Report of Justice Clarence Thomas’s Friendship with Ginni and the Crow Family on a Trip Subsidized by a GOP Megadonor

A bombshell report published Thursday by ProPublica says Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, went on a number of expensive vacations subsidized by a GOP megadonor.

The report of Thomas’s connection with a conservative businessman is already making waves and prompting Congress to look at potential ethical issues. Key Senate Democrats were previously mulling using this year’s funding legislation for the Supreme Court to pressure the justices to adopt some sort of ethics code.

The chairman of the senate Judiciary Committee said the report was a call to action and that they would act on it.

In a statement to ProPublica, Crow said that he has been friends with the Thomas family for more than three decades and that he has extended the justice over the years.

The Supreme Court and Crow didn’t reply to a CNN request immediately, and ProPublica says that Thomas didn’t respond to a list of questions.

Bush nominated Thomas to the court in 1991, and he is the intellectual leader of the current 6-3 conservative majority. The justice has also been the subject of scrutiny for the political activities of his wife, including for texts she exchanged with key players in former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Crow has contributed more than $10 million to public political funds, ProPublica reported.

The painting in the report depicts influential figures in Republican politics, including Leonard Leo who played a crucial role in Trump’s makeover of the federal bench.

Executives of major corporations as well as heads of prominent conservative organizations have been in attendance on trips with Crow that Thomas has joined, the ProPublica report said.

The bible that Thomas was given by the Crow family was worth $19,000. ProPublica describes a portrait of the justice and his wife given to him by Crow as well as donation by Crow’s foundation of $105,000 for a “Justice Thomas Portrait Fund” at Yale Law School, where Thomas is an alumnus.

The report comes not long after the federal judiciary’s policy-making body quietly adjusted its interpretation of what justices are required to disclose as part of their gifts and hospitality transparency obligations.

Some court ethics experts told ProPublica that Thomas may have broken the rules by not including trips subsidized by Crow on his financial disclosure. The old guidance made it difficult to say what is required of disclosure. The recent changes have clarified that it is a requirement for disclosure when personal hospitality is subsidized by third parties. That would appear to apply Thomas’ stays at the Adirondack property, because it was owned by Crow’s company, ProPublica said.

Stephen Gillers, an ethics expert at New York University School of Law, said in an email to CNN Thursday that prior to the recent amendments to the disclosure guidance, Thomas could claim that, because the invitation came from a person – not a corporation or business entity – it did not need to be reported regardless of the value of the gift.

But under the newly-announced changes, Gillers said, “some information and maybe all information about the trips” would have had to be disclosed. The deadline is in May of this year after the gift is received.

The judges are held to a different set of rules than members of Congress, who are typically required to get permission for sponsored trips and report on their finances within 30 days.

The updates to the hospitality disclosure guidance was announced in late March by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who had pressed the Administrative Office of the US Courts for clarification for what falls in the reporting exemption for so-called “personal hospitality.”

A team of reporters from ProPublica started to look into the travel of Supreme Court justices but they weren’t sure what they would find. The three journalists stumbled upon something that caught their attention.

In fact, what they uncovered raised their eyebrows to such a degree that they believed the discovery was an explosive story in its own right: a trip that Clarence Thomas had taken aboard billionaire Harlan Crow’s private jet between Connecticut and Washington, D.C.

The Bombshell Report on the 2010 November 11 Indirect Detection Event at the ProPublica News Room in Los Alamos (FL)

But their editors encouraged the team to keep working the story, Justin Elliot, a member of the reporting team, told me by phone on Thursday. We began grinding.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

From there, the story quickly grew in size and scope. “It snowballed,” Elliot said. In order to build their story, the team of Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, and Elliot assembled a spreadsheet of hundreds of people.

Easy or not, the final product that published on Thursday morning was unquestionably worth the effort. The bombshell report included stunning details that accuse Thomas of having accepted ultra-luxury vacations and private jet travel from a Republican mega-donor for decades.

What ultimately happens remains to be seen. But the immense fallout has already underscored the importance of journalism produced by non-profit newsrooms like ProPublica.

I felt lucky to have the resources and time to do a heavy lift like this, from my perspective as a reporter. There are not many places where you can do that right now. We are grateful to work at ProPublica.

The Justice Clarence Thomas Disclosure of Luxury Travel: Its Discrimination, Its Implications and the Public Rejection of the Supreme Court

Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday that he did not disclose luxury travel paid for by a Republican donor because he was advised at the time that he did not have to report it.

The controversy has shone a spotlight on the judiciary which is now used to resolve raging disputes between the political branches of government.

Critics say that the court appears more and more political, as it has become politically charged with cases on abortion, gun rights, and religious liberty.

It was also heard by federal judges who serve on the lower courts. Current and retired federal judges don’t normally speak up about internal matters outside the confines of the courtroom, but they agreed to talk to CNN if their names were withheld.

The judge said that the public respect for the Supreme Court has plummeted. “This is far greater than mere ethics violations. It’s about the perceived legitimacy of the Supreme Court.”

The federal court system judiciary consists of the nine justices who sit on the highest court in the land, as well as 94 district level trial courts and 13 courts of appeal.

They also said that they had been told that they shared more information than was necessary. The judge said that the Administrative Office of the United States Courts want reports to look the same.

“I always thought this area was kind of confusing,” the judge said, adding that regulations concerning what constitutes “personal hospitality” in the rules had never been made clear until a clarification went into effect on March 14.

“Hospitality was never defined, and it seemed odd to think of a situation where you are spending social time with a close friend where at least occasionally some transportation doesn’t get involved,” the judge said. “If I go spending a weekend with my buddies – someone is going to be driving someone where we are going.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/07/politics/clarence-thomas-disclosures-supreme-court/index.html

Financial Disclosure Guidelines as a Tool for the Investigation of Tax Evaders in the Presence of High-Local Courts and High-Cabinet Judges

While the dispute around Thomas is about regulations that apply to all federal judges, it’s also re-ignited a dispute about the fact that justices on the Supreme Court don’t have a code of conduct that applies to them.

He said that “Article III of the Constitution creates only one court, the Supreme Court of the United States.” Congress has the power to establish additional lower courts. Roberts said that the Judicial Conference’s code of conduct couldn’t be applied to the highest court in the land since it was different from the other bodies.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. In the more than quarter century we have known them, we have joined them on a number of family trips.

Early in my time at the court I was advised by my colleagues and the judiciary not to allow this kind of personal assistance from close friends, since they did not have business before the court. Throughout my tenure, I have always sought to follow the disclosure guidelines and follow that counsel.

The committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary has just recently announced new guidance that will be changed. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.”