Justice Thomas Discloses Gifts and Trips From GOP Billionaire

Updated August 31, 2023, 12:00 p.m. EST

• Justice Clarence Thomas reported a luxury trip, private jet flights, and a real estate sale with billionaire Harlan Crow in a financial disclosure form. 
• The move comes after months of scrutiny for failing to disclose gifts and trips from wealthy friends, including Crow, who is a GOP megadonor. 
• Thomas said he had "adhered to the then existing judicial regulations as his colleagues had done, both in practice and in consultation with the Judicial Conference."
• The justices file the annual forms in spring, but Justices Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. required 90-day extensions. Alito also faced criticism for failing to report gifts from hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. 

Updated April 17, 2023

• Justice Clarence Thomas will amend his financial disclosure form to include a deal he made with GOP megadonor Harlan Crow in 2014. A source close to Thomas said the justice would acknowledge that the transaction should have been disclosed years ago. 
• Thomas and Crow agreed on a real estate deal that involved the sale of three Georgia properties, including the home where Thomas' mother currently lives. 
• The source explained that Thomas believed he did not need to disclose the deal because he lost money but would review the forms and amend them as needed. 

What’s the story?

• ProPublica, a nonprofit organization focused on investigative journalism, found that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted luxury vacations and gifts by Republican billionaire Harlan Crow for over 20 years. 
• Thomas has received extravagant trips from Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate, and GOP mega-donor, almost every year for the past two decades without disclosing them. 

ProPublica’s investigation

• ProPublica uncovered the details of Thomas and Crow’s relationship through flight records, internal documents distributed to Crow’s employees, and interviews with dozens of people, including yacht staff, members of the secretive Bohemian Club, and an Indonesian scuba diving instructor. 
• The organization found these travels nowhere in Thomas’ financial records. It appears that Thomas — a public servant who makes $285,000 a year — contributed little to no funds to the vacations.
• The trips include cruises on Crow’s 162-foot yacht, flights on his private Bombardier Global 5000 jet, visits to his private resort in the Adirondacks, and holidays on his sprawling Texas ranch. ProPublica wrote: 

“The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Is it legal?

• The failure to disclose these travels, specifically the flights and yacht trips, violates a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress, and federal officials to disclose most gifts, according to ethics law experts.
• Even if not all that ProPublica found is illegal, Virginia Carter, a former government ethics lawyer, said Thomas’ actions corroded the public’s trust. In agreement with Carter’s condemnatory comment, Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton, said: 

“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this. It was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended.”

• In a statement, Crow acknowledged the “hospitality” he’s given to Thomas “over the years” but said it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.” He continued:

“We have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue.”

• He added that Thomas never asked for any of the gifts. Nevertheless, the justice’s acceptance of them broke a longstanding code of conduct that requires judges to avoid the “appearance of impropriety.”

Crow’s politics

• Crow is a longstanding businessman who has spent millions on shaping the law. He and his family have deep connections to conservative politics. 
• Crow was an early patron of the powerful anti-tax group Club for Growth. Additionally, he sits on the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) board — a pro-business conservative think tank — and the conservative think tank the Hoover Institute. 
• Many other influential people in business have joined Thomas on vacation with Crow, including executives at Verizon and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are significant donors to the GOP, a leader at AEI, and Leonard Leo, leader of the Federalist Society. 

Do you think Justice Thomas should face legal consequences?

-Jamie Epstein