Five House Democrats led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation of the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, over his acceptance of undeclared gifts from billionaire rightwing donors.
“We write to urge the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into … Clarence Thomas for consistently failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires for nearly two decades in defiance of his duty under federal law,” the Democrats said.
It isn’t smoke and mirrors. They are making as big a deal out of it as they can because they don’t have the votes to do more. Calling attention to this criminal behavior is simply the best they can do because they, as you point out, don’t have the votes to do more. And stirring up their base if a good thing if it gets more progressive voters to the polls and gets more progressive representation in government.