Anyone up for trying again — Impeachment??

(9AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Clarence Thomas is clearly in violation of the Constitution, and his right to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States must not be tolerated any longer.  Thomas perjured himself in his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991.  

Perjury is a disqualifying condition for service on the court.

Although his wife, Virginia, re-opened this situation with her demand for an apology from Anita Hill, the fact of sexual harrassment is irrelevant.  The real impeachable offense has nothing to do with his penchant for pornography.  It is perjury, as we saw with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, which is the impeachable offense.

At ‘ciminal law dot free advice dot com’ (a legal site), perjury is defined:

Perjury is the “willful and corrupt taking of a false oath in regard to a material matter in a judicial proceeding.” It is sometimes called “lying under oath;” that is, deliberately telling a lie in a courtroom proceeding after having taken an oath to tell the truth. It is important that the false statement be material to the case at hand-that it could affect the outcome of the case.

Thomas perjured himself…continues below the fold–

At his confirmation hearings (from Earl Ofari Hutchinson – link below):

Thomas was asked directly by Utah senator Orin Hatch during his confirmation hearings about Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct and whether he used sexually suggestive language. Thomas answered: “I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill, that I ever attempted to date her, that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her, or that I in any way ever harassed her. ”

Thomas was emphatic, “If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me, or the other individuals who heard bits and pieces of it or various levels of it.” This was stated under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  

Thomas’s sworn testimony was clearly contradicted even then in public statements by witnesses. The witnesses were not called to testify. The one witness that contradicted Thomas’s sworn testimony, Angela Wright, did testify. She worked with Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and was emphatic that Thomas sexually harassed her and used explicit and graphic sexual language. Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter who told investigators about Thomas’ penchant for improper sexual talk. Letters to the committee from other women who worked with Thomas confirmed that he was a serial sexual harasser and had a penchant for sexually perverse talk. The Senate panel had other sources to corroborate the Hill-Wright charge that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment and obsessive interest in sexual smut. These sources were ignored too.

Two decades later Thomas’s apparent perjured testimony to Congress is now squarely back on the legal table. Lillian McEwen put it there. Her legal credentials are impressive. She is a former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel. She also dated Thomas. In interviews, she again confirmed that Hill and the other women’s allegations that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment, was addicted to pornography, and talked incessantly and graphically about it and women were truthful.

Lilliam McEwen’s story as reported in americablognews

… the world responds, as it often does, in the form of stories about Clarence Thomas from people who knew him “back in the day.” In particular, Lillian McEwen, in several stories in the Washington Post and another in the New York Times, alleges that Hill’s story is ‘totally consistent with the way he lived’ and that ‘he was obsessed with porn’.

She later said, “The kind of Clarence I knew at the time that these events occurred is the kind of Clarence that did not emerge from the hearings, I’ll say that. It was not him, and he probably would not have been on the court if the real Clarence had actually been revealed.”

And back to E.O. Hutchinson:

Thomas’s personal warped sexual predilections and perversions are not the issue as personally reprehensible as some may find them. The issue is his apparent perjured testimony to a congressional body about his words and conduct. There is no statute of limitations on bringing impeachment proceedings against officials who lie to Congress. The U.S. Code and the Constitution clearly spell out that when there’s evidence a Supreme Court justice may have lied under oath the House must bring articles of impeachment to determine guilt or innocence.

The ball is now squarely in the court of House judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers Jr. He is legally bound to do his and the House’s legal and Constitutional duty and begin impeachment proceedings immediately against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

This article by Earl Ofari Hutchinson can be found at Op Ed News.

So, let’s try again, write, call Conyers, and just for political harassment purposes, write Eric Holder as well at “ask doj @ usdoj dot gov”.  

We need to try to impeach Clarence Thomas now that the door has been opened again…

BECAUSE   BECAUSE   BECAUSE

We cannot afford any more Citizens United V FEC, for example.  And although this is irrelevant to the pure issue of constitutionality, it just weighs a little heavier to push us to write Conyers and Holder.