WASHINGTON — Justice Clarence Thomas is facing calls to recuse himself from U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the 2020 presidential election after revelations that his wife repeatedly pushed former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff to do more to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.
Thomas already participated in the Supreme Court’s decision this year to let some of Trump’s papers be turned over to a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Thomas was the lone dissenter from that order, giving no explanation.
“I think it’s a big problem,” said Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics scholar who teaches at New York University Law School. “Justice Thomas should have recused himself from any case that concerned, and any that hereafter concerns, the validity of the election, the work of the Jan. 6 commission, or the Capitol invasion.”
