The Plague of Bad Reporting

Sonny Perdue is sworn in as the 31st Secretary of Agriculture by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with his wife Mary and family April 25, 2017, at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.. Photo by Preston Keres

Stirring Up Animus toward Justice Thomas for a Tragic Ending

Explosive stuff? No, we aren’t talking about the “rapid unscheduled disassembly” of SpaceX on Thursday. Instead, it’s something much more subversive. We’re talking about “comically incompetent journalism” by the WaPo and ProPublica.

In what was promised to be a big scoop, ProPublica turned out a scoop of hogwash. The ¼ tsp ProPublica got right was about Justice Clarence Thomas. As the WSJ’s James Taranto reported in an article published earlier in the week, Justice Thomas may have to amend his financial disclosure form for last year.

The Justice didn’t disclose the 2014 sale of his one-third interest in three Savannah, Ga., properties to a company controlled by his friend Harlan Crow. He was legally required to do so. On these pages, in online Sunday, I observed that he may have to amend his financial-disclosure form for that year.

Mr. Taranto reports “a source close to Thomas” told CNN that “the Justice would do so.”

“The source said . . . it was an oversight not to report the real estate transaction. Thomas believed he didn’t have to disclose because he lost money on the deal, according to the source.” It is the justice’s share of the sale price ($1,000 or more), not a profit, that triggers the statutory obligation to report.

Thomas Didn’t Disclose Losing Money

Are you curious as to how big a deal it is not to do so?

The source said . . . it was an oversight not to report the real estate transaction. Thomas believed he didn’t have to disclose because he lost money on the deal, according to the source.” It is the justice’s share of the sale price ($1,000 or more), not a profit, that triggers the statutory obligation to report.

Mr. Taranto reports:

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 2012 disclosure amended her 2011 report, which “inadvertently omitted” the sale of shares in an exchange-traded fund that she had bought earlier the same year.

Ginsburg’s Bad Grammar to Boot

• “The Value Code should of [sic] been L and the Gain Code should of [sic] been A,” the amendment says.
• (Justice) Ginsburg amended her 2017 disclosure to reflect that she had “inadvertently omitted” a gift of an opera costume worth $4,500.
• Justice Stephen Breyer reported in an amended 2018 disclosure that he had “inadvertently omitted” two stock sales by his wife, one in 2006 and one in 2018.
• Justice Stephen Breyer reported in an amended 2018 disclosure that he had “inadvertently omitted” two stock sales by his wife, one in 2006 and one in 2018.
• In February 2022, three days after President Biden nominated her to the Supreme Court, JudgeKetanji Brown Jackson amended her 2020 disclosure to note that in various years between 2011 and 2021 she had “inadvertently omitted” travel reimbursements for two speaking trips, a university teaching salary, four nonprofit board memberships, her husband’s consulting income and a 529 college savings plan. No senator mentioned these omissions at her confirmation hearings.

Where’s the Scandal Here?

Justice Thomas’s decision to amend his disclosure is so insignificant that ProPublica, which discovered and hyped the omission, hasn’t bothered to claim vindication or to report the amendment at all. Justin Elliott, a member of the site’s anti-Thomas troika, tweeted the CNN story but didn’t mention the amended disclosure. Instead he touted the revelation that “Harlan Crow is not charging Justice Thomas’ mother rent.”

A Comedy of Errors?

Mr. Taraanto admit to “laughing out loud” more than once at the “hypocrisy and incompetence” he discovered as he reported this article. But a tragic ending is possible, he warns.

Supreme Court justices are in danger of physical as well as political and journalistic attack. Since the May 2022 leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, protest mobs have gathered outside his and several colleagues’ homes, and the justices’ security regimen has become tighter and more intrusive.

Giving a Would Be Assanin’s Life Purpose

In the wee hours of June 8, 2022, two weeks before the decision’s release, U.S. marshals guarding Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house arrested a man carrying a gun and other weapons. A federal grand jury indicted the man for attempted assassination (he has entered a not-guilty plea). According to the law-enforcement affidavit that accompanied the indictment, the defendant told police “that he was upset about the leak” and that he had begun “thinking about how to give his life purpose and decided he would kill the Supreme Court Justice” after finding his address on the internet.

Security Matters

Supposedly, the Committee on Financial Disclosures of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts takes a keen interest in the justices’ safety and privacy, continues James Taranto.

It provides federal judges with a two-page document titled “Security Matters” that reminds them their financial-disclosure report is a public document and instructs them to “avoid over-reporting.”

One of its instructions: “For rental properties, provide only the city (or county) and state in which the property is located. Do not use street addresses, lot numbers, or survey descriptions. You may identify multiple properties as ‘Rental Property #1, Cincinnati, Ohio,’ ‘Rental Property #2, Cincinnati, Ohio.’ ” That’s precisely what Justice Thomas did when he had an ownership interest in rental properties—and the ProPublica troika insinuated he was trying to cover something up.

Protection for Judges’ Families

“Do not identify relatives by name or designation such as ‘spouse,’ ‘brother,’ or ‘mother-in-law,’ ” instructs the Committee on Financial Disclosures.

CNN’s Monday report includes the home address of Justice Thomas’s mother. Sometimes journalists should avoid overreporting, too. As for bad reporting, we should avoid it like the plague it has become.