'Nice try': Jamie Raskin mocked for asking Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from ruling on Trump's 2024 eligibility

WASHINGTON, DC: As the legal battles intensify to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has urged Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any potential rulings due to his wife's involvement in what has been dubbed the "big lie."

Raskin expressed his concerns on CNN's 'State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash' on Sunday, December 31. According to Raskin, Ginni Thomas, Justice Thomas's wife, played a significant role in perpetuating the baseless claims of election fraud.

Text messages and regret

Raskin highlighted that Thomas sent dozens of text messages to Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, urging him to contest the 2020 election results. Ginni Thomas later expressed regret for those texts during a congressional committee hearing in September 2022, stating they were sent at an "emotional time."

Despite her regret, Ginni Thomas maintained her belief in election irregularities while acknowledging Joe Biden as the legitimate president.

Raskin, who served on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack, argued that Justice Thomas's impartiality would be compromised due to his wife's involvement in the events leading up to January 6.

"Anybody looking at this in any kind of dispassionate, reasonable way would say if your wife was involved in the big lie and claiming that Donald Trump actually won the presidential election and been agitating for that and participating in the events leading up to Jan. 6, that you shouldn’t be participating," Raskin responded to questioning from Bash.

The Democrat firebrand highlighted the need for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the case. “He absolutely should recuse himself. The question is, what do we do if he doesn’t recuse himself?” Raskin continued.

Raskin further warned of the potential consequences if Trump, the frontrunner in the Republican primary, is allowed to stay on the 2024 ballot. He expressed concerns that Trump would attempt to overturn the election results again if he were to lose.

“If he’s allowed to stay on the ballot, despite his clear incitement of an insurrection and attempt to overturn the results in the 2020 election, and if he loses to Joe Biden as he almost certainly would...he will feel himself a martyr and he will try to overturn the election result again,” Raskin claimed. “So I don’t think we can run scared from Donald Trump. We’ve got to enforce our constitution,” he added.

Social media backlash

However, Raskin faced criticism on social media, with detractors dismissing his call for Justice Thomas's recusal.

"Nice try," one posted on X (formerly Twitter).

"Cry more," another wrote.

"By this logic, Engoron should have recused himself from the Trump case," a comment read.

"Are you afraid Jamie?" someone else asked.

"Raskin has spent 6 years lying about Russian Collusion, can he recuse himself from Congress?" another wondered.

Controversy beyond the courtroom

The debate surrounding Trump's eligibility extends beyond the courtroom, with allies and primary challengers questioning the political motivations behind decisions to disbar him in Maine and Colorado.

Florida's governor Ron DeSantis, in an interview on Fox News, argued that these decisions "open Pandora’s box," echoing sentiments expressed by former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

Christie, who has accused Trump of intolerance, insisted that such matters should be decided by voters, not the courts. “It makes him a martyr,” he told CNN last week. He continued, “He’s very good at playing, ‘poor me, poor me’, he’s very good at complaining. But stuff like this should be decided by the voters of the US, it should not be decided by the courts.”

New Hampshire’s Republican governor Chris Sununu defended Trump, claiming that arguments for disqualification were politically motivated.  “If there was any validity about keeping Trump off the ballot, you’d see 48 other states trying to do the same thing,” Sununu, who has endorsed Haley for the GOP nomination, argued.

“I think it is very politically motivated by the Maine secretary of state, Trump should be on the ballot [and] everybody just hopes that the supreme court gets involved and overturns what Maine and Colorado are trying to do," Sununu added, as quoted by The Guardian.

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