Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said SCOTUS Judge Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from the election cases against Donald Trump because of his wife's ties to the January 6 insurrection.
The congressman's comments came during a CNN interview when host Dana Bash asked him whether Thomas or any of the former president's appointed judges should recuse themselves from deciding his cases in Maine and Colorado.
Some conservative commentators criticized Raskin and the network for spreading the claims, saying the exchange was evidence that “Democrats want to destroy the Supreme Court.”
Republicans are currently appealing to the Supreme Court over Colorado's removal of Trump from the primary.
The Centennial State was the first to impose a rarely used constitutional ban on those who participated in “insurrection” to prevent people in the state from voting for the former president in 2024.
Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin told CNN's Dana Bash that SCOTUS Judge Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from the election cases against Donald Trump because of his wife's ties to the January 6 insurrection
Judge Clarence Thomas, who appears in his official portrait in 2022, should be excluded from any future decisions related to removing Trump from the ballot in Colorado and Maine, according to Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin
Republicans are currently appealing to the Supreme Court over Colorado's removal of Trump from the primary
It was followed by Maine, which governed under the same provisions. The SCOTUS justices have yet to announce whether they will grant the Republican appeal.
During CNN's New Year's Eve show “State of the Union,” host Bash asked the House's top Democratic lawmaker, Raskin, about the case and whether Thomas, 75, or the Trump-appointed judges should recuse themselves on ethical grounds.
“Three of the sitting justices were appointed by Donald Trump,” Bash said, referring to Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
“And furthermore, as you know, Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni, was texting with Mark Meadows in the lead-up to January 6th about the 2020 election,” she said. “Should one of the judges recuse themselves if they take this up?”
Raskin, who represents Maryland, pushed back on a question about whether the three Trump appointees would be too biased to make a decision about the former president, but said Thomas should “absolutely” recuse himself.
“I think anyone who looks at this with an objective and reasonable perspective would say that if your wife was caught up in the Big Lie and claimed that Donald Trump actually won the presidential election and campaigned for it and participated in the events until January 6 that you should not take part in (the verdicts),” he said.
When asked directly whether Thomas should retire, Raskin replied, “He absolutely should retire.” The question is: What do we do if he doesn't retire?
When the clip circulated online, it was met with a tirade of angry comments from conservative critics.
.@RepRaskin told @DanaBashCNN that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should “absolutely” recuse himself from any future 14th Amendment voter disqualification proceedings against Donald Trump, but “the question is: What do we do if he doesn’t recuse himself?” pic.twitter.com/1SW5F9v2Sj
– State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 31, 2023
Raskin, who represents Maryland, pushed back on a question about whether the three Trump appointees would be too biased to make a decision about the former president, but said Thomas should “absolutely” recuse himself
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (left) and his wife Ginni (right) leave Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's memorial service in Washington earlier this year
“I think CNN should stop commenting on anything and everything,” thundered one man.
“Your bias is seeping out of your pores. “The number of times you have lied to the American people simply makes you absolutely irrelevant.”
Another person wrote, “Thomas doesn't need to recuse himself since no liberal judge has done the same when ruling on something that affects Democrats.”
“Raskin is afraid that Trump will win.” The court is protected by the Constitution.”
However, other viewers agreed that Thomas should recuse himself since his wife was involved in the case, with one person claiming that the current Supreme Court lineup is “the most compromised in recent memory.”
Ginni Thomas, 66, was questioned by the committee late last year on Jan. 6 about a series of texts and emails between her and then-President Trump's election lawyer John Eastman and his chief of staff Mark Meadows.
In text messages to Meadows, Thomas urged him to continue the fight to overturn the 2020 result.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas
“Help this great president stand his ground, Mark!!! … You are with him the leader who stands on the brink of America's constitutional government. “The majority knows that Biden and the left are attempting the greatest heist in our history.”
“I regret all of these texts,” Thomas volunteered to the panel during closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill on Sept. 29.
In her testimony, she expressed embarrassment about the release of personal text messages but expressed concern about allegations of voter discrepancies while texting with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
“It was an emotional time and people were afraid that there had been so much fraud that they wouldn't get to the bottom of it,” Thomas said.