The Court’s Reporters

More Perfect

WNYC Studios

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4.8 • 14.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Unlike other branches of government, the Supreme Court operates with almost no oversight. No cameras are allowed in the courtroom, no binding code of ethics, and records of their activities are incredibly hard to get. So how do reporters uncover the activities of the nine most powerful judges in the country?

Live from the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, host Julia Longoria talks to journalists behind bombshell investigations of the Court and its justices and how Clarence Thomas’ personal relationships intersect with his professional life.

Voices in the episode include:

• Jo Becker — New York Times reporter in the investigative unit

• Justin Elliott — ProPublica reporter

Learn more:

• "The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas" by Danny Hakim and Jo Becker

• "Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire" by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski

• "Billionaire Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice didn’t disclose the deal" by by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Julie Lungoria.
0:06.8	This is more perfect.
0:12.7	This week we've got something a little bit different for you.
0:16.9	Our last episode was all about Justice Clarence Thomas.
0:20.7	We dug into his writings, his speeches, to try to understand his past, how he became who
0:26.8	he is, and more importantly, how that informs his opinions on the bench.
0:34.8	And as we were working on that story, there was a little news.
0:40.5	Clarence Thomas is under media fire for not disclosing luxury vacations and real estate transactions
0:46.0	with his billionaire pal, Big Time Republican donor Harling Crowe.
0:49.3	According to ProPublica, Thomas joined Crowe on swanky trips for over two decades.
0:53.7	Thomas says he violated no disclosure laws by not reporting luxury vacations.
0:58.8	Thomas has been a pay for Clarence Thomas!
1:01.8	And then there is Thomas' wife, Ginny.
1:04.4	She encouraged former President Donald Trump to continue challenging the 2020 election.
1:09.0	Nine justices signed a rare joint statement making it clear they believe that it should
1:14.2	be up to them to police their ethics, not Congress or anyone else.
1:18.3	The reputation of the Supreme Court is at stake here.
1:23.6	We saw headline after headline about Thomas' activities off the bench.
1:30.3	Investigations made all the more wild, given the fact that the Supreme Court and its inner
1:34.3	workings are notoriously secret.
1:38.1	Records are incredibly hard to get, which makes the relationship between the court and journalists
1:43.6	a particularly tricky one.
	...

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