Again: if Thomas was a judge on any court except SCOTUS, this would be a no-brainer. It's bribery. He and everyone involved, like Harlan Crow, would be indicted.

But we're supposed to pretend it's okay because it's SCOTUS.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus

For a while now I've been calling attention to the fact that the entire political class in Albany, from politicians like Assemblymember Glick to advocates like Vanessa Fajans-Turner to journalists like David Guistina, persist in excluding transportation and housing when they talk about "environmental issues."

Here, Glick and Guistina take turns getting morally outraged about the environment while avoiding any discussion of Glick's opposition to congestion pricing:

https://www.wamc.org/show/the-capitol-connection/2023-11-02/the-capitol-connection-new-york-state-assembly-member-deborah-glick

'Weinstein recalled that when he moved to the neighborhood 20 years ago, Sixth Avenue was similar to Eighth Avenue is now. But it was changed to a two-way configuration and "everyone's been pleased with the fact that no one thinks of it as an expressway anymore," Weinstein said. "So has DOT considered the bottle: Changing Eighth Avenue so it is not an expressway?"

'"We have not considered that," Lorenz said."'

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/10/30/cycle-of-rage-hey-dot-fix-the-bottle-not-the-bottleneck