Justice Thomas has been a problem for the political left since he was nominated. The trumped-up charges against him did not work, and the Democrats were not able to deny him a seat on the Supreme Court as they had done to Robert Bork in 1987. Now, the Democrats want him investigated for vacationing with a friend and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants him impeached. So what exactly is going on?

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported:

After a news report highlighted luxurious vacations Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly accepted from a wealthy friend, Thomas said he was advised he didn’t have to report the trips. In a new statement, Thomas denied any wrongdoing and vowed to follow new reporting requirements imposed on the federal judiciary.

Thomas’s critics in Congress promptly seized on the report last week of the vacations, suggesting it raised the appearance of impropriety.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanded that the justice be impeached, saying his actions evidenced an “almost cartoonish” level of corruption. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on federal courts, called for an independent investigation of the justice, who has long been a target of the left.

Whitehouse and other critics also say that justices whose spouses are involved in political activism, like Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, is active in conservative politics, should have to recuse themselves from involvement in cases related to that activism. Despite pressure, the justice declined to recuse himself from the various challenges to the disputed 2020 presidential election that made it to the Supreme Court.

Billionaire businessman and Republican Party donor Harlan Crow, who made the gifts to Thomas, has reportedly not had any business before the Supreme Court, so any allegation of a conflict of interest rests on weak grounds.

Nor is it clear if Thomas violated the judicial ethics code by not declaring the vacations. Legal experts say the code does not apply to the Supreme Court. The court has said in the past that the justices voluntarily adhere to the ethics guidelines.

Crow reportedly said the trips with Thomas and his wife were “no different from the hospitality that we have extended to many other dear friends.”

The article notes that he probably was not required to report the vacations:

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” the justice said.

“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.

“I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance.

“And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,” Thomas said.

Just another Democrat witch-hunt.