ProPublica’s Journalism by Insinuation

Let’s start with the organization’s supposed blockbuster headline about Justice Thomas. “A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign.” The trusting reader might well expect that the story will include a report, even a second-hand or anonymously sourced one, that Thomas told someone he might resign because of money trouble. Someone must surely have used the phrase “delicate matter” in reference to Thomas’s financial straits and threatened resignation.

Wrong on both counts. The four reporters on the story unearth not a solitary soul who claimed, even off the record, that Thomas had ever said he would resign without additional income. The June 2000 memo in which “delicate matter” appears did not claim that Thomas was threatening to resign, although it did say that Justices Thomas and Scalia were “presumably” the most likely to leave for financial reasons. The main point of the memo is to figure out the best strategy for raising the pay of the justices: whether, for example, to push for a bill that raised their pay alone or raised it alongside salary increases for members of Congress and lower federal judges. That’s the “delicate matter,” not the specific question of how to address Thomas’s finances, which never even come up in the memo except by implication.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Let’s start with the organization’s supposed blockbuster headline about Justice Thomas. “A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign.” The trusting reader might well expect that the story will include a report, even a second-hand or anonymously sourced one, that Thomas told someone he might resign because of money trouble. Someone must surely have used the phrase “delicate matter” in reference to Thomas’s financial straits and threatened resignation.

Wrong on both counts. The four reporters on the story unearth not a solitary soul who claimed, even off the record, that Thomas had ever said he would resign without additional income. The June 2000 memo in which “delicate matter” appears did not claim that Thomas was threatening to resign, although it did say that Justices Thomas and Scalia were “presumably” the most likely to leave for financial reasons. The main point of the memo is to figure out the best strategy for raising the pay of the justices: whether, for example, to push for a bill that raised their pay alone or raised it alongside salary increases for members of Congress and lower federal judges. That’s the “delicate matter,” not the specific question of how to address Thomas’s finances, which never even come up in the memo except by implication.