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BOSTON (State House News Service) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should resign, Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Friday afternoon, a day after The Washington Post reported that a conservative activist concealed hefty payments to his wife.
Campbell, in a radio interview, said she "probably" thought Thomas "should have resigned a longtime ago," as she sounded alarm about Supreme Court decisions -- including about the environment, gun rights and abortion -- that she said "fly in the face of legal precedent."
"There have been concerns about the integrity and the credibility of the court for some time," Campbell said on GBH's Boston Public Radio. "I think you add these ethical issues and clear ethical violations by any legal standard in which we as elected officials -- including in Massachusetts, we have some very progressive laws when it comes to this -- have to operate by, I'm really concerned."
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Leonard Leo, a longtime Federalist Society leader, had coordinated with GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group and send the tens of thousands of dollars to Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, while ensuring her name wouldn't appear on paperwork, according to The Post. The nonprofit later submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on a voting rights case, and Justice Thomas's opinion aligned with the Judicial Education Project without mentioning the group, The Post reported.
Thomas has come under scrutiny recently over reports he went on luxury vacations for more than two decades, funded by a Republican donor who also paid tuition costs for the justice's great-nephew.
"Over the years and decades, he has revealed many things about his character and things that are completely flawed, and I think get in the way of objectivity and being a justice on the highest court of the land," Campbell said. "So I think we've seen enough."
Written by Alison Kuznitz / SHNS.
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