Courtesy of Pam Martens
Source: Judicial Crisis Network Website
The dark money stench now surrounding the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination bears a striking resemblance to what happened in the backdoor effort to land Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court in 1991. After credible testimony from Anita Hill over egregious sexual harassment by the nominee, Thomas was confirmed in a 52 to 48 vote by the Senate on October 15, 1991. That was the narrowest margin for a Supreme Court nominee in more than a century.
In 2011 it emerged that Virginia Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, had received at least $1,051,214 in compensation from the Heritage Foundation from 1999 to 2007 while Thomas sat as a Supreme Court justice. Despite his legal requirement to report that income and its source, he had failed to do either and had to amend years of his financial disclosure reports.
The Heritage Foundation has been heavily funded over the years by the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, the majority owners of the fossil fuels conglomerate, Koch Industries. Greenpeace calls the Heritage Foundation “Koch Industries’ Climate Denial Front Group” and reports that it has received $5,716,325 from Koch foundations from 1997 through 2015. That funding is just the tip of the iceberg, however. Tens of millions more have come from the Koch network, a group of super wealthy corporate heirs who meet semi-annually to strategize on how to assert their will on Washington.
As we have previously reported, Koch-related individuals are now spread in pivotal posts throughout the Trump administration. (See How Did Koch Industries’ Law Firm Grab Control at the White House.)
On July 9, 2018 when President Donald Trump announced Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee for the Supreme Court, in attendance at the event were John Malcolm, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Heritage President Kay Coles James, and Edwin Meese III, a member of the Heritage Board of Trustees. Trump credited both the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation for helping him compile his list of Supreme Court nominees.
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