An instructive comparison can be drawn between a 1998 case that reached the highest court in the United Kingdom (then called the House of Lords and renamed the UK Supreme Court in 2009) and a recent case before the U.S. Supreme Court in which it rejected an application by former President Trump to block the release of White House records to a House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Justice Clarence Thomas, who issued the sole dissent in that case, has come under criticism for failing to recuse himself or to disclose the fact that his wife, Ginni Thomas, had sent texts to the White House urging that the results of the presidential election be overturned.