From Feb. 2021: Representative Byron Donalds, who is Black, authored a letter complaining that the museum’s treatment of Thomas, the second African American to serve on the nation’s highest court, “falls short.” “Black history cannot and should not be political,” reads the letter, which was also signed by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Utah Representative Burgess Owens, and other prominent conservative leaders. Addressing the museum’s director, Kevin Young, who assumed the position this year, and advisory council chair Kenneth Irvine Chenault, the lawmakers acknowledge that the museum largely fulfills its mission but note that, “It is unfortunate to see pitfalls likely driven by irresponsible bias.” The museum must present Thomas’s whole life and history, they conclude, “and not the disingenuous effort displayed today.”

 

It is a long headline, but showing irony sometimes takes as many words as were written. These were biased conservatives pissed off that Justice Marshall got a bigger tout than their right-wing favorite. Words of interest: "cannot and should not be political," "unfortunate to see pitfalls likely driven by irresponsible bias," "must present Thomas's whole life," and "disingenuous." In further reading, be guided by this image:

 

image credit - The Real Deal

Those guys signing the headlined letter should look in the mirror today, about their own too-conservative motives in writing about "cannot and should not be political," "irresponsible bias, Thomas's whole life, and disingenuousness." 

Recency regarding the man's whole life -The post headline is from artnet.com roughly two years ago, here, where that outlet has recently published more about Thomas, here. With the following opening screen capture:

click the image to read it

Yeah. Tacky -very tacky - as art. You cannot miss that implication. In addition, the screen capture has a link to Pro Publica's first-of-two-exposes (links here and here in chrono order, links in images failing to link), where reading of lawyer Thomas's failures to disclose arguably squares with the unfortunate for the time failure of a bunch of old white male Senators to take sexual harassment seriously, with willingness to dismiss HIll's own black status while the opening Thomas speech's "high-tech lynching" effect  shifted an awkward sexism question to black males facing racism; and the paper-thin ultimate 52-48 confirmation vote, narrow as that, by which the now exposed ultra-luxurious vacationer and silent land trader got his Court seat.

The Thomas spouses so far have had a charmed life, severe defects being ignored, but this latest bit of unforgivably inadequate gifting disclosure might break the charm, and flush the spouses out of power.

Those Pro Publica items are well researched and damning. Also of interest, this.

In closing, there is a third Pro Publica item, following up on their earlier coverage. And looking at Thomas's dismissive responses to criticism by quizzing legal expert authorities, including U.Mn. law professor Richard Painter:

Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush White House, said Thomas’ explanation of why he didn’t disclose the trips “makes absolutely no sense.” Painter emphasized that the exemption only covers three categories: food, lodging and entertainment. Private jet flights would fall into none of those, he said.

“Justice Thomas likes to focus on the language of authoritative texts, and that’s not what he’s doing in this statement,” said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

In short, Thomas got caught, cleanly hooked, and looks like a super-phony amateur in trying to spit the hook. May he suffer.

A final observation - the headlined letter writers will go unscathed to continue to be who they are; lesson learned being almost nobody has an attention span going back two years, so why reflect about their letter at all.