‘Exacting the Agenda of These Billionaires’: Ocasio-Cortez Nukes The Supreme Court, Slams Thomas For ‘Comical’ Corruption

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tore into the Supreme Court during a House Oversight committee hearing this week and roasted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for what she called “comical” corruption.

Thomas was revealed recently to have raked in over $4 million in gifts during his career, including some $2.4 million in the last twenty years – according to new data from watchdog group Fix The Court. The jaw-dropping amount far outpaces all the other judges’ gifts combined, with former Justice Antonin Scalia coming in second with $175,861 in gifts received in the last twenty years.

Ocasio-Cortez spoke at length and drew a line between right-wing billionaires like Charles Koch, Paul Singer, and Harlan Crow and the current corruption scandal plaguing the court.

“The Supreme Court is currently facing a grave crisis of legitimacy, and it is a crisis of its own making,” began the New York Democrat, adding:

About 50 years ago, a group of powerful, wealthy conservative operatives looked around and realized that they were losing. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act had passed prohibiting discrimination in the United States on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In 1970, at a time when rivers were literally catching fire from pollution, the federal government created the Environmental Protection Agency, finally taking a measure of responsibility for the health and safety of working people and our climate, and confronting polluters and corporations in the process. And most alarmingly, to these men. Three years later, in 1973, the Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade giving women reproductive freedom, enshrining a right to privacy and marking a major advancement for bodily rights and autonomy.

The nation was changing, and it was changing to more fully realize our country’s promise a democracy for the people, by the people with liberty and justice for all. But this new world, a multiracial democracy with civil and economic rights enshrined in American society, threaten the power of the very people who relied on this discrimination and subjugation of others. These wealthy, conservative men knew that they could not win the argument on merits. So they hatched a plan to manufacture a structural assault on the American judicial system. In 1973, the same year as Roe v Wade, the Heritage Foundation was born. And with it, a decades long scheme to push back on these ideals and cement a hierarchy that these men, the elite 1%, could remain on top to roll back our rights.

Today we’re here to talk about how they did it and how we may win the struggle back for American democracy. They did not have popular support. They did not have elected office. But what they did have was money. And a lot of it.

One of these men is Leonard Leo, who joined the fight in 1990. Leonard Leo became one of the movement to corrupt the courts. Most prolific fundraisers Leo organized right wing billionaires to to shore up an infrastructure to influence the judicial nomination process and seats on the Supreme Court. Wholesale. He funded group after group to spread his and his billionaire friend’s reactionary ideology onto the American public.

These right wing billionaires include characters such as oil and gas magnate Charles Koch, hedge fund manager Paul Singer, and Nazi paraphernalia collector Harlan Crowe, the son of the quote unquote, biggest private landlord in the United States. These billionaires have never been elected to public office. They are not our leaders and are unknown by the vast majority of Americans. And yet they worked with shadowy, extremist right wing figures led by Leonard Leo to create a corruption ring of influence that reached the highest levels of our country and our courts.

These billionaires hatched a plan to use massive floods of anonymous donations, political obfuscation and outright gifts and ethics violations to reshape the courts. And so far to this day, they have experienced success. Let’s be clear Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are deeply subject to and are exacting the agenda of these billionaires, and they act like it. Just look at Clarence Thomas, whose corruption is almost comical.

Secret trips to retreats, international vacations on super yachts, and private jet jaunts to New Haven for an afternoon. Here in Congress, we are forbidden from receiving gifts that exceed $50. But Justice Thomas has received more than $4 million in gifts, largely undisclosed since joining the court. And worse, it appears to be working. He is currently primed to overturn his own 2005 doctrine, so he can side with Charles Koch’s network and their oil and gas interests. The same Charles Koch who secret who he secretly vacationed with at the retreat.

Or take Justice Alito, whose quote unquote friendship with billionaire Paul Singer, along with more undisclosed gifts and private jet trips. Jet trips was followed by a shift in the court’s decision to take up singer’s own case. Coincidentally, after Justice Alito took an unreported fishing trip to Alaska with singer, the Supreme Court reversed their position and took up his case, ultimately leading singer to a victory, netting $2.4 billion.

This was not a bad return on singer’s $80 million in political donations, a fishing trip, and a couple bottles of $1,000 wine. And of course, in 2022, these billionaires and their hand-picked justices won their keystone victory against the American people and their progress as a society. They overturned Roe v Wade.

So why was it abortion? Why was the threat of women having freedom powerful enough to bring down our whole system of judicial ethics and cripple one of the three co-equal branches of government? That is because these rich and powerful men are in an existential fight for a status quo that enshrines their power and places them above, above the American public in the rules. The confluence of money and conservatism is no coincidence. And we are here today to connect the dots. The group behind the Dobbs Challenge was predictably funded by who else but Leonard Leo, and found a friendly court in front of right wing extremists. And we’ve also seen, the as well as the conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
After all, these justices clearly continue to agree to this bargain by continuing to accept and engage in this ring of influence and financial persuasion. This brings us to the crux of the matter and why we’re holding this hearing today. The Supreme Court, as it stands today, is delegitimizing itself through its conduct. Americans are losing fundamental rights in the process reproductive health care, civil liberties, voting rights, the right to organize clean air and water. Because the court has been captured and corrupted by money and extremism. There is one no. One decision that determines the court’s legitimacy. Instead, it’s the entire strategy that led us to this point.

A group of anti-democratic billionaires with their own ideological and economic agenda has been working one of the three equal, co-equal branches of government. And let’s be clear, the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government. They do not reign supreme over Congress or the white House. This is a very core crisis of legitimacy, and it is a core crisis within the core of our multiracial democracy and of who we are as a country. The responsibility for the erosion of the court not only lies in the court. It lies in Congress. And it’s not just what they do. But if we let it happen and we cannot allow this to happen, we must treat this moment like the emergency it is and use every tool in our in our democracy’s arsenal to fight back. The future of our democracy depends on it. And with that, I yield back through to the ranking member. And thank you very much.

Watch the clip above.