As I have previously observed, by insisting on running a new story every day, the “ethics” campaign against the Supreme Court has trotted out a lengthy series of hilariously flimsy articles that lay bare the agitprop purpose of the campaign and the absence of journalistic ethics on the part of the people writing this stuff. Last week, I wrote about one of these stories, by Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian, which exposed the shocking fact that a bunch of Justice Clarence Thomas’s former law clerks used Venmo to pay for their attendance at an annual Christmas party. In addition to being written and headlined to obscure the fact that this was a gathering of the justice’s own former clerks, notably absent from this story was the amount of the payments or, as I noted, any “effort to claim that anybody paid anything more than the cost of attending a party.” Simple yellow journalism.
Well, David Lat has done some digging and talked to one of the former clerks named in the story, and I hope you’re sitting down. It was $20:
Former Thomas clerk Patrick Strawbridge of Consovoy McCarthy confirmed for me: “It is common for clerks to cover their share of the cost of an event like a chambers Christmas party. In this case, I paid $20 to cover my share of the expenses for a lunch buffet consisting of hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken tenders. At no time have I (or anyone else I know) ever discussed with Justice Thomas matters that are pending or likely to come before the Court. I do recall visiting with him for a few minutes about how my wife and children were doing.”
Clearly, Senate Democrats must focus all of their efforts on putting a stop to this sort of thing.