The co-hosts of "The View" attacked Clarence and Ginni Thomas after a scathing New York Times expose revealing the conflicts of interest the Supreme Court justice has.
Justice Thomas is ruling on cases involving the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the election lies that led up to it. Meanwhile, his wife was working for organizations that support the lie and the Jan. 6 attack.
Co-host Sunny Hostin, a former prosecutor, noted that there's something wrong going on with the couple.
"The thing about the Supreme Court is it's not bound by the rules that other federal judges are bound by," she explained. "We're thinking this doesn't look right. There's an appearance of impropriety. But most federal judges are bound by sort of that impropriety. It doesn't even have to be an actual conflict, it just has to look like one. But with the Supreme Court they don't have that same code of conduct. He hasn't recused himself with these cases his wife is very involved in. But he's recused himself other times. Like when his son was in the military academy case that came before the court, he recused himself."
"Why not this time?" asked Joy Behar.
"Well, that's the question — when his wife is intimately involved in politics," said Hostin.
Whoopi Goldberg said it's happened once before, in 1954 when a justice's recused himself due to a conflict that was similar.
"You have to recuse yourself if your spouse is a party to litigation, interested parties," Hostin explained. "I think another thing is an officer, director or trustee of an organization that's a party to the case. It's slicing it pretty thin when — Justice Thomas is thinking, I guess — saying my wife -- his thinking is he's not really a party. She's not a director of these organizations."
But when other justices were faced with even broader conflicts, they did step aside.
Justice Sonia "Sotomayor had a friend who was party to a case and she recused himself," said Hostin.
"Can you imagine what the right-wing would do if Sotomayor had a husband who was egging on an insurrection?" noted Behar
Sara Haines cited the plummeting approval ratings for the Supreme Court, which is increasingly being viewed as political and partisan. Conflicts of interest and ethics questions only add to the public's questions about how long the High Court can go forward without any accountability.
See the discussion below:
Supreme Court conflicts www.youtube.com
Kenya takes down Russia in United Nations Security Council speech
WATCH: Kenya takes down Russia in United Nations Security Council speech www.youtube.com
