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Lawyers Venmoed Money to Justice Thomas' Clerk - Why?

DaisyDay

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Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.

Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.

However, it remains unclear what the funds were for.

I wonder what this is all about.
 

DaisyDay

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A contrary opinion:

AboveTheLaw said:
The current record is inconclusive at best. Which is why the legal ethics lawyer they consulted addressed a hypothetical ethics violation that doesn’t really fit the fact pattern:

Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration and has been a vocal critic of the role of dark money in politics, said is was “not appropriate” for former Thomas law clerks who were established in private practice to – in effect – send money to the supreme court via Venmo.

I have never seen the words “in effect” do more work than they are doing in that sentence. That’s like saying that if I buy a piece of gum from a Marlboro employee I am — in effect — funding Big Tobacco.
 
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