INVESTIGATIONS: Thomas in Reverse

While running the House Un-American Activities Committee, New Jersey’s red-faced J. Parnell Thomas was frustrated by the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which says: “No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Thomas unmercifully badgered many witnesses who fell back on that constitutional guarantee. Last August his committee seriously proposed that Congress find some means of barring the Fifth Amendment’s protection to Communists.

Last week the shoe was on the other foot. As he had requested, Congressman Thomas was called before a federal grand jury in Washington which is investigating charges that he exacted salary kickbacks from some of his office employees (TIME, Nov. 1). But, once before the jury, Parnell Thomas (who had been re-elected to Congress two days before) changed his mind. He invoked the Bill of Rights. He refused to testify on the ground that he might incriminate himself, and stalked out of the jury room.

This week the grand jury indicted Thomas and his onetime secretary, Helen Campbell, for conspiracy to defraud the Government. It charged that for five years they had padded his office payroll so that salaries paid to two fictitious employees could be routed to Thomas’ bank account. Thomas was accused of 34 instances of wrongdoing. If convicted, he would be liable to a maximum sentence of 32 years in prison, $40,000 fines, or both.