Why Clarence Thomas shouldn't have had to disclose his trips to visit his close friends

By Hal Brown

In view of what came out since I originally wrote this with the top illustration (see Sunday blog here) I added the bottom image.

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Clarence and Ginni have two besties. They happen to be fairly rich. To quote what Clarence said:

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over 25 years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter-century we have known them.”

People, with the exception of hermits and totally anti-social curmudgeons, have friends. Most have a range of friends some of whom are closer than others.

On occasion they may exchange gifts, say for birthdays, and how expensive, or lavish, these gifts are varies. Some people visit each other so often that they rarely if ever bring presents. On special occasions people of modest means may bring a bottle of supermarket wine when they eat over at a friend's house. 

It may look tawdry, or worse, for Clarence and Ginni Thomas to have considered travel on a private jet and being entertained on a big boat not to be things they need to have reported as gifts, but rich people consider their planes and yachts to be homes away from home. What's the difference, really, between having meal prepared by a chef and having your pal flip burgers on a backyard grill? Food is food, right?

People may be served hamburgers or they may serve filet mignon on special occasions. Wealthy people may treat their houseguests to Dom Perignon champagne and expensive cheese. The super rich may serve astronomically expensive vintage wine, Croatian truffles, and  "Strottarga Bianco" caviar .

Headlines like the following included terms that are relative:

What's to be defined as a lavish gift?

There are some people who would scoff at the description of what The NY Times headlines as lavish gifts.

Is there a line between driving to visit friends for dinner, having your kids play in their above ground pool, and having a barbecue, and what the Thomas's did by being transported in a common Bombardier Global 5000 private jet and being entertained on yacht that in the snobby yachting world wouldn't even be considered a super yacht. 

After all the Crows are said to be worth a paltry $2 billion. There are super yachts that cost  almost that much or more. 

The Michela Rose is the boat the Thomas's were entertained on.

There are private jets that cost much more than the one the couple own. For example the AirBus A380 owned by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal goes for $600 million.

To mirror Marc Antony's eulogy for Julius Caesar indulge me when I say that I come not to bury Thomas nor to praise him. The evil Thomas has done, and is likely to continue to do, will be his legacy. There is no Brutus to end his tenure.  

There are those who argue that no person should be above the law and those who contend that only Donald Trump should be above the law. Clarence Thomas gave the appearance of impropriety, but did he break any laws in accepting the hospitality of his close friends and not reporting this?

There are those in public office who are scrupulous about accepting absolutely nothing of value from anyone who might be trying to influence them.  For example, I have a friend who used to work for a U.S. Senator as a senior aide. From time to time they reminded them that they shouldn't let a lobbyist pick up the tab when they dined out. There are others in official positions who may be a bit looser when it comes to such matters.

Here's a related example from The Clarence Thomas Scandal Is What's Wrong With Our Democracy (HUFFPOST)

What are the ethical boundaries for people who have political power and influence?

I once invited a local lawmaker to lunch for an interview. Lunch would be on me. He wouldn’t allow it. “I wouldn’t even let you buy me a cup of coffee at Starbucks,” he told me.

At least that was a good thing, since I’m not exactly a fan of Starbucks.

A member of Congress, the executive branch, or the judiciary may engage with lobbyists and others who want to influence policy. It's also possible they could be friends with them. This, truly, could put one in a sticky wicket.

These revelations about Clarence hopefully has him meandering in a mucilaginous morass. If he and Ginni are feeling stuck in the muck it makes me happy. However, I rather doubt anything will come of it. I have a feeling that this will prove to be a tempest in a teapot, although it may be an expensive teapot.

Updates: You'll need a subscription to read why The Wall Street Journal says this is a smear.

"The left is furious it lost control of the Supreme Court, and it wants it back by whatever means possible. The latest effort is a smear on Justice Thomas."

You can, however, read reactions to this on LinkIn here.

More detail from Justice Clarence Thomas controversy explained: what he's accused of doing, and why it raises ethical concerns in Morningstar

Is it illegal for Thomas to receive gifts? 

Generally speaking, Supreme Court justices are required to disclose any perks that they receive if they are valued at more than $415 and they aren't reimbursed, according to public filings for judicial officers and employees. Those perks may include travel, food or lodging. 

But some exceptions can include situations when a person hosts a justice on their own property, in which case food and lodging would not have to be disclosed. But this exception does not apply to travel expenses such as costs for a private plane, however. 

Additionally, it appears Thomas should have reported vacations at Crow's Camp Topridge resort in New York because the developer technically owns the resort through a company, as opposed to owning it personally, according to ProPublica.

This confirms that everything that the Thomases accepted by way of hospitality on the Crow's yacht wasn't different than it would have been if they went to a friend's backyard barbecue. The travel expenses should have been reported.

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A pschoanalyst assesses what's likely happening with Trump as he faces legal consequences

 By Hal Brown

You can read a long excerpt from Justin Frank's book

 (cover above) on Amazon here.

Justin Frank's book cover has a giant Trump head on the traditional Freudian couch. 

I made the illustration below showing that Trump is not "normal" which I meant to convey just how atypical his personality is. This doesn't mean it is impossible to understand how his mind works, what motivates him, and how to best predict his future behavior. It means that this is a very difficult endeavor requiring a particular knowledge base and skill set.

Thanks to Raw Story's Tom Boggioni, who summarized the Chauncey DeVega interview which was published in Salon, (link below) with psychoanalyst Justin Frank, MD (here 'Caged animal' Trump may need a 'secure padded cell' as trial progresses: psychiatrist ) I don't have to do it.

If you don't read the interview at least I think you should consider reading the summary on Raw Story. Still, I think you will find the interview illuminating and I hope you read it.

"He is visualizing burning things and blowing them up": How Trump may be coping with being caught

Justin Frank, author of "Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President," on this week's historic indictments

These are the three quotes Salon emphasized:

One more excerpt:

Predators can massively regress in such circumstances and lose even a modicum of self-control. They lash out and need to be restrained for their safety and that of their caregivers. That's why we have secure padded cells (euphemized as "quiet rooms") inside locked wards in mental hospitals.

These are colloquially often referred to as "rubber rooms". Illustration modified by HB.

I have been writing about how people shouldn't assume that they know with absolute certainty what Trump has been feeling these days as he faces the legal consequences of his actions. (see footnote)

Justin Frank doesn't do this. His comments are replete with modifiers which explain that Trump is most likely experiencing certain emotions and why this is the case with him given his personality type. 

What Frank offers is an exposition of what I was too lazy to even try to write about. Besides, he is a psychoanalyst as opposed to a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist which I was for the 40+ years of my career. He simply is far better qualified than I am  to dig this deeply into what those in the mental health field call the psychodynamics of an individual.

Addendum:

Here's a video of a Thom Hartmann interview with Justin Frank:

In this exclusive interview, Thom and Dr. Frank talk about psychosis, whether or not if it is contagious / hereditary, the presidency, plus much much more.

Here's another Thom Hartman interview with Justin Frank.

Dr. Frank has also been on the Lawrence O'Donnell show.

Update: This is gratifying

Footnote (my previous blogs on this subject):

Wash. Post artists take liberties in drawing Trump during his arraignment.

Michael Cohen and others claim to know what's in Trump's headspace. They don't..

Nobody knows for certain how Trump feels except Trump

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Wash. Post artists take liberties in drawing Trump during his arraignment.

 By Hal Brown

The drawing below is what caught my attention in The Washington Post (subscription article) this morning:

Top caption: "Reporters inside the courtroom noted that Trump seemed disengaged with those around him during the arraignment. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)" Bottom: two screen grabs from when cameras were allowed in the courtroom. Click image above to enlarge.

In the article there's another sketch by a different artist (click image to enlarge):

Many journalists have speculated on what they thought Trump felt during his arraignment. Of course they don't know. They are basing assumptions based on what a normal person would feel.

Of all the images from the video coverage this is only one shows Trump outwardly expressing what one can reasonably construe as a feeling:

I wrote about how people are making assumptions that they know, or think they know, how Trump is feeling twice in the past few days. 

Nobody knows for certain how Trump feels except Trump

and

Michael Cohen and others claim to know what's in Trump's headspace. They don't.

Today we have non-written speculation in the form of drawings which, unless Trump changed his facial expressions drastically, exaggerate his feelings.

All I am attempting to convey is that those writing about or talking about how Trump feels ought to be more precise in using modifiers like "probably" and "a typical person" since Trump has an unusual personality. He doesn't experience his external world the way the vast majority of people do.

In this way he is more like the most ardent members of his cult who perceive reality in a distorted, sometime even clinically paranoid way.

My own educated guess, as someone who was a psychotherapist for over 40 years, is that Trump is most likely engaging in psychological denial and keeping his anxiety buried (i.e., unconscious), but that for fleeting moments it leaks into awareness. Even if he doesn't actually think about his plight he may not be able to totally control his facial expressions. He's been an actor all of his adult life, a performance artist. He's no Robert DeNiro who is known not only for playing many kinds of characters, from Travis Bickel to Frankenstein's monster, for staying in character even when the cameras aren't rolling.

Trump has played two similar public roles: whatever he was supposed to be on "The Apprentice" and, as a politician, the uber-confident self-aggrandizing macho-man.

I noted in a previous blog that there is something that Trump can't control. These are his dreams. Whether nightmares or anxiety dreams of being helpless and being harmed, these would show what is in his unconscious mind. Unless he sleeps with Melania (debatable) nobody knows if he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.

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