(C) Common Dreams
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CONTESTING THE VOTE: CHALLENGING A JUSTICE; Job of Thomas's Wife Raises Conflict-of-Interest Questions [1]
['Christopher Marquis']
Date: 2000-12-12
Editors' Note Appended
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said today that she was working at a conservative research group gathering resumes for appointments in a possible Bush administration but that she saw no conflict between her job and her husband's deliberations on a case that could decide the presidency.
The comments from the justice's wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, a former Republican Congressional aide, came as a federal judge in Nashville said Justice Thomas faced a serious conflict of interest as a result of his wife's work for the Heritage Foundation.
The foundation has close ties to the Republican Party and would probably have a say in the hiring of key government officials if Gov. George W. Bush assumed the presidency. In e-mail distributed on Capitol Hill earlier this month, Mrs. Thomas solicited resumes ''for transition purposes'' from the government oversight committees of Congress.
A decision by Justice Thomas to recuse himself could alter the outcome of the case now before the court, which is weighing whether to allow a manual recount of votes in Florida. On Saturday, by a vote of 5 to 4, the court blocked the recount for now. Justice Thomas, who was appointed to the court by President George Bush, Governor Bush's father, was in the majority.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/12/us/contesting-vote-challenging-justice-job-thomas-s-wife-raises-conflict-interest.html
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