On Monday, we examined at length a remarkable dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in which she pretty much called out the conservative majority on the Supreme Court as being a tool in the White House chop shop. Now, thanks to The New York Times, we learn that Ginni Thomas, the terminally loopy spouse of Justice Clarence Thomas, has become a vital cog in the effort to purge Camp Runamuck of dissenting voices and/or independent thought.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Among Ms. Thomas’s top targets have been officials at the National Security Council, the former head of the White House personnel office, Sean Doocey, and other top White House aides. Another target was Jessie K. Liu, who recently left her job as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for a job in the Treasury Department that was later withdrawn by the White House. Ms. Thomas, a politically active conservative who for nearly seven years has led a group called Groundswell, also successfully lobbied for a role for Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the former attorney general of Virginia who is now the acting deputy secretary of homeland security.

Ms. Thomas’s gifts as an HR rep are not vast. Cuccinelli, who’s heading up the administration’s coronavirus special working group, got Internet-famous on Monday for not knowing how to work the Johns Hopkins website for information on the disease.

Some administration aides have long been suspicious that people like Ms. Thomas and Ms. Dunlop are less interested in pro-Trump purity than in appointments for their own networks of friends. White House officials have privately questioned Ms. Thomas’s lobbying on personnel, and have said Mr. Trump — who is facing several decisions before the Supreme Court personally and in terms of administration policy — has made clear he is conscious of whom she is married to.

Still, in the last year, as Mr. Trump has grown more mistrustful of his government, the sway held by Ms. Thomas and her group has increased. Administration officials have routinely sent aides to attend weekly Groundswell meetings held at the offices of Judicial Watch, another conservative group led by a vocal defender of the president, Tom Fitton.

Oh, goody. Ol’ Gun Show Fitton is involved here, too. Maybe he can get his long mailing list of rubes and shut-ins to keep him in Polo shirts for life. I don’t know what’s worse—that the White House is making personnel decisions based on the recommendations of a YouTube commercial huckster, or that it’s making personnel decisions based on the recommendations of a Supreme Court justice’s crackpot spouse. (You may recall the episode in which Ginni Thomas dialed up Professor Anita Hill at the latter’s workplace and demanded an apology for Hill’s testimony against Clarence Thomas back during his confirmation hearings. Yeah, that’ll happen.)

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Anyway, and as long as we’re on the subject, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has checked in from the subcontinent with some thoughts about the Supreme Court that he’d like to share.

“Sotomayor accuses GOP appointed Justices of being biased in favor of Trump.” @IngrahamAngle @FoxNews This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to “shame” some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a “faker”. Both should recuse themselves....on all Trump, or Trump related, matters! While “elections have consequences”, I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!

And the Republicans in positions of power sit there like great fat turtles in the sun and do nothing. This isn’t even in the same quadrant of the galaxy as normal.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.