Jane Mayer on Justice Clarence Thomas, and the Music Critic Hanif Abdurraqib on Concert Merch

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

The cascade of revelations published by ProPublica concerning Justice Clarence Thomas—the island-hopping yachting adventures underwritten by a right-wing billionaire patron, the undisclosed real estate transactions—raises questions about his proximity to power and money. “I think it stretches common sense,” Jane Mayer tells David Remnick, “to think that a judge could be independent when he takes that much money from one person.” Mayer notes that other Justices, including the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have accepted large gifts from politically connected donors. A deepening public distrust in the integrity of the Supreme Court, Mayer thinks, is dangerous for democracy. “The glue that holds us together is the rule of law in this country,” she says. “People have to believe when they go in front of a court, and in particular the Supreme Court, . . . that it’s justice that’s going to prevail.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:12.5	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnik.
0:15.8	Compared to presidents and legislators, the justices of the Supreme Court are beholden
0:21.2	to no one.
0:22.9	Concerned only with the law, with the Constitution, they pretend to sit majestically, serenely
0:28.4	beyond grubby politics.
0:31.9	They have no campaigns to finance, no higher positions to angle for.
0:36.9	This is the source of their integrity, where at least that's the theory.
0:41.5	But the cascade of revelations coming out about Justice Clarence Thomas suggests something
0:46.2	else, something far less high-flown.
0:49.0	There's the glitzy vacations in the island hopping yachting adventures underwritten
0:54.2	by a right-wing billionaire patron.
0:56.8	There's the undisclosed real estate deals, and then there's Thomas's wife,
1:01.3	Ginny Thomas, and her ties, financial and political, to various conservative groups,
1:06.7	as well as her full-throated support of Donald Trump and the attempt to overturn the 2020
1:12.4	presidential election.
1:14.3	There are, perhaps, precedents for this kind of thing, but Thomas seems to have taken matters
1:18.9	to the next level.
1:20.8	The New Yorker's Jane Mayer co-wrote the book Strange Justice about Clarence Thomas
1:25.2	almost 30 years ago.
1:27.4	Last year she reported on Ginny Thomas' influence in Washington, and now Jane is working on
1:32.3	a book about the conservative movement to control the courts.
	...

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