican donor.
“It is the House’s responsibility to pursue that investigation in the form of impeachment,” she told CNN in an interview. However, she acknowledged progress was unlikely since the House of Representatives has a Republican majority that would not want to take action against a conservative justice.
Ocasio-Cortez said the timeline of Thomas’s relationship with Republican donor and real estate magnate Harlan Crow revealed a conflict of interest since it started after Thomas began serving on the Supreme Court in 1991.
ProPublica reported on Thursday that Thomas accepted expensive trips from Crow over decades despite federal law requiring the disclosure of most gifts.
Thomas defended the trips, saying in a statement on Friday that he had been advised he was not required to report that type of “personal hospitality,” and has always sought to comply with disclosure guidelines.
He said he would now follow new rules brought in by the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure requirements for the entire federal judiciary.
Crow told ProPublica he had “never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue.”
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
